The Buzz

Taco Bell is trying to prove it cares about your health. The company introduced the “Drive-Thru Diet,” recommending healthier choices from their menu (which makes some good substitutions to the regular menu, it should be noted).

However, they have gone further. Some states have begun requiring restaurants to list calorie or other information in stores and on menus. The Taco Bell in my area proactively did just that in the restaurant recently.

I thought it was interesting, and I certainly saw a better idea of what I was eating, but there’s still flaws to be worked out. For one, the meal I ordered had a caloric range of 630-1060 calories – that’s not exactly precise. Taco Bell apparently isn’t required to break that out in the states where the law is present, so you have to figure out on your own that the large majority of that is over whether you choose a regular or diet soda.

What I thought was cool though is you could see the subtle differences choices like hard or soft taco, standard or fresco, and so on makes to the menu items.

Do you think Connecticut should require fast food restaurants to display calorie counts? Or is it up to us to be responsible for knowing what we’re eating without forcing undue burden on the fast food restaurants?

A study released last fall shows many people used the knowledge to cut back on calories, so at least for now, it appears to be helping people make better choices, but time will tell; people who use the information now might slide back into old habits later.

How you portray yourself on a dating site with your picture could have an impact on how many people approach you electronically.

Valentine’s Day is coming, so here’s something relating to dating profiles on Web sites that might give you a better shot of meeting someone: oktrends, the official okcupid blog, shared the results of some statistical sampling they did, examining different types of profile photos on the dating service and comparing them to how often people get messaged. Some interesting results come from this.

For instance, men are more likely to get messaged if they’re not smiling and not looking directly at the camera. The older a man you are, the less skin you should show.

And it’s exactly the opposite for women.

This isn’t scientific, but it looks like the team at okcupid did their homework. The same goes for their previous post, where they looked at attractiveness ratings and how that compares to how often a person is messaged.
The Consumerist was there early on this one.

I still have an older version of the New York City version of Monopoly, which is quite fun to play.

Alright, Hasbro, we get it. Monopoly is one of the best-selling board games of all time, but everyone’s got a copy by now. In fact, everyone’s probably got multiple copies right now, thanks to the proliferation of Monopoly boards by city, sports team or TV show (I just bought Mayor West’s Mansion!).  The first non-standard version I purchased was an early Boston version that wasn’t great quality, but a couple of years later, I got a New York one that rivaled the quality of the standard Hasbro version.

On the opposite end, some trials have been made with raising the price of property values to make more sense in a 2000s society, doing a World Edition featuring properties from all over, not just Atlantic City, and the tech twist of allowing the game to be your banker electronically. Of course, various electronic versions have appeared over the years, everywhere from the computer to the iPhone. I loved playing the computer player on the Palm version back in the day.

Monopoly Mega Edition added more properties, skyscrapers for "Mega Monopolies" of 4 properties, and the best innovation: the Speed-Up Die.

The most unique twist was Monopoly: The Mega Edition, a twisted version by Winning Moves Games that makes the board bigger, adds properties and introduced the Speed-Up Die, an innovation so successful that it’s now included in most new Monopoly sets (and it really does make the game go faster). Of all the variants, I got into this one the most. (For the word-friendly gamer, they also make a Super Scrabble which doubles the tiles and up-size the game board – it’s not for the faint of heart.)

Hasbro and Wrebbit put out a Puzz-3D version of Monopoly that took me 2 hours to assemble. We played that version just once, but it's still assembled in my parents' basement.

Yes, folks, I even have the Puzz-3D version. My parents keep it permanently assembled (I put it together while still in high school) and have it ready to go in the basement whenever we feel the urge, given all of my standard board copies are with me in my current residence.

Yet even though I’ve given Hasbro a pass through all these variants (and easily hundreds of dollars along the way by now), I find the latest reworking quite puzzling. The gameplay hasn’t changed, but now the board is a circle. My brain can’t wrap around this one. What is really gained by changing the format of the board? At least with the others there’s an element of fun, buying the Eiffel Tower or seeing the value of a property become $1.5 million on the inflation-adjusted board. But I’m not sure if this is the kind of gimmick that’ll spur another round of board sales.

Hasbro has gotten around to a serious overhaul for Monopoly.

Every time I look at the picture, I simply feel puzzled, and less so than when I worked on that 3-D puzzle. Since this is a “revolution,” the electronic banking does away with the cash here. As a kid, I loved being the banker, and still do to an extent today.. This just takes some of the fun out of it.

Tell me: am I crazy, or has Hasbro missed the boat this time?

Gizmodo appears to be way ahead on moving this item, and commenter svenlol made me laugh with this note, which may very well be the real reason for this move: “Looks like Hasbro is saving money in this economic downturn the old fashioned way, by cutting corners.”

iPad image courtesy of Apple. Kindle image courtesy of Amazon. Tortured Mortal Kombat Photoshop illustration by Joshua O'Connell.

One thing that initially caught my ear during yesterday’s iPad announcement was the iBooks service, which of course brings into question whether the Kindle is in danger. Some were saying so yesterday, including analysis during TWiT’s live streams yesterday after the event. However, I’m not so sure.

Apple’s pricing deal with publishers gives book rights holders more control over pricing. This means some books could end up being more expensive on the iPad, in particular bestsellers.

Oddly, publishers will earn less per book on the iPad, despite the higher price, because of the difference in how Amazon and Apple handle buying and selling eBooks. Amazon pays the publishers standard list prices and then generally marks them up or down to get to the standard $9.99 price. Apple allows publishers more freedom on price, but requires 30% of the price to be handed over to Apple.

