Waldo The Movie. I’d watch the hell out of this.
Via Laughing Squid.
Sneak Peek #6, showing off “Iris blur”. Read: No more need for those “tilt shift” apps or filters.
Check out this snazzy Portal decal for your iPad from MacGasm.
So today is the big day and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview has arrived. First the relevant links:
The video doesn’t show much that is different from the Dev preview, but it’s mostly fast cuts between funky skydiving videos and some of the Metro UI. I’ve got an ISO downloading to give it a look ASAP though.
You can watch some of the reactions on Google+, or Google News. For the sake of inclusiveness, here are the Bing results as well :)
So what do you think? Desktop and tablet savior? iPad Killer? Total flop?
Note to install you do need the product key noted in the FAQ.
Day explains that the beta release marks the beginning of the UI freeze, so “now seems like a good time to check out the cool stuff that’s coming in 3.4.” Day begins his tour stating that applications are “where many of the big changes can be found for this release.” Documents and Contact will now be joined by Boxes but more importantly, they will sport a sleeker new look.
Focus here is on polish, which is a good place to be (though I personally haven’t spent enough time in GNOME 3 to say if I like it or not). More details on the blog post.
If you want to cry for the sake of humanity check the comments on Justin Bieber’s Instagram account.
Shooting Time Lapses In Pennsylvania? Have A Reason Or Get Busted apparently. Great video showing both unreasonable cops (hopefully the exception not the rule) and a reasonable photographer (again, hopefully the rule not the exception). Sadly it turns out even if you’re in the right and know the law it still doesn’t mean anything when you’re up against the ones who can arrest you and have the guns. Related to the recent strobist post.
Dear Microsoft: Implement this Windows Desktop UI Concept and I will sing its praises to the moon (assuming it works well of course). Damn that looks pretty!
Not sure if it’s too little too late, but today the Flickr From your Contacts page has a “justified” setting. More details on the flickr blog.
Twitter Promoted Products are now more mobile, meaning (yay :( ) you get ads in your twitter feed on mobile as well as on the website.
It has been nearly two years since we introduced Promoted Tweets, the first in our suite of Promoted Products. In that time, people around the world have increasingly accessed Twitter from a mobile device. Today, we are taking an important next step in making our Promoted Products available to those users.
Oh joy. They aren’t even trying to pretend this is a good thing, or spin it to even seem like users are going to want this.
What if ‘The Phantom Menace’ Was Good? from Forever Geek. Well worth the 12 minute watch.
Sweet video of 343 Industries at the Firing Range for Halo 4, recording gun sounds.
Via RainGeek.
Seen over on 9 to 5 Mac is the story (and video) where a Mastering engineer proves “Mastered for iTunes” doesn’t ‘sound closer to the CD’.
If you don’t know, Apple launched a “Mastered for iTunes” section where they said the tracks were remastered to sound better than the standard iTunes encoding for their audio. Sadly this is (allegedly) not true. I was hoping that this was more than just a PR and cash grab by Apple, but unless this guys methodology is simply wrong, it seems it is just lip service… His conclusions come in around 9:50 in.
Course, these days 99% of people listen to music on crappy laptop speakers or even crappier earbuds and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between lossless WAV and a 64bit mp3 anyway.
Apple Issues Invitations for iPad 3 Media Event on March 7, via MacRumors.
Let the in depth analysis begin!
If you’re an Alfred (app launcher for the mac) user, and haven’t bought their “power pack” yet (and you probably have if you’ve tried Alfred as it makes it much more useful) you’ll be happy to see that as a Happy 2nd Birthday to Alfred there’s a 10% discount on the Powerpack this week
Hot on the heels of two big releases, we’re offering a 10% discount on the Powerpack so if you haven’t yet adopted the powerful add-on to Alfred’s free version yet, this is your chance.
Ze Frank has hit his goal of $50,000 on kickstarter to bring back The Show. If you don’t remember the most awesome The Show, you can hit the archives and catch up.
Congrats to Ze and don’t forget if you want some of his…. “unique” rewards, there’s 9 days to go still in the kickstarter campaign.
This isn’t a political blog, but I thought the President Obama Roasts Donald Trump At White House Correspondents’ Dinner video was pretty damn funny (even more so when you compare it to the ~~laughter-less~~ wonky laughter version from Fox News.
