Group items tagged

"By liking everything, I turned Facebook into a place where there was nothing I liked. To be honest, I really didn't like it. I didn't like what I had done."

Plex + DropBox = cloudSync. Does this not already work like this? I feel like I already stream from Plex on the road. I guess not literally in my car, on the road, but I can over wifi when not at home. Hmm?

""I really think there is a need here. Simplicity, efficiency and fun," he said. "There is a lot of power in being able to push coupons, updates to loyalty cards, tickets and payment options right to the lock screen of a consumer's device. Geo-locating passes is an incredibly powerful feature of the Passbook platform. Nothing could be simpler than shopping at a mall and automatically seeing the passes that are relevant to what's around me: 'Oh yeah, I forgot I had that 15 percent off coupon at Bose. I might as well stop in.' " That's exactly the sort of practical perk that Passbook's early adopting brands seem to love. Online movie ticket service Fandango was a Passbook launch partner, and the company president tells Adweek that the brand's iPhone app downloads skyrocketed with the debut of Passbook. While mobile tickets were already available through the Fandango app for select theaters, Passbook simply made them easier for customers to use. When you arrive at the theater before the movie, your mobile ticket pops up on your iPhone lock screen. Swipe the icon to open the ticket in Passbook (without even having to unlock your phone), and you're good to go."

"1. Marketers suck. Including me. Look at my big tech company list over on Facebook. Do you actually learn much? A little, but marketers push themselves too much, and say too little. 2. No one is focused on what you want. Including me. I have a list of tech industry investors. Rich people. I want to hear from them about when they talk about investing, the economy, starting companies, trends, that kind of stuff. But do they stay focused? No. They talk about movies. Their vacations. Their kids. And more. 3.  Everyone is emotional. Including me. I have a list of tech industry VIPs. People who have changed the world. Invented Twitter. Or the Web. Or built Microsoft. Etc etc. But when they post about emotional topics like politics, religion, babies, pets, death, birth everyone goes crazy and reshares their posts. 4. Everyone has gone Gagnam Style. Including me. We love resharing. Retweeting. Talking. Liking. Pushing. Watch my tech news list and you'll see the same story rehashed, repeated, reshaped, remashed."

I was surprised by this when the story broke last Friday. I had thought of the entire Fuel Band ecosystem as a success (without any actual data to support this thought though;-) I wonder what the "real" story is.

The piece is actually a giant chalkboard, where pedestrians passing by can finish the sentence "before I die I want to..."  The project has become such a hit in the community (and now worldwide), that she's received funding, and plans on a book documenting all of the responses

I think we already shared this on Pulse Twitter last week. Or maybe I just read on Friday.

"In the opening passage of Do Machines Make History (1967), Robert Heilbroner argues that technology has a direct bearing on the human drama of history-but it does not make all of history. The challenge he identifies is whether something systematic can be said about the matter. In this piece, I briefly evaluate the degree to which technological change shapes historical change. I leave discussion on reasons why technologies change for other debates-instead focusing on the effects of technology, irrespective of their determinants. I suggest that while historical change depends on more than just technology, technology plays an unignorable role. Technology expands the range of actions for history-makers, exerts political influence (whether reflecting or independent of the intent of its makers), and can invite a cascade of further technological change."

"Ingress, the Alternate/Augmented Reality (AR) game from Google's Niantic Labs, is a major evolution of mobile gaming. Apparently, it's also a good way to get arrested. According to a post on Reddit (I know, I know - but stay with me on this), an Ingress player in Ohio was detained by police for his in-game actions. Specifically, he was "hacking a portal" near a police station. His phone had technical difficulties, which led him to linger by the portal/police station for a bit, catching the eye of local law enforcement and leading to the detention. After the original post, other Ingress players responded with similar stories. One aroused suspicions by wandering around an empty parking lot at night. Another, trying to hack a portal next to an air traffic control station, had to run from the local sheriff. A third was called in for questioning after hacking a portal outside of a "high-traffic drug area.""

"Conan O'Brien to Advertisers: You Disgust Me, but I Will Take Your Money"

I guffawed when I saw the Panasonic tablet promo.

Buy a CD, get the digital version free. Is this potentially the start of a trend? Can I get an eBook if I buy the hard copy?

Kopin Golden-i Wireless Headset, a head-mounted computer that enables firefighters to analyze a situation and make smarter decisions. Much like Google's forthcoming Project Glass, the Golden-i headsets house a camera, microdisplay, GPS locator, speech recognition and gesture control. This allows users to benefit from computer technology while keeping their hands and concentration free on the task at hand, making it especially suitable to servicemen. Using data such as maps, heat profiles, oxygen levels and heart rate - as well as audio and visual connectivity to colleagues and staff - firefighters can gain a better overall view of the situation, helping to save lives as well as protect themselves.

I honestly thought the emails I received this weekend were a hoax.

I don't understand how this would work. ebooks are files. Why would I buy a file? What's to stop me from just sending it to a friend for free? How is this even a market?

Eventually we'll get to SF-quality hard AR, but it'll take a while. I'd be surprised if it was sooner than five years, and it could easily be more than ten before it makes it into consumer products. That's fine; there are tons of interesting things to do and plenty of technical challenges to figure out just with soft AR. I wrote one of the first PC games with bitmapped graphics in 1982, and 30 years later we're still refining the state of the art; a few years or even a decade is just part of the maturing process for a new technology. So sit back and enjoy the show as AR grows, piece by piece, into truly seamless augmented reality over the years. It won't be a straight shot to Rainbow's End, but we'll get there - and I have no doubt that it'll be a fun ride all along the way.

Interesting article overall. I think the author is specifically focused on journalism as I don't think that 95% of media helps anyone make better life decisions;-)

"I Thought All Wearables Were Hideous And Vowed To Never Buy One - Until I Saw This"

Pretty sad, but I never realized how close AT&T was to VZW in terms of subs. I also didn't realize that Sprint and T-mobile each have around 50 million subs. It would take much for either of them to "catch-up" since there already 50% of the way there.