James Kim was father of Sabine and Penelope and husband to Kati. He was an analyst on the now defunct cable TV station TechTV and later a editor for CNet. When I first heard the story that his family was missing, I didn’t think much of it. I thought that there might have been some miscommunications.

When Kati and the two daughters were rescued, I realized that this was a big deal. There were more stories about how they got stuck in the snowstorm, they ran the heat in the car until the gas ran out, they burned the tires to stay warm, and Kati had to breastfeed the children. They survived for 9 days until Kati, Penelope and Sabine were rescued by a helicopter that was hired by the Kim family. By this time James had gone out looking for help.

After several days, James felt that they could not wait any longer for help. They had little food and water, and there no longer was anything to burn to stay warm. He had to do something or else his family would freeze and starve to death. He went out there with a few articles of clothing to use and trail markers so that if he did find some help or needed to go back, he could find the way. Because of his resourcefulness and strong will to save his family, he was able to survive 3 more days in the freezing wilderness.

I’m not sure why I was so sad when I read that he was found deceased. There are tragedies that happen everyday. Maybe it’s because he was on TV and he’s a celebrity in my mind. Maybe it’s because he’s also Korean. Maybe it’s because he has a beautiful family and a great job, and it’s a life that I’ve always wanted. All I know is that he was a loving husband and father and a courageous man.

CNN article
CNet article
CNet also made a playlist of videos featuring James here.

You can also go to their family website and donate here.

Engadget reports that someone at CNNMoney.com rumored that the Wii could make an early release into the market. The Wii was slated to launch on November 6th (and probably still will) but industry insiders say that it’s due for October maybe even early September. This would make it pretty easy to decide what I would like on my October 13th birthday.

I just got it today. It’s weird and I don’t know if I like it yet. Well I better like it with all the dollars I used for it instead of my broken car.

So I finally bit the bullet and bought a Mac. I bought the entry level Mac, the Mac Mini Core Duo. I didn’t get the much faster iMac or the G5 Towers. I don’t plan to do all my work on it, especially since I can’t. When Apple moved over to Intel processors, not all software was rewritten for Intel. They have to run on Rosetta, which is going to be emulated and run much slower than it should. I think once that they do release Intel native software, it should run programs like Photoshop no problem. I don’t think I’ll really do much work on it. I hope to use it mainly as a media center computer that’s easy enough for my parents to use once in awhile. I do want to get acquainted with the Mac OS X interface. Once I get it in the mail in about a week, I will write more details about it. I just hope that i have enough will power to not get sucked into the Apple brand and hype associated with it that I start buying everything that Apple releases like a lot of people do.

Engadget is reporting that T-Mobile is selling HSDPA enabled laptops in Europe. It costs about 500 euros, which is around 600 USD. HSDPA has been called “3.5G” as it is 3G but faster. It is capapble of 10MBps, which is faster than most broadband connection that the US has. US Telecoms won’t be happy when T-Mobile brings this over to the US. Hopefully, they’ll feel pressured and up the data rates to match or better HSDPA speeds or just lower the prices. Our Nazi telecoms will somehow force T-Mobile to lower the data rates under 1MBps. Maybe by holding T-Mobiles’s wife and kids as hostages.

HardOCP claims taht they are the first people to watercool their Xbox 360. While I know that they are not the first, they did give a detailed article of the process of watercooling the Xbox 360. The finished product looks pretty good. The temperature of the back of the motherboard with stock cooling was around 151°F, but they were able to cool it to 101°F. I didn’t see if they had numbers about performance gains but with 50° cooling, it should make a noticeable difference in performance.

All-in-One Card, or AIO Card, is a thin client on a credit card size flexible display much like the E-Paper or EInk. A thin client, like the Sun Ray, is basically a barebones computer with no storage and other hardware devices that connects to a server that stores and processes everything. This makes the computer you use very small and light as well as use less power.

The AIO would go even further and use this literally thin display as a thin client. This means a device that would make the iPod nano and PDA bulky and obsolete. You would have almost infinite storage (depending on your wallet) for mp3’s , movies, etc. You would have the full functionality of a desktop PC in a credit card size display.

