Congratulations, Boeing! This evening, in front of some 15,000 people and an audience of millions watching around the globe, Boeing unveiled its 787 Dreamilner. The game changing airplane, built primarily from carbon fibre, features a host of innovations and technologies that will bring big jet ranges to medium size jets, all while burning up to 20% less fuel than current generation aircraft. Inside, passengers will enjoy bigger windows, enhanced lighting, lower cabin altitude and higher humidity, thanks in part to the composite fuselage which is resistant to corrosion and fatigue.

The aircraft is an amazing sight to witness. Seeing it roll into public view for the very first time was awe-inspiring. The clean lines and sleep profile are truly unmistakable. In a few months’ time, the jet will take to the skies for its maiden flight.

Well done, Boeing! Well done.

[Image Copyright © Royal S. King]

To all my friends and family, a happy and healthy 4th of July. Enjoy the above photo — taken during this evening’s festivities in Washington, DC.

I happened upon this little gaffe while surfing the news during lunch the other day. It clearly illustrates the outcome when contextually sensitive advertising gets a little too, well, contextually sensitive.

Fascinated by all facets of aviation I wanted to learn more about the crash of a Kenya Airways Boeing 737-800 in Cameroon. The wreckage had been located and pictures were just starting to surface. MSNBC collated a gallery and naturally I decided to click through.

It was when I reached the third page that I was really shocked. No, it wasn’t the content of the image (though it is a bit distressing.) Instead it was the strategically placed, oversized banner ad from Boeing. Clicking on the image takes you to Boeing’s marketing web site newairplane.com. There you can find out more about the Boeing 787 Snoozeliner, the 747-8, and the Next-Generation 737 Series. Cool stuff, though mostly marketing hype.

But wait. Hold on a second. Boeing’s Next-Generation 737 Series, right? Isn’t that the type of aircraft that just impaled itself into a mangrove swamp in Cameroon, snuffing the lives of 114 innocent people for as-yet-unknown reasons? It sickens me to think that, despite the carnage, Boeing is offering up ads that link to a web site discussing how “comfortable, modern, and safe” the 737NG is. Utterly shameful, really.

I enjoy when big companies make mistakes in marketing. After all, even they are human, too. When Boeing butchered the name of one of their largest 787 customers — Qantas — on the very web site I mentioned above, I chuckled. But this type of mistake is just wrong on so many levels. Sure, it’s automated — but even the most simple ad management systems can omit certain ads from certain pages. I hope the next time someone will have the foresight to prevent this.

Coming six or so days earlier than anticipated Research In Motion today introduced the BlackBerry Curve, the smallest and lightest QWERTY BlackBerry yet. Known as the 8300 series, the updated phone features a large LCD screen, 2.0 megapixel camera with flash, an updated media player, microSD expansion capability (to 4GB), improved call quality, and more — all in a small package that is equally brilliant as it is beautiful.

According to the press release, the phone should launch on AT&T sometime this spring. (Which, might I add, totally blows.) Insider scoops have revealed the existence of two models: one featuring Wi-Fi, the other lacking. The initial model destined for AT&T looks like there’s no 802.11 goodness under the hood. The second model (dubbed 8320) does feature Wi-Fi, and is apparently headed for T-Mobile at some point, at least according to some covert folks in Waterloo (and, I should add, the fact that the T-Mobile Zen theme was preloaded solely on said device.)

There’s no word on pricing nor any definitive availability information at this point. Hopefully more information will become available once RIM kicks off the Wireless Enterprise Symposium in Orlando, Florida next Tuesday.

Of course, it goes without saying: I want one. Now.

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I am still alive, and have been settling in comfortably to my new life. Work has been busy, and my nights and weekends have been spent working out “glitches” with my new home. (New construction is always filled with surprises.) There’s lots I want to post about and sometime in the coming days I will do just that.

But, in the meantime, enjoy the picture above. Spring has arrived in the DC Metro area, and this image comes from a flower stand near the National Mall. The effect was produced using my new favorite photography tool: my Lensbaby 3G. It was my first time on the Mall since moving here and I think the end result is very striking.

Hello, all! It’s been awhile since I last posted. As you can imagine I’ve been fairly wrapped up with my move, getting settled, learning my way around and so on. Fortunately, things are coming together nicely. In my next few series of posts I’ll highlight some of that. For now, though, I’ll focus on something I’m truly excited about: I’m running Verizon FiOS.

My apartment community is brand new. There isn’t an inch of copper wiring anywhere to be found. My unit came prewired for Ethernet, and features a nifty patch panel in the closet that wires up the six or so jacks throughout the house. It also splits up phone and cable, too. Down below there was another empty box, save for a single strand of fiber terminated with a standard connector. I had no idea what it was for, so I left it be. When one of my tech-savvy neighbors mentioned it was for Verizon FiOS, I called and ordered as quickly as I possibly could.

