Uncategorized

Yes, this is exactly what CES is like.

Mat Honan:

This is a problem for CES, which has never really been a show about software. As software matters more and more, CES matters less and less. The internet is already the world’s largest trade show. Gadget blogs are the new conventions. The hottest products are all in app stores, or on Kickstarter. Sure, big electronics shows offer the opportunity to meet people and forge relationships. But even that transaction is being moved online in the era of real-time social media.

So true.

I love large TVs and was excited when I heard about this big-ass TV, but damn is it ugly.

MG Sielger nailed it. Samsung’s ecosystem is doing great, but nobody else is making any money.

Still, last year, France’s largest ISP, Orange (the brand name of France Telecom), managed to strike a deal (Google Translate) with Google that required Mountain View to compensate Orange for some of the traffic it was sending. For months now, Free has tried to put pressure on Google to get a similar deal by throttling YouTube traffic for Free users.

When that didn’t work, Free then implemented its ad block last week—which affected, according to BFM Business (Google Translate), all of Google’s ad servers. This halted ads alongside search, Gmail, and YouTube.

They suspended ad blocking for now to try to work out a deal with Google. Given the precedent, I’m surprised more ISPs aren’t doing this.

The company’s lowest quarterly profit since 2004.

Jason Grigsby:

A few months ago I was tasked with finding a good solution for a client who wanted to move to responsive design, but had a web app that they needed to support as well. The question they asked is one that I’ve seen others argue about in the past: does responsive design make sense for apps?

Fred Wilson offers a nice overview of the subscription model and what’s needed to make it work.

You know you want it.

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.

The Chef does everything but cook — that’s what wives are for!

My wife would kick my ass.

[Via Jim Coudal]

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.

Dave Caolo shares a childhood memory that echoes forward to his own life today.

The Verge:

For those who’ve never helped run a booth at a trade show, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the temporary city — an endless sea of lights, sounds, and humans pressing past one another in search of the next great gadget — takes weeks to assemble before the first attendee even hits the floor.

The Verge has an all too brief picture story about the set up and construction of CES at the Las Vegas Hilton. It’s an amazing logistical effort to put on the largest consumer electronics show in the world.

These are just incredible.

Looks like the NHL lockout will be over soon. Yay?

This moron bragged on Facebook about drunk driving and hitting a couple of cars.

[Via Shawn King]

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.

This is pretty much how all Canadians do it.

With all the silly talk in the US of a “Trillion Dollar Coin”, you might not know that the Canadian Mint actually produced the world’s first million dollar coin in 2007.

It is 99.999% pure gold bullion, weighs 220lbs and, even though the face value is one million dollars, it’s actually worth over $5.3 million dollars now.

The coin have been certified by the Guinness World Records to be “the world’s largest gold coin” and the Canadian Mint has sold five of them.

Gizmodo:

Here’s a rare sight: four out of the ten Nimitz-class aircraft carriers—the largest warships ever built—plus an Enterprise-class carrier docked together. They are resting at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, which coincidentally is the largest naval base in the world. Look at all that engineering and firepower. And it’s only half of the Nimitz fleet!

Wow…if you’ve never seen one of these carriers up close, this picture might not mean much but trust me – this is truly an awesome display of military might!

Animal is funny as hell.

A person’s cultural fit is becoming more important all the time.

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

Wired:

With all the technology hailed from the show floor at CES, it is inevitable that some of it will never materialize. CES always generates some vaporware, and 2012 was an especially good year. Here, then, is a look at the stuff we were promised at CES 2012 and continue waiting for.

Keep this in mind as Wired, CNET, The Verge, et al announce their “Best of CES Awards” next week – the majority will be for products that will likely never see the light of day.

I am a complete sucker for these time lapse videos and this one is incredibly well done. It helps the subject matter is one of the world’s great cities – Paris.

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.

Gizmodo:

The US has a love affair with imperial units: height in inches, milk in quarts, weight in pounds. You name it, and it’s measured in imperial. The only problem? Imperial is dumb. So let’s cast of those shackles and join the rest of the world by embracing units that make sense. Let’s go metric, once and for all.

Why make the move? A (metric) ton of reasons.

What do you think? Should the USA “go metric”? I’ve been “bi-measuring” since I was a kid and am (mostly) comfortable with both but there’s no doubt metric, with its factors of ten, is much easier to deal with.

I agree totally with Harry Marks on this.