A couple days ago, at the Code conference, Google unveiled its start-from-scratch take on the driverless car.
It’s marvelous!
For many of us, a future of driverless cars will occur in our lifetime. This charge won’t be led by traditional car manufacturers like Toyota. Oh, they will be there eventually, but I predict it will be transportation services like Uber who will bring Google’s technology to the mainstream.
So it’s true. Apple really did acquire Beats for $3 billion. It’s Apple’s largest acquisition ever.
Noted New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson raised a few eyebrows earlier this month at TechCrunch Disrupt in predicting that Apple won’t be a top three tech company by 2020. Because Apple is “too rooted to hardware” and not capable enough with the cloud.
Consider this acquisition a bullet point to that forecast.
I’m not a baller, so there’s going to be a bit of “who does this guy think he is?” and I acknowledge that. Nevertheless I’ve always been pretty good at presentations and have a view on how Panos Panay, chief of Surface for Microsoft, could have done better in his Surface Pro 3 unveiling. So I’m going to share that view.
If you look at people’s comments on tech websites and forums, quite a few thought Panos did a great job. And he did do a good job. He did a lot of things right, chiefly:
But he could have done a lot better. 2000 words’ worth of suggestions better.
When friends ask me for a mobile game recommendation, I’ve been answering with a number: Threes! You’ve probably heard of 2048; well, this is the original that sparked the copycat and all the other clones.
The similarities are undeniable. The makers of Threes! posted an open letter about it and the media has talked widely about the cloning phenomenon.
But that’s not the focus of this post. Here I want to talk about why Threes! is superior.
(Note: I’m not going to type that exclamation mark any more. Officially, the game is titled Threes! but let’s just go with Threes the rest of the way. Quieter.)
It’s amazing how much technology has advanced, especially computers in the last three decades.
Nothing shows that more than this cute video, where kids are asked to try a PC from the 70s.
You’ve just woken up from a deep, long coma. You’re practically a caveman. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is your love for gadgets. Someone gives you $2000 to buy enough technology for the next year — how do you spend it?
We examine what’s best in-class for each category, and then figure out the ideal product mix given the budget.
Moving from Medium to WordPress was a big job! All of our posts should be on WordPress now. We’re here and hopefully will be here for a while.
There might be lingering issues, e.g. broken links, or links that still lead back to Medium. If you find those, please bear with us and do let me know.
http://cornerplay.com is already pointing to this blog, so the three of you who have this place bookmarked won’t have to change anything. 😉
Back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow, one new post per day.
Note: This was our last post while on Medium.
I can’t add a new story on Medium with Internet Explorer or any mobile browser. That’s a problem, especially as I currently travel with a Surface 2, iPhone 5S and a Moto G.
Not being able to submit a story while travelling is exceedingly difficult when the objective is to post once a day. So, that’s almost a deal breaker.
But the actual catalyst for leaving is Medium’s philosophy for organizing content. Specifically, how Medium recommends what story to read next.
I had an HTC One before it was unfortunately stolen out of my gym bag. I needed an Android phone, didn’t want to spend much on a replacement as I already carried an iPhone 5S and so got the inexpensive Moto G. An excellent phone for the amount I paid.
Price was certainly an important variable, so when the One Plus One was revealed it caught my attention in a big way. This is a phone with the internals of a Samsung Galaxy S5 but with the amazing price of $300. Wow! The company can’t be making much money at those prices.
But if it’s too good to be true, that’s probably because it is. In the case of the One Plus, the problem is that it’s almost impossible to actually buy.
For 13 years, David Pogue was the tech columnist for the New York Times before making a move to Yahoo in October last year. Pogue was not a fan of Windows 8 or the previous Surface Pro, so imagine everyone’s surprise when he came out with a positive review of the Surface Pro 3:
If you own or carry around both a tablet and a laptop, then the Surface is calling out your name. There’s nothing like it. It’s so much better than the sales figures would indicate. We, the buying public, are not giving it a fair shake. If this marvel of engineering doesn’t lift the Microsoft hardware curse, I don’t know what its designers are supposed to do.
What’s more eyebrow-raising is the video review that accompanied it, which is probably the most creative and entertaining tech gadget review I’ve ever seen: it’s a spoof of the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials that Apple ran before.
THE CORNERPLAY 