Nuclear Monster

  • Will Smith (one half of the awesome duo behind Tested.com, not the actor):

    About six years ago, I pitched my idea for Tested to the folks at Whiskey Media. My pitch was simple, let’s make a technology site that’s about having fun with technology instead of showing people how snarky and cool we could be.

    I never could have predicted the way that one conversation would change my life. Since Norm and I launched Tested in 2010, I’ve been privileged to go places and see things that I never thought I’d see in person. I stood on top of a nuclear reactor (while it was running!), I was the kitchen assistant to a couple of world-classchefs who were developing recipes for astronauts, I helped test different ways to waterproof cameras, I hosted a bunch of 24-hour charity shows, I tested talk time on six phones simultaneously, I 3D printed LOTS of goofy stuff, I learned to race quadcopters, I made a bunch of goofy faces, I saw the future of robotics, I helped turn a San Diego bar into the carbon freezing chamber from Empire Strikes Back, and I had the opportunity to work with and learn directly from Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman on a daily basis.

    Put another way, I’ve spent the last five and a half years meeting thousands of amazing people and helping to tell their stories every day. The places I’ve been and things I’ve seen are nothing compared to the amazing makers, scientists, nerds, students, and entrepreneurs I’ve gotten to meet while making the 2512 videos (as of 9/10/2015) that we’ve posted on Tested since 2010.

    But, now it’s time for me to step away from Tested and take on a new challenge.

    I wasn’t happy with some of the changes to Tested after the site was taken over by Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, especially the logo, but it probably wouldn’t have been there without their intervention.

    Will and Norm were an incredible team who always had a charming demeanor and the best attitude towards technology. Even when they were not happy with a product I worked on they gave it their best and seemed sympathetic to it instead of cynical.

  • Reconcilable Differences podcast logo

    There’s this terrific podcast called Reconcilable Differences. The hosts are Merlin Mann (who you may recognize from past podcast recommendations) and more pertinent to this site is John Siracusa.

    Siracusa is this uniquely expert individual in the science of breaking down and explaining almost any topic in a way that nobody else does. Even with topics that I think I understand, I gain a new understanding by listening to his podcasts. He’s more typically known for the recently ended 15-year streak of reviewing versions of Mac OS X. In this particular episode of the Reconcilable Differences program, #8, he describes why Destiny’s raids are fun to Merlin who hasn’t had much recent experience with any games besides Mario Kart. The way that Siracusa talks about this raid is more interesting than listening to almost any typical gaming person talk. You should really try out the episode if you are bored with other gaming podcasts. Unfortunately it is one-of-a-kind, Siracusa doesn’t tend to talk about games elsewhere or on other episodes of this podcast.

  • Daniel West has this enormous and insightful article about the perils of releasing a good game when nobody buys it:

    There seems to be a prevalent attitude that if you just do everything right, you’re sure to find success. This idea abounds when we talk about games that failed to meet expectations. Much of the time, you’ll see failures explained away as fundamental errors made by the misguided development team. If only they’d gone to more shows! Mailed the right journalists! Put more effort into Youtubers!

    [..]

    An incredibly low barrier to entry has ensured that the number of games released per month is skyrocketing. As a direct result, it’s harder than ever to make a game that sticks out. The standards for remarkability, marketing, and luck have increased dramatically, meaning that games need to be bigger, better, and have more expensive marketing campaigns to stand out from the crowd.

    I’ve lost pretty much all confidence in the possibility of reliably making a living with indie games. I had never put a whole lot of stock in it, however at the moment I see it as a risk that’s simply not worth taking. I can’t help but make games, so I’ll keep working on them in my spare time, but without any real hope for commercial success.

    Looking at the screenshot of the game in the article I can’t help but instantly recognize it (somewhat incorrectly) as a side-scrolling gravity-based mobile-game. That is what is uninteresting and unremarkable. It might actually be great, I would be happy to try it out, but there are too many of this specific kind of game right now. Don’t be in the glut, make the thing that other people try to copy.

  • Dan Goodin:

    Attack code that allows hackers to take control of vulnerable Android phones finally went public on Wednesday, as developers at Google, carriers, and handset manufacturers still scrambled to distribute patches to hundreds of millions of end users.

    The critical flaws, which reside in an Android media library known as libstagefright, give attackers a variety of ways to surreptitiously execute malicious code on unsuspecting owners’ devices. The vulnerabilities were privately reported in April and May and were publicly disclosed only in late July. Google has spent the past four months preparing fixes and distributing them to partners, but those efforts have faced a series of setbacks and limitations.

    Can Apple ship that switching app for Android before stagefright gets patched in the majority of devices?

    Will anybody even be able to find it in the Google play store among the scam apps that claim to support iMessage and make your Android device have an iOS-style (but terribly implemented) home screen?

