Google is doing something interesting at Best Buy stores that seems positively ass backwards: they’re giving away copies of their Chrome browser on CD. What is this?! 1998?! But when you think about it, it makes sense; they’re trying to get less tech savvy users—like our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles—to switch over to a proper browser that won’t load their computers with as many trojans and malware. More »
Hey there. It’s the end of the week and I’m sure you’re dying to get out of the office, so we’re gonna try and help make the rest of your day bearable. For the next hour, the entire Giz staff will be hovering around this thread, willing to shoot the shit about whatever your little hearts desire. What do you all want to talk about? More »
3DTV hasn’t taken off the way the TV and Movie industries hoped it would, but institutes like the MIT Media Lab are getting closer to developing displays that have the 3D effect and don’t require glasses, which is one of the big grievances of naysayer. But would you join the ranks of the 3DTV faithful if you didn’t need specs, or do you think the technology in general is frivolous? [via The Creators Project] More »
I spent money on iTunes for the first time in more than a year today. I had been streaming Frank Ocean’s new album, Channel Orange, ever since he posted it on his Tumblr earlier this week, so I decided I should buy it. There are just so many places to stream music for either free or a very small monthly free—Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, Mog, etc—that you can avoid opening your wallet each time you want to hear something new. So when was the last time you actually purchased something on iTunes? And where are you turning for your listening pleasure? More »
IMDB has an updated iPhone app out today which is cool and fine, but one peculiar addition is the ability to “check-in” and share whatever movie or TV show you’re watching. I mean, whatever, Foursquare and Facebook and Yelp were fine, but at what point does the whole check-in trend become overkill? Does every special interest site need a social networking aspect? Maybe it’s just me, but this seems dumb. [TheNextWeb] More »
In early 2009, I was in a journalism class back at ol’ Mizzou. The professor asked who in the lecture was using Twitter. A paltry two or three students of the 150 budding Bernsteins raised their hands. She declared that that number must be multiplied exponentially, and required us all to make accounts. More »
I was talking with a good friend today about, among much else, Facebook and introspection and self-image. I’m on Facebook, my friend never has been. (No, really, never.) He said he doesn’t think about himself or reflect on his life nearly as much as other people (myself included) seem to. And he wondered if, maybe, his disinterest in analyzing the minutiae of his life has anything to do with not having a Facebook account. More »
Rumors are flying that Facebook wants to move into the financial services arena, namely paying bills and transferring money. The company will apparently test the idea with an Austrialian bank this year and see how it goes. But is this something we should casually trust Facebook with? More worrying than any concerns about getting hacked (which would probably never be an issue), is Facebook’s history with user privacy and what access the company would have to your info. I’m not sure I would ever link my financial data to Facebook. [CNN/Fortune] More »
Inspired by Tim Bray’s recent post about how many devices people carry, I got to thinking: what’s the best possible combination of electronic devices to carry right now? More »
There’s usually no escaping a difficult conversation. But at least nowadays we can choose in which medium to have the chat. There’s certainly a premium placed on in-person conversations—really, you just want to be there with the person, see his (or her) facial expressions, reactions, etc. It’s also nice to have the guarantee of an instant reply. More »
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