I’ve gotta admit, I was pretty surprised when I saw this piece of news…

I want to get some of your opinions on this. Basically, there is a Japanese Pop Group where one of the singers is actually a “fake” face. Some impressive video editors took the “prettiest” facial features from 6 different girls and somehow made a new girl. She looks pretty real to me. I’ll post 2 Youtube videos about this. The reason I picked 2 videos is that the youtube videos are made from some very strange news people. I think it’s really terrible how they make Japan look and they think they are being funny but they are not. This whole thing is quite strange. If you have a few minutes, take a look at the videos and practice some writing about your thoughts.

Note: To any Japanese people, I know these people doing the news are CRAZY. I’m just sharing because the whole thing is an “interesting” story and I want to hear the “world’s” thoughts about this. I know this is not a normal thing for your culture and I think it’s so stupid to watch western media trying to comment on other cultures when they have no idea about what they are talking about. It’s also important to note that this isn’t normal western media. They are just strange people on Youtube. No wonder there are so many misunderstandings in this world.

Here are the 2 videos. Check em out and comment below:

Andy

A couple of blogs ago I was talking about countries with the most people. Here is a list of countries with the fastest internet speeds.

It’s a bit harder to get 100% accurate information on this because I’ve seen different lists, but I think this one’s not bad. At least you get to see some pictures of the countries.

I know that Korea is definitely super fast. I am always amazed when I go there how awesome the 3G is. Best in the world, even on the islands. I really hope the whole world speeds up the internet. It’s so important for sharing knowledge, and of course, downloading 232.

I wanted to share this info with you in case you were interested, but more importantly I’d really like to know where you are from and how the internet is in your country. Is the 3G fast enough to watch videos? Is it getting faster? What are the government’s plans there for internet speed improvements for the next few years? Is 3G growing like crazy?

Here is the list I found: Countries with fastest internet speeds

Love to hear the news in your country!

Andy

Today I had one of those experiences where I was truly amazed at how ignorant I was about a very simple but common thing.

I was on a bike ride with a close friend and we started talking about photography. I never thought I was good at taking pictures, I just thought it was an easy thing to do. I actually hated hearing people talking about their “photo taking ability” because I thought it was such a joke.

Until today, I basically thought that all anyone had to do was buy a good brand of a digital camera for about $300 and and then just point and shoot. If it was dark, I used a flash (the light). If it was light, I didn’t. From a distance, many of my pictures looked not too bad so I didn’t realize there was a problem or that I had no idea of what I was doing. I knew they weren’t professional quality but I thought they were good enough and I never bothered to find out what the problem was.

My friend had an older 4.8 Megapixel camera and I had a pretty new Fuji 10.0 Megapixel camera. I thought that I could easily take clearer pictures without even trying because I had the better and more expensive camera. Wow. I was totally wrong. (We both were using the automatic “auto” setting). I thought that the auto setting meant that the camera did all the work for you and the person didn’t need to try.

We were taking “close ups” of the letters on business cards. It sounds like a boring and stupid picture to take but it’s actually quite fun and a great way to test the quality of a camera. A “close up” in camera language means a photo from a very close distance.

We put our photos on a large monitor (computer screen) and looked at them. His photos were WAY better and clearer than mine. I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t realize that I needed to hold the button down half way and really look at the screen and make sure the letters were in perfect focus. I didn’t know that I needed to keep moving and adjusting the camera very slightly until I saw the letters perfectly.

When you take a photo from far away, it’s hard to see the quality. If you are taking photos of the letters of a magazine or business card, it’s easy. For my friend’s photos, we could “zoom in” on the computer and see the letters so clearly. “Zooming in” means to go really close and make a small part of the photo take up the whole computer screen.

On his photos, you could see each letter in very high detail. We could even see the glue that puts the ink on the card. For example, we could zoom in and see the letter “k” on the entire size of the computer screen. It just looked like a big “k” with little bits of glue. It was shocking.

Then we tried mine and they totally sucked. From a distance, the photo didn’t look too bad. It was just that up close, my picture was just terrible. It means that I didn’t really understand what Megapixels were and I just thought paying more money would make things better with no effort.

The truth is that having good eyes, still hands, and understanding how to use your camera is MUCH more important than the quality or price of the camera.

I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe that over 98% of the people who want to buy a digital camera for around $300 are just clueless. Most people know some of the top brand names and they know that the more expensive cameras are better. People buy cameras and don’t even learn how to use them. It’s weird. We do the same thing with computers too. We get a “good one” and then learn less than 1% about how to use it well. I’ve learned that I need to learn a lot more about the technology I am using if I want to really see the benefits. It’s not just about saving money, it’s about enjoying the benefits and not being a total fool.

I need to know more about cameras anyway because Add and I are working for Pivothead, which is the best mini hands free video camera ever. Click on the link and you’ll see what I mean. It’s really exciting. I love the logo of the guy in the backwards baseball hat too. I wish I could draw…

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences regarding this or a similar story you may have. Who knows, maybe it’s just me who is completely clueless.

