Simulacra

That's No Space Station: Tumblr @ Yahoo: Day 1

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:17:23 -0500

That's No Space Station: Tumblr @ Yahoo: Day 1:

New purple dashboard option

All other dashboard color options are retired

By June 1, you will have to update your avatar to be one of those damn cartoon people things

All new post buttons (icon and background) are now purple

Every sentence you write will automatically get an exclamation…

Well done and tasteful, but it might b time to look for another...

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:40:08 -0500

Well done and tasteful, but it might b time to look for another blog.

marissamayr:

I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr!

We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.

Tumblr has built an amazing place to follow the world’s creators. From art to architecture, fashion to food, Tumblr hosts 105 million different blogs. With more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr is one of thefastest-growing media networks in the world. Tumblr sees 900 posts per second (!) and 24 billion minutes spent onsite each month. On mobile, more than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app, and those users do an average of 7 sessions per day. Tumblr’s tremendous popularity and engagement among creators, curators and audiences of all ages brings a significant new community of users to the Yahoo! network. The combination of Tumblr+Yahoo! could grow Yahoo!’s audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly visitors, and could grow traffic by approximately 20%.

In terms of working together, Tumblr can deploy Yahoo!’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love. In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo!’s media network and search experiences. The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience.

As I’ve said before, companies are all about people. Getting to know the Tumblr team has been really amazing. I’ve long held the view that in all things art and design, you can feel the spirit and demeanor of those who create them. That’s why it was no surprise to me that David Karp is one of the nicest, most empathetic people I’ve ever met. He’s also one of the most perceptive, capable entrepreneurs I’ve worked with. His respect for Tumblr’s community of creators is awesome, and I’m absolutely delighted to have him and his entire team join Yahoo!.

Both Tumblr and Yahoo! share a vision to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas by focusing on users, design — and building experiences that delight and inspire the world every day.

http://yahoo.tumblr.com/

Every Arrested Development Running Gag in One Amazing Interactive Visualization

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:29:01 -0500

The time for goofing around on Recurring Developments, an interactive map of every running gag — every awkward shoulder rub, every huge mistake, every “Her?” – in the first three seasons of Arrested Development has just begun. If you can’t catch up on the episodes by brazenly just watching television at work, this is probably the next best thing, though it would probably serve to keep an important looking Word document open in another window.

Recurring Developments is simple, but deep, taking one of the shows many running gags — like one of my favorites “Well, that was a freebie” — and shows you which episodes the bit appears in. In some happy cases, it will even give you the chance to hover over the joke and get some context on where it appeared in the episode.

Of course, you can also reverse engineer the diagram, picking an episode — for example “Motherboy XXX” — to find out that it has a Carl Weathers gag, a J. Walter Weatherman bit, a “Hey, brother!” and many more of the series’ trademark lines. In short, it is pretty much the nerdiest of all possible things, and we’re really into it.

As the once mythical fourth season draws nearer, expect more stuff like this to start cropping up. And yes, expect to see it all here, because we could not be more psyched for the comeback of the century.

http://recurringdevelopments.com/

New Google Glass Video Shows What It’s Like Actually Using...

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:10:22 -0500

New Google Glass Video Shows What It’s Like Actually Using Glass…Kind Of.

This new introductory video demonstrates how to use Glass’s touch navigation, but also gives us a better idea of what using it is like.

It looks like the interface is pretty similar to Google Now in the way it breaks information and alerts into cards. The touch navigation looks like it could take some getting used to. Not because its gestures are complicated, but because if you’re using the device heavily it would require a lot of time tapping and swiping at the side of your head.

We’ve also seen voice features in earlier videos, so I’d imagine most users will use some combination of the two and navigate however they feel most comfortable — either by tapping their head or by talking to themselves. It’s probably going to take some getting used to either way.

Another pretty cool Microsoft innovation is in prototype. It...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:43:20 -0500

Another pretty cool Microsoft innovation is in prototype.

It looks like tomorrow will mark the big coming out party for Microsoft’s new toy, the IllumiRoom, a projector system that could one day turn your whole living room into a television screen. That day is not today, as the immersive gaming gear is still in its prototype stage. Microsoft has released an updated video detailing the IllumiRoom’s potential, though, and it’s got our attention.

IllumiRoom is, at its heart, a projector that is in constant conversation with your Xbox. Using the Kinect, the IllumiRoom’s projector can get an accurate scan of the room around your television screen. Once it has that, it can project the information that doesn’t fit in your field of view on the screen to the area around it, transforming bookcases into exploding buildings and speakers into machine gun wielding robots — or zombies intent on destroying your garden, it that’s more your thing.

Alternately, the IllumiRoom can go a more abstract route, turning the room round the game into a snowstorm or a blue light grid that looks like how androids must see the world. While I don’t know if android vision will make anyone better at playing games, I certainly don’t see how it could hurt.

Chances are, we’ll have more details on the new tech tomorrow after it makes its official debut in Paris at this year’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. This doesn’t feel like a game-changer for the industry yet, but if it’s something Microsoft can bring to market alongside its coming next-gen offering…well, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sweeten the pot a bit.

I love science! We need to move science out of its siloed...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 07:39:35 -0500

I love science! We need to move science out of its siloed existence and into popular culture. This is such a great lesson for kids, teaching them how to deal with uncertainty and embrace basic discovery. #iwishipayedmoreattention

laughingsquid:

Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, and Others Discuss the Storytelling of Science

Twitter Music Is Live Today, And It Is Pretty Cool!

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:56:49 -0500

Twitter Music Is Live Today, And It Is Pretty Cool!:

To say that Twitter Music is debuting today would be to discount the man hours Ryan Seacrest and other celebrities have spent assaulting their earholes with it.

