![B.o.B. - Nothing on You [Official Video]](http://theurbanian.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Picture-1-310x150.png)
Incase 2010 Spring Canvas Collection
Props to Hypebeast for the first look on the Spring 2010 collection. Having had my hands on the black Incase canvas collection, the line gets a nod for both build quality and aesthetics. The Spring 2010 collection dons a sterile grey that makes for a clean minimal look for carrying any and all of your goods.
As always, Incase chocks each bag full of useful interior compartments and most importantly, great laptop protection. Each bag has a laptop compartment coated with lush faux-fur, that fits up to a 15″ MacBook Pro (real talk, Incase is for Mac’s). In addition to solid laptop protection, each bag has a quick-access iPhone pocket and an adjustable shoulder strap.
Contact Kenneth, the author of this post, at k@theurbanian.com or @kennygw on Twitter.
Next-Gen Textbooks: Cheap, Editable, Dynamic
Textbooks, the bane of college students worldwide. First you shell out 200 bucks for a book that the professor only ends up covering a third of (if that). Then to top it all off, at the end of the semester you’re greeted by the smarmy bookstore worker who delights in telling you either they’re not taking the book back, or just taking 25 bucks for it online and dealing with that whole process.
Having experienced the blight of purchasing textbooks first hand, I can attest to the frustration that comes as a result of it. The system really has been broken for years, if not decades at this point. With that said, cue MacMillan’s DynamicBooks project. DynamicBooks is a next-gen approach to textbooks that enables professors to edit and customize texts specifically for the manner in which they intend on using it in their respective course.
Instuctors will be able to edit content, insert notes, upload syllabuses, delete unneeded content, and even upload their own media. Great, yes. Exactly what students are looking for? Not really.
The core problem here is cost, and finally it’s getting addressed. Macmillan has titles listed nearly a third of their print editions cost. For you none-math folk, that means your $150 Biology book will cost you $50 and it’ll actually be wholly relevant. That raises the penultimate question, what devices will these books be available on?
The answer is, well, a number of platforms. The most interesting being the iDevice family, namely the iPad. Interactive, searchable, dynamic school textbooks means inline videos, dynamic images, and well, you get the drift.
The slated date for DynamicBooks debut is August 2010, just in time for the Fall semester. Having cruised through countless courses with searchable E-Books I can attest to the efficiency a digital text brings about. So save your back, your time, and most importantly, your money.
Contact Kenneth, the author of this post, at k@theurbanian.com or @kennygw on Twitter.
Polaroid Relaunch, The PIC 1000
Months back we featured a tidbit on speculation of Polaroid toying around with the idea of relaunching their iconic camera line. Today, that speculation is becoming a reality as Polaroid has partnered with The Impossible Project to redefine and breath some fresh air into the brand. Funded and supported by Summit Global Group, Polaroid will be unveiling their new camera, the PIC 1000 later on this year. The PIC 1000 will be available in a variety of colors, cost under $100 (I know, vague), and will use the traditional Polaroid Color 600 Instant Film.
Keep an out for a late 2010 launch at retailers near you.
Contact Kenneth, the author of this post, at k@theurbanian.com or @kennygw on Twitter.
Wired Demos Beautiful iPad Tablet App
Well, you’re here reading this probably for a few reasons. Either you’re an Apple fan-boy with point and click instinct on any and all Apple, maybe a purveyor of print magazines, or just one of our devout viewers. Whoever you are, the publishing industry is inching its way towards a renaissance in the form of wholly digital, and interactive content.
Now that my publishing tangent thirst is quenched, what we’re really here to show you is Wired’s video showcase of their pending approach to tablet publications. So, before non-Wired readers click elsewhere, bare in mind that Wired is owned and operated by Condé Nast. A company whom happens to publish over 20 magazines, including GQ, Vogue, Allure, Details, just to name a few. Think they’ll be left out of the next-gen loop? You’re wrong.
Months ago the iPad was unveiled to popular, and unpopular avail. Albeit heralded generally as a glorified iPod touch of sorts, what went unspoken was the lengths at which an interface of that size and functionality could be transmogrified into a interactive digital media reader. Wired finally released a video online yesterday following their TED conference keynote highlighting their approach to the forthcoming tablet revolution.