Via this reddit thread.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Dictator’ Dumps Kim Jong Il’s Ashes On Ryan Seacrest. Once again proving that SBC is awesome.
The Dropbox Blog brings us news that:
Starting today for Android, and coming soon for iOS, the Dropbox mobile apps can automatically upload your photos and videos to Dropbox using Wi-Fi or your data plan. They’re all uploaded at original size and full quality, and saved to a private folder in your Dropbox called Camera Uploads where they’re ready to view or share.
Also, something you’ll have heard before about the Dropbox desktop client betas:
Meanwhile, the new version of our Windows and Mac desktop apps can automatically upload from just about any camera, smartphone, tablet, or SD card you connect to your computer. If you’ve got great shots stranded on your Coolpix or piling up on your Canon 5D, all you’ve got to do is plug it in. We’re putting these apps through their final paces now — check here if you want to help get the kinks out!
Lastly, you can get up to 3.5 gigabytes of Dropbox space. 500mb for your first auto-upload, and up to 3gb for uploaded images after (ie: you upload 3G of image you get 3G of space).
Well, it took longer than expected, but the ufies.org server has moved to it’s new home on…. well, to you folks everything will look exactly the same, but be faster (hopefully). Anyone logging into the server please use ufies.org as the address, as if you log into the old server no changes will take effect. Many thanks to Fred and tdiclub.com for providing the hardware and the patience with me debugging ARP caches, bad kernels, and the same :)
As always email me or tweet me at @ufies if you see anything wrong.
Readability for iOS Arrives March 1. Video shows you what to expect.
‘John Carter’ Fan Trailer Sells The Movie Better Than The Official Trailers. Have to say I agree, until I saw this I didn’t care in the least about this movie, though never having read the book probably has something to do with that. The movie gives you an idea of what’s going on and most importantly, connects the character to earth in a way that makes you actually give a crap :)
Good stuff on The Verge on how How Microsoft is killing off the Zune and Windows Live brands in Windows 8. Good stuff, a more consistent identity solution across all your products and services is a Good Thing.
My buddy over at the awesome RainGeek posted today about Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome with an update that the series might be picked up and turned into a real series. I have to agree with him, I definitely don’t want to live in a world without spaceships on TV.
12 TOP Google+ Photos for February 21. All I can say is “wow”.
Nice little Behind The Scenes video of The Lies Behind the Lens looking at photographers shooting those before and after images for things like diet pills etc.
Check out this clip from, “Bigger Faster Stronger”, where photographer Rich Schaff explains how some companies hire him to take before and after photos on the same day, for misleading supplement advertisements. Is this why some photographers get into photography? Is this even legal? I mean, how far are you willing to go to make a buck? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to disparage shooters who make a living doing this type of work but is this the kind of thing shooters actually aspire towards? Why did you get into photography? Is there anything you won’t shoot? What would it take for you to hang up your lens? I’d really like to hear answers to some of these questions from our readers. So please leave your comments, thoughts and rants below.
Short story (and you, my audience, are smart people so you know this already) - the camera lies not only through “legal” means (lighting, posing, etc) but also through good old photoshop. Some of the before and after images were even taken on the same day. So yea, don’t be stupid and believe advertising :)
Fox Business News Accuses ‘Arriety’ and ‘The Lorax’ of Brainwashing Children.
Joining Dobbs to discuss the insidious liberal plot to use popular forms of entertainment to educate and enlighten the leaders of tomorrow are three right-wing radio show hosts. Wow, what a shining panel of “experts.” After Dobbs and his sniveling yes men finished laughing and shaking their heads at the latest antics of liberal Hollywood they all went over to Lou’s house for a sleepover with Rick Santorum.
Seriously America, it’s this sort of bullshit that makes the rest of the world laugh at you.
Ok, so this is an old link, but at the end I called over my coworkers to watch the video of a Pilot losing a wing at an airshow.
Details of the new features over at Techcrunch: 500px Rolls Out New Browsing And Sharing Features - Plus A Market
“It is with great pleasure that we announce the availability of Apache HTTP Server 2.4”, said Eric Covener, Vice President of the Apache HTTP Server Project. “This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators, and developers will welcome. We’ve added many new modules in this release, as well as broadened the capability and flexibility of existing features”.
Dell’s the computer to use if taking photos of fat guys farting is your thing. I seriously thought this was a joke title until 2/3 of the way through this video.
