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Social Avatar Beats Death « NextNature.net
Jun 29th
Social Avatar Beats Death
Avatars are commonly known as virtual characters in the digital realm representing a user. But what if avatars could house personal history, profile and ideas? Could that enable us to make decisions after we have died?
LifeNaut, has a free service called “Mind File” that lets you digitally backup the organic brain:
“A Mindfile is a web-based storage space for organizing and preserving critical information (digital reflections) about one’s unique and essential characteristics for the future, and to share with friends and relatives in the present.”
The subscribing process comes down to putting stuff in a database, including an expressionless photo, which LifeNaut automatically turns into a lifelike, blinking and talking avatar that functions as a visual interface, ready to interact with you and others – including your descendants!
Backup your brain and live forever.
What it’s like to own an Apple product – The Oatmeal
Jun 24th
This is only too sad and true. These are just devices people. They are not “magical”, they are simply electronic tools to aid us. They are like prosthetics, true, but ones we could do without. If you ask me, its this single minded, put your reason on a shelf attitude which is killing us, in more ways than one.
Kosmix Unleashes Its Realtime Tweetbeat On The World Cup
Jun 10th
Too bad when I went there all I got was a 404 error. FAIL
Maybe go here instead for your #worldcup info:
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Apple Bans ‘Sexy Apps’
Feb 19th
Something I’ve said for a while: Steve Jobs is as much a tyrant as Barack Obama or George Bush. What he says goes: free speech suffers. And yes, sexy apps and porn ARE free speech, no matter how much you may not like them!
Facebook Now Has Yahoo In Its Sites, Already Bigger In Pageviews
Feb 1st
No surprises here. Not only is Facebook doing everything right – Yahoo seems to be doing a lot of things wrong. I don’t quite understand the direction that they are going in. Every internet giant of today has something that is its core function: Amazon sales, eBay auctions, Google search, etc. What is Yahoo!’s “special sauce”? If its not social networking, or social media – then really – what is it? Archeologists are still looking for the answer.
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Facebook is well on its way to taking Yahoo’s spot as the third largest Web property in the world. (Google and Microsoft are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively).
via Facebook Now Has Yahoo In Its Sites, Already Bigger In Pageviews (ComScore).
Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is Bulls**t,: Apple’s Steve Jobs
Jan 31st
One of the few times that I will agree with Steve Jobs: Google IS EVIL.
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On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
No Camera = iPad FAIL
Jan 28th
Sorry but its true. What is it with Steve Jobs and his ability to release products which are mostly cool but crippled in some horrible way? Like the iPhone not multitasking, or supporting copy and paste in its first iteration, or the iPad not having even ONE camera. WTF I say. Just wait folks. don’t be the first one out to buy the first cool this he puts out – it will get better and fairly soon as well.
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Let's face it – the camera has become an integral part of our Web experience. We post pictures of beautiful sunsets to share with friends on TwitPic and we post videos of our kids dancing to James Brown on Facebook. And when we aren't putting video or pictures on the Web, our friends are. They stream live video on Ustream of the concert we had to miss because we had work the next morning.
FUNCTIONALL
Jan 26th
As we wanted to keep things straightforward and hands-on this month, were highlighting “FUNCTIONALL”. Which is all about a new breed of products that are simple, small and/or cheap with a dash of sustainability, giving them global appeal, from India to Sweden. Now, if that doesnt warrant a brainstorming session…
via trendwatching.coms February 2010 Trend Briefing covering “FUNCTIONALL”.
Augmented Reality Event
Jan 19th
This may be an interesting conference. Personally would love to see more devices which can augment reality properly. iPhones and other smartphones are pretty small windows on the world. Perhaps the new Apple tablet will be a better job of it.
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Augmented Reality Event (ARE), the first global event dedicated to advancing the business of augmented reality, announced today that the inaugural event will be held at Santa Clara Convention Center, June 2 – 3, 2010. The activities will be kicked off by a highly anticipated keynote from the “augmented reality prophet,” world-renowned author, futurist, editor and critic, Bruce Sterling.
Free Speech and Google or China? A Toss Up
Jan 19th
So in terms of actually killing and imprisoning people, China does come out on top. If that’s the scale you use. However, when you are talking about free speech, I’d say that both China and Google have a lot of ‘splaining to do.
Google is so far deep into the pockets of this administration, that they have been shown to censor or degrade in the search results any anti-Obama discussion or videos posted to YouTube (one of their companies). Plus even though their motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, they still have a database tracking your every move. And when their CEO comes out and actually says “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
So you are telling me that privacy is over in the Google Era?
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Google Inc. is enjoying an avalanche of good will because of its threat to leave China over e-mail hacking attacks against dissidents.
Does the Internet giant deserve the praise?
via Google Search Engine’s Future in China Is Unclear – NYTimes.com.