The wait is over! For all those waiting for the consumer preview of Microsoft’s Windows 8 – your day has come. Just as they had said, Microsoft unveiled their next major OS version today and Win 8 is all about touch. Redmond’s next windows update is a marriage between Windows 7 and Windows Phone (Metro) styles – combining touch, windows and tile interfaces. While this is still a preview (beta) version, if you want to get your hands all over Windows 8, you can get it here.
Source: TheVerge
While we all know the success Apple has had with the iPod, iPhone and iPad – it’s hard to imagine how that success has turned into Apple having a market value of over half a trillion dollars ($500 Billion). Apple now stands as the worlds most valued company, by market share and from the looks of things, they aren’t stopping anytime soon.
Apple’s success story is simple and elegant: Steve & Company have been able to see and “make” trends to consumer devices, which make them market leaders (creators) and the competition ends up playing catch-up (fighting over the scraps). Will this continue into the TV space and home entertainment? Apple TV on the way.
Source: New York Times
Since today is February 29th and leap year only comes every four years, I thought I’d post this little video showing why we need this extra day. While we all know “when” leap year is, many might not know why exactly we need it – helped me a lot 
Source: Imgur
Photography is great but sometimes reality isn’t as wonderful as our imaginations. Creating new art forms or simply combining multiple art forms isn’t easy but when someone does manage to do it – the results are magical. Here are some “Photodrawings” from Ben Heine.
Source: Zuzutop
Apple news is just pouring in today and to make things even more enjoyable, how about we take a look at a concept video showing what Apple might have in store for us down the line. Aatma Studio’s has made this iPad concept video and some of the tech has me reaching for my wallet now. Cool stuff guys.
Source: Whicdn
There you have it folks – Apple is to hold an iPad 3 event on March 7th in San Francisco. This news is coming from tech websites 9To5Mac and The Verge. If you want to set your calendars and reminders or if you wanna go and stand outside, it’s at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at 10 a.m. PST. This goes along with the news that we covered earlier today about the CNBC tweet, all except Apple holding the event in NYC but if we are to beleive CNBC’s specs:
If Apple can pull this package together and keep the current iPad 2 price point – this is a killer tablet. If Apple does the unthinkable and keeps the iPad 2 at a lower price point ($399) – Samsung, HTC, Motorola and the lot are in for some serious trouble. By the way, releasing this news on the same day Eric Schmidt gave his speech at MWC in Barcelona is the ultimate “kick in the nutz.”
DELL computer has come a long way (down) from Michael Dell’s infamous 1997 Apple comment and just yesterday they announced that they’re no longer a “PC” company, moving product lines towards the enterprise. Good luck with that. All that said, if the below video “bares” any hint at their future and the decisions the company is making or the people working for Dell are making – I’d say: “Sell your remaining shares now!” All jokes aside, this video is actual Dell marketing material – found on their Vimeo page.
CNBC is tweeting this morning the alleged specs of the iPad 3 and the location of the Apple event that it will be unveiled. As you can read from the official tweet below, the tablet will have a retina display (like the iPhone 4/4S) or HD, a quad-core processor (A6 or modified A5) LTE connectivity (defaults to 3G) and will be shown off at a NYC Apple event. If Apple can pull those specs off and keep the price at $499 – take my money now! If Apple can pull off those specs and keep the price point at $499 and continue to sell the iPad 2 for $399 or lower – god help the competition.
Source: Imgur
The Oscars just ended but I though it would be a good time to revisit an article I read about the 85 films that influenced Martin Scorsese the most. Some of them I’d seen and some I’d never heard of, which has instantly increased my movie wish list by about 50+ movies. Regardless, Scorsese is a cornerstone of movie making for the last 50+ years and getting insight into what influenced him, whether you’re into film making or not, is a rare treat. Here is just one quote from the interview:
Citizen Kane: “Orson Welles was a force of nature, who just came in and wiped the slate clean. And Citizen Kane is the greatest risk-taking of all time in film. I don’t think anything had even seen anything quite like it. The photography was also unlike anything we’d seen. The odd coldness of the filmmaker towards the character reflects his own egomania and power, and yet a powerful empathy for all of them—it’s very interesting. It still holds up, and it’s still shocking. It takes storytelling and throws it up in the air.” 1941
You can find the whole interview and movie list here – I would post it on the blog but i have to give credit where credit is due. I would love to hear people’s reactions and thoughts – both to Scorsese’s quotes and individual opinions on the movies listed.
