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According to documents obtained exclusively by The Verge, Google is about to launch a renewed assault on your television set called Android TV. Major video app providers are building for the platform right now. Android TV may sound like a semantic difference — after all, Google TV was based on Android — but it’s something very different. Android TV is no longer a crazy attempt to turn your TV into a bigger, more powerful smartphone. “Android TV is an entertainment interface, not a computing platform,” writes Google. “It’s all about finding and enjoying content with the least amount of friction.” It will be “cinematic, fun, fluid, and fast.”

This looks like a really good app for kids or adults to learn Math.

Did you watch the show? What did you think of it?

There are some cool things being done with CSS these days—I really like this one.

Fascinating article by Dave Feldman, the co-founder of Emu, on why those chose to launch on Android and why they decided to move to iOS.

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Imagine if poring over your finances were as easy as using your favorite app, or smartphone. – “The Apple of finance,” Quartz.

Now it is, with Betterment.

Betterment is the most preferred online financial advisor, integrating technology and years of investment expertise in one elegant application already being used by over 30,000 customers. Betterment has eliminated the unnecessary costs and complications of investing intelligently. It’s straightforward investing for all, whether you have $10,000 or $10 million.

Betterment lets you manage multiple investment goals in one delightful place. Our UX and UI are adored by design enthusiasts, separating us from the red tape of other investment providers. Betterment is slick on the outside, with killer technology under the hood, and our free iPhone and Android apps help you stay connected to your diversified portfolio at all times.

Ready to invest? We’re excited to offer readers of the Loop three months of Betterment investment management for free.

I love this. Such a great idea.

I don’t know about you, but I always find this frustrating. Here are two great examples of how to do it right.

[Via Pro Tools Expert]

There are certainly some Web sites that could use something like this. For me, I’d just rather use a simple bullet point list.

Many thanks to EverWeb for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed. EverWeb is the all new, drag and drop website builder for OS X that combines the ease of use of Apple’s discontinued iWeb with the power features Mac users need to create professional websites. EverWeb requires no coding or technical skills and can create beautiful websites that work on desktop and mobile devices.

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. Esquire:

Cinema exists to project our dreams. Science-fiction cinema exists to project our most creative dreams—time-travel, alternate worlds, expanded consciousness, and more. That’s why we’re science-fiction maniacs and why we gathered up our top 100 movies.

Interesting list and a great primer for those unfamiliar with the genre.

Calgary Sun: Mounties were called about a John Deere 6400 tractor with a front-end bucket being stolen from a property a few kilometres from the break-and-enter complaint. Mounties began following the movements of the tractor as it drove through fields, … Continued

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Daily Mail:

Take a look at a map today, and you’re likely to see that North America is larger than Africa, Alaska is larger than Mexico and China is smaller than Greenland. But in reality China is four times bigger than Greenland, Africa is three times bigger than North America and Mexico is larger than Alaska.

The distortion is the result of the Mercator projection, the map most commonly seen hanging in classrooms and in text books, which was created in 1596 to help sailors navigate the world.

Maps have always fascinated me and this is “old news” but if you have kids, go ahead and blow their mind showing them the Mercator map they are likely familiar with compared to other maps like the Gall-Peters projection.

I thought it was ridiculous too, but when you look at some of the other words that have been trademarked, maybe it’s not.

The first made into a stool is nice.

Much respect to this kid.

The Loop Magazine Issue 24:

In this issue, Jim Dalrymple talks to Keith Urban about songwriting and his guitar collection; Gavin McKeown goes to car racing school; Arthur Turnbull tells a story about trying to see Prince in 1988; Carson Suggs looks at our reliance on technology; and Lee Peterson wonders if we can be productive using Apple’s iOS apps.

Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich has stepped down, the company said on Thursday, after an online dating service urged a boycott of the company’s web browser because of a donation Eich made to opponents of gay marriage.

“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act,” wrote Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker in a blog post. “We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry.”

Wow, that’s incredible.

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Quartz:

“What Google really wants is for everybody to be signed in to their Google accounts all the time,” a Google insider told me in passing last month.

This change affects only Apple users who have upgraded to iOS 7, the latest version—but that’s 85% of iOS devices. They no longer have the ability to remain anonymous as they watch videos on YouTube or navigate their cities using Google Maps.

“Don’t be evil” indeed.

After a nearly blemish-free record that culminated in a $3 billion acquisition by Google, Nest today issued a surprising halt to sales of Protect, its gesture-controlled smoke alarm. One of the device’s key features was that you could wave at it to turn it off. Turns out, sometimes people wave their arms around when there’s a fire in the house, too. Thus, as CEO Tony Fadell put it, “This could delay the alarm going off if there was a real fire.” Oops.

“Without getting into counsel’s discussions, I can tell you that as a rule, the White House objects to attempts to use the president’s likeness for commercial purposes, and we certainly object in this case,” he said.

Fucking morons at Samsung.

. Priceonomics:

Susan Kare “was the type of kid who always loved art.” As a child, she lost herself in drawings, paintings, and crafts; as a young woman, she dove into art history and had grandeur dreams of being a world-renowned fine artist.

But when a chance encounter in 1982 reconnected her with an old friend and Apple employee, Kare found herself working in a different medium, with a much smaller canvas — about 1,024 pixels. Equipped with few computer skills and lacking any prior experience with digital design, Kare proceeded to revolutionize pixel art.

Kare is a legend and I never tire of reading or hearing about her story.

This looks really cool. It even generates the files needed for Xcode on export—there’s a public beta available for download.

One of my favorite songs.

MG Siegler:

I’m going to try to only respond to email at a set time during each day. I’m going to put an hour (or perhaps two) in my calendar for this at the end of the day. And in that hour (or two), I’m not going to do anything besides email.

It’ll be interesting to see how this experiment goes.

Jake is a great player.

Fascinating case studies from Amazon, Google, Bing, and others.

Mathew Ingram:

Lapham’s Quarterly came up with some relatively ancient examples in a recent post entitled “Going Viral in the 19th Century.” At that time, it was commonplace for newspapers and magazines to include silly or amusing anecdotes, trivia, jokes and bad poetry as a way of lightening up the news. Newspaper editor Frederick Hudson was apparently driven to despair by these light-hearted items, which ran under headings like “Witticisms” or “Oddities.”

I thought this particular review was very interesting because it comes from a company that follows the publishing industry.