Weekend Update

Here’s a compilation of some random and interesting bits of news gleaned from the Web this morning:

• So it seems that Apple’s Steve Jobs has resurfaced following a liver transplant in a Tennessee hospital: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=20041

• NEC has rolled out a 43” LCD monitor that’s awesome to behold and equally awesome in it’s wallet-smashing abilities: http://www.slashgear.com/nec-crv43-43-inch-curved-lcd-arrives-july-for-8k-0445950/

• Sharp has come up with a method to make each pixel on an LCD monitor consist of five colors for improved accuracy. Not as glamorous as the NEC monster above, but far more realistically useful: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/29/sharp_five_colour_lcd_panel/

• AT&T responds to iPhone customer bitching about it’s usury-level rate plans and upcoming tethering option here: http://www.facebook.com/ATT?v=app_7146470109 I’m all for a company being profitable, but gouging customers is another matter. I can’t believe that, on top of the onerous data plan and charging absurd rates for text messages that don’t cost the phone companies anything to transmit, they’re going to charge for tethered use as well when everyone else gets it for free.
AT&T is also “generously” allowing people to upgrade early and sign a fresh two-year contract when all their other phone contracts are for one year. AT&T apparently still has some folks on staff who are trying to resurrect the good old days of the Ma Bell monopoly, when they rented you a land line phone as no one was allowed to own their own home phone, and when phoning someone in the next town was a long-distance call.