Rexfeng

This is an excellent overview of the emerging user interface paradigm of cards from Chris Tse. It attempts to answer the basic but still open question, “What is a card?” and proposes a very compelling if still not definitive set of answers. I don’t agree with everything in this presentation, but I think Tse gets…

Advertise on Subtraction.com.

Rene Ritchie:

You no longer have to wait for or worry about Apple making — or not making — a specific partnership and integrating a specific service. Any service with an app on the app store can now get in on the sharing, and so can we.

Great layman’s explanation.

Congress has been criticized for many things in recent months — fumbling on immigration reform, failing to pass basic bills for state services, leaving the long-term unemployed without help — you name it. Now you can add obscuring details of who's paying for lawmakers' travel to the list. As first observed by National Journal, the House Ethics Committee — which is in charge of establishing the rules by which Congress operates — quietly removed a requirement to list "sponsored travel" on their annual financial disclosure forms. Sponsored travel refers to those trips lawmakers take that are paid for by groups outside Congress, often agenda-based or lobbying organizations. The trips have a tendency to be lavish and extend to lawmakers'...

Continue reading…

Is it time to move to Canarsie yet?

Yes, something just like this grungy and swellegant scene played out the other night in Williamsburg, in which 20 lucky diners got to feast on day-old bread, bruised stone fruits, overripe bananas, and other goodies that would have otherwise been thrown away. Sure, proceeds went to a nonprofit, Pixable reports, but what's going to happen, exactly, when the savvy, TED-addicted venture capitalists of North Brooklyn start snatching up all the 40-yard roll-offs from waste management companies in order to reconfigure them into a fleet of Dumpster-based, fast-casual trash-eateries? Where will all our old smashed-up drywall and demolition debris go then? At least drinking beer and cocktails inside Dumpsters isn't legal ... yet. [Pixable]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: canned food, brooklyn, dumpsters, salvage supperclub

Stay awhile!

This Wednesday, Columbus-based dessert goddess Jeni Britton Bauer will open her first (albeit temporary) New York ice-cream shop inside Gotham West Market. And tomorrow, from 7 to 11 p.m., there will be free cones and cups! Flavors include Wildberry Lavender, Milk Chocolate Bombay, Ndali Estate Vanilla Bean, and Grub's favorite, Pineapple Upside-down Cake Buttermilk Frozen Yogurt. The pop-up will stay open through September — and hopefully, it'll be successful enough that Bauer will open a permanent parlor.

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: opening soon, gotham west, gotham west market, ice cream, jeni britton bauer, jeni's splendid ice cream, new york

[All photos by Daniel Krieger]
Ice cream fans, get in line — now. Beloved Ohio-based ice cream purveyor Jeni's will host a pop-up cart at Gotham West Market from July 2 through September. The team will be scooping up a mix of classic and seasonal flavors including salty caramel, wildberry lavender and pineapple upside-down cake mixed into a buttermilk frozen yogurt. The cart will also carry milk chocolate Bombay, a flavor made for the pop-up with New York's spice master Lior Lev Sercarz. It blends fair trade cocoa with turmeric, fenugreek, clove and toasted coconut. Jeni's has scoop shops in Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville, and Charleston as well as Ohio, but this is the first time New Yorkers will be able to get their hands on a cone. Best of all, the team will be giving out free scoops tomorrow from 7-11pm.
· All Coverage of Gotham West Market [~ENY~]

Nine new automakers have committed to supporting Apple's CarPlay in future models of their vehicles. Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Mazda, and Ram are joining the existing 20 companies that have already announced their plans to integrate CarPlay, Apple's iOS-powered dashboard for vehicles. Integrating smartphones with car dashboards has emerged as a new focus for Apple, as well as competitors like Google, though the car is less a battleground than it is an extension of their mobile operating systems, since a vehicle might be able to work with multiple types of phones.

Even though CarPlay's features are basic, it still offers an experience far better than what you'd find on the average car's dashboard. That's...

Continue reading…

There was a time, not many years ago, when people used to ask each other what type of music they liked as a way of finding common ground. Genres meant something! You would walk into a record store and head to the R&B section, the rock section, or the country section, and where you went said something about you. The concept of genres meant a lot to the music industry — it allowed record labels to define you as a consumer in order to be on the receiving end of the spending relationship as often...

Continue reading…

Sony sold off its PC business earlier this year , but like a phoenix, Vaio is rising from the flames. And, err, it looks quite a lot like it did before .

Read more...

It's hard to take your eyes off those magical floating tire tracks.

Read more...

Richman, whose prior apologies were deleted from Twitter and Instagram, has reapologized.

