February 2012
46 posts
1 tag
INTOXICASE-TED
Image via YouTube
I thought the iPhone could do almost everything before I knew it could be a bottle opener. Now I think it can do everything, and keep tabs too! If you or someone you know is a dedicated beer drinker, the Intoxicase, Intoxicase +, and the companion App, might just be the best thing that ever happened to their iPhone.
The app elevates a mere bottle opener to an all around...
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THE OSCARS SOCIAL RECIPE ROUNDUP
“Chocolate Pie” by Flickr user iJammin under CC (By 2.0 License)
Chances are, you have plans this weekend to watch the Oscars with a bunch of culturazzis. One of you might tweet about how you love Billy Crystal more than Anne Hathaway while another is following The Official Oscars App on the iPad. Then you all might use your New York Times/Facebook Ballot to cast your votes into the...
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3D MOVIES GET ARTSY
Image “Viewing 3D IMAX clips” by Flickr user NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under CC (By 2.0 License)
3D has had it rough. Sure, seeing blue aliens kind of pop out at you was cool in Avatar but how many more rehashes do we need to sit through? Fortunately, there are a two films from this past year that are both beautiful culture vulture fare and technologically satisfying. The...
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THE CLOUD IS GROWING
Join the discussion on Cloudline, an online community presented by IBM and WIRED. Tech experts, journalists, and IT insiders all weigh in on how the cloud is shifting today’s computing landscape. This month, Cloudline features opinions from analysts like Mac Devine, IBM Distinguished Engineer. With 21 years of experience in networking and virtualization, he currently serves as Director...
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HOW TO MAKE A WINNING TUMBLR
Image via NeonBiscuit
The only rule? Keep it simple. OK, and funny. Oh, and babies and animals are usually a sure bet for success.
Maddie On Things
There’s this dog. She stands on things. Observe the photographic masterpieces.
Babies with iPads The name explains it all. Almost. Toddlers are also included.
Tom Hanks-imals
Tom Hanks is a lot of animals. Like a horse. And a penguin. And a...
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THE BIGGEST SOCIAL MEDIA TIME SUCKS
Image via WIREDInsider
Statistics like this used to come as a surprise–“What? I won’t spend nine years of my life glued to a TV! I’m interesting! I have a life!”–but now that social media has entered our lives, screen time has surged and the statistics are undeniable.
1. FACEBOOK (DUH.)
Facebook rules the roost as the number one social media time suck. It’s been said that Americans average...
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GETTING AN 'F' IN COMMERCE
Image via BirgerKing
The verdict is finally in on Facebook Commerce-virtual storefronts built right into the Facebook experience: they are not doing so hot. Despite early buzz, F-commerce shops like the ones from Gamestop and Gap had to shutter their storefronts months after they opened.
The reasons are various but it comes down to one key insight: people don’t go to Facebook to shop....
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THE DG'S GUIDE TO GETTING AROUND NYC
Image via Randy Le’Moine Photography
The beautiful thing about NYC is that you can live in the city for ten years and still get lost. Of course, that’s also the same reason why it’s so frustrating living here. How does a savvy New Yorker get around? Well, no digital navigation kit is complete without the iOS Maps App. It’s ridiculously handy when plotting trips, be they by...
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THE BEST DESKTOP WALLPAPER SITE EVER
Image via The Fox is Black
Keeping your desktop background image new and interesting is the cornerstone of an effective digital workspace. How’re you supposed to get anything done when you’re constantly staring at that one cool wallpaper you found over a year ago, or, god forbid, a default Windows or Mac background? No. We can do better. Smarter Upstarter’s secret for fresh desktop wallpaper...
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THE GHOSTLY STORE
Image via Ghostly International
If there were ever a record label that spoke to the startup set, Ghostly International is it. Startup people like electronic music, good design, useful mobile apps, and the occasional surprise. Ghostly offers the following:
Music from the likes of Tycho, Mux Mool, and my personal favorite Com Truise.