Seriously WTF? I am not against pictures of fat guys farting, everyone has their thing and their art, but is this something that Dell really wants as a promotion for them and their laptops? Seriously?
Adobe Abandons Flash on Linux:
Adobe will no longer provide new releases of Flash Player for Linux after version 11.2, the company has today announced.
No word on how the flash baked into Chrome on Linux will be affected though.
For all the photographer pixel peepers out there, have at it with the Nikon D800 vs. Nikon D700 high ISO comparison. All I can say is “wow”. I’m not saying that the high (25600 ISO) is noise free, but it looks a bit like my 4 year old DSLR’s ISO 800.
Note that images under ISO 3200 aren’t included in the comparison as there is “no visible noise”. Amazing.
500px, a site that’s (in general) hailed as the new and modern version of flickr is currently (9:23am PST Wednesday) down with the message “we’ll be back shortly”. Really looking forward to what’s coming. You can get updates from the @500px twitter account.
Update: Back online now, and looking good!
Ten exciting system changes in Mountain Lion goes into a bit more detail about some of the other behind the scenes changes in the upcoming release of OS X.
» Time in the 10,000-Year Clock
Keeping time for 10,000 years isn’t tricky just because its hard to build a really durable clock. It also forces us to recognize and account for changes in things we normally think of as immutable, like the length of a day.
Via JWZ.
Thomas Hawk, a long time Flickr proponent and recent Flickr-hater (well, hater is a bit strong, lets say “google+ advocate” has broken some news that Flickr is Freshening Up the Look for 2012. Really interested to see if this is true, and the changes if it is. I haven’t uploaded anything of substance to flickr myself lately, as it just feels…. “old”. A complete revamp like this could really inject some life back into it.
Microsoft changes policy: all Windows versions get 10 years of support.
Through this update, customers who remain on the most current supported service pack will be eligible to receive both Mainstream and Extended Support, for a total of 10 years.
Read: “We’re pretty sure consumers will hate Windows 8”.
Ubuntu in your pocket is the latest initiative from Ubuntu.
We’ll show Ubuntu neatly integrated into Android at Mobile World Congress next week. Carry just the phone, and connect it to any monitor to get a full Ubuntu desktop with all the native apps you want, running on the same device at the same time as Android. Magic. Everything important is shared across the desktop and the phone in real time.
Basically it’s a way to extend desktop functionality to a tethered android smartphone. Incoming call alerts through GNOME notifications, contacts/calendar/data integrated from the phone into the desktop and a raft of other interesting stuff. Requirements are an Android 2.3 and HDMI out.
More info over at:
Even though I have some questions about this (ie: tethering? why not Bluetooth?) I think that this is very cool and is the sort of innovation that is great to see from the open source world.
Update: It seems I might have been a bit off in what I thought that the Ubuntu on Android app was actually doing. This video demo shows it’s more of a desktop view (using the standard unity desktop) of the phone. IE: Instead of the ubuntu running on your phone, when docked it runs ubuntu on your computer screen, from the phone. I think. Just watch the video, you’ll get it.
Once again The Oatmeal is spot on with I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened. Unfortunately the entertainment industry has about a brazillion dollars and people still want to consume their output, so my cynical self doesn’t see this changing any time soon.
New ‘Mass Effect 3’ Cinematic Trailer. Via Geeks of Doom.
Everything is a Remix Part 4 has been released. If you haven’t watched the previous 3 episodes, you should, right now. It’s a fascinating look at how ideas and things are created and transformed, from music to lightbulbs.
So this greated me when I came into work this morning: Apple - OS X Mountain Lion. Innovation comes back to the Mac.. Actually it was a random text message from my buddy PeeJay saying “this is a test from the iMessage desktop app”.
Short version (and I honestly have just seen this stuff) is a lot of “lets sync everything everywhere” coming to the mac. The tweet anywhere/reminders/notes/notifications and game center from iOS on your desktop. Logical next step from what I can see, but still a great improvement.
Other places to find info:
My buddy Tim has a great contribution to the (somewhat overdone) meme involving Star Trek Captains.
An open letter to the worst human being to ever sit in a theater.
Here’s where things sort of fell apart. All three times, your response was to lean away from me as if I had just started throwing up in your ear. You ignored me, and you refused to even look at me. You stopped speaking for a combined total of maybe 20 seconds, and then immediately went back to it.
