Great XKCD comic on how all things tend to become unread emails: notifications, messages, rss feeds, chats.. and of course emails.
Occasional Musings
by Murali Jayapala
Concise history of smartwatches
A nice overview of history of smartwatches from Hodinkee.
“…. Smartwatches and their predecessors, wrist computers, have been the reluctant revolution. Over the years, they have come in waves, arriving with a big splash, then sinking out of sight. Even the 2003 entrance into the market by the then almighty Microsoft with its Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT) for watches couldn’t make smartwatches mainstream.
Until 2015, what smartwatch had been a hit the way Seiko was in the 1970s, Swatch in the 1980s, or the Rolex Daytona in the 1990s? After a while, one wondered what the deal was with smartwatches: Were they a major development in watch history? A niche toy for tech-geeks? Or simply a long-running, highly entertaining freak-watch sideshow?
Apple has changed all that. The Apple effect on the watch market has been profound. The revolution now has its monster hit watch. Global sales of smartwatches totaled 4.2 million pieces in 2014, according to International Data Corp., the research firm. It rose to 19.4 million in 2015, the year Apple Series 0 (as some call it) went on sale. Apple accounted for 11.6 million of those, according to IDC estimates.
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more of this here: [The link]
Next generation interface, Minorty Report style from Oblong
Here is a cool piece of technology from Oblong for the way we work and collaborate. The interface is gesture based. Perhaps this is in a good direction to start working away from typical cubical styles. Not sure if this can work for all types of jobs (e.g. development work), but still I can imagine a lot of work places being like this in the future. Here is a demo of Oblong’s interfacing.
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
More of the coverage of the tech from Techcrunch: [The link]
The making of a canon 500m f/4L Lens
Great videos about what goes on behind the scenes of manufacturing a lens.
ManyEyes is a Powerful Visualizer for Your Data [Data Visualization]
Lifehacker
via ManyEyes is a Powerful Visualizer for Your Data [Data Visualization].
ManyEyes is a neat tool that produces compelling visualizations based on user-defined data sets, with data types ranging from statistics tables to any old block of text. More »
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
Canon EOS 60D hands-on (video)
Engadget
via Canon EOS 60D hands-on (video).
The 2010 Canon Expo is filled to the brim with drool-worthy image-capturing hardware (more on that later in the day), but the first thing we did when arriving was run straight to the EOS 60D. While we can’t really get into the gritty details in terms of image and video quality based on show floor impressions alone, we will say the comfort and ease of use are superb — not to mention an articulating display that’ll come in handy for crazier shot composition. The company’s definitely got a knack for iterative upgrades, but a prosumer-focused model like this is just a knockout for the price, and leaves us wondering what the future holds for the Rebel T2i when only $200 separates the two cameras. Pictures below, and check out a video walkthrough done by our Engadget Show Producer / Canon enthusiast Chad Mumm after the break.