Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
From getting news to playing games to reading a book, Americans now have a plethora of devices to choose from in order to meet their technology-based needs. For each type of device, the demographic makeup of owners can vary widely, so this section looks at these differences. Smartphone ownership continues to grow The rise of…
London-based design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast isn’t just about pushing creative boundaries; it’s about encouraging people to see things from a different perspective. Using custom software to combine footage from lidar (remote sensing technology) and CT scanning, photogrammetry and a 360º aerial camera, their latest project is a virtual reality experience that lets viewers rediscover the Grizedale Forest…
The evolution of the mobile ad ecosystem is ushering in some new disguises. I spoke recently with several practitioners about where mobile ads are heading. “The customer experience [of mobile ads] is totally broken,” Joe Prusz, ad tech firm Rubicon Project’s head of mobile, told me, referring to both web and in-app ads. He pointed…
At a Marriott hotel in Atlanta, the soap dispensers have a little bit of a race problem. An African-American guest of the Dragon Con sci-fi and fantasy convention visited a bathroom in the event’s host hotel and discovered the soap dispenser, from a British company called Technical Concepts, wouldn’t sense his hands. When his friend, a white…
Yes! Zune is still a thing. But whatever is left of Microsoft’s old music vestige will be getting shut down on November 15th. Microsoft stopped selling its Zune HD music player hardware years ago, but the brand has lived on in the form of Zune Music Pass, a subscription music service that came with 10…
For all its rough and rugged mystique, masculinity can be the most vulnerable of traits. Forged by the knuckle-worn fists thumping hard against Homosapien chests, and honed to a fine sheen in the gladiator bathhouses of ancient Rome, the fragile male ego is now under threat by the greatest force the world has ever known:…
This custom PC is too small to be a desktop, but too big for a laptop. It’s a unique portable build, something out of an 80s cyberpunk world. And that’s what actually inspired its builder Chimerus: portable cyberdecks from Shadowrun. Looks like a busted replica at first, but even though the build is based on…
Image Credit Caption inside of wrapper on slideshow media types Caption outside of wrapper for normal article images Sales of the new Apple Watch have plunged by 90% since the opening week, according to a new market-research report. Apple AAPL, -1.73% has been selling fewer than 20,000 watches a day in the U.S. since the…
Google Inc.’s life sciences group has created a health-tracking wristband that could be used in clinical trials and drug tests, giving researchers or physicians minute-by-minute data on how patients are faring. The experimental device, developed within the company’s Google X research division, can measure pulse, heart rhythm and skin temperature, and also environmental information like…
The sneaky designers at Beats by Dre employ a clever trick to make you think that the company’s plastic headphones are durable products worth the premium price. Beats by Dre headphones are garbage. Besides their crappy sound, they’re basically designed to break. And yet they sell millions of pairs of headphones. It’s practically a perfect…