Caitlin Dewy for the Washington Post:
"After all, what millennial hasn’t found herself friendless or flaked-on at some point, thumbing desperate texts to a BFF who’s still in Pittsburgh or Des Moines?"
I mean... I see it. But I also see it crashing and burning. Friendship in the US is about authenticity first and foremost. I'm guessing that most people would pay for sex before paying for friends.
"The long-term goal is to shrink the size of these devices," Dong said. "Then hopefully we can do this with higher-frequency electromagnetic waves such as visible or infrared light. While that would require advanced nanomanufacturing technologies and appropriate structural modifications, we think this study proves the concept of frequency tuning and broadening, and multidirectional wave suppression with skin-type metamaterials."
So it doesn't yet work on visible light but it seems like given the Time to retrofit all those Predator and Reaper UAVs...
"24 hours later, Apple Support has over 121,000 followers, and has tweeted over 2,200 times directly to Apple users with instructions for how to fix their problems. Turns out, there was quite a bit of pent-up demand for Apple support on social media."
If one can handle the volume, Twitter is the greatest of healers when it comes to customer service woes.
Yoni Hiesler, writing for BGR:
"What's more, keeping ratings a well-kept secret ensures that the content remains true to itself. In other words, it prevents writers from trying to chase previous hits at the peril of originality."
It's brilliant. One doesn't want to let the data get in the way of the art.
“[Rift support] is up to Apple,” Oculus founder Palmer Lucky said. “If they ever release a good computer, we will do it.”
Palmer's definition of a “good computer” is one that can handle the demands of VR software. The issue is that these games and tools need a hyper-rapid frame rate in the range of 90-to-125 frames per second to prevent people from getting motion sick. The Oculus founder says that Apple just doesn't have an option on the market to meet that demand.
“It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn't prioritize high-end GPUs,” said Luckey. “You can buy a $6,000 Mac Pro with the top of the line AMD FirePro D700, and it still doesn't match our recommended specs. So if they prioritize higher-end GPUs, like they used to for a while back in the day, we'd love to support Mac. But right now, there's just not a single machine out there that supports it.”
The clickbaity headline leaves one feeling like "thems fighting words." But once you read on, you realise that Apple really needs a product that allows the hardcore to be the hardcore vis-a-vis graphics.
This month Apple is bringing back the iPhone 5 in an SE (Special Edition) form factor because, presumably, not everyone wants a huge phone in their yoga pant pocket. I've got a 6S and I can't say that I disagree. Running is harder with this phone than any other iPhone.
Similarly, there is demand for the old-style tower Mac Pro. Call it the Mac Pro Classic or whatever, I'd happily give Apple $3k+ for a device that I could swap hardware in and out of. They've got great products but their push-up make things smaller and tighter has become frustrating for many. Now it threatens to leave them out of the game when it comes to the top brass of emerging VR tech.
Then again Apple could release their own VR solution and many would strongly consider it over the competition.
"When it comes to superhero stories, there’s something so much more compelling about the tortured soul of Bruce Wayne, who must rely on his intelligence and guile to save the day. Superman, on the other hand, is just way, way too powerful and his “mild-mannered” alter ego of Clark Kent has just never really done anything for me."
This really connects with me. Superman always seemed a little too... Super. He's super strong, super fast, super smart-- where's the conflict? In an age of Iron Man's zany personality, and beings with more relate'able problems like the X-Men, Superman is pretty boring. In fact, I often look to Marvel's holier-than-thou Thor as a great parallel to the Man of Steel.
The article, of course, makes some good points. I love a good comic book but it's unclear to me whether or not I'll see this new Superman/Batman film.
"Tesla 'Not a Dream'" is an independently created commercial, using the words of inventor Nikola Tesla to extol the virtues of Tesla Motors's vehicles and their presumed ability to lead the US to a future that's free of the pollution and destruction of fossil fuels. It's visuals are a little extreme, but I'm sure that those passionate about the problem and/or the car will find the video moving.
