Samsung’s latest Galaxy SIII ad starts off all cutesy: a family guy heading off on a work trip, saying goodbye to his young family. His kids have even made him a cute video to watch on the plane, and his wife has… hey now, his wife has been rather more adventurous. More »
There’s nothing quite like a good prank, and what prank is better than convincing innocent people that they are about to meet their bitter, messy end? That’s the path LG went down for this ad, where they use IPS displays to fool people—however briefly—that an elevator’s floor is falling out from beneath them. More »
Hey websites, here’s a newsflash: Navigating the web on your phone isn’t as easy as on your computer. Don’t remind me by suggesting that I download your stupid app when I click on a link to your list of GIFs. As if I’m going to drop everything right then and download your app. And then, when I decline, you send me to YOUR HOMEPAGE? What, I’m supposed to go find the story on your site while I’m stuffing pizza into my face? Obviously, you do not understand how people use phones or the Internet, so here’s a little advice on all that jazz: Stop it. [Twitter] More »
It’s no secret that Facebook saw FarmVille for iOS as writing on the wall: it had to either tap into mobile app revenue or risk losing income (and marketing-savvy developers) whenever someone left the web. Following a beta this summer, the company’s solution to its dilemma is now open to everyone. All developers on the social network can build ads that link from Facebook’s Android and iOS apps to either Google Play or the App Store — offering both an easy plug for their native apps and that all-important ad revenue for Facebook. The system currently takes a shotgun approach and may pitch social networkers for apps they already have or don’t want, but it should be refined in the next few months to where some curious purchasers won’t even have to leave Facebook to load that hot new title. Hopefully the increased recognition for mobile developers is worth sullying our once pristine news feeds.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Facebook
Facebook opens mobile ads for apps to all developers, keeps them on the money train originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 23:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It seems like catalogs that work with X-ray type apps are starting to become a thing. Moosejaw started it all a couple of months ago with their winter catalog. IKEA followed suit with an X-ray app of their own, and now Wonderbra is getting on the bandwagon with an app of their own.
The app is called the ‘Wonderbra Decoder,’ and like the others, users simply have to hover it over the designated area on the image or in the video (and over the model) to start undressing her. In this case, the model happens to be 21-year-old Slovakian fashion model Adriana Cernanova, who sports Wonderbra’s newest lingerie offerings this season.
The app is available for free for and Android smartphones and for iOS (but not in the U.S. App Store). I have a feeling women won’t be the only ones who will be using this app…
You may well know Windows 8 backwards and forwards (swipes) by now, may even be tinkering with the Developer Preview as we speak. But for the normals out there in the world? Their first introduction to Microsoft’s desktop upheaval will be through this ad. And—shockingly enough—it’s pretty good! More »
In an attempt to get more people back into science and encourage them to pay a visit to Vancouver’s Science World, the museum put out a series of billboards that present random and interesting factoids to passersby in an extremely creative manner.
Science World didn’t just print down the facts. Instead, they made people stop and stare because of the sheer ingenuity of their presentation. Here’s another one (which happens to be my favorite – and it’s just right on time for Halloween, too!):
But wait–there’s more! And you can check them all out in the gallery below. Now who ever said that science nerds aren’t cool?
[via Twenty Two Words]
Yesterday’s Facebook-is-a-chair ad was bad. But it wasn’t the worst tech ad by a long shot. Gadget ads have a long history of being awkward and disconnected from reality. More »
I’m fully prepared to complete every sentence I utter about John Hodgman in the future with the qualifier “is a delight.” Author, comedian, professional voice actor, celebrity spokesperson — Hodgman keeps the sort of schedule that would make even the most hardened globe-trotting blogger ball up into the fetal position. When we finally nailed him down for an interview on the Engadget Show last month, we asked him to meet us at the General Society for Mechanics and Tradesmen in midtown Manhattan. It’s a place not far from Times Square that our producer Ben discovered while shooting a segment about the annual meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Club, a group of menswear enthusiasts who meet each year on 11 / 11 — the date most closely resembling corduroy.
It’s a strange and beautiful old space that dates back to the early 19th century, as a resource for apprentices of a society that can, in turn, be traced back to 1785. It seems to serve a different purpose now, a couple of older gentlemen shuffling in and out of the library during the three hours we spend there, each staying quiet, seated alone at a small table, reading novels and history books from off the shelves. For today, however, it’ll serve as John Hodgman’s own private library, the tongue-in-cheek backdrop for his long-awaited Engadget Show interview. Ben and I go back and forth a bit, prior to his arrival, debating whether or not he’ll embrace the silly premise. He agrees immediately after traveling in from Brooklyn, offering up a single, key caveat: it’s actually the annex to his own private library.
The cameras roll and without missing a beat, he slips into his deranged millionaire persona, a character that has popped up a bit over the past few years, as Hodgman has wrapped up his trilogy of “complete world knowledge,” the last entry of which, “That is All,” was released in paperback and audiobook forms this week. “This,” the mustachioed author explains, “is the end of world knowledge.” It’s a journey that began in 2005, with the publication of “The Areas of My Expertise,” an almanac of sorts compiling the comedian’s knowledge of “matters historical, matters literary, matters cryptozoological and hobo matters,” to name but a small cross-section. Hodgman was a self-described former professional literary agent at the time, first making a splash amongst the literati some five years prior with the publication of the column “Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent” for uber-hip San Francisco publisher McSweeney’s.
Continue reading John Hodgman on the death of publishing and being a Mac trapped in a PC’s body
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John Hodgman on the death of publishing and being a Mac trapped in a PC’s body originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Another easter egg at Fujitsu’s CEATEC booth was a system for transmitting coupons, URLs and other digital information from a TV screen to a user’s smartphone. We’ll back up a bit: the data ends up on-screen in the first place thanks to information embedded in light flashing at various levels of brightness (the frame rate is too quick to be detected by the human eye). Theoretically, when a viewer is watching a commercial, they’ll see a prompt to hold up their phone’s camera to the screen, and doing so will bring up a corresponding coupon or website on their handset. The embedded information covers the entire panel, so users don’t need to point their device at a particular section of the screen.
In Fujitsu’s demo, pointing a smartphone at the TV pulled up a website on the phone. It only took about a second for the URL to pop up on the device, and there was no noticeable flickering on the TV itself (essentially, the picture looks identical to what you’d see on a non-equipped model, since your eye won’t notice the code appearing at such a high frequency). The company says this technology works at a distance of up to two or three meters. Head past the break to take a look at the prototype in action.
Filed under: Misc, Home Entertainment
Fujitsu demos ad transmission technology, sends info from TV to handset via smartphone camera (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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