A store with everything from clothes to art to tech...
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DIY SUPER POWER NERF GUN
Image via Make
Your childhood dreams are finally coming true. Those plastic hunks of junk could never shoot darts fast enough or accurate enough–until now. Today is the day that you will learn how to build a better NERF gun.
One NERF fan combined PVC pipe, aluminum, a wood grip, and plastic junk parts to create a sophisticated update to the plastic gun of yesteryear. Load up the short barrel with...
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WHY DUDES NEED TO GET ON PINTEREST NOW
Image via Aubre Andrus
When Pinterest first started in 2008, non-users laughed off the new social network as a place for moms to share images of weddings, inspirational workout quotes, and crafts. But now that it’s hit 10 million unique monthly users faster than any site ever, everyone stopped laughing and started pinning. Even dudes.
WHAT IS IT?
The digital pin board site lets you “pin”...
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HOW TO MAKE YOUR HOME WORK FOR YOU
Image via Bill Ward’s Brickpile
All makers love to, well, make things. My most favorite kind of DIY project is one that makes life easier. Here’s a round-up of a few simple projects that will make any home happier and your day-to-day routine just a little bit better.
LIGHT TRAIL
Are you one of those people who pees in the middle of the night? Lifehacker shows you how to create your own...
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GAMING YOUR SYSTEM
Image via SuperBetter Labs
There’s no hotter tech trend than gamification, and some of the top minds in that movement have long espoused its potential beyond Foursquare and SCVNGR. Now some of those megaminds are putting their money where there mouths are with SuperBetter Labs, a design studio that aims to integrate science, design, and fun in order to help people become their optimum selves. ...
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DODGE AIRLINE FEES BY CARRYING ON
Image via Samsonite, Tumi, and Victorinox There are two kinds of people in today’s commercial air travel society: those with “status” and those without. The 1K Elite Gold Medallion whatevers among us enjoy priority boarding, seat upgrades, and free checked luggage. Non-status muggles like myself must pay extra for the privilege of baggage handling—a harsh reality I was introduced to this week...
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THIS BALLOON WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
Video from Alinea Restaurant Chef Grant Achatz has done it again! His signature Michelin 3 star restaurant in Chicago, Alinea, has created a balloon made of dehydrated granny smith apples. It is filled with helium like a regular balloon and served with a pin so you can pop it for your eating pleasure. Watch the video above and see a desert so light it leaves you high on helium. We can’t help but...
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FOODIE.COM: HUNGRY FOR A SOCIAL MEDIA HUB
Image via Foodie.com
Glam Media’s Foodie.com launched on February 9, 2012 and according to CEO Samir Arora, is attempting to be “the large gorilla that owns the online [food] channel.” The first week of Foodie.com’s launch brought some praise and some questions.
I’ve posted before about food based social media sites for farmers, amateur chefs, picky eaters, and journalists, etc. However,...
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INTERACTIVE "STARRY NIGHT"
Image via ThisIsColossal
Van Gogh’s Starry Night is one of those works of art that’s been reproduced so much it’s become stale. It’s now typically fare for college dorms or TV dinner place mats across the country. Van Gogh had a hard life, but the lost wonder of his art is the greatest insult. Now a new digital interpretation of that iconic work is literally bringing...
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HOVER BOARD (SORTA) IS IN THE WORKS
Image via StupidDope
Three years, people. Three short years.
Three years is all we have left to produce the Back to the Future, Part II hover board, which supposedly will help slick, lovable punks from 1984 dodge bullys in 2015. In preparation for that momentous year, Mattel is producing the official Back to the Future hover board (IT Girl mentioned this yesterday in her post). As you can...
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BLUE IVY CARTER, THE SOCIAL MEDIA QUEEN
Image via *cedro*
We all know that Blue Ivy Carter, Beyonce and Jay-Z’s spawn, was born into music royalty. But she’s already Internet royalty, too.