Less than two weeks after the former Man v. Food host Adam Richman cursed at Instagram users who took issue with his use of an offensive hashtag and crude instruction to "grab a razor blade & draw a bath," Travel Channel has, perhaps predictably, pulled Richman's forthcoming show Man Finds Food from its upcoming lineup. The network has not confirmed that the show's premiere, which was scheduled for tomorrow, was canceled because of Richman's social-media behavior, but it confirmed in a statement that the debut has been postponed.

The media personality's trouble began with a selfie posted to Instagram in mid-June, accompanied by the caption: "Had ordered this suit from a Saville Row [sic] tailor over a year ago. Think I'm gonna need to take it in a little … #Victory #EyesOnThePrize #AnythingIsPossible #fitness #transformation #thinspiration."

The hashtag #thinspiration has been co-opted by pro-bulimia and pro-anorexia groups, something Richman apparently did not know. Users called him out for this, some more aggressively than others, and Richman responded that he was the victim of "trolling." In a series of replies, Richman called one user a "cunt" and suggested that another user should commit suicide. "Seriously - grab a razor blade & draw a bath. I doubt anyone will miss you," he wrote to one user, then went after another.

"oh eat a bag of shit dummy. No apology is coming. If it inspires someone to attain a healthier, thinner body - then that's what it was meant to do. Only fuckup it seems was your Dad's choice to go without a condom."

After several dozen messages, Richman deleted his posts and issued apologies on Instagram and Twitter, which were also deleted. This morning, perhaps channeling Paula Deen, he released a statement to Good Morning America: "I've long struggled with my body image and have worked very hard to achieve a healthy weight. I'm incredibly sorry to everyone I've hurt."

Adam Richman’s new show pulled from Travel Channel in wake of crude Instagram rant [Washington Post]
Related: Adam Richman Probably Shouldn’t Have Cursed at Instagram Users or Suggested They Commit Suicide

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: the feeding tube, alan richman, food television, instagram, meltdowns, thinspiration, travel channel

Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Technology, Toyota

If you were holding off buying a new car in anticipation of the fourth-generation Toyota Prius arriving in 2015, your wait might be a little longer. Company insiders are claiming that production of the bestselling hybrid is being pushed back from spring to possibly as late as December 2015. Toyota is reportedly still making alterations to make sure everything is just right before it unleashes the all-important, efficient hatch on a waiting public.

According to unnamed sources speaking to Automotive News Europe, the main reasons for the delay aren't completely known. It's believed the engineers are still working on making the hybrid powertrain more efficient and improving the new Toyota Global Architecture modular platform. The insiders claim that the final production prototype of the Prius is still under development, and it might be November before it's finalized. From there, it usually takes around 12 months to tool up and for the first car to roll off the assembly line. It would be another year after that before the plug-in variant starts assembly. The national manager of Toyota Product Communications, Michael Kroll, told AutoblogGreen, "As you might expect, we can't comment on future product plans."

Despite the delay, some potential details have already emerged about the new hybrid. A company spokesperson recently told Autoblog via email that Toyota is engineering the next-gen Prius to have smaller, more power-dense electric motors and greater thermal efficiency. The new modular platform is also rumored reduce weight, and the changes could lead to a targeted 10 percent improvement in fuel economy.

One big upgrade won't be coming to the new generation immediately, though. Toyota product planning boss Satoshi Ogiso tells Automotive News Europe that the automaker's new silicon carbide semiconductors, which will reportedly increase fuel economy by 10 percent on their own, won't make it to the Prius until at least 2020.

Autoblog reached out to Toyota for official confirmation of the Prius' delay but was told that "the company cannot comment on any future product details."

4th-gen Toyota Prius production delayed by 6 months originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 30 Jun 2014 17:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Imagine this, but more flavor-blasted.

For those nights when the whole family demands Taco Bell but no one can be bothered with driving ten minutes to order it, Old El Paso has come to the rescue: In August, Bold Nacho Cheese Flavored Taco Shells will hit stores, whether you like it or not, and unlike the last time the company dabbled with nacho-flavoring a shell — Stand 'N Stuff, back in '06 — these get what R&D manager Rob Clements calls "a more topical approach," meaning their cheesiness is "blasted" on like Day-Glo orange graffiti. Also, since "nacho" isn't a flavor of cheese of or anything else, they let the people decide what went into it (verdict: some sort of Cheddar-blue-cheese symbiosis). A PepsiCo rep tells Businessweek they "don't have anything to share at the moment," but the chain already has plenty of skin in the hard-shell-at-home taco game, so that means they're probably giving Old El Paso at least a few weeks' head start before they get all Loco on their boxed kits. [Businessweek]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: Doritofied, doritos locos tacos, old el paso, taco bell

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Now that’s an original form factor — I say this with admiration. Take the logo off the front (please) and you’d know instantly that this is a new BlackBerry. Too little too late to save the company and platform, I suspect, but maybe if they’d come out with something like this in 2010, they might have had something.

