The Cove it's a documentary film that shows to the whole world the slaughter of thousands of dolphins by the food industry.

Set in Taiji, a small city near to Osaka, opens our eyes on the problems, filming with high-tech cameras camouflaged as rocks the biggest dolphin slaughtering organization in the world.

We, westerners, we all love Japan, beautiful scenery and suggestive culture, and when we read criticisms about Japan we tend to ignore them... but we cannot ignore this.

I love Japan, i teach Japanese every week, but I cannot tolerate a dolphinarium that offers dolphin-based treats and snacks to the visitors while watching the dolphin show!

The meat of the dolphins, highly toxic for the high mercury level, is eaten for "tradition", and it (was) also present in the school menu of the Taiji schools. (then removed after the documentary).

Luckily, things are changing, the demand for cetacean meat is falling, as for whale meat, that recently has become cheaper, due to low demand. Even if, some politicians very conservative has enacted a promotional campaign to make the population aware about whale meat. But about how good is for health that meat, by showing kids in primary schools, making future new consumers!

You can watch the documentary on Youku, by buying the dvd on Amazon.com, buying the digital download on iTunes, or "other ways"

Yay! The Apple conference is coming! What they will announce? How much will the the awesome tablet? How it will be named? iTablet, iSlate, iPad? Anyway, it is gonna change the world!

...

From many months ago, almost any blog that i follow through RSS, is writing rumors about the Apple table, showing photoshopped images, lists of presumed functionality, and much more...

Well... I just don't see why they see this awesomeness in a tablet. If you want a tablet to be operated with fingers, just to go on the Internet, there is already the JooJoo. You want to read books around? There is the Kindle, the Nook, and many others.

If we want a desktop replacement computer, there is already a solution from at least 5-6 years. Take my HP TC4400 Tablet. With a Core2Duo CPU, has a QWERTY keyboard, a 12" antiglare screen that can fold on itself, docking station connector, can use an external battery, and it is well contained in a light magnesium alloy case. I use it weekly to teach Japanese (Italian only, for now): with the pen, i can highlight and write on my slides very conveniently. And it's awesome to be used on a lap, with the Windows 7 handwriting recognition, that can even read my very bad calligraphy!

I don't see the awesomeness of a tablet that is in late of years with the competitors.

But maybe, as an Apple fanboy friend of mine said when I showed him my HP tablet, this would be a worldwide success only when Apple will "take inspiration" and removing function by it...

I switched to IntenseDebate for managing the comments in this website. Thanks to the perfect mojoPortal integration, it was a snap to do it

Comments to the already commented blog posts will still use the "old" system, only the new ones will have it.

Using IntenseDebate will enable everyone to "follow" the discussion by notification emails, and will let me to publish the hottest topics, the latest comments, and the most active users on the sidebar (But I won't do it now, because it will show a desert - I will do it later)

With IntenseDebate you can also up or downvote other comments, and also you have useless functions like the RSS of the comments.

And it's AJAX, so a new comment will not cause the page to reload! What about editing a comment? Now you can!

The only drawback is that it cannot be integrated with the existing user database, but the added functionality will rock...

There is another drawback that will concern to SEO freaks: no more "do follow" links on the comments. Previously i like the idea to "give back" to the good commenters with a "do follow" link on his username, but now it is no more possible, sorry... ...but IntenseDebate will offer you a new opportunity: your comments will be universal on all websites that supports them, and people can follow you if you are a good commenter. So, you will still have a reason to comment

I just registered a funny domain name, "verb".it (verb is to be replaced with an action verb, like play.it; read.it; watch.it; do.it, and something like that, just i don't want to spam around with my name )

(I'm italian so i did not have problems to sign an italian-only contract and send it by fax with a copy of my italian id card to an italian fax number, and calling 3 times in italian-only to ask why after a week my domain was not activated yet - in italy the NIC thinks we are still in the 80s)

Ok, now, i would like to do that website in english, italian and chinese, and i chose to do it using related websites by folders

so, domain.it is english, domain.it/zh is chinese domain.it/it is italian and i think that it would work

But... as an american user, how do you think this idea?

I mean, do you feel ok that, for example, download.it is in en-us, or you would prefer downloadit.com and leave the .it to the italians?

Engadget is telling us that at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas has just been announced an iPhone keyboard, for writing in full comfort for very long texts, without being forced to use the awkward touchscreen . Awesome, the main drawback is that, thanks to the many restrictions imposed by Apple on its own AppStore, you could be able to type with it only in the included software.

