Tag: OPINION

The best way for me to start off my hands-on with the Nintendo 3DS is to be completely honest about my relationship with the Nintendo DS; I love the little split-screened device. I have a white Lite from 2007, and have never found the need to upgrade. That was until the E3 Expo last year, when Nintendo trotted out these little guys to a crowd practically electrified with excitement. But the 3-D ...

Perhaps you've heard of this Exodus International iPhone app fracas? The leading organization behind the ex-gay movement (the belief that religious counseling can help LGBT people "struggling" with their sexualities to reorient themselves to heterosexuality) recently had its official app approved by Apple, and gay rights groups are now in an uproar. Surprise? Despite the fact that Apple deemed ...

Today the iPad 2 goes on sale and, as with most iDevices, there will be a gaggle of geeks lined up outside your local Apple store to snatch it up. It's only a small evolutionary update to the original iPad, but there's no denying its intrigue. Yet even after reading all of the glowing reviews, I'm still not sold. There's no doubt that the iPad 2 is going to sell like hotcakes, but I won't be ...

Share (function() { var s = document.createElement('SCRIPT'), s1 = document.getElementsByTagName('SCRIPT')[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = 'http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js'; s1.parentNode.insertBefore(s, s1); })(); digg I'll admit it. I'm an i-dosing skeptic. When we first found out that today's teens are getting high by listening to MP3 recordings of so-called ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/08/04/the-farmville-ruse-how-zyngas-creation-ruins-gaming-and-stea/'; FarmVille is a very smart game. It was developed by Zynga, the company founded by serial entrepreneur Mark Pincus, which is on track to pull in $500-million dollars in revenue this year. As of July, FarmVille was hosting the digital homesteads of 61 million users. But you probably ...

Share We get a big kick out of picking on the RIAA here at Switched. And with good reason. There are few organizations out there as openly hostile to its customers as this front for the recording industry. When the group isn't busy suing file sharers, it's spreading propaganda and pressuring Congress and universities to crack down on piracy. While we don't approve of illegal activity, the RIAA ...

Dear Switched: Help an Apple-hater out. I've searched everywhere for the PC equivalent of a MacBook Air: super slim, light, with a good-sized display, a full-powered processor and good battery life at a similar price. But amazingly, I haven't found any to equal it. I can't stand the thought of giving Steve Jobs my loyalty, much less my cash, so help a hater out and JTMWTG! Dear Hater: We ...

We enjoy Nick Bilton as much as the next nerd, but why does the New York Times' tech columnist think that the main failure of digital magazines is their lack of social networking capabilities? Call us old fogeys, but back around the turn of the 19th century, when we were in our ramshackle grammar school barns on the outskirts of the Dust Bowl, the magazines we read didn't come with any sharing ...

In 2004, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) awarded South Africa the privilege of hosting Africa's first World Cup. Based on concerns -- both legitimate and ethnocentric -- over crime, violence and inadequate facilities, some observers immediately proclaimed the tournament doomed. But the World Cup, which is now in its 80th year, is currently enjoying enormous success and ...

Share Every month, roughly 100 million people log into Facebook to tend their virtual farms in 'FarmVille,' or to wage virtual war against their mob enemies in 'Mafia Wars.' To put things in perspective, those numbers roughly equal the populations of France and Canada combined. Anyone who tells you that social gaming is a flash in the pan is wrong... dead wrong. So now, the video game industry ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/01/08/facebook-breakups-are-never-easy-heres-how-to-make-them-less-h/'; Share No one ever said breaking up was easy. But, as a backward-walking Chris Martin once told us, no one ever said it would be this hard, either -- and especially not as hard as Facebook has made it. In an article for The New York Times, Laura Holson dives headfirst into the thorny ...

Share Whatever 2010 holds for Facebook, it's going to have a hard time competing with 2009. The social networking site truly exploded into the mainstream this year -- and suffered some growing pains along the way. As the new year approaches, we take a look at some of the biggest Facebook moments of 2009, and how those instances defined the way the '00s will be remembered. Read on. ...

Share Oh, Facebook. Who would have thought that a small project started by a Harvard student to distract himself from thinking about a girl would have evolved into the world's largest social networking site, recently cracking 200 million members? We've been with the site since the early days, but we'll admit to feeling some considerable Facebook fatigue recently. As Facebook has grown, its ...