Behold The NiederBurger

Not content with being the hypest food in France at the moment, the burger is also subject to various Alsatian takes on its recipe.

The French love to do things differently (is that the reason why Steve Jobs would very often refer to France in his keynotes?) and the Alsatian people take pride in setting themselves apart from France. You might ask yourself if that is a good thing in the realm of burgerness and here I come to give you the ultimate answer (which differs from 42): IT IS A GOOD THING.

I had the extreme pleasure of sampling two different Alsatian burgers in less than a week and can only conclude that although they both strayed away from the Classic Burger that I love, they were both excellent and very original. The former is featured in my previous blog post here while the latter is the subject of the post you are reading now (isn't that logic?).

I loved the idea of creating a very tasty and juicy burger using a custom-baked pretzel and crusty and thick patty. The result was absolutely great and I can only advise every single one of you to pay a visit to l'Atelier du Sommelier in Niederbronn-les-Bains (Alsace, France) to try other delicacies (I'm not 100% sure they have the burger on their menu so call in advance should you wish to sample it).

And of course to set things right, my delicious burger was preceded by a fantastic and genuine Caesar salad (in the American sense of the term, not the usual French interpretation of the Caesar salad):

Open Letter To Steve: Do Something About International Roaming Charges

Dear Steve,

Could you please find a way to make carriers understand that by charging an insane amount of money for data roaming, they are alienating their customers and actually losing money since more and more of us, iPhone-addicted customers, choose to go prepaid when traveling abroad?

I don't wanna see this anymore and I strongly advise any sensible smartphone user to go prepaid when traveling to a foreign country. I strongly encourage readers to post tips and tutorials in the comments as to how to go prepaid in each and every single country.

Best regards,

Fred, your homie from da hood!

Note: A special shout-out to Orange France for their lousy data roaming plans that can only be activated for a maximum of 7 days and for making it impossible to activate it for 2 7-day periods in a row other than by calling at midnight on the 7th day. Add to this that customer service is closed at midnight and that activating such a roaming plan can take up to 48 hours, and you have a recipe for mass protests in the streets of France.

Breaking News: Project Titan Will Be Integrated In iOS 4.2

I've just hung up the phone from a conference call with Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg who are respectively my 104th and 105th best friends. It was the middle of the night for them and morning for me but hey, I wouldn't have agreed to that call if I had to stay up late or wake up early in the morning. Anyway, we talked a lot of nonsense and also the future of Apple, Facebook and the World.

As you should know, Mark is hosting a special event next Monday to announce his so-called Project Titan. There's been a lot of talk about this project, maybe, maybe too much talk. This project is not a rebel project, this project is Titan Bloody Titan (Bono, leave my body right now).

Some people have been speculating that Titan is set to be a Gmail killer. Well, as I know about it before anyone and didn't sign any non-disclosure agreement (and even if I had, I doubt that Steve and Mark would risk losing me as a friend by suing me), I'm going to reveal it right now.

Basically, Project Titan is more than a Gmail killer. It will not only integrate push email through Facebook's web interface but also contacts, calendar and notes synchronization. The key feature there is not its availability on desktop computers through its web interface but its release on Monday on all iDevices (including Apple TV 2). That is the reason why Steve and Mark were spotted having coffee together in Palo Alto not long ago. Besides talking about how much more fun it would have been had I been there with them, they also discussed Project Titan.

It is no coincidence that iOS 4.2 hasn't been released to the public yet, the reason behind this is that it will be released on Monday coincidentally with Mark's announcement. iOS 4.2 will let users configure a Facebook account in pretty much the same way they are able to configure Exchange, MobileMe or other email accounts right now. They will, then, get push email, contacts, calendar, notes and Farmville directly from Facebook on their iOS device, rendering Microsoft Exchange useless.

Through this partnership between Apple, Facebook and its announcement on my blog, the three of us will dominate the world and facilitate Facebook addiction worldwide. Facebook will be the portal and iOS will support the devices.

Based on this information and my love for insider trading, I am publicly planning on taking over Google. My initial offering is US$ 0.000001 per share. As there are 270 million shares on the market, this should cost me something like US$ 270, a fair price in the light of the aforementioned secrets. I'm, obviously, not doing this for profit. I just wouldn't want Google to disappear from the face of the Earth as they still offer great services and host my blog.

Note: Should my prophecies not come true on Monday, you should consider that they originated from a different timeline in a parallel universe and should, hence, be discarded when assessing the credibility of this blog.