However, iType (what an original name!), is very easy to use, just slide the iPhone in, and use it anywhere, at school, on the bus, in the car while driving, and everywhere you'd like to improve your texting abilities, thanks to its small size:

Oh no! A little bit big!

Anyway, i see a great thing on the background, a musical keyboard for the iPhone! Oh! It would be great to compose and play songs on it! Great for musicians! It is the iDiscover, here is a detailed picture:

According to Engadget, this keyboard can also be used as a MIDI peripheral, to be used to compose music on Mac and PCs! 

The price? Still unknown... (but i suppose that it will be hundreds of dollars, like the majority of "premium" addons for the iPhone )

You might have noticed it, right? The old subdomain en.dandandin.it redirects now to dandandin.net, targeting the rest of the world

Ok, maybe there is less content in the .net website than in the .it counterpart, but I am only one person, and I am doing the translation with the brain, not with Google translator, as too many (bad) webmasters are doing out there (/me is modest)

Other many amazing announcements will come in the near future, follow us!

As many PSP users know, Sony is a little bit “bad” (to use an euphemism) regard the homebrew software world. Soon after every custom firmware or exploit, Sony immediately releases a new, useless, firmware update.

And, for now, both the PSP-3000 and then PSPgo, there aren’t “definitive” exploits, as the mighty pandora. So, the things are not so interesting, ad the users are forced to use “temporary exploits” as the latest TIFF+HEN, that is not easy to use, and it is also easy to defeat with a system software update…

But, suddenly, the wagic team blog writes that Datel, the famous action replay maker, has just made the universal action replay!

The previous action replay for the PSP, was a simple pandora battery with a special loader… not so exciting…

But, this time, it looks like that the Sony authenticity check has been fooled!!!

It looks like that those genius at Datel has reverse-engineered the code-signing of PSP games! (That means: their unofficial program is recognized as an official Sony update!)

This discovery will be fixed with the new System Update 6.30? Or Sony has definitely lost the war? If that… PSPgo… I'm coming!

I just received 16 invites for Google Wave, and I am gonna give them to who is interested.

To get one, just write your email in this comment, I will invite you and the filter your email, for privacy reasons

Google Wave it's a sort of Facebook clone, for now it's a little bit useless, but with more users it will become very interesting. Wanna have a try?

edit January 8, 2010: invites still available!

Recently i bought an Android handset, coming from a Windows Mobile device, I am extremely happy with it, as I find it way faster and complete than the other. Once I get spoiled by the care of details, and easiness of software, I decided that I won’t come back to Windows Mobile again (I’d rather use a dumbphone ).

Unfortunately, my operator requires that the device is locked on the HSDPA/UMTS band, otherwise will connect on the roaming network, making a trouble for my wallet.  On my Windows Mobile device this wasn’t a problem, there is an option to select which band use, but on Android apparently the user has only the choice to do:

1. Disable data communication while roaming
2. Disable the UMTS radio

The third option, “Disable the GSM radio” is missing? No, it’s just hidden! To find it, we need Any Cut, an application that can create on the dashboard a shortcut to almost anything. So, after installing it, let’s create a shortcut to “Phone Status”, and then open it. Scrolling down we will see an option “WCDMA preferred”, (that means “If there is UMTS signal I’ll use it, otherwise I’ll go GSM”). By switching it in “WCDMA Only”, we will completely disable the GSM radio.

Even if I tried this only with my HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1), it should work on any other Android device such as the HTC Magic, Hero, and the upcoming Motorola Milestone and Acer Liquid. Of course it won't work with CDMA-only devices as the Verizon Droid or the Droid Eris

Creative is about to launch their new Zii, a video+mp3 player, this is a preview sketch from the FCC:

Uhm... where i saw this design? It looks so similar... to a mobile on sale from some time... let's try to merge the drawings:

Creative Zii in red, Apple iPhone in blue

So cool! The Zii is almost compatible with iPhone covers! What a smart move! It's a pity that they placed the camera in the wrong place... it's a matter of millimeters, otherwise they could write on the box: "New! Compatible with Apple iPhone covers!"

Also, the logo looks similar to another logo... and the name also is similar; Zii... Zii... it resembles another name, become famous 2-3 years ago:

Wow, Creative has been so... creative!