If you work in a lab, you've probably used lab glass made from quartz. But you probably haven't realized that the reason those test tubes are so durable is exactly what makes them so hard to mold. These beautiful GIFs, shot at GE's Global Research in upstate New York, shows exactly what it takes to make those beakers.

Read more...

Since we last visited with Italian illustrator and graphic designer Marcello Barenghi last year, his wildly popular YouTube channel has gone into overdrive with a new photorealistic drawing tutorial almost every week. From soda cans and body parts to games and insects, he skillfully renders each piece using colored pencils and markers resulting a final object that looks like it could be grabbed right off the page. See more of his 150+ drawings right here.

Who even knew there was a basement underneath here?

It was just a few weeks ago that Madison Square Park was chockablock with eager Shake Shack fans looking to score limited-edition shrimp-patty burgers designed by David Chang, and others loaded with sliced black truffles and applewood-smoked bacon, and now here's news that Danny Meyer's original Shack will close for five months while it undergoes renovations. Specifically, Shake Shack No. 1 will grow a total of four feet in width, get a shiny new kitchen, and its basement will be redone to "create additional storage space," DNAinfo says. Last week it was announced that restaurateur Danny Meyer will close and relocate Union Square Cafe, his first restaurant, in 2015.

The Madison Square Park Shack upgrade plan already has initial approval from the city's Design Commission and Parks Department, and will not cause other areas of the park to close. Edwin Bragg, a Shake Shack rep, emphasizes that even though the kiosk is in a public park, it will pay for its own renovations. Various permits and local approvals are still apparently pending, but Bragg says if all goes well, renovations will occur "hopefully in the winter," when there are traditionally fewer customers queueing up for hamburgers.

Shake Shack to Close Madison Square Park Outpost for Five Months [DNAinfo]
Related: 5 Ways Union Square Cafe Changed Dining Out in New York City

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: temporary closings, danny meyer, hamburgers, madison square park, shackiversary, shake shack

[Photo: Nick Solares]

The original Madison Square Park Shake Shack will close later this year for a five-month renovation. A representative tells DNAinfo that the revamp will involve a complete kitchen renovation plus a redo of the basement, to add more room for storage. The construction will add about four feet of extra space for food prep, but from the outside the burger stand should look exactly the same as it always has. Danny Meyer and team just got approval from the Parks Department for the renovation, but don't plan to start the project until the winter, when far fewer people are inclined to wait for and eat their burgers outside. No word yet, however on when exactly the Shake Shack will close for the revamp.
· Shake Shack to Close Madison Square Park Outpost for Five Months [DNAinfo]
· All Coverage of Shake Shack [~ENY~]

William Hughes, writing for the AV Club:

Scientists at Facebook have published a paper showing that they manipulated the content seen by more than 600,000 users in an attempt to determine whether this would affect their emotional state. The paper, “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks,” was published in The Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences. It shows how Facebook data scientists tweaked the algorithm that determines which posts appear on users’ news feeds — specifically, researchers skewed the number of positive or negative terms seen by randomly selected users. Facebook then analyzed the future postings of those users over the course of a week to see if people responded with increased positivity or negativity of their own, thus answering the question of whether emotional states can be transmitted across a social network. Result: They can! Which is great news for Facebook data scientists hoping to prove a point about modern psychology. It’s less great for the people having their emotions secretly manipulated.

This is hugely controversial, but I’m only surprised that anyone is surprised. Yes, this is creepy as hell, and indicates a complete and utter lack of respect for their users’ privacy or the integrity of their feed content. Guess what: that’s Facebook.

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” the saying goes. Fool me two dozen times — there’s no adage for that.

An origami-inspired purse sounds needlessly complex. Futzing around with folds when you're trying to find your keys in the abyss of a bag? No thanks. But! But: The reality of this Distortion clutch, designed by tech-friendly design icon Issey Miyake, is rad. Like, I-would-definitely-carry-the-hell-out-of-this rad.

Read more...

Coffee firm Lavazza teamed up with Argotec to create the "ISSpresso" machine. "The final version of the coffee machine will be the first real Italian espresso machine on The International Space Station," reports AP, "and will coincide with a six-month mission by Italy’s first Italian female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti." (Photo: Lavazza)

Here’s a smartwatch that is truly nice-looking and well-designed. Not just in terms of how it looks (and it’s a very nice-looking watch, in my opinion, with unisex appeal), but how it works. E.g. it runs on a standard watch battery for a year.

Filed under: Motorsports, Sedan, Performance, Videos, Subaru, Celebrities, Off-Road

Have you gotten sick of Subaru and the Isle of Man? Good, we'd hope not, because of all the videos we've posted so far, today's is the crown jewel. In-car, around the notoriously treacherous race track, with commentary from Mark Higgins himself.