Source: Fastcocreate
Fractal animation made with Mandelbulb3D. Soundtrack by Ricardo Montalban.
I originally designed it for Bryan Alvarez from UC Berkeley, for a TEDx talk about his Human Atlas project, to illustrate his initial dream about the beauty of living systems. This one is an enhanced version. This is a hybrid Julia fractal where many parameters are being animated: the fractal paramaters themselves, the Julia seed, the colors, and of course the camera position. For more details about 3D fractals and to download the Mandelbulb3D software, visit fractalforums.com.
Mashable has an interesting article about people and their addiction to the internet, which supposedly is around 61% of the population. Mashable based its article on SodaHead’s survey, which polled 602 people on Feb 16th and found out that women were much more likely to be addicted than men, 64% to 55%. SodaHead:
Now, thanks to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and a handful of other developers, the Internet is on our desks, in our backpacks, in our pockets, and even on our televisions. Naturally, the risk of Internet addiction is up, and some studies have shown it could be as powerful an addiction as substance abuse. We asked the public if they thought they were addicted, and were surprised to see how many respondents admitted to it — especially young people. To find out who else is at risk, take a dive into our Internet addiction infographic…
Source: FindTheHome
Source: ZMEScience
Yesterday, Twitter released an update for their iOS app – version 4.1 doesn’t have a lot of changes but it has two much requested features. “Swipe Shortcuts” and “Copy/Paste” for tweets and profiles are features people have been asking for since the first Twitter app and while the first (Swipe) doesn’t sound that useful, with some practice, it’s a great help. As for “Copy/Paste” – every app – on every platform should have this feature……it’s frickin’ 2012!
Source: Twitter
Anonymous goes grass-roots on the RIAA & MPAA for their role with recent legislation (SOPA and PIPA) – vows to bring the house down on them for the whole month of March. Not only are they asking for people to join in on a non-buying day (march 1st) to hurt music and movie studios, in terms of profits/stock but they are also planning large DDoS attacks for the whole month. When you mess with the bull, you get the horns:
“We will not tolerate the Media Industries’ lobbying for legistation which will censor the internet.” Regarding Black March: If you want to do something that makes a statement, consider shifting your money not only away from corporate media but to independent media. Buy comics published by someone other than DC and Marvel. Buy books from small and independent presses. Support independent production companies who fight to stay independent and fan-focused. Better yet, buy things directly from creators and artisans. Support independent retailers. Don’t just blanket punish media producers and distributors—refocus those resources into supporting the ones who espouse and depend on free exchange of information and ideas. Because those are the people preserving intellectual freedom. Those are the people creating work of substance. And those are the people struggling to make a living, because they aren’t bankrolled by the Corporate Elite lobbying for SOPA and PIPA.
Source: Imgur
Jacob Sutton travels to Tignes, France, to film professional snowboarder. William Hughes, snowboarding at night whilst wearing a full LED light suit.
After months of public pressure and countless articles “exposing” Apple’s supply chain and supposed worker abuses at Foxconn’s city-factories – Nightline (ABC News) is being given access to Apple’s supply chain. The ABC exclusive will air Tuesday, February 21 at 11:35 p.m. ET:
Apple has given “Nightline” anchor Bill Weir exclusive access to their suppliers’ factories in China, amid reports of safety problems, hazardous conditions and underage workers. Weir is the first journalist go inside the factories to see these life changing gadgets get made. He traveled to Shenzhen China to see firsthand what life is like for factory workers, most of whom have never used an iPod, iphone or Apple computer…
The New York Times wrote several articles describing the supposed conditions Foxconn workers lived/worked under and while there hasn’t been an open or un-biased report detailing Apple’s supply chain, the countless articles that followed the NYT’s articles have forced Apple to address the issue. C.E.O. Tim Cook has repeatedly said that:
“Apple takes working conditions very seriously,” said Cook, launching right into a question about how Apple handles working conditions. “We take the conditions of workers very seriously. I worked in factories, I worked at a paper mill. We understand working conditions at a very granular level…”
While Nightline and ABC News have been given this exclusive insider view to Apple’s supply chain, there are still people within the media that see this report as a white-wash, as ABC is a parent Disney company and Disney has an extremely close business/board-member relationship with Apple. I look at this as transparency and the more transparency the better but this should be industry wide – not a witch hunt for the guy on top.
Source: ABC – Source: Times – Source: TheNextWeb
Source: Imgur
