In 2007 Steve Jobs said this [extends index finger] was the best input device. That was 2007. This is 2015.
Pree is marketing themselves as, “the world’s first unrestricted, high resolution, write-virtually-anywhere mobile input device.”
It looks pretty rad. I hope the reality of the device is just as rad.
In crowdfunding news, states are being proactive on crowdfunding regulations:
In 2012, President Obama signed a law that he called a “potential game changer” for entrepreneurs seeking financing to start or expand a business: Small companies looking for financial backers could advertise their offerings online, and average people — not just wealthy accredited investors — would be allowed to buy stakes in businesses they found promising.
More than three years later, entrepreneurs are still waiting for federal regulators to finish drafting the long-overdue rules that would let that part of the law take effect. Now, state agencies and lawmakers, tired of waiting, are taking action, passing crowdfunding laws and regulations to let local businesses raise money from local residents.
Interesting, but “average” people need to understand the risks in whatever ideas they’re investing in.
Concept design by Pierre Cerveau
Yahoo will be livestreaming the first NFL game this fall:
A couple of months ago, when the NFL announced that for the first time ever, it would show a regular season game (almost) exclusively on the Internet, it didn’t know who would handle the streaming or how much it would cost fans to watch the game.
Now it does: Yahoo will host the livestream of the Oct. 25 Jacksonville Jaguars – Buffalo Bills game, and it’ll be free to viewers around the world.
I’ve been on the Internet since 1995. I don’t see this going smoothly.
I foresee video streams dropping mad packets.
Good god, Asus. Is this really your new watch?
In case you’re having a hard time visualizing what the Asus ZenWatch 2 is a cheap ripoff of, let me help you:
Is everyone out of ideas?
Erik Spiekermann is designing scarves and I like them.
The designer’s guide to New York.
No one could have predicted a move like this by IBM back in the 80s or 90s or 00s:
In a memo to employees, IBM notes that starting today all employees (not just some select developers like in the past) can pick from a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or a PC when setting up a new or refreshed workstation. The machines will include new software for security, Wi-Fi, and VPN out of the box so employees just have to connect to the internet to get started, according to the memo. IBM notes that it currently has around 15,000 Macs deployed through its BYOD program, but plans to deploy around 50,000 Macbooks by the end of the year. That, according to the memo, would make IBM the biggest “Mac shop” around, and the company said it’s sharing what it learns through the new deployment with Apple as Apple assists through its device enrollment program.
We’re not just in the post-PC era, but the post-Windows era.
Feels good.
via Daring Fireball
This week Michael and Bryan discuss Bryan’s new book, The Blasted Lands, Bryan’s bet on the Republican dark horse presidential nominee, and Mike’s Creed Tweet to Kevin Rose.
Fun review of the Apple Watch by Craig Mod:
It is on my wrist. Do I wish it to be? Not really. Did I crave it? No. Well, maybe a little. I am human. And it is new. And it contains media. And itself may be new media. And it is good to know about these things. So it is on my wrist. This thing, black like crude oil upon Daniel Day Lewis’ brow. Quiet until it pings, so gently, like a sound from the future, bringing only a message to stand up you lazy man.
I’ll eventually have a strong(er) desire for a thing. A thing for my wrist.
But not yet.
The Light Phone is the anti-smartphone:
I love the concept and with 28 days to go, their Kickstarter project is already funded.
This map, from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, “represents the hourly wage that a household must earn (working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year) in order to afford the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental unit, without paying more than 30% of their income.”
via LifeHacker
Over at the The New Yorker, Stephen Witt tells the story of the The Man Who Broke the Music Business, Bennie Lydell Glover. It was published late last month and I finally got around to reading it. It’s fascinating.
On how Glover smuggled CDs of out the factory he worked at in Kings Mountain, North Carolina:
At the end of each shift, employees put the overstock disks into scrap bins. These scrap bins were later taken to a plastics grinder, where the disks were destroyed. Over the years, Glover had dumped hundreds of perfectly good disks into the bins, and he knew that the grinder had no memory and generated no records. If there were twenty-four disks and only twenty-three made it into the grinder’s feed slot, no one in accounting would know.
So, on the way from the conveyor belt to the grinder, an employee could take off his surgical glove while holding a disk. He could wrap the glove around the disk and tie it off. He could then hide the disk, leaving everything else to be destroyed. At the end of his shift, he could return and grab the disk.
That still left the security guards. But here, too, there were options. One involved belt buckles. They were the signature fashion accessories of small-town North Carolina. Many people at the plant wore them—big oval medallions with the Stars and Bars on them. Gilt-leaf plates embroidered with fake diamonds that spelled out the word “BOSS.” Western-themed cowboy buckles with longhorn skulls and gold trim. The buckles always set off the wand, but the guards wouldn’t ask anyone to take them off.
And on the “ethics” of the elite underground file sharing “crews”:
Scene culture drew a distinction between online file-sharing and for-profit bootlegging. The topsites were seen as a morally permissible system of trade. Using them for the physical bootlegging of media, by contrast, was viewed as a serious breach of ethical principles. Worse, it was known to attract the attention of the law. Kali put the word out that anyone suspected of selling material from the topsites would be kicked out of the group. Thus, for most participants membership in RNS was a money-losing proposition. They spent hundreds of dollars a year on compact disks, and thousands on servers and broadband, and got only thrills in return.
It’s a long, but great read.
