Silicon Valley — long home to an array of eccentric personalities and world-changing companies — is finally getting the irreverent caricatures it deserves. JESS3, the popular design firm run by Jesse Thomas, is putting together a set of collectable cards showcasing (and poking fun at) the tech industry, and the early results look great. We’ve embedded a handful of the first sketches Thomas has released below.
If the drawing style looks familiar, you’re either a child of the 80′s or a fan of Mad Magazine — all sketches are by artist Tom Bunk, who is responsible for the look of the Garbage Pail Kids and has contributed to Mad since 1993. → Read More
Yesterday we gave you an intro into the first real Twitter television initiative, Twision, originating from none other than a digital TV channel in Spain, VEO7, a part of Unidad Editorial.
Veo7 launched their first Twision program last Thursday and will continue to air every Thursday evening at midnight. Here’s some more post-launch insight into the initiative.
Unlike other international attempts to integrate Twitter, uni-directionally, Twision viewers are able to use the #veo7 hashtag to speak directly to presenters and influence where the program’s discussion goes — branded “twittertulia”.
During the latest program (which is at midnight and Veo7 is not a prime channel), Melchor Miralles’ timeline crashed and he was quickly buried under nearly 2,000 comments and suggestions. → Read More
So this is candy made of sugar, spice, and stump remover. Click through to see a Furby eating it. Also, Jeri Ellsworth is the coolest geek girl in the whole wide world. → Read More
Apple has submitted a rather mysterious patent application, which appears to be a set of methods for lighting a display with external light sources — among which the sun seems to have the most… prominence. We all know how little patent illustrations actually resemble the devices which proceed from them, so I wouldn’t take these weird-looking line drawings as accurate representations of future apple products. Instead, try to wrap your mind around what they’re supposed to do.
It seems that Apple is looking at ways of leveraging existing light sources to make its displays visible. Not by internal reflectance, which is how e-ink is visible in sunlight, but by piping and reflecting the light to the edges or back of the display. → Read More
Last week, I wrote about check-in fatigue. While there is a lot of excitement right now surrounding location-based apps, and particularly the ones where you “check-in” places, trying to use all of them can be exhausting, as I found out at SXSW. So what’s the solution? Do you just pick one and stick with it? You could, but there’s no guarantee that all of your friends will pick the same one as you. So the guys behind Brightkite have a better solution.
Check.in is an application that lets you check-in with multiple services at the same time. Or, as they put it, it’s “on check-in to rule them all.” While the team showed it to me briefly at SXSW (and CrunchGear got some video of it in action), they’ve actually given me access to it now to play around with. And I’m happy to report that it works great. → Read More
It’s an interesting time to be in the e-book business. E-readers in their many varieties are sussing out the perfect user experience, and the race to the bottom might end up with students packing a Kobo into their bag instead of 20 pounds of expensive textbooks. When it comes down to it, though, you’re selling a mostly static experience — as indeed books have been for a long time. Interaction in books is the realm of children: pop-ups and coloring books. But the move to new and interesting devices has some people excited about the future of text — and this Text 2.0 idea may just change how you think about interacting with books.
The idea is that it tracks where you’re looking, and based on a number of factors, triggers one of several context-sensitive actions. An eye-tracking interface is an entirely new beastie, however, and somehow I’m not convinced that real life usage will be quite as easy to collate and react to as this video seems to suggest. → Read More
All that talk of UFCnot “getting” the Internet? Yeah, it’s time to put that idea to rest. The company’s longtime TV partner, SpikeTV, launched ultimatefighter.com earlier today, a place where mixed martial arts fans can watch the entire Ultimate Fighter library online. For free. Let that sink in—still think Dana White hates the Internet? In addition to serving up all 231 fights in the show’s history, fans can also interact with each other on social networking services like Twitterand Facebook. Not a bad job, really. → Read More
Grabble grabble grabble! GORF GRABBLE! Satisfying a mutual desire for companionship, this high chair permits your dog or cat to accompany you at the dinner table. The high chair clips securely to tables up to 2″ thick and its height adjusts without tools to elevate your pet to near eye level. Grabble grabble! Product Page! Strange woman who lives alone! Ford to City: Drop Dead! Grabble! via RedFerret → Read More
I know of only one person who would be able to build this thing – my buddy Paul – but I would totally grab a beer and watch him solder everything together and then ride around on this thing like a little freak. Heck, if you try to build this, tell me and we’ll come by and film you riding it. Seriously.