It's worth noting that Tesla Motors doesn't advertise very much. The fact that fans are willing to create content like this for them is impressive to say the least.
And for any geeks out there it's like 1984, all over again.
So what does Tesla Motors CEO think of the video? He digs it.
Love this Tesla video made by https://t.co/bwKne0mZUh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2016
Speaking of Tesla, here's David Z. Morris, writing for Fortune:
According to the article, Model S sales went from 16,689 units in 2014 to 25,202 sales in 2015-- an up-tick of +51.01% , Every other competing vehicle in the class, regardless of how its propelled, has a negative % change year over year from 2014 to 2015.
If Tesla can get production right and satisfy demand, the US can really have a chance at hitting emissions targets well before targets.
Let's remember that the patents for this technology were released in 2014 for all to implement in their automobiles. GM's Bolt and Volt, alongside with the new Nissan Leaf will make use of them in their next generation vehicles. Audi, BMW and Mercedes can use this tech too. But thus far, Audi has their e-Tron A3, BMW has the i3 and the incredibly (even by Tesla's standards) i8, and Mercedes has an upcoming plug in GLE.
At the end of the day, none of these are vehicles are as practical as the Tesla Model S, a saloon that can seat 5-7 people with up to two trunk storage compartments while maintaining a 200+ mile range. The aforementioned GLE and Volvo's new XC 90 are the closest thing to a Tesla offering, with their generous passenger accommodations and storage facilities, but the ride-height takes it to Model X territory, and neither of those two vehicles can begin to touch the acceleration and handling capabilities of Tesla's young SUV.
Klint Finley, writing for Wired:
"Earlier today, to help kick-off the annual Computer Science Education Week, Obama became the first president ever to write a computer program."
This is great. But it's important to understand that in this the US is a little behind in this respect: China's leaders are mostly scientists and engineers.
"A $25,000 Tesla would upend the U.S. auto market. Incentives vary widely state by state, but the base incentive is a $7,500 federal income tax credit available to everyone in the country. Bringing the $35,000 sticker price of the Model 3 down by that amount would expand the potential market by roughly 50 percent, according to Morsy. Additional incentives would further knock down the price in more than a dozen states, including an additional $6,000 in Colorado and $2,500 in California, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. The only limiting factor for sales of a Tesla in this price range would be the company's ability to crank out cars."
$35,000.00 base price - $7,500.00 Federal tax credit - $6,000.00 Colorado State credit = $21,500.00 for a brand new base Tesla Model 3.
Supposing one adds $10,000.00 in options, the car is still incredibly cheap for a vehicle that's about the size of the Nissan Leaf and yet has 2x the range. Taxi companies and municipalities are going to snap base trims of the Model 3 up in droves.
DROVES.
If there's one place tech doesn't need to be, it's politics. Innovation, it could be argued, strikes at the heart of multiple constituencies, and only when it is directly under threat (i.e. CISPA, PIPA), should it rally as one to speak to the entire political class.
Unless, of course there's some quid pro quo associated with campaign donations... but that's not a thing, is it?
Every single time I turn on my 2010 HP Envy 14, I'm assaulted by a huge pop-up telling me that I should join 110 million other users and upgrade my machine to Windows 10.
MS is aggressive -- too aggressive about forcing this older hardware to adopt their new software.
Case in point-- my 2010 HP Envy 14 doesn't want Windows 10. I know this because I popped Windows 10 on another older machine to see how well it does on older hardware. It's fine, but it's far from any sorta performance improvement.
Now I don't advocate that anyone interested in computing performance spend a lot of time on a 6 year old laptop. I'm looking to upgrade but frankly, the machine is more than adequate for classic gaming, writing and working on the web. That means that in its current state, as long as security updates still keep on coming, the Windows 7 system is a good thing for this computer-- especially when I think about passing it on to a child or someone else in need of a reliable, if not crazy fast machine.
