Karl Lagerfeld died this week at age 85 as a master of fashion, creative director, and most importantly artist (and human work of art). Before we go too far into this article, I need to make clear the word "rude" here isn't meant as a negative. It's meant in the sense that Lagerfeld had a way with words, one that was at once startling, sharp, and smart. And it all comes down to sweatpants.
This month the folks at Adobe made a push to bring love to users for Valentine's Day in the form of color fonts. Color fonts are a strange new beast, the likes of which only began to make sense here in this computer-first generation, one in which the letterpress techniques of the past have gone the way of the dodo. They're extinct, and the world is crumbling as a result.
The tech market is no stranger to controversy, scandal, and criticism. From the IBM days to the recent US elections, the industry has been rocked by one scandal or another. Recently, however, there has been non-stop news on this or that problem with a company, this or that terrible bug, or this or that lawsuit.
Over the years, these have all been chipping away at the trust and confidence that tech companies have built. With all that’s happening around us, it’s only natural to wonder who we can trust and, more importantly, what has to be done to keep our technology-centric world from collapsing under the weight of all these problems.
The proof is in the pudding when it comes to suggested end-to-end encryption of a single messaging system between Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Today a statement from Facebook suggests that they're "working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks." But it's not that sentence that's important - it's the one that comes right after it that tells me what I suspect is probably true.
Analysts weighed in this week on signals for the return of Bitcoin to cash money prominence. While it would appear that Bitcoin reached its floor at around $3,500 USD, there's a whole lot of doubt in the market after the most major drop in the history of cryptocurrency - the fall of January 2018. Volume appeared en masse at the drop from $6k to $3k, but not in a way that necessarily suggested Bitcoin-specific accumulation was about to appear out of thin air.
A new pair of shoes from Nike turned the Back to the Future II concept into reality - and beyond. This isn't another iteration of the Michael J Fox MAG shoe. Instead, it's the first "custom show for everyone," so says Michael Donaghu, Nike VP of Innovation. Inside the first Nike Adapt BB shoe is what Nike describes as an "intricate lace engine" that advances the state of shoelaces for the first time in hundreds of years.
You don't typically find too many Infiniti cars in the Gobi Desert, mainly just humungous poisonous spiders and feisty scorpions. Oh, and dinosaur fossils, which is why the automaker teamed up with the Hong Kong chapter of The Explorers Club, to revisit and rewrite the rules of exploration - and put the QX50, QX60, and QX80 SUVs through their paces in the process.
Today we're taking a peek at a short list of some strange or otherwise offbeat gifts. These gifts can be given at any time of the year, really, and they're not necessarily aimed at any one sort of person. Today's gift list is all about approaching the person who has everything - but would still appreciate something they've never seen before. These are a few of the things I've found most awesome (and odd) in the past few weeks and months).
Back in May, Facebook made an interesting announcement that wasn't entirely unexpected: it wanted to break into the dating space. Today, a few months after that first reveal, Facebook Dating is rolling out to a select number of users as part of an early test. Assuming this test goes well, it may not be long before Facebook Dating goes live for all 2.2 billion Facebook users.
A paper notebook review on a site about gadgets and living the digital lifestyle? Even with the prevalence of smartphones, the Internet, and computers in general, there is a growing “counter-culture” that advocates the benefits of paper or, at the very least, writing things by hand. Rather than take one side to the detriment of the other, the folks at Rocketbook got their heads together to develop solutions, not compromises, that bridge the analog and digital in ways you may never have thought of before. Besides, the Rocketbook Everlast paper isn’t really paper anyway.
We’ve seen not a few smart mirrors around the Internet lately. Some of them, like Samsung’s Mirror Display, are designed for business customers. Many come as DIY projects for the brave of heart. Few, however, were made for consumers and even fewer are designed to keep you healthy. A new startup named MIRROR is aiming to change that with its eponymous first product, a one-way smart mirror that takes away any excuse not to go to the gym by bringing the gym to you instead.
Amazon is now the second public US company to hit $1 trillion market cap in history. The first was Apple, who hit the same landmark just this August. This isn't likely a moment that'll change the way Amazon operates - just the way they're viewed in the history of our consumer-centric world. Alexa's in your living room and an iPhone is in your pocket.