Over at TIME.com, my Technologizer column this week is about using smartphones as universal remote controls–and especially about using Peel, a neat software-and-hardware package that turns an iPhone into an uncommonly slick TV remote. As we move towards an era in which just about everybody has a smart phone on his or her person at all …
Apps & Web
Why Do We Care So Deeply About Brands like Twitter and Apple?
Yesterday, Bill Keller of the New York Times struck a nerve with his post on the Twitter trap he laid a few days prior; particularly the way it eats into its users’ “normal” social interactions and its potential to “make you stupid.” Responses from Twitter’s loyalists across the web were swift, thorough, and at times brash – …
Playboy for iPad Skirts Apple’s Nudity Rules with Web Trickery
No nudity in the App Store, says Apple. Them’s the rules. So it’s been hard for an app from the likes of Playboy to make much progress on that front.
Playboy does have an app, mind you, but there’s no nudity. Not that there needs to be nudity! There’s almost nudity, like suggestive photos of near nud—you know what? Let’s move on. …
Access Denied: Twitter Changes Login Rules for Apps
Twitter’s just announced changes to the way third party clients have to connect users to the service, and has upset a few apple carts along the way.
In an official announcement headlined Mission: Permission, Twitter’s Jodi Olsen wrote:
“Beginning today, we’re giving you more control over what information you share with third-party
…
Google: We’re Not Creepy Enough to Recognize Your Face
We’re kind of creepy, but not that creepy—the gist of Google guru Eric Schmidt’s public scorn-pouring on technology that’d allow a company to recognize and identify your face, or my face, or anyone’s face.
How? By storing pictures of said faces in a massive photographically encyclopedic database.
That Google would create …
Google Expands Its Offices Across Highway 101
The Googleplex is growing. Across Mountain View’s Highway 101 in the Bay Area, that is.
Facebook may have just leased a gigantic complex, but Google’s doing some serious expanding too. The Silicon Valley-based company is expecting to add more than 6,000 employees before the end of the year. I guess they’re not too affected by …
Bottle Opener Concept Connects to Facebook, Invites People Over
Wouldn’t it be grand if every time you opened a beer, Facebook automatically created an event and invited all your friends over? I know that every time I sit down to enjoy a series of smooth draws from a delicious craft IPA after a long day of work, I’m thinking, “Hey, I wish everyone I knew on Facebook could be here to watch me drink …
YouTube ‘Town Hall’ Lets Politicians Duke It Out Online
In today’s polarized political climate, it sometimes seems the focus is more on parties and candidates rather than the issues.
But YouTube’s come up with a solution for this. And it’s a new way to debate politics that doesn’t involve knowing someone’s party affiliation (shocking!).
Rather, a YouTube “Town Hall” has …
App of the Week: The Rapture Detector
If those whacky radicals are right, and May 21st really will spell the end of the world as we know it (NewsFeed helped out with some of the number crunching), you’re going to want to “live every moment like it’s your last.” I think Martin Luther King said that. So we should.
The inventors of the Rapture Detector (not to be confused …
The Three Songs You Need to Download This Week
There’s a lot of music online–more than most people have time to keep up with. That’s why you’ve got us. Every week, we’ll point you toward three excellent new downloads or videos from chart-topping stars, cult favorites and unknown geniuses.
1. Remember that astonishing interactive video Chris Milk made for Arcade Fire’s “We Used to …
Now Android Users Can Have Magazine Apps, Too
Android users jealous of Apple’s magazine apps can breathe a sigh of relief today, as Next Issue Media – a consortium of publishers, including Time Inc., News Corp. and Hearst – launches its first seven magazines for the mobile OS.
The magazines –Esquire, Fitness, Fortune, The New Yorker, Parents, Popular Mechanics and Time – will be …
Why Doesn’t Amazon Collect Sales Tax? The Constitution, That’s Why
Why doesn’t Amazon.com collect sales tax from the majority of Americans who buy from the company? Because, according to CEO Jeff Bezos, it would be unconstitutional to do so – although the company does support a proposed change in the law that would allow everyone to pay taxes on their purchases through Amazon.
The subject came up in …