So if you're like me, and want to save your windows 7 experience by stopping upgrade-focused pop-ups and stopping auto-upgrading, then check this site out.
"The beam, compromised of particles traveling nearly the speed of light into intergalactic space, stretched for a distance of 300,000 light years – three times the diameter of the entire Milky Way."
What I love about Pebble is its independence. With accessories like this, they should be able to keep it up.
"One of Pebble’s first unique features advertised with the Pebble Time was that it would support third-party bands that brought extra functionality to the watch. A new Kickstarter from Fit Pay Inc. has sprung up that plans on offering a mobile payment solution for Pebble watches with a device called Pagaré. It uses NFC to replicate what we’ve seen in Apple’s Apple Watch and what’s eventually going to come to Samsung’s Gear S2."
"Amazon is working on plans to open hundreds of brick-and-mortar bookstores, according to a new report from CNBC. Yes, following in the footsteps of chains like Borders, Amazon apparently thinks that the future is in dead trees.
Amazon already has one physical store that opened back in November. The Seattle store was dismissed as a “vanity project” when it was first announced, but apparently it worked out well enough that Amazon is willing to bet big money on it. It ain’t cheap to open 300-400 retail stores."
People said that Apple was crazy to open up retail stores back in 2001, when Dell and others were experiencing extreme costs savings with the Direct-To-Consumer business model. Still, people went crazy when it opened and Apple remains the most productive retailer, measured in revenue by square foot.
I've had a chance to check out the Amazon Bookstore in Seattle. It's probably the only public place other than CES where you could really try out the Echo; a device that's hard to explain but easy to love. Add to that the fact that there's something about being able to touch and hold a book before purchase.
Caitlin McGarry, writing for PCWorld:
"Apple has admonished Google for violating user privacy with practices like mining emails for keywords to generate ad revenue. Now we know that Apple financially benefits from Google’s ad-targeting practices."
This quote (and the article's headline) strikes me as bothersome. First-- Google has a revenue sharing agreement with Apple on search ad revenue. They didn't cut Apple a check for $1 billion up front to exclude other search engines. The arrangement is performance-based. It doesn't seem as if there's any sort of barrier to MS's Bing outbidding Google for the same arrangement.
As for the quote-- this statement simply doesn't ring true. In fact, Apple's making money on search ads-- ads that have context based not on scanned emails but on terms that users input to a search engine for the purpose of receiving a contextually relevant response as output. The ads they receive are based on the search terms, not on scans of email or browser tracking.
Disappointing.
Joanna Stern recently published a piece in her personal technology column over at the Wall Street Journal that details her frustration with television remote controls in the age of increasingly complex set-top-box and audio set-ups.
In typical awesome sauce Stern fashion, she surveys the best available products on the market and gives the user a recommendation- if one's warranted.
Her conclusions however, throw me off. While the Ray Super Remote is impressive, it lacks something essential to a great experience-- tactile buttons for all of the major functions. The problem with the thing is that except for strange volume buttons the device is all screen, meaning that one has to look at IT rather than the content, when one wants to change an aspect of the viewing experience. God forbid that experience is taking part in a dark room, and suddenly you've got white LEDs shooting light at your face, violently throwing you out of your cinematic experience, along with anyone who may be sitting beside you. That's a problem. With any such device, one's fingers should be able to do the talking without their eyes having to get involved.
More problematic is the Ray Super Remote's $250 price. And old iPhone 5 or 5S does nearly everything the Ray Super Remote does and you've already paid it off and can easily power it since you've likely got chords lying around. If Ray made a Lightning-based IR dongle that would make more sense; which is why the Peel route seems the most proper for the touch-screen approach.
Still, you're forced to deal with a screen, which is less than ideal.
I'll extend that criticism to one of my fav devices, Google's Chromecast. As Stern rightly points out, the idea that I've got to unlock my device to get it to the remote function is a pain.