For example, a book with a $14.99 digital list could be sold for $9.99 on Amazon and make the publisher $14.99(costing Amazon $5, but earning them big goodwill). That same book could sell on Apple’s iBooks store for $14.99, but after Apple’s cut only give the publisher $10.49. This means books could get more expensive on the iBooks to make up for the lost revenue, or it could give Kindle a serious advantage in this space.

The iPad is more expensive to start, bigger and heavier. It’s backlit, which raises the question of whether eyestrain, similar to spending hours on a computer screen, will occur. And Apple has, at this point, only signed U.S. deals, leaving Kindle a whole world of customers to still attract.

Color images, pictures, etc. are possible on the iPad, with only sixteen-tone grayscale on the Kindle 2 and DX. But even with that benefit, most books aren’t image heavy. The iPad has choices for both WiFi and 3G, but you have to pay for that 3G connection. With the Kindle, unless you have to convert files and send them, most downloads are free.

Given the Kindle’s first-mover advantage and rabidly loyal following, I don’t think it’s going to just vanish. The lack of free Internet on the iPad could hurt the impulse buying opportunities on the books, and makes having such a device a lot more expensive right now.

However, I love the fact that the competition’s heating up in the space, as it’ll mean that Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and even my friendly overlords at Hearst will have to step up their game to stay competitive, and we’ll all benefit from the price reductions and technological advancements. Stay tuned.

The new iPad scales up the iPhone OS and adds a whole new level of functionality. Image courtesy of Apple.

It’s an iPad. After all the rumors and speculation, it largely has proven to be what people expected – a larger form factor than an iPhone, no keyboard, flat, thin, and gorgeous. It has the iPhone model of applications, an eBook reader and store, gaming capabilities… pretty much all of the rumors and leaked information coalescing into what you’d envision from Apple.

There’s two tiers of units.  A wi-fi only series of models will range from $499 (16GB of storage) to $599 (32GB of storage) to $699 (64GB of storage).  A wi-fi and AT&T 3G unit will cost $629-$829, effectively $130 more than the Wi-Fi only versions, plus a $15-30 a month premium to AT&T for the 3G access ($15 is a 250MB of data; $30 is unlimited).  Many sites are continuously updating their information as the day goes on and questions get answered.

They delivered what people expected, with battery life proclamations that, if true, could make the device quite usable, but the pricing schema is confusing (6 models, plus a secondary data provider on some) and those who want to use this for video may be disappointed at how much you have to pay out to have a reasonable amount of storage (high-def video takes up a lot of space, after all.)

So, now that the big announcement has been made, what’s your thoughts? Does it meet your expectations? Will you get one?

Updated at 3:00 p.m. with iPad image; updated at 2:15 p.m. with pricing information.

It’s a no-brainer, but Gizmodo’s Sean Fallon notes that today begins a nationwide text message ban for bus and truck drivers. It’s scary enough when you see people distracted by a cell phone in their cars, but given what is possible between trucks and cars on the road (remember when a massive truck accident and the fire that followed melted a bridge in Bridgeport in 2003?), it’s probably a good idea for everyone to put the phone down. Laws are finally starting to make that mandatory.  The best part: the fine can be as high as $2,750. That’ll show ‘em.

Extra points to Gizmodo for the photo with their article, though.

Image courtesy of Apple.

Dwight Silverman links to an article at the Tech Blog that the iPhone might not only be losing its exclusivity from AT&T this year (and possibly even Wednesday), but there may be a gameplan to have it appear on all four carriers, plus Clearwire (more on that in a sec), over the next two years.

His posting, however, states that while Verizon seems like the most likely target, the short-term expansion might be to T-Mobile, which has a GSM network just like AT&T. Then Verizon and Sprint Nextel would be serviced by a new CDMA version of the device. Ultimately, a 4G version, that would work on Sprint’s WiMax network, would also be available through Clearwire, which Sprint is the biggest shareholder of, along with cable networks and, at one point, Google, and is working on the WiMax rollout as well.

The 4G/Clearwire angle is the most intriguing to me; imagine the iPhone’s browser and applications on a mobile network as fast as WiMax is, and you really see some opportunities, especially if tethering is allowed. (Clearwire allows unlimited data usage too, which none of the major carriers currently allow.) Of course, by 2011, Verizon and others should also have their version of 4G, LTE, in place in at least some areas.

But given the other rumor about Sprint and their 4G coverage in partnership with Wal-Mart, you start to see some of the intriguing possibilities. Of course, Sprint has been fighting subscriber losses and reputation issues, so it remains to be seen how that will work out.

Free books appear to be among the most popular on the Kindle store.

The New York Times had an interesting story this weekend about how many of its Kindle “top sellers” are actually free books, including some material in the public domain, but largely freebies given away from publishers hoping to spur interest in writers or series.

The article has people on both sides of the fence about it; some are worried that, with Kindle already putting a $9.99 ceiling on many books, and now the freebies, it devalues books. Then there are the publishers that are doing it and touting its success, like romance publisher Samhain seeing authors developing a spike in sales after having one of their books featured for free.

It appears the Kindle is following the lead of Apple, who has had a “Song of the Week” for some time, which has been over time augmented by “Discovery Download of the Week” and “Music Video of the Week,” not to mention all the TV freebies when the new season kicks off and their free song partnership with Starbucks. I know I personally have bought albums and other songs from artists featured, such as Annie, The Bird and the Bee and The Puppini Sisters. My friends has expressed similar discovery and later purchases from that program.

Of course, giving away one song is like giving away one chapter, something Kindle already does for most of their books to entice people to buy the remainder of the book. Giving away an entire book likely won’t boost sales for non-prolific authors, so it’ll be more mainstream options like James Patterson or Harlequin romance books that will benefit most from this strategy, but it’s a good move.