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« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Rockmelt – A Social Web Browser, Not A Death Ray
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 8, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, November 8th, 2010The new social network-oriented web browser Rockmelt could easily be pitched as a “Flock Killer”. If anybody knew what the heck Flock was.
 We would have been SO much more excited if it were a planet vaporizing death ray. |
In August of last year, we pondered whether the mysterious Rockmelt was a new web browser or a planet vaporizing death ray. Well, the answer has been revealed, and frankly, we would have been a little more excited with the death ray option. So why is someone creating yet another browser? Don’t Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, et al give us enough to choose from and argue about? Well, on the “social web”, apparently not. Rockmelt is designed specifically to pull all your social doodads into one place, in a handy tabbed fashion. This is probably why no-one is calling it a “Firefox Killer”; if anything it’s a “Flock Killer”. And that’s not very sexy, ’cause who the heck has heard about Flock, aside from the guys in the IT department and when I mentioned it just now? I for one won’t be rushing to download and install the recently announced beta version of Rockmelt; if they’re trying to build trust and user engagement, they’ve already scored a few negative points with me. I gave them my e-mail over a year ago to stay informed, and heard nothing of them until they popped back into the tech media buzz the other day, asking for you to connect with your Facebook account if you want to try their beta release. No thanks, Rockmelt. They’re obviously on the right track in some ways though; as this Wired piece points out, the web we knew is dead, and apps and social networking define the road ahead. But to define your launch with a Facebook log in seems a little less than forward thinking. Most of the tech savvy and social people I know have been turned off by the MySpace-ization of Facebook, and are using it less, and with less enthusiasm every day. So if you’re an active Twitter/Facebook/FourSquare type, Rockmelt may be just the ticket. Personally, I’m a little connection weary, and LIKE the fact that I have to access different devices, apps, or websites to stay connected. So Rockmelt, drop me a line when you come out with the death ray version. If you can find that e-mail I already gave you. Launch promo video below. Read the rest of this entry »
U Flattr Me
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 30, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, October 30th, 2010What if there were a “Like” button that let you put your money where your “Like” was? Flattr is a cool new micropayment service that lets you do just that.
We’ve pointed out the limited usefulness of the Facebook “Like” button before; in fact we offered a set of alternatives. Although I have no metrics to prove it, I personally think that the “Like” button significantly diminished the quality of interaction on Facebook. I’d guess the amusing banter on my “wall” dropped by about 60-80% as people suddenly found it easier to simply ‘like” something than actually use their brain for a moment and add a witty comment. But what if when you liked something, you could put your money where your mouth was, and actually know that in a small way you were financially supporting the thing you liked? We’ve talked about the new frictionless, wireless economy before, but one service we missed was Flattr. Flattr is an ingenious new service brought to us by some of the people that created The Pirate Bay, the occasionally controversial BitTorrent tracker. A little ironic that the people who brought the world so much stuff that might not be properly paid for would dream up a way for lots of people to legitimately give money to content creators they like. But it really is a brilliant idea, and could be a great thing for anyone from bloggers, to musicians, to social causes and non-profits. Although the concept has what I consider a few small barriers to broad acceptance, I think this is one of the coolest social networking ideas in a while. It’s like a tip jar for the internet! The barriers I’m referring to? First of all, the site frames all the payments in Euros as of this writing, and we all know how intimidating non-US currency can be to an American! And I have to confess that when I signed up, even though I was well aware that the 2 Euros required was about 2.80USD, I spaced out and paid 2 *dollars, then had to go back and add another buck to bring it over 2 Euros. But that’s really just my attention disorder at work, no fault of Flattr’s. It would also probably be cool if they plugged into more virtual currencies; for now you can use PayPal and most major credit cards, but if you’re building a new economy, you might want to open up the market as wide as possible. And the last thing? I have to admit that I had a weensy bit of trepidation about turning my credit card info over to people who were famous for starting a thing called the Pirate Bay, but quickly got over it. Ultimately, if this caught on it would be a fantastic new paradigm of payment, and a solution to a lot of the woes of undercompensated content creators. Like me. So here’s your chance. Sign up and Flattr me:
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On The Internet, No-One Can Hear You Scream
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 25, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, October 25th, 2010I don’t know why we’re in such a hurry to create a massively connected, self-aware computer. Its first logical act would be to eliminate us.
