Posts tagged as Gadgets
Please Welcome The Wirecutter
The Wirecutter is a new website designed to do one thing: to tell you what the best particular product in a category is at any given moment. It is a project of Brian Lam, late of Gizmodo. Do you want to buy a TV? Great: here are the three TVs we endorse right now. Here's what Brian has to say about the site; here's the best way to use it. READ MORE
The End of CES: Hey, But What About Our Shiny Future?
What did we learn from this year's CES gadget freakout show? Well... people like phones. And pretty pictures. And that we live in a very strange time: what's recently new is already old and boring, and there's nothing shocking and new to be had. (This is just because we have a short attention span! I mean the iPad is still pretty new! Remember how excited you were?) READ MORE
CES: Shiny Things To Actually Want
Recently I was talking with Paul Graham, of genius startup incubator Y Combinator, for a story, and, while on a tangent, he made a case to the tablet-adverse folks like me. "The tablet, I believe now it's pretty safe to say, is the next model of computer," he said. "I think twenty years from now, kids will say, 'What's a computer?' And we'll say, 'Oh back before you used an iPad or an Android device for browsing the web, you had to use this thing with a keyboard and a big monitor.'" And I was like, really? (People like me, who use computers for text, find this idea slightly scary.) And he was like, yeah, dummy, basically: "It's still risky! But I'm pretty much ready to call it at this point." He also noted that, of startups he has seen, that "five years ago, everyone was starting a web startup. And now they're all—well, not all—they're starting things that build upon tablets." Believe it. So I've tried to pay particular attention to tablets during this CES. There's a ton of them! And I guess I'd better get used to loving them. Actually they're not so scary!
While we wait for the supposedly iterative iPad 2, there is, for instance, the BlackBerry Playbook. There are tons of tablets coming down the pike in various stripes—the Samsung Galaxy Tab (it should be a Mario Kart competitor with that name, maybe?), for instance—and none of them really feel dominant but what'll happen is that they'll all rise together. And you know what? Even the Apple fanboys like the Playbook, mostly.
And actually? I like its scale, compared to the iPad. What's also happening is we're getting everything in every size: the Samsung Infuse 4G phone is like... almost a tablet? Like a phone-sized tablet?
And the Motorola Xoom, even? Yeah, there's a ton! The HuffPo actually did something useful with a slideshow comparing 11 tablets at the show. Enjoy those pics, some of those you'll never see in the wild, because, what, gosh, hmm.
So in a sense, with all this wild market diversity, I think we can start to see how devices will be devices—phone-tablets, pad-phones, all kinds of things—particularly if we end up with bendable and transparent screens, yes please. And also? They're gonna be so cheap.
As far as everything else, what people love are the smart little things. Like Yorbuds, the world's ugliest and maybe-best in-ear headphones. And? I mean, why didn't this exist already: the iPad game joystick! That is a huge "duh." Possibly you could build it yourself for $3 at the hardware store? But who among us will! Frankly I would also enjoy snow goggles with an HD video camera, because, why not? Totally ludicrous, but rich people need hilarious things too.
Of course, the one thing that gets people of all stripes excited, for whatever reason, is a beautiful TV. People are predictable in this fashion! So it's not surprising to hear things like this:
PUT THIS IN MY LIVING ROOM NOOWWWWW. http://gizmo.do/gZrCM8 I WANT TO SLEEP ON IT AND EAT OFF IT.
Sam Biddle
samfbiddle
Well? Yes. Sony can do that from time to time. I mean... yes.
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Humans, It Is Urgent That You Stop Whatever It Is That You're Doing And Watch This Video Immediately
There was recently an article posted in this space alerting you to another article about how increased use of computer technology is supposedly be changing your ability to focus. If you were paying attention, which you probably weren't, you may have read that University of California neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley thinks, "We are exposing our brains to an environment and asking them to do things we weren't necessarily evolved to do. We know already there are consequences." Or that Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of the world's leading brain scientists, agrees, saying, "The technology is rewiring our brains." NEW ALERT: in the unlikely event that you were in fact paying attention, DISREGARD PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION. The second article cited above is 3639 words long. That is 3,499 more characters than you have been programed to process, not even counting punctuation marks. HA! HA! HA! To avoid overload, CLOSE TAB and watch this video. READ MORE
Waiting for the Apple Tablet, with Joel Johnson
So the first thing you should know about the Apple Tablet is that I just bought a van. It's creepy. Mary HK Choi hadn't even seen a picture yet before she called me "shady." This dashed my hopes of driving to New York and taking her from Maine to Florida, eating things covered in mayonnaise all the way. READ MORE
Hot Gadget News, by Joey, My Building's Porter, Who May or May Not Have Formerly Been An "Exotic Dancer"
From time to time, The Awl offers its space to normal, everyday people with a perspective on national issues. Today, we bring this special report on technology from one of my Murray Hill Gramercy-adjacent building's porters, who enjoys golf, tattoos, talking about sports with the doormen and who may or may not have been a "dancer" in his previous career. (As told to Choire Sicha.) READ MORE