It gets better, though. Overlaid with the video is the same biometric data that we showed you last week. The result is a heart-pumping, 22-minute video of the record-breaking sprint around the entirety of the Isle of Man TT circuit at a truly wild pace. Higgins commentary, meanwhile, simply adds to the experience of hurtling across the landscape. Subaru has also put together a second video, highlighting the WRX STI that was used in the lap.

You can view both of those videos, as well as a short press release from Subaru, below. Scroll down and take a look.

Continue reading Watch Higgins' mind-blowing Subaru WRX STI Isle of Man record lap in first-person

Watch Higgins' mind-blowing Subaru WRX STI Isle of Man record lap in first-person originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 27 Jun 2014 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Security journalist Brian Krebs documents a string of escalating extortion crimes perpetrated with help from the net, and proposes that the growth of extortion as a tactic preferred over traditional identity theft and botnetting is driven by Bitcoin, which provides a safe way for crooks to get payouts from their victims. Read the rest

There’s been a dramatic change in the housing market lately, and it’s almost all good news for homebuyers. As we head into summer, here are a few thoughts to consider:

• There are more homes for sale in 2014, with inventory up 9 percent. Sellers are working harder to get their homes fixed up, so some of these places look pretty good.
• And you have a better chance of being able to buy one, with bidding wars down by double digits.
• More good news, prices have stopped going up so quickly.  We predict prices to increase by just 6 percent in 2014, making it much easier for you to find a good deal on a home than when prices surged by 13 percent last year.
• And mortgage rates are at 4.1 percent, less than half the 30-year historical average of 8.7 percent; for a $500,000 house, this is worth more than $500 a month in mortgage payments.

What Redfin Agents are seeing is homebuyers who have become more disciplined than before, still pouncing on the A+ homes in the best school districts, but being more careful with the up-and-comers.

If you haven’t been on Redfin much in 2014, it’s just a whole new market. Check out homes for sale in your favorite neighborhood.

And if you have your own take on the market, leave a comment below.

The post 4 Reasons Why Homebuyers Can Breathe a Sigh of Relief appeared first on Redfin Real Estate Blog.

Hilarious, well-made short film by Eric Kissack. Find yourself 10 minutes and a big screen. (Via Michael B. Johnson.)

Ask anyone who progressed through middle and high school during the '80s and '90s how they kept heaps of schoolwork organized, and "Trapper Keeper' is the answer you'll hear. But Trapper Keepers were about way more than keeping stuff together; the colorful three-ring binders were an essential school supply. They exuded cool back when "cool" counted most. Traversing the halls without one could be humiliating, doubly so if you were caught carrying a knockoff. We're now decades removed from the Trapper Keeper's heyday, but that's not stopping Mead — the company responsible for carefully creating the craze — from making a shameless nostalgia play and reinventing it for today's world. Except you won't be putting Trapper folders or fistfuls of...

Continue reading…

See? Beer really can help you land the job of your dreams.

Enterprising graphic designer Brennan Gleason printed his résumé on a four-pack of homebrew he christened Résum-Ale — "a nice blonde ale," he explains. Gleason's also blond, and according to the label, he and the beer share other qualities, too, like being "visually pleasing" and "smooth and elegant" with "a bit of a wild side." It took seven weeks to ferment and condition the beer, so while he waited, Gleason formatted his résumé to fit a four-pack carrier and labeled each bottle with a project out of his portfolio and QR code. "I sent about three of them out to places I knew I really wanted to get a job at," he says, "and ended up getting a few offers right away." [HuffPo]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: how soon can you start?, beer, brennan gleason, resum-ale

[Photo: Facebook]

The long-awaited brick-and-mortar location of the Halal Guys finally opens in the East Village tomorrow. The Middle Eastern vendors still regularly draw long lines to their original food cart on 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue, and have since expanded to three more carts, but this is their first permanent location. And although Halal Guys is also on the brink of a massive, franchised expansion, this outpost on 14th Street is an independent project, started before the company signed a franchise agreement with Fransmart.

The Daily News reports that alongside the standard gyros, falafel, and chicken and rice platters, the Halal Guys restaurant will serve sides like hummus, tabbouleh, and Mediterranean salads, and have a juice and smoothie bar. It will operate from 7 a.m. to 4 a.m., and will not serve alcohol because, as owner Abdelbaset Elsayed tells the Daily News, "Most of our customers aren't Muslim, but we are." Another location is also in the works on Amsterdam Avenue and 95th Street.
· Halal Guys Finally Opening Their East Village Restaurant Tomorrow [EVG]
· The Halal Guys Food Cart Is Opening its First Brick-and-Mortar [NYDN]
· All Coverage of The Halal Guys [~ENY~]