It may be that right now, Apple has the right of it with the Apple TV 4's remote. The touch -based navigation surface, tied to buttons is impressive. Voice is likewise impressive but frankly, talking is the last thing I want to do when I'm enjoying something in front of me. I also have to admit that I suffer from feeling a little silly talking to a computer in front of anyone but my cats.
Unlike most consumer technologies, there may not be a "winner take all" product in this category yet. Preference is everything here, so screens have their proponents. Some of those proponents aren't even watchers-- rather they're marketers hoping that the second screen, be it phone, tablet or remote, can be a place to grab eyeballs for advertisements in an age of increasingly ad-free digital streaming.
At the end of the day, this space is suffering from the frustration that many consumers are feeling in the connected home. These devices need a shared protocol not unlike ZigBee or zWave with which to communicate with one another. Are the speakers on or off? Set to the right input? Output? One thing is clear. The next generation of home theatre peripherals should incorporate that sort of communication functionality in order to make life much easier for the consumer. It would also represent a paradigm shift that would engender sales.
I've recently been in the market for a new laptop. The Macbook seemed attractive at first because it's thin, light, and sufficiently powerful for a daily driver.
But then one notices that it's missing the one thing that convinced me that Apple's laptop hardware was thoughtful, all those years ago when I started my romance with their products: Magsafe.
For all the tradeoffs that a general purpose computer could have, this one boggles my mind the most. The statement that one port on a computer makes is... big. But making that big statement while taking away a truly key feature is.... bizarre. We would ooo and ahh about the awesome new keyboard, the thinness, lightness, power, and battery life fine and not at all begrudge that port sitting next to a MagSafe power cord.
If this Macbook truly indicates where Apple is taking it's laptops, I'd feel compelled to pop it on the list of Apple's questionable design choices for 2015.
And I don't care what Stern says, that battery case is yuck. Not iPhone 4 's line-breaks-on-the-antenna-that-I-could-get-used-to-yuck. Just yuck.
The Verge has some more info on how accessory maker Griffin has hacked or dongled their way into getting MagSafe on the new Macbook. It's ugly, but it could literally save your Mac from a fateful crash from atop a coffee table.
"The free-speech organization PEN American Center says it is giving its 2016 PEN/Allen award to author J.K. Rowling. The prize honors "a critically acclaimed author whose work embodies its mission to oppose repression in any form and to champion the best of humanity."
I'm not sure I see all that in Rowling's work. If looking for it is an excuse to read Harry Potter again, and more closely and deeply, then I'm all for it.
Richard Brody writing for the New Yorker:
"The underlying issue of the Academy’s failure to recognize black artists is the presumption that baseline experience is white experience and that black life is a niche phenomenon, life with an asterisk. Many of the great classic jazz and blues recordings were marketed as “race records.” To this day, the Academy proceeds as if movies about black experience were race movies. The result is that only narrow and fragmentary views of the lives of African-Americans ever make it to the screen—and I think that this is not an accident. If the stories were told—if the daily lives and inner lives, the fears and fantasies, the historical echoes and the anticipations of black Americans were as copiously unfolded in movies as are those of whites—then lots of white folks would be forced to confront their historical and contemporary shame. They’d no longer be able to claim ignorance of what they’d like not to know—which includes their own complicity in a rigged system."
Remember Cool Runnings? Certainly not Oscar worthy, but certainly proof 20+ years ago, that diversity can be sold universally. Fast forward to the commercial success of the Fast and Furious franchise and the recent record-breaking Star Wars film, and it's clear that films do fine-- lo they do better than fine-- with multi-racial casts... Which is why there should be more of them, allowing for more $$$ and more representation across all genres of features.
Such action will inevitably lead to more roles for actors (of all types) in more prestigious films. The idea that accident of birth is the hallmark of talent is absurd. Access to opportunity is all that's needed to for the talented to rise. A walled garden in this respect keeps the entire art of cinema from achieving it's most impressive and vibrant expression.