Did somebody open the Lost Ark in New York City or are the Ghostbusters back in town? I’m stuck at the airport right now and my flight has been delayed because of the insanely huge storm that is hammering the city right now. Just look at this picture, instagrammed by Dhani Jones. More »
The Oppo Finder currently holds the silly title of being the thinnest smartphone in the world. Measuring in at a svelte 6.65mm, the Finder is 1.95mm and 2.75 thinner than the Galaxy S III and iPhone 4S, respectively. But the thin size doesn’t mean the phone is fragile. In fact the company recently demonstrated the phone’s toughness by using it to hammer several nails into a wooden board.
The Oppo Finder is available sans a contract for ¥2,498 ($393). The slim phone packs an impressive array of specs, too. Behind the 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen rests a dual-core 1.5GHz chip and 1GB of RAM, which powers an Android 4.0 install. Plus, as shown above, the phone can take beating.
I’ve had my share of frustrating episodes with Internet Service Providers, but never to the point of hacking into their servers three times in one day, deleting data, walking into their office wielding an axe and threatening the owner with it. That’s what Bryce Kingsley Quilley did. More »
You deserve a break today, indeed. Augmented reality pioneer Steve Mann visited a Parisian McDonald’s with his family earlier this month. Mann has a system called the EyeTap physically installed in his skull that records photos and video, and can display augmented reality data directly in the user’s line of sight. Upon ordering, McDonald’s employees at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris accosted Mann and tried to tear the glasses out of his head.
That was after he ordered something called a Chicken Ranch Wrap.
To recap, Mann is a tenured professor at the University of Toronto and wears something called an EyeTap, a small camera/computer that he had physically connected to his skull. He’s been experimenting in the realm of wearable computing for years and the most recent iteration essentially makes him a cyborg – a human melded with a machine. That distinction was apparently lost on a trio of employees at that Parisian McDonalds –after ordering, two of them approached him and asked him what he was wearing. For whatever reason, they took issue with Mann’s implants. Another man approached wearing a McDonald’s shirt while the other two hid their identities.
He carries with him documentation from his doctor stating that the EyeTap is not removable without special tools and he uses it when traveling and when people want to learn more about the product. Mann offered that documentation to the McDonalds employees to no avail, and it wasn’t long before the three employees assaulted him and eventually kicked him out of the Paris location.
He writes:
After all three of them reviewed this material, and deliberated on it for some time, Perpetrator 2 angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from my doctor. My other documentation was also destroyed by Perpetrator 1.
In short, these McDonald’s employees harassed, intimidated, and damaged Mann nearly irrevocably. Ray Kurzweil, a well known futurist, calls this the first attack on a cyborg in history and Mann’s importances to the field of human-computer interaction can’t be measured.
That a pioneer like Mann would be accosted – in Paris, of all places – is a travesty. That it would happen in that paragon of openness and light, McDonald’s is an absolute shame. Apparently McDonald’s employees in Paris don’t like people taking pictures of their menus and this isn’t the first time Parisian Friends-Of-Ronald attacked someone with a camera in their stores.
Although I may seem flip here, I’m not. I propose a boycott of McDonald’s (not like you were going to go anyway) until Mann reports restitution for damages. This is an outrage and it’s terrible that Mann had to go through this.
McDonald’s responded with the following statement:
“We share the concern regarding Dr. Mann’s account of his July 1 visit to a McDonald’s in Paris. McDonald’s France was made aware of Dr. Mann’s complaints on July 16, and immediately launched a thorough investigation. The McDonald’s France team has contacted Dr. Mann and is awaiting further information from him.In addition, several staff members involved have been interviewed individually, and all independently and consistently expressed that their interaction with Dr. Mann was polite and did not involve a physical altercation. Our crew members and restaurant security staff have informed us that they did not damage any of Mr. Mann’s personal possessions.
While we continue to learn more about the situation, we are hearing from customers who have questions about what happened. We urge everyone not to speculate or jump to conclusions before all the facts are known. Our goal is to provide a welcoming environment and stellar service to McDonald’s customers around the world.”
– McDonald’s
Kudos to 7-11 for attempting to provide healthier food options at its convenience stores. The latest down home treat: mashed potatoes extruded from what looks like a modified Slurpee machine. More »
As we were wandering through the Atlanta meet-up last week we stumbled upon a charming young man wearing a glove studded with circuit boards and embroidered with what looked like silver thread. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that it was a wild homegrown glove made by a pair of former design students.
The project is called G.A.U.N.T.L.E.T. (Generally Accessible Universal Nomadic Tactile Low-power Electronic Typist) and is currently in beta stages. However, it would allow a person to type on any smartphone or computer with one hand, opening up interesting possibilities for people with stroke debilitation or a missing hand.
The creator, Jiake Liu, is co-founder of Kabob.it, a menu service for eateries. The glove, on the other hand, was an experiment he built in college and it has gone through a number iterations. Right now it uses electrically conductive embroidered letters to send signals via Bluetooth and they may improve the glove over time. Until then, I suggest that start-up founders wear something odd and cool when they come to our meetups in the future, thereby ensuring immediate attention.
The face is a blank canvas—you can make yourself up to look like Cleopatra, or a clown, or a hooker, and now you can do up your eyes Facebook-style. YSL is launching an eyeshadow palette inspired by the social network. Seriously! Pretty soon a bespectacled Yves Saint Laurent is going to rise out of his grave and beat the development staff with his patent leather loafers. More »
I hardly remember 2006. You probably don’t either. But that’s when Twitter first started! And looking back how we tweeted that fateful first year, it’s probably better that none of us remember it. Just check out how awful everyone was at it: More »
If you saw a guy totin’ around this iPhone case that has a 3D naked girl taking a bath in a hot tub, you might assume he was a pervert. You’d be wrong. He’s actually a very practical iPhone user that values function over form. More »
Hello there, shopper! You seem like the type who would be interested in some breasts tablets. Can we interest you in our latest Windows 8 breasts tablet, with the revolutionary Breasto Metro UI? It feels great in a sultry paid actress’s crotch the hand, and we think the message that women, yoga, anything to do with Asian culture, and basically everything not nailed down or on fire is for undersexed manchildren to rutt with security and usability can come together to make great products is an important one. More »
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
