Category: Lifestyle

Samsung smartwatch

galaxygearleadSo Samsung unveiled their ‘Galaxy Gear‘ smartwatch today (it’ll be for sale sometime later this year).  I don’t know why, but I’m just, well, underwhelmed.  It’s sleek but big, blocky, and ugly.  I think that’s what strikes me though…that large, flat screen is just hard to make fit in on your wrist IMO.  Adding a camera to it was a strange move and one that I think people won’t readily accept (privacy concerns).  Engadget has an in-depth review here if you want to know more (TechCrunch has a good article on this too).

I think a curved screen is going to be necessary to make smart watches ‘fit in’ on your wrist….otherwise it just looks weird.  I stopped using my Pebble once the novelty wore off…though that’s partly due to the limit apps available for it…it just wasn’t a very smart watch, frankly!  I think Samsung has really left the door wide open for Apple to swoop in and dominate this market…

Gravity – movie trailer

I don’t think I’ve ever posted a movie trailer to this blog before…few have captured my attention enough to warrant that.  This trailer for the upcoming movie Gravity though…wow.  Intense.  Can’t wait to see it (10/4/13 release date!)!

How to live with Introverts

how_to_live_with_introverts_by_schrojones-d4tfoyoI found this cool infographic (created by Schroeder Jones) over at Laughing Squid; click the thumbnail for a full size version.  I find it pretty much spot-on, at least from an interovert’s point of view.  If you’re not one of us, you might find it a fascinating perspective and think we’re really weird.  Don’t worry, us introverts won’t be offended, we think extroverts are really weird too.

I’ve been traveling to China a bit this year, and find it mentally very relaxing.  I think this infographic helps shed some light on that.  China is such a foreign country that there’s very little expectation of social contact of any meaningful sort apart from what I initiate.  Hotel staff is friendly but that’s just casual ‘hellos’ and I move on.  I can move about in my hamster ball undisturbed, be a part of society without social interaction (hmm…is that technically possible?).

3D Printed Gun stirs up controversy…and idiocy

Not surprisingly, people are freaking out about the 3D Printed Gun design that was released a few days ago.  The US State Department sent a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the plans online, demanding that they be removed.  He complied (though has hired a lawyer to fight this), but to even make such a request shows incredible ignorance of the information age we live in.  The plans were downloaded around one million times and are available elsewhere online.  Governments cannot suppress information…to attempt to do so is futile.   Lawmakers in California and other areas of the country are trying to ban 3D printed gun technology.  Meanwhile, efforts to implement mandatory background checks for gun purchases have failed in Congress.  So, you can’t print your own single-shot gun that might explode in your hands when you try to use it and at has horrible accuracy, but it’s OK to go buy an AR-15 with high capacity magazine, armor piecing rounds, and body armor.  Does anyone else see the lunacy in this?

Fingerprint-controlled guns

Reality is finally catching up with Hollywood; Safe Gun Technology is close to beginning production of guns that use fingerprint recognition to restrict functionality of the weapon to only those users who have been given access.  Considering that each weapon can store up to 20,000 fingerprints, potential applications are not limited to just homeowners; this technology could be of interest to military and police forces worldwide.  Read more at Smartplanet.

Pebble Smartwatch – first impressions

Well it ended up being about six months late, but…my Pebble Smartwatch finally arrived!  I backed this on Kickstarter knowing it might be a bit delayed (most projects there are), but wow, sure took ’em a while.  So, was it worth the wait?  To be honest, I’m still undecided.  The build quality is very nice and the product is exactly as it’s been portrayed…except for one glaring omission.  This is, at its most basic level, just a remote display for your iPhone…what makes it special are the apps it runs to help extend functionality of your phone.  I figured that with such a long delay on the manufacturing side, the software would be further along and would blow me away, but that’s not the case.  There are no apps.  It’ll control the music playing on your phone, and display text messages and some other phone notifications…but its functionality doesn’t go much beyond that.  I think this is a problem easily solved and I do expect that situation to improve…but this company can’t afford delays, there are very large competitors eying this market and contemplating a move into it.  Pebble needs to move fast, extend their reach and dominate this market or else they’ll quickly be pushed aside by the 800-pound gorillas in the room.  Their hardware is good…they need to quickly build their app ecosystem now.

RUSH trailer

I love racing…and can’t wait until RUSH hits the theaters this fall!  Check out this preview, looks great!

Reeder – free for a limited time for Mac and iOS

My favorite RSS reader, Reeder, is free for a limited time on both the Mac and iPad platforms!  They’re promising future changes to deal with the imminent demise of Google Reader (it currently syncs with your Reader account) so now’s a great time to check it out.  You can find it in the App stores, just be sure to spell it correctly (note the double ‘E’s).

(via Lifehacker)

More cracks in the TV industry’s business model

aereo-screenshotThe TV industry is moving ever closer to either collapse or a reinvention of their business model.  They’ve been resisting change for years, but just like the music industry before them, technology is enabling inevitable change.  A federal appeals court just ruled in favor of Aereo, a service which lets people watch over-the-air TV when they want, where they want, delivered over the internet to iPads or any device.  TV networks fought this, naturally, but lost (they may yet appeal to the Supreme Court, but that’s their only option at this point).  Read here for more on that.

The other story of late is season three of Game of Thrones debuted to record numbers of viewers.  What’s significant though is that it also set a record for the largest BitTorrent swarm – people are downloading this in huge numbers, as HBO does not make it available to non-HBO subscribers for quite some time.  Remember how Napster helped lead to the upending of the music industry?  Something similar is happening with TV.  The cost to gain access to a single show is so high that people are choosing the only other option (other than wait months to a year for it to be available on DVD).  As iTunes showed when it debuted, people are willing to pay a reasonable amount for content, if delivered in a timely manner comparable to other options on the market.  The TV business model is more complex, but is proving to be incompatible with consumers’ current desires and technologies.

Combine this with Netflix and Amazon producing their own shows, and we’re seeing an imminent collapse of the TV industry as it has been known…and the birth of something much more consumer friendly.

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