Very sad set of images of the Decommissioning of the Space Shuttles.
End of an era :(
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Beta 2 Released and webupd8.org has screenshots and a screencast showing the new features.
The Tricorder project. Presented without comment. You know you want this. NOW.
How Civil War-Era Tintype Photographs Were Made a great video via PetaPixel. Wow, makes me feel completely spoiled.
50 Creative MacBook Decals and Stickers via @moo.com.
I’ll take the portal one please!
Hit the GNOME 3.4 Release Notes for all that’s new and improved.
I have to admit I was sceptical of this Student-created “Bing Automatic” app concept (which essentially uses data you’ve already written or the context of your browser or document or selection to auto-search for you)… then about halfway through I thought “wow, that is pretty cool”.
First and foremost, “Bing Automatic” is a completely conceptual idea envisioned by what appears to be a team of marketing students for a college coursework assignment, so apply a generous coating of salt. I’m not even sure if Microsoft’s Bing team has seen this.
Of course, as described in the concept video, it’s a privacy nightmare waiting to happen, and frankly I think that Google should take this idea and run with it, as they have been pushing the “we’re a decision engine too” idea.
Still, ignoring the multitude of privacy problems with this, if it were to work and be created as shown, it’d be a pretty cool program (and frankly the search engine behind it is completely irrelevant, so it could be Bing, Google, Ask, Wolfram Alpha, etc.).
Via Macgasm, found out that Mozilla Created an Online Multiplayer Game To Promote HTML5. You can check out BrowserQuest online now. If you’re a fan of the old style adventure games, you’ll love it!
The Most extensive full face transplant to date has been completed after a marathon 36 hour surgery.
The face transplant recipient, 37-year-old Richard Lee Norris of Hillsville, Virginia, was injured in 1997 in a gun accident. Since that time, he has undergone multiple life-saving and reconstructive surgeries. Due to the accident, Mr. Norris lost his lips and nose and had limited movement of his mouth. Mr. Norris first came to the University of Maryland Medical Center in 2005 to discuss reconstructive options with Dr. Rodriguez.
Wow, looking at the before and after images (slightly disturbing) show what an amazing age of medicine we live in today.
Via this reddit thread.
MetroTwit 1.0 is now available, this is a “Metro” interface client for twitter.
Very cool, the remake of Total Recall (1990) has hit the web in the form of a teaser for the trailer to be released this Sunday. You can view the Total Recall Trailer Teaser embedded below.
Shared out by my buddy James of RainGeek fame, here’s 5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women. Not sure I agree with them all, but it’s a compelling argument, especially #4, concerning the comments made about fucking supreme court justice Elena Kagan, the fourth female Justice1 (I presume by other women, but that’s just how I read it).
Not so hot: New iPad heat levels comparable to Android tablets:
Despite all of the media attention over the iPad’s (and other tablets’) operating temperatures, the issue seems to be overblown. None of the four tablets we tested ever get so warm that I could detect screen discoloration, of the type that some users of early units of the iPhone 4 reported. Given that the new iPad’s battery has an mAh rating nearly double that of the batteries on the other tablets here, we would expect it to run at least a few degrees hotter than those units.
Translation: Can we please stop talking about this now? The fact that this is an Apple product seems to be the reason (once again) that this is an issue (and it’s not an issue).
So the controversy started when an Android user was told he lost the “Windows Phone Challenge” just because. This is the marketing campaign where users of non-windows smartphones are asked to do a task (obviously stacked so it’s something that Windows Phone does well) and if they can they win a prize. The non-microsoft phone user won, but was told he lost, and obviously was a bit pissed off (losing out on a laptop and $1000). Things got big quickly, with social media sites carrying the story.
If you drew the right card by luck (a combination of scenario and which mobile OS/widgets/apps users have preloaded), you could technically beat them like Sahas did. However, the odds are highly stacked against players since Microsoft is only playing with a deck that is more advantageous to Windows Phones.
No doubt thanks to some of the pressure from Reddit and Twitter, Microsoft has made it right.
Good on MS for paying up, though I wonder if this was an evil calculated move to make people more aware of the Windows Phone Challenge? Or am I thinking too deviously here….
Great news from Geeks of Doom - The ‘Doctor Who’ Teaser Trailer For Series 7 Is Here!. Whooo!
Trailer For Hammond’s New BBC America Show “Crash Course” from Finalgear.com.