This isn’t your orthodox demo running on a piecemeal proprietary platform. It’s live-code, put together in Wired’s office using Adobe’s InDesign software and a little development magic. The best part? It’s all ready to get suited up and put on the iPad playing field come summer 2010. It’s demos like this that were missing from Apple’s keynote that left consumers confused as to why they should really even want a tablet computing device.
Soak it up in the video below, the sumptuous digital interactivity, live-ads, fluid transitions, and the avante-garde approach to publication that has been a long time coming. Whether or not you see the potential in tablet computing doesn’t matter, it’s there, and come launch time it’s going to be one hell of a whirlwind to both the publishing industry and consumers on the whole.
Sarah Silverman Gets Twitter-Owned
Sarah Silverman spoke at the Technology, Education, and Design conference known as TED this year and she managed to stir quite the ruckus.
Silverman is known for her absurd comedy. She’s most known for her I’m Fucking Matt Damon song and donning blackface on her Comedy Central program. Just because she was speaking at a conference full of serious people like scientists and designers, it didn’t stop her from being edgy.
She excessively used the word, “retarded,” keeping with the Sarah-Palin-is-trying-to-make-it-the-r-word theme we’ve seen comedians go about lately. Here’s what she said:
“The only problem with adopting a retarded child is that the retarded child, when you are 80 is well, still retarded and that she wouldn’t enjoy the freedoms of setting them free at age 18, so she was only going to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness so it has an expiration date, because who would adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness? Well, someone who was awesome like her”.
The room went silent during that part and when she was done, as she transitioned into a song about penises. When she was done, only half the room applauded.
After the conference, organizer Chris Anderson tweeted that Silverman was god-awful, but he quickly deleted it. Silverman’s response to him was calling him a “barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates’ asshole.”
Steve Case, who was co-founder of AOL, tweeted that Silverman was not funny. Silverman’s response to him was that he should be nicer to the last person on earth with an AOL account, which is pretty funny. The problem is that however, and Case was sure to respond to it quickly, telling her that he left AOL 10 years and she needs new material. Silverman’s response to that was posting an article from 2005 about Case leaving the Time Warner Board, along with the mocking question: “Is 2005 10 years ago already?” Case then made sure to tweet back the fact he left AOL in 2000 and by his count that’s 10 years. Silverman never tweeted anything back, because she got pwned (Does anyone still use that typo-turned-internet-sensation phrase anymore, or are you automatically a douchebag if you use it?)
Silverman managed to get caught up in a Twitter war and now looks foolish. Let this be a lesson to all, do your research before you tweet.
Windows Phone 7 Series Goes Gold
It’s been a long time coming for Microsoft in the smart-phone industry. With constant train wrecks coming in the form of Windows Mobile _ (insert any number here), the original monopoly masters have passed go, collected 200 dollars, and are on their way to clawing their way into the real smartphone industry.
How? Well, Microsoft managed to get the collective Microsoft fanboy population a-yearning within minutes of initially demoing the units snappy interface. Driven by what has rumored to be a 1 GHz. Snapdragon processor, the test unit spun, flicked, and twisted fluidly and beautifully without a hitch.
The best part is Microsoft has eliminated any and all facets of the Windows Mobile series and replaced them with elements from the Zune’s interface. Good, yes. Great, definitely. The interface has this jenga-grid approach allowing certain subsets of the phone to be more salient than others.
For example, the main screen per se, is a stack of squares with each one having a separate function. The top of the menu keeps it basic with phone, people, text, and Outlook, the essentials. Then as you scroll down further, media functionality is pegged in, Xbox live (vague and unclear as to how it’s going to work), pictures, and others.
Unlike the iPhone, social functionality is laced together elegantly allowing you to update multiple accounts simultaneously all within seconds as opposed to per-application updates (just saying). It appears Microsoft has went the extra mile to maintain fluid continuity across the platform.
