Category: Technology
According to Macromedia.com and Adobe.com as of the 18th of April Adobe is to acquire Macromedia!
Wow! Something I thought I’d never see happen. God only knows what this means for the Macromedia product line (Fireworks in particular) but it’ll sure be interesting to see what these two giants can deliver together.
Update: Kevin Lynch (Chief Software Architect at Macromedia) has a positive spin on the Macromedia acquisition on his blog.
So, recently I’ve been thinking about the concept of ‘e-receipts’. It must be said, I’ve done no research into whether something like this is already in the works, if it is, great. In the meantime here’s my take on the idea.
In the UK most people now have ‘Chip & Pin’ Credit and Debit cards. This means that you no longer sign for purchases but instead enter your pin via a keypad.
While this has helped to ‘streamline’ the whole paying for goods process you still end up waiting ages for the cashier to print out your ‘paper based’ receipt (Chug chug chug, rip). What if your receipt was simply transmitted back to your bank or credit card company and made available for you to retreive if required via your usual online banking interface?
If you really needed a paper receipt you could still request one, but I bet most people shove that little bit of paper in their jacket pocket only to bin it a few days later.
Guess what, I just googled ‘e-receipts’ and found this. Looks like someone got there about a zillion years before me.
Must remember to google journal entries prior to spouting them upon my readers in the future.
I have another 50 47 Gmail invites if anyone is interested… leave a comment with your current email address and I’ll invite you. :)
Apple announced two ‘amazing’ new products at Macworld today! They never cease to amaze, although I still reserve judgement on the nasty iMac.
First up is the Mac mini. It’s a Mac, but it’s mini. Basically it’s a miniture Mac base unit. So… if you already have a PC with USB keyboard, mouse and DVI or VGA monitor, then you’ve got everything you need to get started. It starts at just �339! Flog a few more bits on eBay and I could be on my way to my first Mac.
Next up is the iPod shuffle, although I reckon a Capcom Streetfighter inspired tag of ‘Super iPod mini’ woulda worked just as well, then the 1Gb model coulda been called the ‘Super iPod mini turbo edition’.
The iPod shuffle does away with all the cleverness and keeps things simple. You load your tracks, it shuffles them. Not entirely sure how that might work out but it could be kinda cool I think, and for only �69 I could well bring myself to snap one up as soon as just for the hell of it. :)
Firefox 1.0 has a snazzy new start page courtesy of google (There’s that google link again).
Pretty neat although they could do with shortening the search field any tidying the location of the ‘search’ button.
The ‘tip’ area works quite nicely, providing newbie users with a Firefox co-branded start page is a neat but simple way of making the application more friendly.