I think I would have gone and taken the hit of the assault charge.
Answering some of the concerns about the initial pricing of the new Wunderkit productivity software, 6Wunderkinder has responded and said that Wunderkit is now free, forever.
So as of today Wunderkit is, and always will be, completely free for everybody on the planet. […] Everything that you have right now, from the built in apps to the amount of workspaces and members you have in each, will cost you nothing. You’ll be able to create an infinite amount of workspaces, invite an infinite amount of people to them, and have an infinite amount of fun in the process.
It won’t all be free, the company has to make some money to support themselves of course, and the new ‘Files’ app that is coming out soon will cost $4.99/month, plus there are a few benefits of going pro.
I love the Wunderlist and am really getting into Wunderkit, and am continually impressed that this high quality, cross platform app is available for free. Huge kudos to the 6Wunderkinder team!
Come and get it! Exposure 4 is now available. We have lots of pretty examples and videos. If your brain is exploding with anticipation, then maybe you should go straight to our store.
My brain is exploding. Looks like a great upgrade to version 3.
The Verge has a review of the new Porsche Design P’9981 BlackBerry. Spoiler: even as a super-sexy bit of hardware (hardware keyboard aside), it still sucks.
In case it wasn’t clear from the foregoing, this phone has excited a deep level of antipathy in me. BlackBerry 7 was an uncompetitive OS the moment it launched and hasn’t aged well since then. The one thing that RIM really got right with the Bold 9900 was actually its design, which was attractive, contemporary, ergonomic, and durable.
The new version of VLC has shown up with a new UI, BluRay support, native Lion support on the mac, and other bits. VLC 2.0 is a great app and my go-to “just play this thing” video and audio player.
‘Ubuntu Business Remix’ Launched by Canonical
Based on Ubuntu 11.10, the spin ships with a host of ‘corporate-focused’ software, such as VMware View, Adobe Flash and OpenJDK, by default, whilst removing packages businesses aren’t likely to need, e.g. Gwibber, games, file-sharing apps, etc.
The €200 KDE Tablet looks pretty interesting, some interesting user interaction elements in there that seem like they could work nicely for multitasking and general interaction.
So the coolest Evernote Program I never use, Evernote Hello Gets A Big Update. Better addition of users, pulling data in from the address book, better name detection, and an internal URI scheme are just some of the cool updates. I just wish that there was more of a bi-directional sync with the iPhone addressbook.
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ Full Trailer is out and ready. The CGI in the first couple of shots looked a bit…. “CGI,” but it’s got a different attitude, and really, looks like spiderman. Can’t wait!
Google Introduces Chrome for Android.
Finally :)
Looks cool though, nice UI, being able to save your desktop tabs (assuming you want that of course) and the presumed performance will make it great to have on the Android platform. Wonder if they’ll build a iOS version? :)
Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers is the story of the day.
Upon inspecting closer, I noticed that my entire address book (including full names, emails and phone numbers) was being sent as a plist to Path. Now I don’t remember having given permission to Path to access my address book and send its contents to its servers, so I created a completely new “Path” and repeated the experiment and I got the same result - my address book was in Path’s hands.
The reasoning behind it is obvious, those notes you might get saying something like “your friend blah blah has joined Path, would you like to friend them?” is only possible if they know who your friends are. Even so, not cool without disclosure. Course, I’m sure that there are a ton of other apps that do this exact same thing, just we don’t know about it.
The bigger question is do they do anything other than this…
Note that the CEO of path has replied with their reasons.
Alleged ex-Zynga employee tells all on Reddit:
Spying on players. Getting intimate gaming data, their habits, their networks, and how to effectively monetize given X. Another issue was skewing gameplay for the sake of profit, example; I actually resorted to BAD MATH, to make the case for making a feature more fun. At the end of one sprint, a QA dude was complaining about the drop rate of a specific item being absurdly insane, and therefore UnFun. I looked at the code, and tweaked some values, gave it back to QA guy, and fun was restored. Product Manager overrides this, goes for unfun, yet more profitable version.
Not that people didn’t know that Zynga were a bunch of evil buggers…. Here’s the reddit thread.
I’m not sure if the Nikon D800/D800E is Finally Out title is accurate, as I don’t think it’s official yet, but it does look like a lot of info (including images of it all) has leaked out.