In short, Microsoft has outdone themselves on this, and it’s about damn time. Similar to the auto-industry, the smartphone field is looking to be dominated by the big three: Apple, Microsoft, and Google (sorry BlackBerry). Who will prevail? Time will tell. But if Apple doesn’t step up to the plate soon with a new release, I’ll be seriously considering investing into WP7.
Video features, images, and phone demos below:
Google Doesn’t Delete Blogs, Labels Do. The Facts.
In typical Internet fashion, the logistics behind yesterdays Google “Musicblogocide” got misconstrued and twisted up into a P.R. nightmare leaving Google pinned down by a music blogosphere upheaval. To condense the shit-storm that is music licensing and copyrighting, what happened was Google’s hand was forced by the IFPI to pull a slew of music blogspot accounts. Mind you, each and every infringing blog had been sent take-down notices regarding contravening posts prior.
Picture this. On the Internet the IFPI has bots scouring the web, like little digital snitches, sniffing out blogs with uploaded tracks, licensed content, and other things bloggers have either inadvertently posted, or knowingly posted under the catch me if you can notion that often prevails on the Internet.
After these bots come across suspicious content, an alert is sent to the IFPI, which is later served to Google in the form of an extensive list. Google then sends the take-down notices to sites in question and either the sites oblige to the IFPI’s regulatory demands, or Google is forced, by law, to pull the site.
Sounds fair, right? Well, here’s an example from the issue at hand. I Rock Cleveland was a rule-abiding blogspot on IFPI’s shit-list, they had sought out permission for licensed tracks, and in turn, was granted it but the IFPI bot sees only in black and white with no discretion to the behind the door head-nods, winks, and nudges traded between bloggers and labels.
So Google in result, has their hands tied by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which either Google abides by, or becomes listed as an unsafe harbor and becomes liable for any and all infringing content anywhere on their servers. So after I Rock Cleveland had obtained permission, gotten flagged, then removed the permissable content anyways, had their site wiped.
The term, fell through the cracks exists for a reason, and this fiasco is a testament to that notion. With the IFPA flagging, bagging, and gagging blogs on a daily basis it was only a matter of time before this kind of event occurred.
So the take-home for bloggers is to check your e-mail for DMCA take-down notices, and if you get one, file a counter-claim, for your sites sake. Or your blog will be banished from the Internet forevermore.
Despite the wrongs done to our blogger brethren, the perpetually growing gray area between file sharing and music promotion continues to grow. This means one thing is certain, a digital natural selection of sorts has to take place. Archaic policies will need revision, and a paradigm shift will be in order. Lets just hope it’s for us.
- @kennygw
Open Your Mind to Google Buzz
It was only a matter of time before the Google powers that be decided to delve into the social networking spectrum. Enter Google Buzz. With pre-existing rock solid services such as Google Reader, Picasa, G-Mail, and G-Chat, Google’s got all the tools to take on father Facebook and Twitter.
So, before you rifle down to the comments to spew negativity about how Google owns too much or whine about how there’s no room in the social networking realm for another platform, stop and think about the rock-solid services that Google provides.
SERVICE SLEW
For starters, RSS readers, desktop proprietary or web, pale in comparison to Google Reader. Google Reader gives it’s users a way to scour the web, quickly, efficiently, and fluidly. With Google Reader, abilities for social networking (liking, sharing, starring, etc.) have been already standing for some time. It’s just the nerds who were primarily familiar with it. For those not familiar with RSS, we’ve got a how-to on the way here soon.
In 2004 Google acquired Picasa, an application for managing your photos both online and offline. In a lot of respects, it’s similar to Flickr, but a couple pegs down the popularity pole. And compared to Facebook’s proprietary image management, or Twitter’s make-shift services, Picasa is far more powerful.
Then of course G-Mail came along, which was hailed as a web phenomenon in its own right. Upon its debut Google offered a unprecedented 2 GB. of storage which at the time when floppy’s were still in use, was unheard of.
Additionally, after G-Mail’s 2004 launch, a year later Google unveiled Google Talk, which today is affectionately known as G-Chat. Albeit a browser-based chat client, over the course of the last 5 years, G-Chat has evolved into a full-fledged messenger client capable of even video conferencing and able to be run in third party applications.