  Sure. Act all cute and submissive. Personally, I’m not fallin’ for it. |
If you pay any attention at all to the tech press, you may have noticed a lot of buzz over the past couple of years about artificial intelligence, nanotech, robots, and other fascinating technologies. There was, for instance, a recent NYT piece called Aiming to Learn as We Do, a Machine Teaches Itself, which talked about NELL, the self-teaching computer being developed over at Carnegie Mellon. And Wired.com has featured numerous articles about things like how the military is working on near-human robots, a real world c3po, and how they’ll all conquer us guided with thoughts from monkey brains. One of these programs even “discovered” a law of physics on its own. Dear God, haven’t the researchers working on this stuff seen The Matrix, Blade Runner, 2001, Terminator, or any of the dozens of other stories that outline where this will all end up? Dystopia is such a tired trope by now that I just made up a word for it: “dystropia“. But the fact that there’s a cliched sci-fi theme describing our impending demise doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. I recently poked fun at Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
Suck It, Autotune
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 23, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010Thanks to new voice synthesis technology, we’ll no longer need Auto-tune to fix pop stars’ crappy voices. In fact, we may not need the pop stars at all.
 T-Pain ponders life without auto-tune |
Finally, some good news in the world of pop music production. You know all those no-talent artists out there that rely entirely on auto-tune for their singing careers? Well, thanks to the voice synthesis software Vocaloid, we can now do away with their voices altogether. But why stop there? Because of recent innovations in the rapidly evolving field of holographic technology, we can even dispense with the artists themselves! This isn’t some sci-fi near-future prediction of things to come, it’s already happening. Just check out this concert appearance by Miku Hatsune, the Japanese pop sensation that – in spite of not even existing – has millions of fans worldwide. This should be a boon to the tragically poverty stricken, litigation-happy major labels that are using the same excuse they have since the 80′s for not making any money. Labels probably spend more on a typical artist’s room service in an hour than the total cost of this software package, and there’s even a free alternative called Utau. This is going to be bigger than you think; when you think “auto-tune” you probably think T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West, but this now-two-year-old list of Auto-tune abusers (complete with audio example) already included artists like Dixie Chicks, Avril Lavigne, and Maroon 5. T-Pain probably has less to worry about than many others; as the undisputed king of Auto-tune abuse, he was approached early on by iPhone app developers to license his name for I Am T-Pain. Which I just have to say represents to me the ultimate in meta-irony: nerdy rich white guy iPhone owners thinking they’re hip and witty for acknowledging their total lack of masculine sexuality. But back to Vocaloid. The software seems to be stuck in a weird cycle of marketing and product development; it’s hard to tell if Yamaha has any interest in developing it as a recording tool, or if they’re going to let second party developers like Zero G and Crypton deliver it more as a “virtual celebrity” creation tool. Personally, given the two-dimensionality and high maintenance costs of many real pop superstars like Hanna Montana, Lady Gaga, and the artists already mentioned, I’d put my money on the latter. Vids below. Read the rest of this entry »
Losing Touch With User Expectations
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 11, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, October 11th, 2010Do you ever find yourself touching touchscreens that aren’t touch sensitive?
The other day, a friend handed me their Blackberry and asked me to call up Google Maps. After fussing with the device for a moment, I mentally cursed its lousy touch-sensitive interface, until I realized it wasn’t touch sensitive. I would’ve felt pretty stupid, but I see this kind of thing all the time, whether it’s someone trying to touch an LCD monitor to do something, or spastically backspacing on Google trying to get the right Instant Google/Google Autocomplete result instead of just typing what they’re looking for. I’ve already shared my thoughts on Google Instant, and the more I’m exposed to it, the more strongly I feel that Google shouldn’t impose this kind of “improvement” on me until they develop it to the point that they actually know what I’m thinking, which would eliminate the need for me altogether. In any case, I fear that because of smart phones, self-serve kiosks, and the iPad, we may briefly have to suffer these occasional human malfunctions. Personally, I’m prepared to wait; I’ve been quietly rolling my fingertips on my lifeless and uncaring work surfaces for years as I wait for the kind of tactile holographics that were featured in Iron Man 2 (video also below). This kind of interface may not be far away, but the best I’ve seen so far is a bit primitive; check out this clip from last year about touchable holographics being developed at Tokyo University. So what do we have available? Well, back in the world of two dimensions, there are really amazing tools for designers like Wacom’s Cintiq, and for education, there are tools like Hitachi’s StarBoard, and for business, the somewhat more limited Smart Podium, but these are all still pretty pricey. I think that as consumers, we may have to wait a bit for all of our devices to be more pervasively touch sensitive. One of the last products to be touted as consumer-oriented was Microsoft Surface, but the platform was made public way back in 2006, and I still don’t have any friends with touch-sensitive coffee tables. Perhaps because – as this hilarious video about Surface points out – why use a compact device like an iPhone to get maps and directions, when you can use a device the size of a small car? More video below. Read the rest of this entry »