If you haven’t heard, Richard Hammond is hosting a new show on BBC America called Crash Course. It’ll premiere Monday, April 16th at 10/9c immediately following the US premiere of Top Gear season 18.
Oh hell yes. Thanks Aryk!
Cool video about what things would look like if the earth had rings like saturn.
In other BSG news, I haven’t seen the Leaked “Battlestar Galactica: Blood And Chrome” Trailer until now, but I have to say that it is awesome. Amazing looking and great choice of music and pacing. I had seen this noted a while back but the trailer was pulled. This one is still up and I can’t wait for this to air.
Update: I just saw this saying that the project isn’t moving forward. Now I want to cry :(
So there’s a kickstarter project out there to build full motion Real-life Battlestar Galactica Viper simulator.
OMG I want this so much. Amazing that this is being built by juniors in high school. When I was that age I wasn’t even thinking about girls, I think I was probably still more concerned with riding my bike or something like that. Really glad to see these guys have almost doubled their required $2,500 goal.
Via Raingeek.
Photoshop CS6 Beta is out and live. You can check out an array of reviews. I started with The Verge for it’s good writing and big pretty pictures.
Question is, will you run and download it right away, or wait it out for a bit, until the dust settles?
What it’s like to be a jump rope. Very cool video.
Tim Cook Unboxes the new iPad. Ok, that is friggin’ hilarious.
You can now watch the World’s First Flying File-Sharing Drones in Action. These are similar to The Pirate Bay’s LOSS (Low Orbit Server Stations).
I’m still not convinced this isn’t an April Fool’s Joke.
Twitter Advertising: Promoted Tweets on mobile: more options, starting today.
We recently began testing Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts on iOS and Android devices to make it easier for brands to reach consumers anytime, even when they are on the go. As with the launch of Promoted Tweets in user timelines on Twitter.com, we started by showing them in the timeline only for those users already following the advertiser. Since we began testing three weeks ago, reactions have been positive. Starting today, we are expanding this test, enabling brands to target Promoted Tweets to mobile users that share similar interests with their existing followers.
Read: “we’re gonna start spamming you”.
Oh great.
The latest viral video seems to be The real meaning of MPH in which you can see…. well, just watch it yourself.
Canon v.s Nikon. Ok, even if you’re not a photographer you’ll love this one.
I try not to pimp my own stuff here a lot, but I did write up an article on Managing Photography using Evernote over the weekend. Have a read and let me know what you think, and even if you’re not a photographer, model, or creative in anyway, Evernote is an awesome product and everyone should use it!
Iron Sky Sneak Peek #13 has the first 4 minutes of the movie.
I’m going to enjoy the hell out of this one!
Amazing shot of a Red Bull dude about to skydive from really high up.
Pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria seen before his jump at the first manned test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, New Mexico, USA on March 15 2012. In this test he reach the altitude 21800 meters (71500 ft) and landed safely near Roswell.
Badass is right.
So the idea of unboxing videos of the new iPad is silly, and luckily Inspired By Apple is ready for you.
(They are silly of course because the most obvious part of the new iPad is the screen, which you can’t really seen on a video anyway (showing a retina screen on a non-retina screen is kinda a no go) and other than that the outside and presumably packaging is going to be exactly the same).
Sadly the entry is empty, but I’m hoping for a high volume of snark as soon as UPS trucks are rolling.
The Verge has the full story on how a startup built the Gmail app Google couldn’t, or hit the announcement where I saw it on 9-5 Mac.
Personally I think it looks great and has some nice things beyond what you get in the default client (ie: faces associated with addressbook entries, a built in photo browser), but I don’t do enough emailing from my phone for the $2.99 to be worth it (and I don’t use gmail for my primary mail). Still, if you’re a heavy iOS gmail user, or love the desktop client, this might be the app for you!
Scientific Proof That Women Hate Beards from Gizmodo.
The results were conclusive. Women—both Europeans and Polynesians—said that the men looked significantly more attractive when clean-shaven. They also reported that bearded men looked older and of higher social status. When men were asked to look at the same photographs, they reported that bearded men looked more aggressive.
Sadly without mine I look like a chubby 12 year old boy.
The 9 Reasons The Hunger Games Is the New Harry Potter from Forever Geek makes a compelling argument on why I should go to see this when it comes out.
