Flavorwire:
In her Venus project, Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano remixes some of the most celebrated nudes of art history, giving them an extreme Photoshop makeover. The results are stark and varied.
Botticelli's Venus
This is a great update.
Pawngo is an online pawn shop – a service that provides secured loans in return for valuables, for people who need cash in a hurry. Over the past few days they’ve made a huge marketing misstep in Boston that’s drawn attention to them, but the wrong sort of attention.
First, some background: Boston’s beloved football team, the New England Patriots, squared off against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl over the weekend. With four minutes left in the game and up by two points, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady threw a pass to wide receiver Wes Welker – a catch Welker has, by his own admission, made a thousand times before – but it slipped through Welker’s fingers. Ultimately the Giants came from behind to win the game. At least for some Pats fans, that crucial drop was the turning point when the Pats’ loss was assured.
Pawngo decided in an ill-advised publicity stunt to deliver thousands of Butterfingers candy bars to Boston’s Copley Square. A sign accompanying the delivery read, “Thank you, Wes Welker.”
Needless to say, Boston didn’t react well to having its nose rubbed in the Pats’ loss. Patriots fans incensed by Pawngo’s callous attempt at publicity reacted negatively, excoriating the company on Twitter and other social networking services. What’s more, the City of Boston itself will be issuing Pawngo a $1,000 fine for illegal dumping, according to BostInno. Nestlé, makers of Butterfingers candy bars, have distanced themselves from the incident as well, noting that this was done entirely by Pawngo.
Pawngo co-founder Todd Hills took to the company’s Web site to issue an apology to Boston fans upset by the prank, calling it “a misguided and misdirected stunt” and suggesting “we all make mistakes.”
Judging by the reaction in the discussion thread beneath the blog post, Hills and Pawngo have many more fences to mend before Boston customers will forgive them. But who knows? Maybe they picked up some New York customers along the way.
Reuters:
Next-generation software for BlackBerry’s smartphones is “ready to compete”, Research In Motion’s new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, told more than 2,000 technical developers on Tuesday, expressing confidence in RIM’s long-term future.
I hate to tell you this, but that train left five years ago.
All this time and I never knew who these people were.
Abdel Ibrahim talking about the Galaxy Note:
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind a slightly bigger display on my iPhone, but not if it means a significantly bigger footprint. The prettier visuals just wouldn’t make up for the pain-in-the-ass portability factor, and you’d better believe I’m not alone in that sentiment.
Right.
Forty percent of Sprint’s 1.8 million iPhone sales in the fourth quarter were to new customers.The company reported total net subscriber additions of 1.6 million during the fourth quarter of 2011 – the best quarterly result in six years – bringing total ending subscribers to the highest level in the company’s history.
It was still a tough quarter for Sprint, reporting a net loss of $1.3 billion.
Ben Brooks talking about an article written by Tim Moynihan:
I don’t give a damn about this camera, but I think it offers an interesting glimpse at the market. That is: consumers are looking at the wrong specs. Traditionally in this segment it was all about megapixels, but now it seems to be all about: optical zoom and Wi-Fi. Both are horrible features to care about, let alone to base a decision on.
Ben’s right. Consumers tend to focus on specs far too often when making a decision, but when you focus on the wrong specs, you can’t possibly make an informed choice. Things like Wi-Fi are just part of what you expect to be there — those are features you say “oh, and it has Wi-Fi, right?” when you are ready to buy. That’s after you’ve already investigated all of the important things.
Since Samsung decided to go retro and include a stylus with its newest products, I thought I’d be nice and hunt down a few other products Galaxy Note users may be interested in.
How about this 1970 Gremlin! Every Galaxy Note user should have one of these babies in the driveway.
Let’s not forget some tunes. This 8-Track is almost as big as the Galaxy Note.
You definitely want to be looking your best…
When you hit the dance floor
And if you need to do some work, you can use this little floppy disk.
Jim Romenesko:
This FAQ for Gannett journalists receiving iPhones was distributed today at the chain’s papers.Q: I like my non- iPhone device. Can I just stay with that?A: If the company owns the device, the answer is no. iPhone is the only device that can do all the things we want you to be able to do. Also, iPhone is the only device for which we have training, support and unlimited data lined up.
PCMag:
Apple has built a completely new, faster, cleaner, and more intuitive digital video editing package. While some professionals are still kicking and screaming about the changes it brings, we predict they’ll eventually be won over by Final Cut Pro X’s significant speed and usability advances. Meanwhile, prosumer video enthusiasts get a less daunting upgrade path to a pro-level Mac editor.
FCPX has come a long way.
[Via AI]
Corel Corp. announced Tuesday that it has completed the acquisition of Roxio from Rovi. The two companies initially announced the transition in January. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Roxio is a maker of media conversion software for Mac OS X and Windows. The company’s portfolio includes the popular Toast software, which enables Mac users to burn audio and video CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs.