What are you doing May 26? Shut up, doesn’t matter, cancel all your plans right now. You have new...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:00:27 -0500

What are you doing May 26? Shut up, doesn’t matter, cancel all your plans right now. You have new plans, and they’re awesome, because you, like any decent, right-thinking person, are going to be watching 15 new episodes of Arrested Development when they arrive on Netflix at 12:01 PDT May 26.

Netflix had the decency and wisdom to bring the show back on a Sunday, which means you won’t have to feel bad about marathoning right through five and a half straight hours of new Arrested Development, because seriously, what else are you going to do on a Sunday?

Google’s ‘Fools’ Blue is hilarious…and a...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:34:35 -0500

Google’s ‘Fools’ Blue is hilarious…and a shot at Facebook? Maybe.

Google Creates 'Calculator' To Tell You If Your Mobile Ads Are Working

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:21:22 -0500

Google Creates 'Calculator' To Tell You If Your Mobile Ads Are Working:

Mobile advertising has always had and attribution problem, making it difficult to discern it’s effectiveness due to poor analytics. Jason Spero, Google’s head of mobile strategy is trying to change that. Google has developed a new marketing/measurement tool designed to quantify the value of mobile advertising. Hopefully convincing marketers that its a worthwhile advertising channel.

Video

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 20:47:38 -0500

Wake up, sheeple! Vader was in on it the whole time! Why else...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:26:22 -0500

Wake up, sheeple! Vader was in on it the whole time! Why else would he have been piloting that TIE fighter during the attack on the Death Star? You’re going to tell me it’s just a coincidence that his son fired a one in a million shot despite almost no training, while experienced pilots are getting picked off all around him? The “Rebel Alliance” was led by Vader’s daughter!

What about the Corellian ship that just “happened” to be at the Death Star days before the attack, and then reappeared right before it blew up? It’s all right there, man, you just have to read between the lines. Open your eyes!

I’m calling it right now. Oreo separator videos are way...

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 12:39:50 -0600

I’m calling it right now. Oreo separator videos are way better than Harlem Shake videos. There is now a second video of an Oreo separating machine. This is apparently a thing now, and you know what? That’s fine. These videos are surprisingly cool and damn funny. It might be because they combine a lot of things I love: brand marketing, science, fine video production, and junk food.

The first Oreo separator we saw had one primary purpose — to eliminate the creme because David Neevel doesn’t like it. This new machine from Barry Kudrowitz and Bill Fienup, two toy scientists in Minnesota, tries to make better use of the whole Oreo since Kudrowitz prefers the cookie, and Fienup likes the creme.

ifilikeityoulikeit: vicemag: Building the world’s first glass...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:56:28 -0600

ifilikeityoulikeit:

vicemag:

Building the world’s first glass snowboard

*this is actually really fucking cool.

I’m so surprised it actually holds together through the turns.

How to Make the Most of Mobile Local Search

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 23:41:36 -0600

How to Make the Most of Mobile Local Search:

Great little Q&A With Cindy Krum, CEO, Mobile Moxie

Ice breakers for talking to strangers: A Q&A with Davy Rothbart

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:29:39 -0600

Ice breakers for talking to strangers: A Q&A with Davy Rothbart

Want A Shot At Getting Yourself Some Google Glasses?

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:38:21 -0600

Heads up, gadget geeks — Google is opening the floodgates on Google Glass. Well, kind of, anyway. As of today, you can appeal directly to Google to tell them what cool things you would get up to with Google Glass wrapped around your head. Tell them on Twitter or Google+ why you’d be a great Google Glass guinea pig and just $1500 later, you could be the envy of all your friends while also never being more than a sideways glance away from checking your email.

Google Glass has already been available to developers, and there have been sightings of the tech in the wild, but this is the first time that members of the general public — well, members of the general public with $1500 to blow, anyway — have been able to throw their hats in the ring to get a pair of the email checking, photo taking must-have gadget that will finally drive a stake into the heart of private life as we know it once and for all.

All you have to do is tell Google why you’d be a good candidate, which means making yourself sound more interesting than you really are. Pretend you’re like a professional windsurfer who also tutors inner city kids in… I dunno, theoretical physics or something. They eat that sort of thing up.

Whatever lie you go with, you can enter by posting a short essay — no longer than 50 words — on Google+ or just tweeting your argument for how awesome you are — just make sure to mark either entry #ifihadglass. The entries judged most deserving will be invited to pay Google $1500 — plus tax, of course — for the Explorer Edition of the new tech — also known as “really expensive beta.” And of course, you can supplement your entry with a couple of still photos or a short video, if you want.

If you like your odds and feel the compulsion to walk around with the Internet strapped to your face all the time, get a load of the official rules here, and good luck!

(via Google)

Never let it be said that the folks at Minute Physics shy away...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:53:54 -0600

Never let it be said that the folks at Minute Physics shy away from delving into the really big questions. In the latest episode, the gang takes on the daunting query “What is the Universe?” The answer, predictably, is, like, whoa, man, raising more questions about things like whether we can really know that parts of the Universe we can’t observe actually exist, andif concepts like the future or mathematics are part of the universe we live in, or something else entirely. It’s a bit of a head trip, but since you’ve probably got today off anyway, go ahead and ponder the nature of all things great and small from your bed this morning. You’ve earned it.

This guy throwing a snowball at a boat with a hose on it may be...

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:58:52 -0600

This guy throwing a snowball at a boat with a hose on it may be the very definition of “writing a check your ass can’t cash.” They are city employees. It’s not like they’re allowed to just turn that hose on anyone who messes with them, right?

Wrong.

Why the Moon Landings Could Have Never EVER Been Faked: The...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:55:24 -0600

Why the Moon Landings Could Have Never EVER Been Faked: The Definitive Proof