Battlestar Galactica Roller Coaster at Universal Studios Singapore. I need say no more (other than I’m not sure exactly what makes this awesome roller coaster a “BSG” roller coaster and not just an awesome roller coaster…).
Via RainGeek.
So say we all.
Macgasm reports that Oink is dead. Oink is a social network / recommendation app for the iPhone that was the first product from Kevin Rose’s startup incubator Milk.
Kevin Rose told All Things D, “We started Milk Inc. (the company behind Oink) to rapidly build and test out new ideas. Oink was our first test and, in preparing to move onto the next project, we’ve decided to shut it down to help focus our efforts.” Clearly that’s PR speak for “no one was using our application, and it’s not profitable.” Had Oink been profitable, there’s no way they would be closing down the application and service so quickly. It just wouldn’t happen. Don’t let the PR speak fool you, Oink was a major disappointment.
I used Oink a tiny bit and while it was an interesting take on checkin/social networking, it just didn’t do it for me, and it sounds like it was a similar story for the rest of the users. Hopefully we’ll still see good stuff come from Kevin and his gang.
Fascinating set of images of Undressing a Sony NEX Camera and revealing the innards of a modern digital camera.
Gowalla shuts down. I don’t know anyone who used it though, so while it’s sad for the people there, but such is life.
Three months after the acquisition of Gowalla by Facebook, the company has officially closed it doors. The screenshot below can be found on the location startup turned travel guide’s homepage.
The Dropbox Blog talksa bout the new Dropbox Web Interface. Gotta say that looks good, and has a lot of desktop like functionality.
Johnny Cash’s 80th Birthday: Rare and Unpublished Photos of the Country Music Icon - LightBox.
Happy birthday Johnny, you’re still one of my favorite singers.
You know you have a popular product (or a ton of money) when you can have an announcement for your new Angry Birds Space game from space.
Men In Black 3 3D Official Trailer #2:
Nothing much to say but “can’t wait”.
iPhone in Canada has What You Need to Know from today’s Apple iPad event.
So we’re about 20 minutes from the start of the next Apple Keynote where (we all assume) the iPad 3 will be released. Looking through the iPad 3 rumor round-up I can be sure of two things:
Just like every other Apple announcement.
George Takei has a nice fireside chat with Tennessee Lawmakers on some of the ridiculous stances on homosexuality that are going on.
Personally I’m offended that this sort of thing is still being discussed.
Codeweavers, makers of Crossover, an app that allows you to seamlessly run Windows apps on either Linux or Mac (through Wine) has announced Crossover XI. The new version boasts running more apps (including Office 2010) and a huge number of bug fixes and updates behind the scenes.
So just as I was heading to bed I see both Twitter and Facebook blowing up (as the kids say) about the fact that Lightroom 4 was released. The initial beta wasn’t that long ago and based on the What’s New in Lightroom 4 from The Lightroom Queen not a huge amount has changed since then. Mostly little tweaks.
The biggest news is the price. Lightroom 3 was $299 to $149, half price. The upgrade cost got a similar cut to $79. No doubt they are combatting both piracy but also the low price of $79 that Aperture sells for in the Apple App store.
Has Adobe no shame about these things? Seriously, releasing this at 11:30pm when I’m about to go to bed. Seriously uncool!
Really interesting look on Why critics of Rails have it all wrong, regarding how some of the Ruby on Rails community feels that Rails 3 was a huge step backwards.
The idea that Rails 3 was a major step backward was recently reiterated by both Giles Bowkett and Matt Aimonetti. Both of them painted building ActionController::Metal applications as some sort of byzantine, impossible task which can only be accomplished by a Rails core member. Are people actually building lightweight Rails applications using the newfound modularity of Rails 3?
I haven’t actually looked deeply into Rails over the last year or so, but it definitely feels less accessible lately. NoSQL databases, CoffeeScript, etc are fine, but the “feel” of the current Rails is far from that original Blog in 15 minutes screencast.
Assassin’s Creed 3 - Reveal Trailer. Woo!
Speaking of Windows 8, “No Compromises”, Apple and Gruber, here’s 54 minutes of John Gruber at Cingleton 2011. Good video, even if you’re hardcore anti-Apple, to understand why the Apple faithful are the way they are (to some degree) and what offends them about the non-Apple world, and why they love, love, love their Apple products.
Or you could ignore it and just call him a shill, I’m sure he’s heard worse.