SO NOW WHAT?
Communication? Check.
Web Browsing Management? Check.
Image Sharing? Check.
Now Google has built (and bought) the foundation for a social networking powerhouse from the top down, as opposed to Facebook or Twitter, whom started from the ground up. That being said, cue Google Buzz, a service that amalgamates the proverbial all-star Google services into a newly christened social network.
SO WHAT DOES IT DO?
It ties all the Google services together and publishes it to one profile. For example: commenting, starring, or liking stories via Google Reader publishes them to your Buzz feed. Set your G-Chat status and it gets fed to the buzz feed as well. Upload, comment, or share pictures via Picasa, the changes get buzz’d.
Basically if you’ve been using Google applications as a means to survive on the web, you now have the ability to share everything seamlessly and fluidly. No shortening URL’s, pasting story links, 140 character limits, nothing. Google Buzz simply connects the dots.
It takes your current G-Mail contacts then automatically populates a Buzz list so to speak. The best part? It’s natural friend selection. The only people on my G-Chat list are those whom I’m actually in contact with, have exchanged e-mails with, and know well.
So in essence, Google is natural friend selection, Darwin would be proud. The only friends that survive to make my buzz feed are those who I’m actually in contact with, exchange e-mails with, and personally know. This is all opposed to Facebook’s knee-jerk, add anyone you’ve seen in the last 10 years reaction and or Twitter’s almost stalker following terminology.
SO THEN WHAT’S THE BUZZ WITH BUZZ?
For some reason unbeknown to me, people everywhere think Google is watching their every move, archiving their deepest and darkest secrets. Well, they are, and so is any damn site you choose to use or visit. Do they use that information for anything but autonomously feeding you ads relevant to your history? No.
With 10,000 employees and a company to run, Google doesn’t care about its users strange web affinities. If people are so concerned about them in the first place, maybe they should step back and take a look at what they’re viewing in the first place. That stuff is illegal in most states anyways.
Furthermore, don’t get mad at Google for innovating. Things succeed for a reason, Google has revolutionized the way we view the web, whether you like it or not. The fact that they continue to push for innovation, new methods, and try out new concepts is a testament to why they’re successful in the first place.
SHOULD YOU SWITCH?
If you have to ask yourself that question, chances are Google Buzz isn’t for you (yet). Those utilizing Google’s application suites will find this to be a welcomed addition and a useful way to share content without the flipping back and forth between sites and platforms.
The last thing we ask you, is don’t be one of those Google naysayers or whiners. Respect new ideas and keep an open mind. So if you have a Google account, and are interested, they started rolling out Buzz access just today so keep an open eye.
Twitter Redefining Relevance, Get Your Local On
Just weeks ago if you were a freshly christened Twitter user, upon completion of signing up Twitter would dump out a list of celebrities and other notable A-Listers for you to burst your proverbial Twitter cherry on. As of last week Twitter began rolling out incremental changes with a new approach towards new users. Now, after setting up a profile users are offered lists of prominent news sources and noteworthy individuals to start off following.
Also, more importantly, finally, Twitter is realizing the significance of local trends and capitalizing on it. Users are now able to set their profiles to a specific region or country therein giving the Twitter’sphere a more local element. What does that mean for us? Relevant content.
That and trending topics will be replaced by words and phrases frequented within your area. Local updates? Count us in. Being able to know how a show is going, how busy a local bar is, or where to pick up Tamale’s at 2 am is far more important than whether or not Ashton Kutcher is taking a dump.
Whether or not the changes improve Twitter’s plateauing traffic is yet to be seen. However, we’re looking forward to a sharper, more pertinent Twitter in the future.
iPad + Stephen Colbert = Marketing Success
Last night amidst a rather routine Grammy’s Awards, Stephan Colbert went topical and announced song of the year nominees via a list from his very own iPad. To which he followed up with “Jay-Z, did you not get one of these in your gift bag?” Can’t go wrong, the hype continues.
