Source: Markie Darkie's Portfolio
Super uber delicious funky type designs I found while browsing around. I know for sure any company would crave for a logo design like this. Source: Markie Darkie's Portfolio For the past year, Microsoft has been quietly testing a microblogging service for businesses, essentially developing a corporate Twitter. Taking the tweeting bird and dressing it in office park grays, OfficeTalk's resemblance to the popular microblogging service is uncanny: The experiment uses topic hashtags, has an in-built URL shortener, supports "@" mentions and limits its messages to 140 characters. In fact, the only major difference between the two products is that Twitter's advanced features, such as lists and geo-location, are missing from the Microsoft experiment. The wholesale theft recreation of Twitter is particularly troublesome after MSN China landed in hot water for ripping off a lesser social networking service called Plurk.
Microblogging is quickly becoming a powerful way for informal communication and, understandably, Microsoft wants to make sure it has a competitive product for businesses to adopt internally. Other entrants already have a head start: Google Buzz will be offered in a standalone version through Google Apps and Yammer has been offering custom private microblogging to businesses since 2008. Then, there is the true power player, Twitter, which is actively trying to attract business customers. Microsoft does have one major advantage though; the ability to easily integrate OfficeTalk with Exchange, Sharepoint, or Outlook, which could be a killer feature in a corporate environment. Source: Switched Instead of a traditional desktop computer, many people are opting to purchase a laptop for use at home and on the go. With so many features to choose from, it's important to know what you need before you buy. Important laptop features If you haven't gone shopping for a new computer in a while, the laptop ads may strike you as a tad confusing with phrases such as "2GB RAM, 8GB SSD, Level II cache," etc. Fortunately, a little information is all you need to make sense of today's laptop jargon. Here are the basic features you're going to want to pay attention to: Processor. There are many different processors on the market which can make it difficult to find the one that’s right for you. You want to look for amazing performance like that found in the Intel® Core™ processor family. If you already have a laptop or desktop and are looking for an ultra small laptop called a netbook, you’ll want to look into a system with the Intel® Atom™ processor inside. Screen size. There are many different shapes and sizes in today’s laptops. You can choose a tablet-size computer with a screen that’s as small as five inches wide or a desktop replacement laptop with a giant 20-inch screen that’s perfect for playing DVDs, editing photos and videos, or even gaming. The key to making a decision is determining what exactly you expect to do with this new laptop once you get it home. Battery life. Just a few years ago, if your laptop battery lasted two hours, you were doing well. These days with amazing advances in processor technology, operating systems, and battery technology, some laptops can run as long as eight hours or more before needing to recharge. Be sure to look at a system that will last as long as you need before recharging. RAM. Think of RAM (random access memory) as a way to measure your laptop's intelligence. You may be able to squeak by with 512 MB of RAM if you’re going to be primarily doing email and surfing the Web, but most computer users will want at least 1 GB or more to run several applications at once. If you can’t afford as much RAM as you would like, you can usually upgrade your RAM down the road. CD/DVD drive. A good laptop can act as an entertainment center as well as a business tool. Some disc drives will simply read CD-ROMs while others allow you to record CDs and DVDs, too. However, if you’re looking for the ultimate in portability, like you get in a netbook, a CD and DVD option is not generally an option. Storage space. The more storage space you have on your laptop, the better. Though 160 GB means you can load nearly 40,000 songs on your laptop, an internal drive can fill up quickly in just a year or two. Storage space comes in two varieties today—hard drives and solid-state drives (SSD). Though hard drives currently dominate the computer world, solid-state drives are gaining popularity. With no moving parts, an SSD generates little heat, wastes less energy, and can take more punishment than a traditional hard drive. Unfortunately, SSDs tend to cost a bit more, but prices are gradually coming down. One nice thing about hard drives is that you can always buy an external hard drive later down the road to increase your storage capacity as you need to. External hard drives are also nice to back up your information in case your internal hard drive goes bad. Ethernet port. Most if not all current laptop models contain an Ethernet port, which allows you to connect your computer to a DSL modem and networks that you typically find in a business environment. WiFi. If your new laptop is WiFi enabled, that means it can use wireless hot spots at coffee shops, libraries, and other public areas, using them to access the Web. More and more businesses and public areas allow you to connect to hotspots free of charge, so you can stay connected almost anywhere these days. Additionally, if you choose to purchase your next laptop with wireless capability, you could choose to set up your own home network so you can be online throughout your house. Pre-loaded software and license agreements It's easy to find a laptop or netbook at a bargain price, but those cost savings could be eaten up by software license agreements. Many inexpensive computers come with trial versions of popular software packages, but the trial typically lasts 60 days or less. To continue using the product after the trial period ends, you need to buy the software. When shopping around for a new laptop, make sure to ask the clerk what software packages come with the computer and which merely are trial versions. Written by: Steven Bryan What's a global gaming company to do once they've soundly dominated the portable market? Why, covertly get the DS into schools and restaurants, of course! Shigeru Miyamoto, who created undercover gems like Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, recently informed the AP that his company would be rolling the DS out "in junior high and elementary schools in Japan starting in the new school year," though few details beyond that were available. We do know, however, that this invasion into the education sector is more than just a fluke, with Miyamoto noting that this very area is where he is "devoting [himself] the most." Of course, the Big N already has a nice stable of mind-bending titles, but getting actual teachers to embrace the device in the classroom would be another thing entirely. In related news, select McDonald's eateries in Japan will be using the DS to train part-time workers, though mum's the word on whether the Cooking Mama franchise will be cashing in here.