After months of waiting and following terribly teasing rumors and small photo leaks, Nikon finally announced the D800! For the full specs, details, photos, pre-order information, and to find out what that ‘E’ means, read below. And don’t forget to keep checking back for updates as they roll out when the announcement goes live tonight!
So is this going to be your next camera? Is this an appropriate follow up to the now 4 year old D700?
Update - Looks like it’s all official, and DPReview has a hands on with the D800.
A series of mixes intended for listening while programming to aid concentration and increase productivity (also compatible with other activities).
All requests to btjunkie.org now to go a “goodbye.html” page.
This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!
TorrentFreak has more details, basically the legal actions against other sites prompted them to shut down, even though they were never directly involved in any sort of legal action. This is too bad, they were my go-to site for any sort of file sharing for years now, and it’s sad that all the BS lately has prompted their shutdown.
Watch Stephen Colbert’s Defense of Planned Parenthood. So damn good. America, you crazy!
Business Insider has all of the Super Bowl 2012 Commercials arranged for you. Sadly no indication of if they’re good or not, but there are 59 of them to go through :)
The Pirate Bay blog explains why they have moved from .org to thepiratebay.se. Hint: blame the US.
The iBooks Author 1.01 is out with an updated EULA, clarifying what Apple has and doesn’t have rights over.
The change is an important one though, clarifying that Apple has rights over the format a book is in, not the content. If someone wants to charge a fee for an .ibooks formatted file, that document can only be sold or distributed through Apple, and that work will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple. The restriction does not include works distributed in non-.ibooks formats (such as the Kindle,) as TUAW’s Erica Sadun previously discussed.
Hopefully this’ll clear up any questions about Apple’s intentions.
I know it’s a bit intense for first thing on a Friday morning, but wow, holy crap. Title of the story is: I broke my neck skydiving. This is the video I was taking when it happened.
Note: Probably best not to watch this if you’re planning on going skydiving for the first time :) …. very intense at the end.
Press release from Pentax: PENTAX Announces the K-01—a More Powerful Mirrorless Camera
One of the immediate highlights and benefits of this cameras mirrorless body design is its compatibility with all PENTAX K-mount lenses spanning decades. You won’t have to worry and wonder whether an investment in a camera of this magnitude will force you to abandon some of your favored lenses. The fact is this camera was built to be compatible with your existing equipment.
$700+ is a high cost when for a few hundred more you can get a full featured (and not that much bigger) DSLR in the K-5. The fact that the mirrorless camera will use all your existing K-mount Pentax lenses reaching back decades is awesome however. Would much rather it had a viewfinder though, even just a rangefinder style.
Engadget has more here.
Watch The First 3 Minutes Of ‘The Walking Dead’ Season Two Return.
Can’t wait until February 12 for the return of The Walking Dead? Well, while it’s not the full episode, AMC has debuted the first three minutes of the upcoming midseason premiere, and it’s a doozy.
Booya! If you’re not watching The Walking Dead already time to catch up on it ASAP. One of the best shows on TV.
Video and screenshots of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin Alpha 2 Released. Some nice tweaks in there, I wish they’d hit some of the bigger points (ie: why can’t the dash be on the right, what about multimedia keys working in Amarok, etc), but still, great to see progress (and this is only alpha 2 after all).
It’s Official: Facebook has filed for a $5 Billion IPO.
In a move that has been hotly anticipated, Facebook has filed with the SEC to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering of stock in the United States. The company will trade with the stock symbol of “FB”.
That’s a lot of facebook bucks.
The second Adobe Photoshop CS6 Sneak Peek shows off background saving and new performance improvements with the liquefy filter. The first sneak peek we brought you was back in january (I know, soooo long ago :)
The folks from 6Wunderkinder have released Wunderkit and the Wunderkit iPhone app to the world. Macworld has a review from it.
The service from Berlin-based 6Wunderkinder debuted Tuesday. It lets users work and plan projects collaboratively—first by creating a digital “workspace,” to which they can invite co-workers via Facebook or Twitter. After that, collaborators within the workspace can create a task list, share notes and ideas, and use a dashboard to track the team’s progress toward completing the goal. (See the video below for an official Wunderkit walkthrough.)
You’ll remember that 6Wunderkinder created the great (and cross platform) Wunderlist (which has been written about here before).