I’m a bit behind today but it seems like a lot of reviews out of Windows 8 and the comparisons to Windows 7 and the iPad seem to be coming out in droves. On Daring Fireball Gruber has accumulated a few of them. 512 Pixels has a charge of iPad Usage basically saying “use a tablet when you don’t want to use a computer”, ie: iPad is awesome because it’s just an iPad, not the “no compromises” platform that Windows 8 is.
I don’t own an iPad or a Windows 8 tablet, and have only ever used Windows 8 on a VM (not the best experience I’m sure). However, I have to come to Microsoft’s defence here, at least in a way. 512 Pixel’s point, noted from Jim Dalrymple is valid of course, but I can see where microsoft is thinking.
“Wouldn’t it be great if you could just have your ~~iPad~~ tablet device and when you need to, plug in a keyboard and mouse and boom, you have a fully working computer.”
I think it would be great, too, if you could do it well. I think that it’d be awesome to have an iPad that when I needed to I could just dock or plug in some how and get access (native, not a VNC solution) to my mac desktop. I don’t know how it’d work, if it would look something like what Ubuntu has done for Android, or an always running (kinda sorta but not on ARM unless you are Microsoft using these 5 applications) solution that Microsoft has. I don’t even know if it’s feasible, though the power available in tablets is increasing rapidly.
I’m just saying I can see what Microsoft was wanting to do. I don’t know if they did it right, or if Windows 8 will be a complete flop for “real” users (vs the “omg look at the pretty computer in best buy” users), but I can see where they were going with their design ideas.
As the tech people know, as a fundraiser for the new studio, TWiT sold bricks with your choice of inscription on them. Now we get our first look at the The TWiT Brick Wall Of Honor via some pretty cool Gigapan images.
Another Lytro Light Field Camera Review at DPReview.
The count of 9 Flavors of Windows 8 has been rumoured, or at least found through registry keys.
Windows 8 will be available in nine separate editions. That’s up three flavors from Windows 7. The unofficial news comes from a registry key found within the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. If this key is to be believed, Windows 8 will be available in the six editions of Windows 7 with the addition of Windows 8 Professional Plus, Enterprise Evaluation, and ARM edition. That makes nine Windows 8 versions in all — seven more editions than Apple’s OS X.
Seriously 9? I realize that some of those versions aren’t actually sold, but with their “no compromises” philosophy in Windows 8 that that would include not having 9 different versions of the product.
More from OSNews.
Nice look at the required ofr Retina display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI. Goes through what is retina, how close are current hardware models to “retina” display quality, and what’s needed to get there. Most importantly, is it needed?
Digital Photography Review has the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Hands-on Preview now that it’s been officially announced
Most of the key specs are substantially upgraded compared to the 5D Mark II. The new sensor, coupled with Canon’s latest DIGIC 5+ processor, offers a standard ISO range of 100 - 25,600 that’s expandable to 50 - 102,800. An 8-channel sensor readout enables continuous shooting at 6 fps. The shutter is rated to 150,000 cycles and has been refined for quieter operation; the Mark III also inherits the ‘silent’ shutter mode previously seen on the 1D-series (which delays mirror return for more discreet operation). Viewfinder coverage is a full 100%, and the 1040k dot, 3:2 aspect ratio 3.2” LCD screen has improved anti-reflection properties and a hardened glass cover to protect against scratching. And let’s not forget that 61-point focus system from the 1DX - the first time Canon has put its top-spec AF sensor into a non-1-series camera since the film-era EOS 3
A quick look over the specs shows that the Nikon D800 is still king of the megapixels (36 vs 22), but the price is about the same as the the D800 ($3500ish). Overall it looks like a nice upgrade for Canon folks, though I doubt that Nikon users will be jumping over for this (ditto for Canon users jumping for the D800). Interesting to hear what the guys on the Digital Convergence Podcast have to say about it!
To me these aren’t as comparable, but the Windows 8 vs. iPad: feature by feature over on The Verge is a very cool look at how Windows 8 is supposed to work on the tablet (I’ve only seen it in a virtual machine setup for the desktop, which I think is how most people will use Windows 8).
Neat look though.
The first beta release of Ubuntu 12.04, Precise Pangolin has been released to the world. Tons of features and updates to this new LTS release.
Marco has updated the Instapaper Bookmarklet to be more obvious, nicer looking, and saves multi-page articles.
If you’re interested in hearing more about this I suggest you listen to the awesome Build & Analyse podcast.