Love it or hate it, you have to admit that “it’s a small world!” is a masterpiece of composition and audio engineering.

Want proof? I've taken 26 different audio loops from the attraction, each with different orchestration and arrangement... and combined them all into a single, 48-second track. And believe it or not, it's not noisy or cacophonous at all!

Kudos to the genius Sherman Brothers.

Apple famously pulled out of trade shows a few years back, and like most Apple decisions, time has shown that they were right on target. Old corporate wisdom says that you make big announcements at trade shows to get maximum publicity and to, well, rub your competitors face in it.

But the problem with this is that your timing decisions are made by the trade show dates. When you announce something that isn't ready yet or doesn't go on sale for a while, you've just told all your competitors in the surrounding booths a heads up on what you're working on. Feeling compelled to make announcements at a trade show results in a slew of press releases touting products that haven't seen the light of day and boom — you've squandered your early-adopter demand.

Let's take a look at a few of the announcements starting to flow from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

• Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock: A new $300 hub device that leverages a Thunderbolt connection (which has been on Macs for about a year now) along with Ethernet, HDMI USB and Firewire. People have been waiting for a year for peripherals with Thunderbolt, but instead they get a hub to connect non-existent peripherals. Oh, and it won't be available until September 2012.
• iCade iOS Game Controllers: Clever and amusing game controllers that your iPhone or iPod can snap into. Makes your iOS device look like an old 1970s game console while you play Pac Man. Hilarious, funny impulse purchases. Oops - sorry, not available until an unspecified date in the spring.
• LaCie eSATA Thunderbolt Hub: Yay! Another hub! This one lets you use external eSATA drives on your Thunderbolt-equipped Mac. The one that's been sitting around like an anxious virgin since last February waiting for something to plug into its shiny new Thunderbolt port. No price yet. No release date yet. Oh, but CNET "expects" it to be available in the Spring.
• OCZ Thunderbolt SSD: Hey! A Thunderbolt peripheral! "No timeframe for release."
• AR Drone 2.0: This fun item is a remote flying device, controlled by your iOS device. The 1.0 version is in the stores now, but I'm betting that sales start to tank - 'cos here they are announcing a 2.0 version that isn't available until the 2nd quarter of 2012. D'oh!

Hey, everyone! Let's go shopping! We'll meet at Best Buy sometime next fall.

Update:

LG shows off smart TVs that respond to speech

LAS VEGAS -- Talking to the TV is usually a sign of extreme agitation, mental instability or loneliness. LG Electronics is set to make it a more rational behavior this year, with a range of TVs that respond to speech.

LG will sell a remote with its high-end flat-panel TVs that contains a microphone. You'll be able to speak into the microphone to enter text on the TV for Twitter updates and Web searches. You won't be able to change the channel or control the volume by yelling at the TV.

Via Mercury News

What the hell is the point of this? This TV comes with a remote that you can speak to, to post Twitter updates. You CAN'T use it to change the channel or the volume.

Seriously.

Oh, wait. I should say Siriously - 'cos it's pretty clear that this waste of time is designed to preempt any Siri-enabled TV from Apple. Mark my words: when such a device arrives from Cupertino, you'll hear from LG fanbois (are there such things?) claiming that LG "had voice recognition first."

Agatha Christie’s elderly detective Miss Marple is getting the big-screen treatment from Disney. After months of negotiations, the studio has closed a deal to capture the movie rights to the character, who first appeared in 1927.

Mark Frost has been tapped to pen the screenplay.

Marple was one of Christie’s most famous creations, an elderly woman constantly knitting or weeding, looking sweet and frail though the exterior masks a sharp mind with a deep understanding of the dark side of human nature.

Disney is not making a period movie however but looking do a contemporary version.

Jennifer Garner will produce the adaptation, which will not only be contemporary but see the age of amateur detective Marple brought down.

Hiring Frost may also signal an intent to make something with an edge. The writer, whose recent credits include penning the Fantastic Four movies, is best known for co-creating the landmark TV series Twin Peaks with David Lynch. [Hollywood Reporter]

Here's how I'm imagining the conversation began at Disney:

We need a new franchise — a new character!

Let's look at the stats. Oh, hey — this writer Agatha Christie is, according to Guinness, the best-selling author in the entire world!

Excellent. Let's talk to her people and see if she'll write something for us.

Ah. Well. She died in 1976.

Even better! She can't ask for more money! Let's just buy up something she already wrote.

"Miss Marple" seems to be very popular. They've done a whole bunch of TV series of it.

Great! Comes with a built-in fan base! We'll sell millions of action figures.

I dunno. I can't quite fathom how the brain trust at Disney came up with the decision to modernize Miss Marple by making her young and edgy. Seriously, what moron says "this is the best-selling mystery in the history of mysteries, so rather than leave it the way that billions of humans know it, we'll change it to alienate the entire world of mystery fans."