Source: Engadget One of the cutest advertisement campaigns for a British water bottle company called "Drench". Unfortunately I couldn't find out who exactly made it for Drench. All I know is, these clever commercials would definately appeal to a wide audience. And before I forget, they have a beautiful website too! A press release on Nintendo's Japanese website appears to confirm the company's next handheld console, temporarily named the "Nintendo 3DS," and said to include hardware and software that will enable "3D effects" without the need for special glasses. The console is stated to be backwards compatible with DS and DSi games and is expected to go on sale (in Japan, presumably) "during the fiscal year ending March 2011" -- so within the next year. The press release has no pictures or other information, and save for the fact that it appears as a file on Nintendo's website, there's no other official word about the new hardware.
There are a few dots to connect, however: 3D gaming is on the rise, and a few other companies have also experimented with head tracking as a way to implement 3D effects. Nintendo's own Satoru Iwata hasn't been impressed with 3D gaming in the past, but his issue is with the glasses, not the technology. "I have doubts whether people will be wearing glasses to play games at home," he said recently. We've also heard that the next handheld would have a "movement sensor" of some kind, so if Nintendo really has designed a head-tracking 3D solution, then maybe the console is ready to go. The press release, which you can read after the break in full, says we'll see more at E3, so stay tuned. Source: Joystiq The new Apple Ipad is showing its muscles in what it can do by demonstrating its "interactive magazine" feature. And ofcource, they had to talk about sex, and sex sells ofcource according to Apple. The video might not be super interresting but it's a clear demonstration as to what the Ipad can do.
So every now and then I come across something that absolutely blows my mind and know in an instant this has to be shared with the SloDive community. The images below are the work of Alexa Meade who currently lives in D.C. Notice I said images, not paintings! Somehow she manages to blend paint on the human body in way that makes the figure look like it jumped straight from the canvas into the real world. Have a close look below and make sure to visit her portfolio for more info on Alexa.
Opera has always had a tough time taking on the big guys in the desktop browser market, but anyone who has given Opera Mini a try on their smart phone platform of choice would probably be pleasantly surprised. Rather than simply spitting out web pages just like everyone else, the "Mini" version of the browser will actually relay messages through the company's compression servers, vastly reducing both load time and data usage on the device. This feature makes it one of the fastest mobile browsers available for any of the open smart phone platforms, which up until now, included just about everything short of the iPhone. Well according to Opera's Jon von Tetzschner the company is not just working on an iPhone version of its browser, but that it doesn't anticipate Apple having any problem with it either. "Our expectation is that Apple will allow it," von Tetzschner said. "Why will they block ours?" My response to this would be simply, why wouldn't they block it? Apple has a pretty strict policy when it comes to app's that duplicate native phone functionality, but I suppose only time will tell. Maybe Apple wants to get ahead of the anti-trust wrecking ball then inevitably hunts down anyone who tries to shoehorn web browsers into monopolistic markets, but I wouldn't count on it. Expect to see a release notice, or angry blog posting from Opera within the next few weeks. Source: Maximum PC instrumental video nine from beeple on Vimeo. Funky video and music from some kind of machine that can scratch, mix and all sorts of things. Not much to say about it except it's cool.
To see more, check out these links: beeple-crap.com facebook.com/beeple vimeo.com/channels/beeple |
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