Apple has launched a redesigned online store. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can’t seem to find my way around or any accessory as quickly as before.
After Tumblr’s buyout, Yahoo! is on a rampage.
I’ve logged in to my dusty Flickr account to see the new design by myself. I’m not too fond of it: lots of black and white contrast, a mere coat of paint over the old aging tools, the same fucking login screen and the same fucking restriction to use those Yahoo! email addresses nobody uses anyway.
Google+ and even Facebook still look like a better deal…
Well, I just hope Tumblr won’t go the way Flickr went.
Great report by Polygon, the sister magazine of The Verge.
Having recently played the first four installments of the series, I’ve felt quite let down when I first started playing Assassins’ Creed III. I’m still nowhere near the end, but lots of the concepts that made Assassin’s Creed II the best game I’ve ever played — from mechanics to story to the sense of liberty — have been put to the ground in AC3.
Seeing that Ubisoft intends to downplay the Assassins-Templar backstory in this new installment, I’m afraid that the company didn’t know where it was going with the story (Assassin’s Creed: Revelations may be the best example…). Quite a shame.
The millenias-long fight of Good versus Evil, the self-sacrifices for the better good, the realisation that Ezio was but a mere vessel for a message, etc. This made Assassin’s Creed and its story well worth the long hours of play, and made for all the hype and fame of the series. It’s too bad that the developers haven’t realized it.
Well, the new Google+ is indeed very nice, polished to the last pixel. It makes me want to get the new Facebook newsfeed right now, cause the new Google+ makes the old Facebook newsfeed looks like a discarded, soaky pile of chimpanzee feces.
However, Harry McCracken notes, for most people Google+ is still a ghost town. Facebook, be it good or bad, is still the place where the action is, where the friends are.
Looks very, very good. Can’t wait to see it live.
The story has lots of animations and tidbits that make the reading a joyful experience. It’s even better when the subject of the piece is Daft Punk.
The guys have made a great album that I’m enjoying more with each passing minute. Contact, the final track, is a golden egg in a golden basket.
That? No.
This? Yes.
Great video on the history of typography — duh! —, by Ben Barrett-Forest.
Adobe’s first foray into hardware: a stylus and a digital ruler.
The stylus is pretty common: soft, rubber point and software pressure sensitivity. It’s far less effective than a true Wacom stylus and tablet combo since the iPad doesn’t expose pressure sensitivity data — I’m pretty sure it can’t record that data, even though Apple uses the gyroscope in Garageband. The drawing latency is pretty long since the stylus has to send its own data through bluetooth which is then analyzed by the software… Not ideal, but until the iPad has a display with this technology built-in (like the Surface Pro), it’ll do.
The Napoleon ruler on the other hand is one smart piece of technology: it’s a digital ruler, meaning that it projects a digital line beneath the physical object that is used to draw a perfect line. Well, it’s far simpler than what I’m trying to describe. The one thing totally awesome about this is that it isn’t limited to a simple line: it can do arcs and more. Awesome idea. Awesome, I say!
Don’t know if it’s relevant to you, reader, but I can totally support the employee’s claim: I’ve been running the app since release and my battery life hasn’t seen a significant drop.
I could almost say I’ve noticed no drop at all, but I’m sure there has to be some battery life tradeoffs for the app to be running constantly. It’s just not as terrible as some people make it to be.
Or they have other bugs, older version of the iOS or some mecha-gnome munching through the battery’s electrons, somehow…
Dan Gleibitz, on The Verge’s forums:
I’m left with mixed feelings. I like the Nexus 4, but it can’t replace my iPhone. For a first-time smartphone buyer who hasn’t already become reliant on iCloud services and iOS apps for which Android doesn’t offer an alternative, it’s probably a fine choice. Certainly a whole different class of device to shitty cheap Galaxy phones. But there’s a reason why I’ve become reliant on those iCloud services and iOS app: they’re really good.
New ad by Microsoft to mock the Apple vs. Samsung rivalry. Quite true actually, but switching to Windows Phone? Come on. There’s a reason you’re number three, Microsoft.
I just… what? I can’t… why?
Seriously Samsung, what the hell?
John O’Nolan:
Ghost is an Open Source application which allows you to write and publish your own blog, giving you the tools to make it easy and even (gasp) fun to do. It’s simple, elegant, and designed so that you can spend less time messing with making your blog work - and more time blogging.