The FiOS installation could not have gone any smoother. Since the apartment was already pre-wired for fiber, the technician merely had to walk down to the central fiber hub, connect my line, and come back and mount the ONT and supporting equipment. Within minutes, my ONT was active and my service was provisioned.

Verizon provides a fairly large router free with service. The router is feature packed, and has some great options that make running home networks a breeze. Things like a built-in name server, flexible DHCP server options, QoS and VPN options are all nice additions to a device that cost me zero out-of-pocket. The router supports the new MoCA standard, which brings added functionality to my Verizon-provided Motorola set top boxes.

The FiOS Internet service is nothing short of fantastic. My area has such intense competition for broadband that Verizon has dropped the price on their 30Mbps down/5Mbps tier to $54.99 from $179.99 in other markets. Naturally, I opted for this tier. (And, in 2 months, have been told the speed will increase to 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up.) In addition, the FiOS TV service is an excellent value with insane network capacity, 30+ HD channels, Video on Demand, a common sense channel lineup and much more. Since the entire signal end-to-end is digital there is no loss of quality, and it’s safe to say the picture quality rivals that of satellite.

The FiOS equipment is relatively small, and all is provided free with service. The ONT (or Optical Network Terminal) sits in a recessed panel in my closet and splits the fiber signal into respective components. There are three outputs: coaxial, Ethernet and standard RJ-11 jacks for phone service. My setup (using MoCA) is run entirely using the coaxial output. A splitter breaks the signal into multiple coaxial lines, feeding my TVs and the FiOS router. Beneath the ONT is a small battery backup that powers the system in the event that the power goes out. Designed primarily to keep phone service up and running (since, unlike POTS, the FiOS service needs power), it’ll last about 8 hours.

The set top boxes provided by Verizon were all brand new, and came in their original boxes. They’re standard issue Motorola 6400 series that many providers lease with the exception being that these support IPTV. All VOD and other pay-per-view programming is streamed over my FiOS Internet connection to the boxes. In addition, the boxes also support a series of widgets that display things like weather and traffic. Very cool, if you ask me.

The only hiccup in the entire process was activating the CableCARDs for use with my TiVo Series 3 DVR. The cards wouldn’t activate no matter what the technician or his colleagues in Engineering tried. Finally, one randomly activated but the other was still dead. In an unprecedented customer service experience, the technician offered — on his own time — to meet me after work to drop off another card and try again. Remarkably, this time it worked. Since then, they’ve been running flawlessly.

If you’re in an area that supports FiOS, I highly recommend switching. The Internet service is fast and reliable, and the television experience offers a great value and is a true departure from standard cable offerings. The pricing and speeds depend on your market, but generally are available in 5Mbps increments. I’ll post some photos to Flickr of the FiOS equipment and my home networking setup soon.

Update: I’ve posted some initial pics of my new apartment (and my home networking setup) to my Flickr site.

In my last post, I mentioned that some big changes were happening in my life. Rather than immediately post the news, I wanted to wait until all of the details had been worked out and everything was official.

I’ve recently accepted an offer to work with Group Logic, a software company that provides leading network software and workflow solutions for Macintosh and Windows systems. The company’s products — including ExtremeZ-IP and MassTransit — are leaders in their classes and used by hundreds of companies daily. Officially, I’m working on the MassTransit Quality Assurance team, but future opportunities should present themselves to expand into other areas of Group Logic’s operations.

My role is very similar to what I did while at Innerwall, so I feel it will be easy for me to get up to speed very quickly. In addition, I’ve been using Group Logic’s products for many years now, and have an intimate knowledge of the way they work and how they’ve been used. (At Macworld San Francisco 2005, my Apple colleagues and I interviewed their team and CEO Reid Lewis in support of an initiative to deploy their products into Broward County Public Schools.)

Being based in Arlington, Virginia, I’m leaving Colorado Springs behind and moving to Alexandria, just south of an area known as Pentagon City. I’ve secured a beautiful apartment home in a brand new community called Jefferson at Sullivan Place. It looks quite spectacular, and I can’t wait to arrive.

Unfortunately, leaving Colorado means that so many of my new friends will be left behind, along with so many fond memories. I’m also losing the subject of so much of my photography. Though I’m sad to leave, I feel Virginia presents many more opportunities for me both professionally and personally. There is so much history present in that area and I look forward to exploring it with new friends, colleagues and continuing to document it through my photography.

My friend Chris and I are packing up and hitting the road this evening. I probably won’t be posting until I’m settled in the new place, but any photography during the trip should end up on my Flickr site.

Until then, thanks to everyone for all the e-mails offering support — it means a great deal to know everyone cares. I’ll see you on the East Coast soon!