Back in August, when Beyonce dramatically revealed her baby bump on live television at the end of her MTV Video Music Awards performance, Twitter topped out at 8,868 tweets per second, making it the biggest Twitter event of 2011. Even bigger than...
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GOODBYE, MONOPOLY MONEY
Image via Rutty
It’s so embarrassing to watch a company try to be tech-savvy and fit in with the cool kids, but epically fail.
Hasbro’s new Monopoly zAPPed, switches the iconic play money that we all know and love with plastic debit cards. The game is mostly the same, but when it comes to adding and subtracting cash, players instead tap the debit cards onto their iOS device to perform a...
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VOTE FOR INNOVATION IN 2012
Every day, there are countless pieces of technology that I rely on, from my smartphone to my desk lamp to the keyboard I’m writing this post on. At some point in time these items were just ideas or sketches on an inventor’s desk. And that’s the thing, an idea is just “an idea” until you share it. Sharing our ideas fosters creativity, and ultimately, innovation.
To celebrate today’s up-and-coming...
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A TACTILE THERMOMETER
Image via Rob Godshaw
Thermometers haven’t had an innovation in awhile. Sure with a simple swipe or click, anyone can find out the numerical temperature outside. But be it in Fahrenheit, Celsius, or even the almighty Kelvin, numbers don’t tell us what a temperature feels like. The obliquely-named Cryoscope Haptic Weathervane does one better than merely displaying temperature....
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IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY AND YOU'RE ALONE
Image via Someecards
Put your coffee down because I’ve got potentially depressing news: it’s Valentine’s Day. Perhaps you’ve got a special someone, and used the various guides for Makers, Gastronauts, and IT Girls that we’ve been serving up all week. Or maybe you’re more like me, a lone wolf in a forest of sickening displays of affection. What can the...
1 tag
Light Reading
Image via ARC90 One of the nice new additions to the latest Tweetbot release is the integration of Readability, a utility for your laptop, tablet, and smartphone that makes the web more readable. It takes your average web article layout (small font, narrow columns, image embeds) and turns it into a big, clean, customizable page of text that’s easy on the eyes and distraction free. So, good...
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Tweetbot for iPad
Image via Tweetbot
What is with me and Tweetbot? The Twitter client for iPhone has been one of my top 5, desert island must-have apps ever since…I listed it as one of my top 5 must-have apps last June. I like how it functions. I like how fast it is. I like its vaguely steampunk/art deco design ethos—it’s the Twitter app that you’d use if you lived in BioShock. And now it’s the Twitter app...
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V-DAY GIFTS GOOD ENOUGH FOR MAKERS
Image via danielmoyle
Let’s be honest. It’s kind of a predictable holiday. Choose from roses, candy, or a teddy bear. Sign lovey-dovey card. Live happily ever after until next Valentine’s Day.
But this Maker wants to change that. With the countdown now at two days, these simple projects require only a few supplies, only a little money, and can easily be completed by Tuesday night. Ready, set,...
1 tag
DO U 3D?
Image via Dvice.com
3D printing that is. And if the guys at MakerBot are right, we’ll all be doing it in a decade. We’ve talked about the Thing-O-Matic before, but the 3D printing movement is picking up speed (to the tune of $10 million in funding).
To outsiders, it may seem that fanatics are only printing a pile of plastic thingamajigs. But as you can see here, there is purpose behind the...
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IPOD NANO TIMEPIECES
Image via LunaTik
The best feature of the latest generation of the iPod Nano (6th? 7th? I lost track at 3) is the Nike+ mode that doesn’t require a transmitter in your shoe. The second best feature is that this Nano is effectively the first-ever Apple watch, thanks to the now famous Kickstarter alumnus LunaTik. These are the guys who came up with the idea for a watchband that could hold the...
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FIRE POWER
Image via BioLite
This is going to be awfully tough to top. If there were an Adventure Capitalist awards show, critics would be calling BioLite the odds-on favorite for the top prize, a tour-de-force of ecotech; an instant-classic. The BioLite CampStove converts heat energy from fire into electricity. Here’s how it works: you stick some twigs or a pine cone into that tin can, light it on fire,...