Shawn Cadeau, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing at Corel, offered reassuring words for Roxio customers concerned about the transition. He said that Roxio’s products are “an important addition.”
“We look forward to bringing together the best of what Corel and Roxio have to offer as we work to deliver even richer, more rewarding experiences to our customers,” said Cadeau.
Wired Threat Level:
A one-of-a-kind website enabling the online sale of pre-owned digital-music files got a legal boost late Monday when a federal judge refused to shutter it at the request of Capitol Records.The brief ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan of New York did not clearly outline the reason for the decision. But in a transcript of a court proceeding Monday, he said that Capitol is likely to prevail at trial.
“Used MP3s”? Sounds shaky at best…
LA Weekly:
Like many people, Petrick had come to rely on his cellphone. He wasn’t as good as he used to be about memorizing phone numbers. Excitedly, he recalled one person’s cell number and dialed it.His elation, however, quickly turned to anxious frustration as the automated voice told Petrick that he could not place a collect call to a cellular phone. He could only call out to a land line. Trouble was, he hadn’t memorized any land-line numbers.“I realized right away that I had a problem,” Petrick says.
It’s really only problem if you are, like Petrick, in jail at the time of trying to make that phone call. How many of us would be caught in the same pickle? I don’t know anyone with a landline and I couldn’t tell you anyone’s cell phone number.
Good editing job by Patrick Crowley.
Samsung includes a stylus with its newest smartphones, so what’s it going to include with this beast, a wagon to carry it in?
Thanks to @abdophoto for sending the photo of Leo Laporte holding the devices.
Jim Cramer talking about how all of the football players pulled out their iPhones to capture the moments at the end of the game.
But what matters to me is that when everyone else is paying $3 million per commercial, Apple paid nothing and easily had the best ad of all.
[Via DF]
This is so cool.
How important are apps in this new economy? According to new research from TechNet apps have created 466,000 jobs since 2008.
Of course, apps include jobs created from Apple’s App Store and all of the companies created when Apple first introduced the concept. The survey also includes Android, BlackBerry, Facebook and Windows Phone.
TechNet figures that about 155,000 of those jobs are tech related and include app developers and tech support personell. The other 311,000 jobs require tech-related skills and non-tech jobs.
The highest percentage of app-related jobs are in California (23.8%), New York (6.9%), Washington (6.4%), Texas (5.4%) and New Jersey (4.2%).
Chris Ziegler posted a good look at Chrome for Android on The Verge.
MG Siegler brings up a good point:
Second, it’s only compatible with Ice Cream Sandwich which is currently on — wait for it — 1% of Android devices.
So congrats to those 1%, I guess.
BGR:
Impressive data points from Apple’s record-setting holiday quarter continue to trickle out, and new estimates suggest that the company accounted for a staggering share of mobile profits in the fourth quarter of 2011. Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt wrote in a research note on Tuesday that Apple took in approximately 50% of all mobile industry revenues last quarter. Even more impressive, the analyst says Apple’s high-margin iPhone lineup accounted for more than 80% of all mobile phone profits. Read on for more.
How can this be if Android is winning?
Matt Burns for TechCrunch:
Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bullshit. This is about killing the competition.
As we noted yesterday, Nest Labs is the maker of the learning thermostat, and it’s founded by Tony Fadell, who used to run Apple’s iPod division. Matt Burns offers a good explanation of Honeywell’s complaint against Nest. It’s infuriating that, given Honeywell’s patents, it hasn’t bothered to create as good a product as Nest’s.
Phil Goldstein:
A royalty fee of 2.25 percent would have cost Apple more than $1 billion in 2011 iPhone sales alone.
If you can’t make a decent product yourself, sue someone that does.
Engadget:
The NERF Lazer Tag system is getting an update for 2012 that lets you pair your blaster with an iPhone or iPod touch. The top of the plastic guns now sport a slot for your iDevice which, when loaded with the Lazer Tag app, provides you with an augmented HUD view.
This looks insanely fun. Look for the guns to come out this summer for $70 for a set of two, and click through to the article to see an image of the guns. (There’s an app screenshot, too, but it doesn’t show gameplay).
Apple has a short but sweet message to iOS developers who are looking for ways to game their apps’ rankings on the App Store: Don’t do it. In a posting to the news page on Apple’s developer site, the company says:
Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership.
Apple’s post would seem to be a response to recent allegations of “bot-farming” – using services that download apps using dummy accounts repeatedly, in order to drive up App Store rankings. Game news site PocketGamer has details.
Twelve South on Tuesday introduced the HoverBar, a $79.99 accessory that lets you mount your iPad 2 to your Mac, display or desk.
The Hoverbar lets you mount the iPad on a black, flexible arm that attaches to the back of your iMac or Apple display using a silicone-lined clamp. If you don’t use an iMac or Apple display, it’ll also work on any surface or desk edge up to one inch thick. The arm can hold the iPad in portrait or landscape orientation and works with all iPad 2 models.
