by Thomas Houston on December 14, 2010 at 01:50 PM

We're thrilled to announce a new video series that examines the modern creative process employed by designers, writers, typographers, artists and more. We wanted to explore how people work today, shuffling between sketching by hand and testing on tablets -- seamlessly moving between the digital and analog. In each episode, we'll give each subject a unique challenge, and explore how they ...
by Terrence O'Brien on December 6, 2010 at 05:15 PM

While we've been waiting for the iPad and iPhone versions of Google eBooks to land in the App Store, we put the Android version through the paces. While it's not the most feature-filled e-reading app available on Android, it is slick, polished and easily the best non-NOOK and non-Kindle e-reading app for the platform. There are some limitations, like the lack of simple bookmarking and the absence ...
by Matthew Zuras on October 22, 2010 at 03:20 PM

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"Most of these works -- if you pause them -- you can't tell what you're looking at," says artist Jim Campbell, as his newest installation flickers in the background. 'Scattered Light' is a 50-foot-long array on an 80-foot wide, 16-foot-high and 16-foot-deep structure supporting over 1,600 lightbulbs fitted with LEDs, which are programmed to display a low-resolution, moving image as ...
by Matthew Zuras on September 11, 2010 at 01:00 PM

"Computers always want to be annoying," says Los Angeles-base artist Jennifer Steinkamp, as we discuss the installation of her current solo show in New York. She has ample reason to to worry about technology, given that her chosen medium -- 3-D animation -- is entirely computer based. Still, she takes the glitches in stride, as natural consequences of reliance on the digital. "It's just ...
by Terrence O'Brien on July 7, 2010 at 02:00 PM

When Google launched the Nexus One way back in January, the smartphone was supposed to be a serious contender against the iPhone, and was expected to serve as exemplar of the Android handset. By circumventing the carriers' brick-and-mortar stores, Google also hoped to usher in a new era in cell phone sales; however, it appears to have doomed itself to obscurity, instead. With no presence in ...
by Switched Staff on June 30, 2010 at 05:10 PM

Quite frequently we hit the streets of New York City to ask random passersby if they can identify the latest gadget, app or Web site, but we don't think we've ever seen our subjects as stymied as they were when trying to identify Foursquare. Most simply shrugged their shoulders, and one poor person even thought we were giving them a math quiz. In the end, we were only able to find one urbanite ...
by Switched Staff on June 23, 2010 at 03:15 PM

Tech companies have the unbecoming habit of giving their newest gizmos misleadingly awesome names. Perhaps the most guilty party is Google, with its mobile operating system Android. While Android is perhaps one of the few viable competitors to Apple's iOS, which powers the iPhone, having a G-juiced smartphone in your pocket is not nearly as cool as having R2-D2 by your side. That being the case, ...
by Switched Staff on June 16, 2010 at 12:40 PM

If, a year or two ago, you'd asked us what FarmVille was, we'd have said we were pretty sure that it was a small college town in southwest Indiana. We would, of course, have been wrong, but we sort of wish that we would've been right. 'FarmVille,' after all, has managed to dominate our Facebook feeds, telling us of our friends and family who trade cyber-cattle for cyber-corn, build e-barns and ...
by Thomas Houston on June 9, 2010 at 02:35 PM

We hit the streets to see how effectively Palm is getting its WebOS-based Palm Pre out there into the world. Perhaps it's the fault of some horrific advertising campaigns (e.g., the creepy 'New Age meets Renaissance Fair' wench, those painfully unfunny Verizon spots), but Palm's next-generation smartphone didn't get much recognition on the streets. Here's hoping HP can make Palm into a real ...
by Thomas Houston on June 1, 2010 at 03:15 PM

Not too long ago, we dropped by Times Square to test the crowd's knowledge of Web browsers. Surfin' the tubes has come a long way since the early days of Mosaic, and modern browsers can play games, movies and all types of other media. They've even left the constraints of the desktop to leap onto mobile devices. Although Mozilla Firefox offers countless improvements over that old standby Internet ...
by Switched Staff on May 25, 2010 at 01:40 PM

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As bloggers, we were heartened to know that most of the people we asked in Times Square actually did know what a blog is. One man was quite fervently opposed to blogs, saying that he had never sought one out himself. (But we're willing to bet he's read one -- and now he's even being featured on one. Bam!) We'll just pretend that all of the negative comments about blogs were directed at ...
by Matthew Zuras on May 19, 2010 at 12:30 PM

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We understand that Apple's brand-name recognition stretches from one hemisphere to the next, and that competitors face a nigh-impossible task of out-marketing the Cupertino giant. But, still, we expected at least a few people to get this one. Considering all the fanfare with which Microsoft released the Zune HD late last year, we'd have wagered that at least someone in the New York area ...
by Thomas Houston on April 6, 2010 at 12:45 PM

Since its launch in 2004, the video-sharing site Vimeo has chosen a very different path from the YouTubes and Hulus of the world. Cleaner and calmer, Vimeo puts its focus on ease of use, creativity and community. We dropped by its headquarters in New York City to speak with Blake Whitman, Director of Community and Product, about the site and its role in nurturing the explosion of HD content on ...
by Leila Brillson on March 30, 2010 at 01:25 PM

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Spending a morning in Babeland, one of the country's most forward-thinking, pro-sex (and pro-women) toy shops, is one of those moments that simply makes us love our jobs. Sure, we got to squeal at the Skweel, and get our finger, er, caressed by the Tenga Flip (better than, say, a ...
by Leila Brillson on March 17, 2010 at 03:15 PM

Fresh off the plane from the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, Peter Molyneux sat down, er, took a walk with Switched at South by Southwest in Austin to chat about the roles of emotion, morality, and a sense of touch in gaming. With news of 'Fable 3,' the latest installment of his adventure-based RPG series, Molyneux was brimming with thoughts on the PlayStation Move, social gaming, ...