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Gastronaut’s Valentine’s Day Gift Picks!
Image via Nina Matthews Photography
#Simple
Breakfast in bed with a hint of cheese please: the heart shaped egg/pancake ring makes an impression of heartfelt effort.
#Manly
For those who enjoy a stiff, cold drink: whisky stones are essentially stone ice cubes-that won’t melt and water down your liquor.
#Exotic
Can’t make it to Alinea this holiday? A Ferran Adrià endorsed box of chocolates from...
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“Call Me”, “You Rock”, “#1 Fan”
Photo via TwistByte
The best part about Valentine’s Day in elementary school was the random flirtations with members of the opposite sex. Everyone loved using Necco’s Sweethearts to express their coy emotions and to elicit beet red blushing from all involved in the heart-giving transaction.
Miss those days? Share the sweetness this time around with–you guessed it–a Conversation Hearts App for...
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Art Meets Terms of Service
Image via Joern Roeder and Jonathan Pirnay
The Creator’s Project has a great entry on some art projects that play with the hot topic of the day: online privacy. Each project has its own spin on the subject, showing how, in the digital age, the only thing that’s certain is the Terms of Service agreement you skip over every day. Some highlights: Google Alarm-A simple browser plug-in...
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WHAT’S UP WITH BOOKS?
Image via azrasta
Santa left me–and just about everyone else–a tablet or an e-reader under the tree this holiday. Within days, I was converted. E-books for life!
With Borders bankruptcy, Apple’s iBooks Author announcement, and the success of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, it was clear to me that the days of book buying and book publishing have changed for good. I was on the cusp of new...
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NO MORE LOST TOURISTS!
Image via Fast.co.exist
If there’s one thing that technology is still reinventing, it’s tourism. Sure, GPS devices and mobile apps make getting around easier, and flight trackers tell us when our plane is delayed, but today’s traveler yearns for more tech-savvy advances to get from here to there.
That’s where Urbanscale and Nordkapp come in. They see interactive screens as the future...
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The DG's Guide to Fashion & Social Media
Image via WIREDInsider It’s no secret I’m a man of style. So I’ve been eagerly following along as the fashion industry changes in response to social media. And as you can imagine, it’s a big worldwide web. So where to start? First, a word on forums. Places like Styleforum and Reddit can be great places to learn, but be careful of the snark factor. There’s tons of...
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Saddle Up!
Image via Core77
There’s many kinds of cyclists in this world. Some are concerned with speed. Others, concerned with comfort. Still others are just strange beasts. But some like their cycling just downright beautiful. Enter Alden seats, a Kickstarter project centered on bringing a touch of class to your rear end. The brainchild of Carson Alden Leh, the saddles (that’s bike talk for...
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SXSW Accelerator
Image via SXSW Accelerator
Foursquare, Twitter, and Foodspotting are some of the top examples of startups who managed to gain a huge amount of traction thanks to the whirlwind tech frenzy that is SXSW Interactive. But even early-stage startups, including those still in private beta, can benefit from exposure in Austin. The SXSW Accelerator competition exposes these companies to the media,...
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Must-Have Notebook: Lego+Moleskine
Image via Moleskine
According to this classic advertising handbook, one of the best methods for generating ideas is to brainstorm on index cards, get all the facts out of your head, and then walk away and let your subconscious do the rest. But when your mind spontaneously generates a kickass idea, you need a place to put it before it evaporates. Sometimes typing it out on your tiny smartphone...
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MAKE YOUR OWN FLYING…PEOPLE?
Image via YouTube
Everyone loves an RC plane. But apparently RC humans are the next big thing. Unfortunately the city of New York didn’t know that until three super-human-like creatures were floating gracefully above oncoming traffic as if they were Peter Pan and Wendy.
