Bold Poker [Sponsor]

Bold Poker replaces your deck of cards with iPhones and has been praised by The Loop, Daring Fireball, and Mashable.

Try out Bold Poker at your next poker game. They’ll buy you a Heineken (i.e. give you a full refund) if the app doesn’t change your Texas hold’em home game for the better.

CSS transitions

Alex McCaw takes a look at CSS transition, those little animations you see around the Web.

Interview with former Facebook CTO

Former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo believes that the future is about creating more knowledge and adding a layer of reputation to the fast-growing internet. And that is why he started Quora, his first real attempt at being a startup CEO.

Adobe offers free copy of CS2

You can login with your Adobe ID and download a free copy of the apps. Not bad for those still running older computers.

App Store tops 40 billion downloads

Apple on Monday said that customers have downloaded more than 40 billion apps from the App Store. The company also said that nearly 20 billion of those downloads came in 2012. […]

Lego art

These are just incredible.

The four horsemen of tech

MG Siegler:

We all know the “four horsemen” of tech: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. These are the companies that pretty much everyone agrees will shape the foreseeable future of the tech sector. In some circles, that list makes waves for who is not included: Microsoft. But any rational thinker (meaning those outside of Redmond or anyone who hasn’t made a career as a .Net developer) knows that Microsoft simply no longer belongs on that list.

But that doesn’t mean the list is perfect. In fact, I do think there’s an omission that’s becoming a glaring one: Samsung.

MG makes some interesting arguments about why Samsung should be the fifth horsemen. There is no doubt the company is huge and has a lot of resources, but for me the question is can Samsung predict what consumers will want before they know they want it.

That’s one of Apple’s greatest strengths. They’re working on products we don’t even know we’ll want yet, but when they’re released, we have to have them.

Vintage Gibson guitar mangled by airline baggage handlers

It was a musician’s worst nightmare.

At least that’s how Dave Schneider, guitarist and singer for Hanukkah-themed rock band The LeeVees, described it when his guitar—a 1965 Gibson ES-335—got jammed in an elevator by baggage handlers at a Detroit airport.

Such a sad story.

Funny thing about Facebook

One important thing that I’ve noticed is this – I wasted a ridiculous amount of time on a site that I couldn’t wait to leave. Since I’ve stopped visiting, I’ve actually noted that I have more time in my day.

I still contend that Facebook is a great network for personal relationships — keeping up with old friends and the lives of people we care about. It’s not something pros really get much out of though.

EZPR

Want great press for your startup, app or company? EZPR specializes in getting great stories written about what you’re working on.

For sale: NASA Launch Pad

Does anyone need a 15,000-foot landing strip? How about a place to assemble rocket ships? Or a parachute-packing plant? An array of aerospace tracking antennas? A launchpad?

Make us an offer, says NASA, which is quietly holding a going-out-of-business sale for the facilities used by its space-shuttle program.

Retina favicons

John Gruber on how he went about creating a Retina favicon for Daring Fireball.

Smartphone market

Horace Dediu looks at the time it took for smartphones to reach 50 percent of the market and estimates when he believes it will reach 80 percent.

Android SDK is now proprietary

In order to use the SDK, you must first agree to this License Agreement. You may not use the SDK if you do not accept this License Agreement.

This sentence alone already violates freedom 0, the freedom to use the program for any purpose without restrictions.

Oh Google.