OmniBox

Saw the Omniverse Omni Box in the Radio Shack weekly ad.

It boasts "over 800 channels of  live TV, video on Demand, local programming and more."

Best that I can figure is that it's kind of like a Roku with a more internet capability.  There's a $24.95 monthly free which apparently pays for a hulu plus subscription (or it is PlayOn).  Which is why they can boast of featuring channels from the major networks.

Funny, I couldn't find any reviews from the usual suspects like cnet, etc.  And little on amazon.com.  Only this blurb from Radio Shack.

I did a search for Omniverse and came up with this link with this description "Watch and Record over 500 LIVE TV Channels for free! Local TV too! Bigger than Netflix and Hulu and TV Catchup and Zattoo combined!"

It looks to be pretty much the same as the filmon channel.  Here's the wikipedia article.

feeling warm?

Global temperatures are warmer than at any time in at least 4,000 years, scientists reported Thursday, and over the coming decades are likely to surpass levels not seen on the planet since before the last ice age.

Previous research had extended back roughly 1,500 years, and suggested that the rapid temperature spike of the past century, believed to be a consequence of human activity, exceeded any warming episode during those years. The new work confirms that result while suggesting the modern warming is unique over a longer period.

In the new research, scheduled for publication on Friday in the journal Science, Shaun Marcott, an earth scientist at Oregon State University, and his colleagues compiled the most meticulous reconstruction yet of global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, virtually the entire Holocene. They used indicators like the distribution of microscopic, temperature-sensitive ocean creatures to determine past climate.

Scientists say that if natural factors were still governing the climate, the Northern Hemisphere would probably be destined to freeze over again in several thousand years. “We were on this downward slope, presumably going back toward another ice age,” Dr. Marcott said.

Instead, scientists believe the enormous increase in greenhouse gases caused by industrialization will almost certainly prevent that.

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What?  No comments?

Ah, here you go.  L.A. Times to the rescue.

tablets gaining on smartphones

As the smartphone market slows, tablets are becoming an increasingly popular way of consuming media, playing games and accessing data, according to a new report by mobile advertising network Jumptap.

Jumptap, which helps companies understand mobile audiences and cater to them, said tablets last year accounted for 18% of mobile traffic on its advertising network, which covers 134 million mobile customers in the United States and a total of 206 million worldwide. 

That represents a sharp jump from the 7% of mobile traffic on the network in 2011, the company said. Smartphones represented 78% of the network’s traffic, but their share is rapidly shrinking: Jumptap projects that tablets will make up close to one-third of its network traffic by the end of 2013.

docx files

docx is the new file format for Microsoft Word (well new to old-time users of Word).

Since I only have own Word 97 (!), I need to convert the file.

I believe I used zamzar before, but there's a number of other websites that will convert the file for you.

The one I just used was docspal.

Open Office also supports docx.