The instructions are pretty complex and you need quite a few parts, including a powerful motor and a go kart wheel. → Read More
Yeah, should be a good match, they’re on a streak right now. Okay, let’s see: row 122…123…124. Here’s me, and you’re Q, right? All right. Not bad seats, huh? Friend of mine usually goes with his wife, but they had to go down east for some reason this time around. Oh, there’s the peanut guy. HEY GUY! Yeah – whoop, nice throw – HEY, AND A BEER! There we go, okay… what’s he saying? Ten bucks? Are you kidding me? Give me a break! Fine. God, they really chisel you here, don’t they? Hey, aren’t you going to get one? No? What – are you going to take my picture with that knockoff Casio you’ve been swinging around? Wait a second, is that – MY GOD, IT’S FILLED WITH WHISKEY! → Read More
What do Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Redpoint Ventures have in common? Besides being tier one venture capitalists, at least one thing: They are all fighting furiously to be the lead investor in Foursquare’s next venture round.
All that competition is driving the valuation massively upwards, too. A couple of weeks ago we’d heard that the deal would likely be closed at around a $50 million valuation. Today we’ve confirmed that the final price will likely be $60 million – $70 million. They’re raising around $10 million, which means when it’s all over Foursquare will be worth up to $80 million on paper. → Read More
The internet was abuzz with Samsung NX10 rumors for quite a while last year, due to it simply being displayed at a trade show behind glass, with no specs or information at all. I don’t know why more companies don’t do mysterious stuff like that, it starts the equivalent of a wildfire on the internet.
At any rate, the NX10 came out and is apparently only the first in a whole line of NX-mount cameras, the next of which will be the NX5, if this slip-up on a Samsung flash compatibility notice is to be believed. → Read More
So the saying goes, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat down your door”. If that is true, Mark Fuller is about to be a really busy guy. Check out the mousetrap that Mark created using CAD, and a 3D printer. → Read More
The Lord of the Ring Blu-ray discs will be released on April 6, but a few lucky nerds already have access to it. And they don’t like what they see. → Read More
While I’m not sure what I think about the name, I do like WhiteyBoard’s game. WhiteyBoard is an “instant” whiteboard made of plastic that weighs less than two pounds and slaps right up on your wall without screws. Instead of those standard, crazily heavy and expensive whiteboards you’re used to, you simply buy a 18-inch, 3-foot, or 6-foot WhiteyBoard, slap it up, and start brainstorming. → Read More
The Mind Speller is a communications tool from crazy world. Designed by Belgian researchers, the device takes an EEG scan of your brain activity and “writes” letters based on feedback. The idea isn’t new, but this interesting implementation is. It looks like they did their first video demo last year but it seems the product is now more than just a proof of concept. → Read More
There will be lots of news leaking about Facebook’s product announcements at their upcoming F8 Developer Conference in April. That’s because they’re already starting to test out a lot of the new stuff with third party developers, and once two people know a secret, it isn’t really a secret any more.
One of the new features we’ve been hearing about is the extension of Facebook Connect and the Facebook API to allow publishers to add a “Like” button to any piece of content on their site.
Sound trivial? It isn’t. This is likely part of Facebook’s Open Graph API project that will incentivize third party sites to interact deeply with Facebook by sharing content and associated metadata. → Read More
While not the first bike to do away with spokes, the Shadow might be the first to see mass production. And its certainly the first to be wireless. Yes, that’s correct. Wireless bicycles. → Read More
Right before the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas a couple weeks ago, some of you may have read about SimpleGeo’s awesome location data visualization tool called Vicarious.ly. The site showed location information coming in to SimpleGeo from Austin in realtime, and included elements such as Foursquare check-ins, Gowalla check-ins, geotagged pictures from Flickr, and geotagged tweets from Twitter. It was really interesting to watch in realtime, but it may be even more interesting in hindsight. Luckily, SimpleGeo has released a video to show the data over the span of just about a week (March 11 to March 17).
As you can see, Foursquare and Gowalla clearly dominate the data. This is in line with what we heard in the midst of the so-called “location war” between the two. It’s also kind of fun to watch the early hours of the morning when everyone is clearly asleep, and then watch as the data comes roaring back to life around 8 AM as festival-goers undoubtedly nursed hangovers to head to the convention center. → Read More
Yeah, it’s pretty much a meta-blogging joke about some recent unpleasantness regarding non-disclosure agreements. But if you think you might run into Walt, Josh, or Blam some time soon, you will impress them favorably if you have a game sporting their likeness. It’s actually on a game-making platform called Sketch Nation Shooter, which will be 99 cents on the ol’ iPhone come April 6. You can download WMEB and feel the power then. Exclusive! Behind the scenes – check out the concept art. → Read More
Barcelona, Spain
New York City
San Francisco, CA