I’ve been blogging thanks to Jekyll for two years now, and although I’ve developed a fair set of tools to help me get my thoughts out there on the web, it’s convoluted and messy. Sometimes, I just wish I had something easy to use, yet lightweight.
Jekyll is insanely light — the whole of geekeries would fit on a 3-1/2-inch floppy disk — but requires an extremely complex publishing workflow. Inserting an image in a post is a major pain in the ass, and that’s part of the reason why I don’t post images here.
I’m not too fond of the idea to have to use NodeJS for this, but let’s see where that project goes. Seems promising for now.
Well, that puts things into perspective.
How did I miss that one? Beautiful ad by Apple.
It rings so true, that’s what we see in the streets every day.
There is no words. Pure awesomeness.
Great find by John Siracusa.
We can tell there was a great atmosphere, and Carrie Fisher was really playing the card of the beautiful temptress. Not to our displeasure though, or that of any of the cast members.
Remember GMUNK’s TRON: Legacy GFX blog post? They’re at it again with this month’s Oblivion.
I love that sort of stuff.
Totally cool.
Chris Hadfield seems like a cool fellow.
Some people have too much money. Some have too much time.
Some have both, plus too many iPhones.
(Via MG Siegler.)
I didn’t even bother to watch the ads before I read this post by Josh Elman.
And I got to agree they show the wrong side of what’s great with Facebook Home. When I watch these ads, I only see people that are bored with real time, flesh and bones interactions and prefer to communicate with their friends elsewhere via an online service.
Well, isn’t that nice? The only hard decision Microsoft has made in its full-of-compromises release of Windows is getting itself an option to be bypassed at boot.
Another compromise. And they wonder why Windows’s sales are falling down.
You probably have heard of AppGratis, and its sudden removal by Apple last week from the App Store.
Today, its creator is asking users of the App Store to voice their approval of AppGratis and petition to get Apple to revise its policy.
I’ve voiced my opinion myself:
Fuck off. You are plague and you are better off the App Store than in. Do not ever come back.
I sincerely believe this app only serves to cheat an app’s way to the top free apps. The apps are usually crummy and they are deleted right away.
AppGratis doesn’t add value to the App Store, only filth. The App Store would be better if all the bad apps were auto-pruned.
Great apps don’t need such advertising.
This is amazing. It never occurred to me we could use Street View in such a way.
This little app does one thing: if an app has been inactive for a designated amount of time, it is automatically hidden.
This is the newest addition to my OS X window workflow: instead of relying on custom made scripts triggered through Keyboard Maestro, apps inactive for longer than 10 seconds are automatically hidden — a few exceptions aside.
Love it!
It looks good. It looks like Path more than it looks like Facebook. But still, you can tell they’ve put a great amount of care on the project.
I’m not too sure about the HTC First non-exclusive deal. Moreover, Facebook is certainly one of the last company I’d trust with my phone. (Google would be second.)
Update: also, what’s up with all the stock photos? I have exactly two friends on Facebook that know how and do take great photographs; the rest just take crappy shots with their even crappier smartphones. I don’t want my homescreen to look like a blurred mess of pixels.
In a lengthy report today, Bloomberg Businessweek takes a look at Apple’s upcoming “spaceship” campus in Cupertino, noting that the project is currently one year behind schedule and roughly $2 billion over budget.
Contractors and naysayers are blaming Steve Jobs and his excessive picking at details.
So what? I say ‘fuck them’. The man had a vision, and his company has the money. We are going nowhere if we always try to do the cheapest and easiest things.
Do you sincerely believe the pyramids of Giza are representative of the times’s most common and cheapest technologies? We are not going to leave our mark in history, as a modern culture, if we keep making things cheap and easy to do. The only architectural project that, in my opinion, qualifies both as a modern project and a true wonder is Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. And even he is long dead. We, as a modern people, are unable to construct anything that will last centuries because we are focused on greed and short-term profits.
Steve believed in making something big, something durable, something that people could relate to for years and more. Whether this building would end its days within the hands of Apple or another company, it has the opportunity to stay in times as a symbol of today’s culture. We shouldn’t put a price point on it.
Keep scrolling, you’ll get to Mars. Eventually.
