Matthew Zuras
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Twitter Now Asks, "What's Happening?"
What's in a question? Twitter has long asked its users, "What are you doing?" This, of course, gave rise to the ubiquity of the status update, as people took Twitter's inquiry so literally that they would write about the most banal goings on -- from buying coffee to using the bathroom. But as Twitter's user base has grown exponentially, so have the style and content of tweets. Of late, substantive Twitter missives have become de rigeur, as tweets have chronicled the contested Iranian presidential election and disseminated other breaking news.
As such, Twitter decided yesterday to modify "What are you doing?" to the more appropriate "What's happening?" in order to reflect the open model of communication that tweeting now allows. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, wrote on the company's blog, "People, organizations, and businesses quickly began leveraging the open nature of the network to share anything they wanted, completely ignoring the original question, seemingly on a quest to both ask and answer a different, more immediate question."
Best of the Rest: Paint With Kitties on iPhone App, Billy Mays Utility
There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web.
- Are your photos lacking that feline flare? Now, there's a cat for that. (We didn't want to pun, but we had to.) The CatPaint app adds furry feline friends to iPhone images for hours of fantastic, fur-filled LOLing. [From: Gizmodo]
- You can now channel the late infomercial king Billy Mays WITH THE BILLY MAYS CAPS LOCK APP! ORDER NOW! [From: DownloadSquad]
- Pulleys? Check. Scrap wood? Check. Design-oriented hipsters? Check. And now you have all the makings for an awesome Mobile Office. [From: Design Milk]
- Aliens, dead people, and other phantasmagoria abound in The Art of Tim Burton, a companion book for the goth director's new retrospective at MoMA (we saw a preview of the show, and it is amazing). [From: Wired]
App Could Aid Migrant (and Illegal) Workers Crossing the U.S. Border
Cell phones -- and for that matter, app-enabled smartphones -- have typically been aimed at the middle class, containing software designed to help balance meeting agendas, check a flight's status, and the like. But what about the potential for cell phone apps to help a notoriously under-served section of the population?Well, there's an app for that. The 'Transborder Immigrant Tool,' which is currently in development, aims to aid illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. This month, the app's creator Ricardo Dominguez, who works in the Visual Arts department at the University of California - San Diego, did a long interview with Vice Magazine, in which he spelled out the purpose of this potentially illegal software and the probable public anger it will cause:
"I would imagine [anti-immigration militias] won't be too happy with us, but again we're not trying to hide. It's a safety tool. It's not trying to resolve the political anxieties of these communities or resolve the inadequacies of a fictional border for a so-called free-trade community. Again, our position is that it's not a political resolution; it's a safety tool. That, at the core, is what we're attempting to do."Using the cheapest cell phones possible (specifically the under-$30 Motorola i455, which comes with a GPS applet), Dominguez and his team were able to create a hack that added navigation functionality and the ability to locate water and highways. Although the app is still only in the alpha phase of development, Dominguez hopes to roll it out soon.
Read the whole interview for more information, and be sure to leave your thoughts on this in the comments section. [From: Vice Magazine, via: BoingBoing]
Robolamps Offer Creepy, Artsy Alternative to Nightlights
Croatian artist Robert Matysiak loves robots and design. So much so, for the past two years, he has been working on a series he calls Robolamps, and he's now trying to bring his creations to a wider audience.
Made from plumbing parts, the lamps look both quirky and menacing, and -- to us, at least -- seem like a bit of a throwback to some of those broken droids hawked by the Jawas in 'A New Hope.' To add to that sense of individuality, Matysiak has given each of the designs names like "Augusta" and "Dunk." Check out pictures of all the little bots on Matysiak's Facebook page.
Mac-Like 'White' iBong Lets You Smoke Wiid, H00k4h
Most fascinating about this design-y water pipe is the striking resemblance it bears to the Apple product family. And while marijuana is illegal in Lebanon, which has a strong tobacco tradition, we can see some American and Dutch consumers turning their bleary eyes toward the White with other *cough* ideas.
'Power Aware' Power Strip Glows With Your Energy Use
The Power Aware Cord is a power strip in the nude. Rather than visually shielding the complex transfer of energy contained in the cord, the Power Aware Cord glows and pulses in varying rhythms, depending on your energy consumption. As a visual reminder of your electrical use, the Power Aware Cord reminds us to shut off or shut down those energy-sucking appliances that continue to siphon current ...'Print After Party' Celebrates Death of Print in Old Newspaper Boxes
"The Death of Print." We remember a few years back when this phrase just signified some impending yet inconceivable nightmare, like Y2K or 2012. Now, of course, we live in a world where newspapers are shrinking from sight, and Roland Emmerich rakes in $65 million in one weekend by peddling more visions of the apocalypse. For those of us who have worked in print, or have colleagues who still do, ...Video Game Papercraft: The New Nerdy Hobby
A few weeks back, we were intrigued by The Toy Zone's roundup of 25 video games that had been recreated as paper dioramas. Needless to say, we wanted more. Using our rigorous investigative journalism techniques, we trudged through the Internet and soon stumbled upon Nintendo Papercrafts, a site devoted to DIY paper projects featuring classic NES characters.
This is a thing that people do? ...Gift Guide: NoPoPo Eco Water-Powered Flashlight Set
NoPoPo Eco Water-Powered Flashlight Set (Gadget Head, Under $100)
Both eco-conscious and smartly-designed, the NoPoPo Eco Water-Powered Flashlight ($55) is a must-have for the gadget fiend. By sliding the cover, the unit works as both a regular flashlight and a unidirectional lantern. But what's most interesting about the flashlight are the NoPoPo batteries, which run on liquid (apparently ...'Temporary' Site Deletes Part of Itself Every Time Someone Visits
Artist Zach Gage's newest project 'Temporary' questions the infinite life of data on the Internet. As sites are cached and stored and shared between servers, they leave an indelible trace -- revealing a fascinating moment in human history when we've created something that, to all appearances, will never deteriorate. Gage's site deletes part of its own code with each page view, eventually ...
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