Andy

One of my hobbies is to look around for cool new technology and try to guess what will be a huge success. Right now I’m thinking that the new 1080p HD video sunglasses made by Pivothead will “sell like hotcakes”. If something “sells like hotcakes” it means that they are going to be selling really quickly. The reason that they are so cool is because now anyone can record video without having to use their hands.

It will make video recording a lot of fun and actually practical. You can record your life as you see it. If something interesting happens, you will have it on film to watch over and over again. It’s a pretty cool concept. There are a lot of really bad “spy glasses” that are selling for under a hundred bucks right now. I checked out the quality and it’s not “up to par”. That means it isn’t good enough to compete with Pivothead. Some people with no cash will probably buy the cheap ones, but they are so bad in comparison, both in appearance and in video quality, that anyone with half a brain will choose the best brand. Pivothead Sunglasses are definitely worth looking into for anyone who wants something cool to have fun with in 2011

Parents will be able to take videos of their kids playing sports with ease. Coaches will be able to record their team in games and practices. Journalists will be able to record interesting documentaries without a film crew. Athletes and adventure seekers can film high def footage of their adventures and have them for the rest of their lives. Bloggers will be able to use these to make interesting content. Now that Google and Youtube are using ads to support video, many people will be making a lot more videos to put up on the web for many kinds of money making reasons. These will be amazing for self promotion and “how to” videos as well.

One of my favorite movie lines ever was from a movie with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. I think the movie was called “A few good men”.

They were in a courtroom and Tom yelled out: “I want the Truth”, and Nicholson replied with “You can’t handle the truth”. The reason I loved that line so much is because that’s how I feel in this world. People can’t handle hearing the truth about stuff unless it’s the truth that they want to hear. It’s unbelievable.

If someone says, “I want your honest opinion, do you think I am pretty?” and your honest opinion is “Actually no, you are one of the ugliest people I’ve seen in my life”, you can’t say that even if they beg you for the truth. Actually, I can kind of understand that one. People have feelings and that would be hard to hear. But in the business world, where people should be less sensitive, they are not. It is so fake.

Add and I were at a conference yesterday in Shanghai. We went there with a company we are consulting for. They are small and super cool. Anyway, the topic was about the internet and social media (Facebook, Twitter) etc. (We have a hilarious podcast coming out next about the real story there). We’ve been sharing more of our “real opinions” in the VIP room because it’s a private place where we don’t have to be shy. We can be free and say whatever we want in there without having to worry too much about weird comments.

Anyway, the conference sucked (The lunch was not bad at least). The speaker was from a large multinational PR company. He was basically saying a bunch of obvious things about the internet and making everyone believe that “viral marketing” is easy if you go through his company. It was a joke, but most of the audience actually thought it was pretty good. Many of the people there were from other large companies that had nothing to do with the internet. They “bought into” his long and stupid presentation and I’m guessing his company will get a lot of business from that.

There was a question and answer period at the end of the conference. Anyone could ask the speaker anything. I started getting nervous and my heart was racing. I wanted to say my honest opinions. I wanted everyone in the room to know they were being tricked.

There were probably about 150 people in the room. About 95% were wearing suits. I was wearing jeans, a golf shirt, and a pair of sunglasses to give you an idea of what was going on.

Everyone was polite, in a fake way, and it was so annoying. I get this feeling every time I’m in one of these situations. Time moves slowly. I hate it. I have so much to say but I end up saying nothing. I feel like I’m cheating the world or something. Even if people don’t agree with my opinion, I somehow feel it’s evil if I don’t at least share my true feelings.

One thing I hate about business is that so many businesses just try to sell their stuff to everyone. There is just so much lying involved. The truth is that most people should NOT buy most products. When I look around at the English learning market for example, I see a lot of businesses just trying to sell rather than teach. Of course they teach something, but they don’t care if a student pays $2000 USD at the beginning of a course and either learns nothing or doesn’t go to class. Actually, them paying and not going to class is the best situation for the school. They just get free money and can get another paying student to fill the classroom. It’s sick.

It’s really funny when it’s B2B (Business to Business sales). Huge companies pay so much money for the weirdest things. A friend of mine who works for a major market research company says that many of their business clients pay over 10 million USD every year for their market research. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, but he told me that they will sell it to any major company who wants it.

His job is to wear a suit and make the research sound a lot better than it is. A lot of the business is about creating an image that you think the other person will like to hear. It should be about making great products and services but it’s just not like that in the “real world”. Small companies can be different. It really depends on who is running them. Huge companies need to make sure they are making money for their investors though. They don’t care where the money is coming from. They just want more of it.

Of course we are “free” to say whatever we want, but the reality is that people don’t. Anyone else who felt the same way I did just kept silent. We knew that if we said what we wanted to then we would look like terrible people.

The honest question in my mind was, “Do you know that you are selling services to many companies who don’t need them or do you actually believe every word you are saying?” I really wanted to know but I couldn’t ask.

I’d love to hear your comments on this and about my last blog about a cool kind of high def video camera sunglasses.