The planes are adult-sized with stretched arms that make them look like they’ve been sprinkled with Tinkerbell’s fairy dust....
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Brand New Bag
Image via Timbuk2
I think my record’s pretty clear when it comes to laptop bags and backpacks. They should be durable, they should be functional, and they should make you look cool. Last week I happened by a Timbuk2 retail store when something shiny caught my eye: an interactive LCD screen. I casually wandered inside to investigate, and what I discovered was something you need to know about...
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Where Do Baby (Carrots) Come From?
Image via Youtube
At some point I realized baby carrots were not actually a different varietal of the carrot species. This lead to more unanswered questions: Do they take regular carrots sticks and lathe the ends and sides to make them smooth and rounded? If that were true wouldn’t it waste carrots?
Thank You Prouducepedia for stepping in and alleviating my worries. Producepedia is a...
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Augment your iPhone Camera with the iPro System
Image via Chris Foresman for Ars Technica
Cameras better watch out. iPhones already possess more optical capabilities than Apollo XII and it’s just getting crazier with all of the augmentations. I love that word. It’s like you’re pimping out your iPhone camera/fighting robot. For example, check out the new Schneider Optics “iPro” line of optics. The whole thing...
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Rich Neeley Designs Book Chargers
Image via Rich Neeley Designs
The printed book is facing dark days, even at the big chains. But there’s something truly beautiful about an old, classic book that can’t be replicated. It’s probably why we’re drawn to these amazing book chargers from Rich Neeley Designs. To create these repurposed books, bibliophiles Rich and Brenna “rescue” books from...
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VALENTINE GIFTS FOR GADGET GIRLS
Image via makerbot
In two weeks, most lovebirds will buy their significant other an $80 bouquet of roses. IMHO that’s one big waste of money. If your girl is into gadgets, like me, get her something that will last a little bit longer than flowers–or technology–on February 14.
Google SWAG
I don’t know where I’ve been lately, but not to the Google store! From Android cookie cutters to YouTube...
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STAR WARS GETS CROWDSOURCED
Image via YouTube
Just stating that this will be the coolest thing IT Girl blogs about. Ever. Now that I’ve made that clear, on to the topics at hand: Star Wars and crowd sourcing.
Back in 2009, filmmakers–-and fans-–were challenged to recreate the entire movie Star Wars: A New Hope. The movie was divided into fifteen second increments. Thousands of contributors claimed a scene and got to...
January 2012
61 posts
1 tag
The DG's Guide to Living Without a Wallet
Image via rh1n0 In the year 2050, you will no longer carry a wallet. Unfortunately, it’s the year 2012 and our wallets are as fat as ever. So how do you go about cutting back or eliminating the wallet all together? Get rid of credit cards. Last week I talked about Square’s Card Case, an app that let’s you pay using just your name. Google Wallet allows you to carry all your...
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At Twitter, The Future is You
Image via Twitter
Ah the recruitment video. Just thinking about it brings up fond memories of VHS tapes and 80s synth muzak. Has anything changed in the past 25 years? Apparently not. As a way of drumming up some new talent Twitter created a new faux-camp recruitment video worthy of any DMV or corporate hellhole. It hits every note perfectly: terrible fonts. Bad editing. Stilted dialogue and...
THE CLOUD IS GROWING
Join the discussion on Cloudline, an online community presented by IBM and WIRED. Tech experts, journalists, and IT insiders all weigh in on how the cloud is shifting today’s computing landscape. Meet this month’s Cloudline contributor: Bowman Hall joined IBM in 1996 after IBM’s acquisition of Tivoli Systems, Inc. Bowman has had multiple technical and management roles within IBM in technical...
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Dumped by a Startup
Image via hundrednorth
Startups are a gamble. An entrepreneur quits their job to pursue their dream. A venture capitalist bets on the startup with a million dollar investment. New hires take a risk by joining an unproven company. But there’s somebody else in this equation who’s often overlooked: Me. As a user, letting a startup into your life is also a gamble, and this week I learned that...