The display would have touchscreen capabilities. Although, an on-screen keyboard wouldn’t be too easy to use. The dispplay uses very little power, so it is equipped with only a row of solar cells, much like the ones found on a calculator.

The card allows for other possibilities like a monitor, mouse and keyboard stations you can put your card into and have access to your server but on a more conventionaly display. Because it has GPS built-in, it can be used as a GPS navigation system. You could just drop the card in a designated slot.

This seems just like a prediction made by someone who works for Sun Microsystems or just familiar with Sun, but seeing that all the technology is out there, the possibility is very plausible. There is definite hurdles it must overcome to be widely accepted. The built-in antenna wouldn’t be powerful enough if it will be that small, not to mention that a huge majority of the world is a wifi deadspot. One definite positive it has going for it is that it would very cheap to make. The technology involved is widely available now and very cheap.

iTrip Auto, the newest addition to the iTrip lineup, is the most versatile iTrip to date, accommodating every dock connector iPod, including iPod nano and 5th Generation iPods with video. iTrip Auto combines Griffin’s renowned FM transmitter technology with an integrated charger.

I need to get this.

For Christmas, I got my mom a Roomba. Roomba is a robot that goes around vacuuming the house. It came in the mail today. My parents asked what it was and I told them that it’s mom’s present. She wanted me to open the Amazon box, so I did. Then my parents asked me what it was. So I took it out of the Roomba box. Then they asked me what it was. So I plugged it in to charge a little. After that, I unplugged it and pushed the clean button. Then Bagel got scared and hid behind the couch. Then my parents had to leave because they were on their way out anyway.

So I charged it more and let it do its thing. It’s loud but it’s a vacuum. I’m pretty sure there are quieter ones but the regular vacuums we have are just as loud. So that’s not a problem. If you have rugs, this doesn’t work well. It’s so low that it bumps into our rug edges and figures it’s a wall. It also tends to get caught up on power wires. It starts vacuuming the wire and gets stuck.

I does do a good job navigating around walls and edges. It rides the edge of the room great. The vacuuming part worked well, too. I thought the vacuuming part would get overshadowed by the robot part that navigates around the room. That is not the case. It works great. It picks up Bagel hair no problem. It has a feature where it can spot a dirty area and keep circling until you have to step in and tell it that the stain has had enough. I think it may be bipolar.

After the incident, it moved on to the living room and went under the couch. It kept very quiet for 4-5 minutes until it finally came out and went over to its charge station. It’s been there ever since. Charging, while glowing his aber light. Indicating that it’s not fully charged because it’s not a solid green.

Anyway, I don’t think Roombas are the replacement for our vacuum cleaners. It needs be quieter and be more efficient in rooms with a lot of obstacles like plant pots and rugs. It got confused and got stuck between two pots. It did pick up a lot of leaves left by the plants. I think if you set up your room a little for the Roomba, it’ll work great.

I haven’t spend a lot of time with this phone. Last night, I went to my friend’s house to get a haircut because he cuts my hair and my sister went to her friend who works at the Sprint Store to get phones. Sprint family plan and unlimited internet access seem the cheapest so I definitely wanted Sprint service. I told her to get the cheapest Bluetooth phone they had. She put her friend on the phone and he convinced me out of the “cheap” $70 phone and told me to get the next one up which was the $200. I got home and just went to sleep.

In the morning, I was surprised to see that the phone was the Samsung MM-A900. It’s Sprint’s answer to the Motorola RAZR. It comes with the Sprint music store. They gave me 5 music downloads which is fast because Sprint uses the EV-DO which is like the latest wireless broadband. If I paid more I can get streaming TV. The best part is that I get 4 bars at my cubicle. Camera is decent. It’s 1.3 megapixels but the image quality is good. I’d rather have a good 1.3MP rather than mediocre 2.0MP. The picture of the Samsung was taken with my barbaric Motorola i860 paper cups with a string connecting the cups.