The Future Of Apple

As Apple is about to release iOS 4.2 to the general public, rumors are spreading as to what the next iPhone might be about. Most rumors were, until now, about the implementation of CDMA technology but it seems that the next iPhone might also integrate an RFID chip and/or some kind of proximity field technology. This is rumored to allow users to make any Mac their own by creating a proximity link between any Mac and their iPhone. The former would, then use whatever settings are saved on the iPhone or the MobileMe account of the user to allow them to use this computer as their own. If MobileMe users had the ability to sync all their info to the clouds, this could, indeed, become reality. Let's not forget that Apple heavily invested not so long ago in a server farm and let's not forget Steve Jobs' comment to SugarSync CEO during a conference "Yeah, I know you guys" and this would all make sense.

By using this technology, every iDevice owner would have the ability to use any Apple computer as their own, using their settings, files and apps that are stored in the clouds (a major leap forward compared to the poor cloud storage possibilities of MobileMe at this time). All their info would be backed up online making the process of regular and boring hard drive backups history.

The new iPhone is also supposed to be used as a payment device. Since it can already unlock cars using the new BMW app, why not bring it even more into the future by allowing it to open building and apartment doors?

There you have it, the iDevice will be at the center of everyone's lives, rendering wallets, keys and money as we know them obsolete.

I have already contacted a locksmith to get rid of my front door lock, as I will be using my iPhone to open the door from now on (and while I wait for this functionality to be implemented, I will camp in the streets outside my apartment building). The next thing that Apple should implement is a way, in case one loses their iDevice or it is stolen, to wipe it off remotely even if it does not have a network connection or if it is off. This would quite easy to implement through the use of a time machine that could bring the user back to the date & time their iDevice left their possession. It would then be easy to wipe it off and even prevent it from being stolen.

When Apple completes this, my friend Steve (whom I've never met) will become the ruler of the world and the universe and we will all live by his rules! Can't wait for that to happen!

What Was Announced in 12 hours At The Back To The Mac Apple Event

The Internet is going crazy right now as every single tech site is trying to figure out what will be announced tonight at the Back To The Mac Apple Event. I could have, like everyone else, decided to blog live from the event in order to let the world know what is being announced but then, I figured that my site has no chance of going down due to excess overload which kinda removes the fun out of doing so. In addition, I never understood why people would go to an alternate site to hear about live events when they can watch a live broadcast of it.

Anyway, I had the greatest idea about this event! I contacted one of the Aliens that allegedly abducted me in my sleep two nights ago and thanks to the advanced knowledge of his civilization and a bit of fumbling with quantum mechanics, we went forward in time (and while at it in space as well) in order to attend the live event.

This is how, now that I'm back in my timeline, I can tell the world about was announced (past tense for me) in 12 hours:

- Fantastic and unbelievable quarter with record earnings, sales and revenues.
- Apple is the coolest brand in the world and Steve Jobs one of the coolest guys on the planet (wouldn't he wear something else than his usual pair of jeans, sneakers and black long sleeve t-shirt if he needed to assert his coolness on anything else than his achievements as the CEO of Apple Inc. ?).
- The iPhone is the greatest thing ever.
- The iPad is the coolest computer and tablet altogether.
- Apple has never sold so many Macs. Ever.
- Tonight was announced a new MacBook Air. It will come in 2 sizes: 11.6 inches & 13.3 inches. Both versions are cool. Don't bother about tech specs, just buy one of them or even better: both!
- Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion": Apple has been working on this Mac OS X implementation for 20 years (Yes 20 years!!! Can you believe it?) and they are now ready to announce it. The coolest feature: it will support touch based devices! Screen protection manufacturers worldwide rejoice: you guys are gonna sell even more film protections and now in bigger sizes just for Macs.
- New Macs may or may not have been announced (at the time Steve was talking about this, I realized my iPhone 4 had no signal... I realized this was due to my alternate self probably using his at the same time. This anomaly in the space-time continuum probably crashed my carrier (Orange France)... Sorry about that but wasn't it worth it? At least, it was to me)
- Hybrid GSM-CDMA iPhone: it was not announced in 12 hours but should be in January (at least in the timeline I was).

That's it! Don't thank me! Don't watch the live event tonight, you already know everything. You should use the saved time to work overtime in order to be able to afford the new Macbook Air, iMacs & Mac OS X Lion. You can buy it all here: Apple Store.

Disclaimer: due to the unusual way I was able to obtain the information mentioned in this post, some of it might be actually pertaining to a different timeline than yours and mine and hence might not reflect exactly what our timeline might learn tonight.

Note: For those of you who are wondering how I contacted the Alien that abducted me, the answer is a very simple one: I called them on their iPhone. Actually, the main reason why Aliens visited Earth in the first place was to obtain iPhones. They now have a saying on their planet: "We may be more advanced than humans, but we have no Steve Jobs amongst us".
Note 2: This is my 69th post! I'll let each and everyone of you decide in which way (hmmm) you want to celebrate it.
Note 3: I love notes!