  • Get Psyched

    That’s a question I get asked, here’s the answer:

    • Apple Watch OS 2 got a release date, September 16th. That’s the one with the native apps instead of the apps running on the iPhone and displaying on the Apple Watch.
    • There are two new colors of Apple Watch, gold and rose gold.
    • The big iPad is real, it’s called iPad Pro, 12.9 inch screen, 2732×2048 resolution. 5.6 million pickles. New system-on-a-chip, A9X. 10 hours of battery life and Apple usually underestimates that figure. I can’t wait to draw and read comics on this thing. Better sound quality with four speakers, more volume. Weighs a little more than the original iPad despite being several inches larger across the screen. Silver, Gold, Space Grey. Price starts at $800. 32GB base model, thank goodness. Ships in November. $950 for the 128GB model. $1080 for 128GB with a cellular data radio built-in.
    • Keyboard cover for iPad Pro, looks a lot like the Surface’s. New connector for it, three pins on the side of the iPad Pro. $170. Ships in November. No mouse/trackpad input.
    • Apple Pencil, it’s the stylus. I really can’t wait to draw with this. Funny, I already have a stylus called the Pencil. Using the new stylus causes the iPad to go into some kind of faster-update mode. It has a lightning connector so that you can charge it in the iPad Pro. You can annotate documents directly in Mail with this. They even have a Microsoft employee on stage telling us how well it works in their Office programs. An Adobe employee came up to tell us how well it’ll work in their Photoshop programs. People are going to quote Jobs on the stylus, this won’t be the first time Apple has walked back a prior statement because they’ve finally figured out how to do a feature justice. $100. Ships in November.
    • iPad Mini 4, $399. iPad Air 2 guts. No new hardware to replace the iPad Air 2.
    • New Apple TV. Uses Siri for interaction as well as a new swipeable Siri remote. System-wide search across iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, Showtime and more apps supporting it later on. Mark Gurman is right again. New screensavers with high-definition video of famous places, they actually look pretty great. Another detail that most of the bargain-basement TV sticks and boxes would ignore. Really smart search keywording with Siri, “What did she say?” skips back 15 seconds.
      “Show me that episode of Modern Family with Edward Norton.” does what you would expect.
      “Who stars in this?” displays the actors with icons.
      Other queries you’d expect like ones about weather with custom views that you can swipe up on the new remote and will pause whatever video is playing behind them.
    • New OS for the Apple TV, tvOS. Looks like this was really meant to be announced at WWDC earlier this year.
    • Games are coming to the Apple TV. Console games like Disney Infinity in addition to your mobile games like Crossy Road. Which now has multiplayer, other players use the iPhone or iPad. Harmonix folks come up to tell us about Beat Sports, a game for the Apple TV which has motion (wiimote-style) controls. Four players in this as well with other iOS devices. Third-party controllers will work, too.
    • Capitalism in its most traditional form of exchanging money for physical goods, Gilt is on the Apple TV so that you can shop at home. Where’s the knife show app?
    • MLB At Bat app has 60hz/FPS video, which they couldn’t do before, and the Mets are still the most terrible team in America next to the dispicable Yankees.
    • Apps are universal, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV. A8 system-on-a-chip. Siri remote is bluetooth. Controls your TV’s volume. Switches inputs via HDMI CEC. Lighting port on the remote for charging. 32GB Apple TV for $150. 64GB for $200. Death to 16GB! tvOS is available to developers today.
    • The old 1080p 3rd gen Apple TV is sticking around at $70.
    • New iPhone. 6s and 6s+. Rose gold option added to silver and space gray. A9 system-on-a-chip. New cases and docks available from Apple.
    • 3D Touch on the new iPhones is similar to Force Touch on the watch. Works on the home screen to show you shortcuts. Does all kinds of other cool things like letting you peek into an app to see some information with a gentle touch, or onto a link in a chat to look at a map without going to the maps app. Where’s my wireless 3D Touchpad for the Mac?
    • OS X El Capitan ships September 20th. This was hidden in a super-secret e-mail displayed on the big screen during the event.
    • You can go into the multi-tasking switcher from the side of the iPhone screen with 3D Touch instead of hitting the home button twice in quick succession.
    • Warhammer 40k: Warblade demo shows the improvements with the new A9 and 3D Touch. Framerate looks good.
    • Camera improvements in the 6s and 6s+. 12 megapickles on the back camera. 4k video recording. Panoramas are 63 megapickles. The front-facing Facetime camera is 5 megapickles and now uses the front-facing screen as a flash. That’s a pretty cool re-use of the stuff that was already there.
    • Live Photos. A 3D touch long-press changes your photos into short 1 or 2 second vine-style videos that capture just before and after your press. It’s the default now, but still toggle-able.
    • Up to 866 Mbps Wi-Fi in addition to LTE Advanced and other networking improvements.
    • New Android app helps you switch to the iPhone.
    • iPhone prices are the same. 5s is the new free phone on contract. 6 is $100 on contract. 16GB is sticking around on the iPhone 6s and 6s+ for a bit longer, boo.
    • New iPhone Upgrade program at Apple stores, unlocked phone, starts at $32/month for people who want to get away from subsidies.
    • iCloud storage prices are way, way, down and actually competitive with other storage services. 50GB for $1/month, 200GB for $3/month, 1TB for $10/month.
    • iOS 9 comes out on the 16th of September. New iPhones come out on September 25th. Pre-order goes up this saturday on the 12th.