Prettocraig

Roads and highways filled with self-driving vehicles zipping to and fro across cities is still a few years away from becoming a reality. But the wheels of technological progress is at full throttle, with Google, General Motors, and MobilEye diligently working on perfecting self-driving vehicle technologies (a reality many automotive journalists seem to dread and deny). Yet it might be a small 8-person San Francisco operation appropriately named Cruise Automation, which may get into the fast lane with drivers before their slower-to-accelerate competition.

The Cruise RP-1 is a $10,000 conversion kit which takes control of steering, throttle, and braking, all the while making sure the car remains safely in its lane and at a safe distance from other nearby vehicles. A combination of open-source software and hardware – with an uncanny semblance to the Xbox Kinect – utilizes a combination of a trunk-installed computer with an array of overhead cameras and radar to calculate auto-pilot driving on highways (note: the system isn’t designed to navigate in city, stop-and-go conditions).

Automotive giants like General Motors and Mercedes-Benz aren’t sleeping on autonomous driving systems either. Alongside Google’s fully autonomous, steering wheel free approach, just about every car company has similar driver-assistive technologies utilizing radar systems for automatic braking, steering, and acceleration in development, ranging in degree to assistive in nature to full hands-off experiences. But the Cruise Automation system’s price and the option for aftermarket installation sets it apart as a gateway technology enabling semi-autonomous driving before drivers fully sacrifice the steering wheel to robotic decision-making.

The Cruise RP-1 comes with three caveats: 1) the system will currently only be available for use with 2012 or newer Audi A4 and S4 models (other model compatibility is in the works), 2) the RP-1 will only be sold in California, and 3) only 50 of these systems will initially be available for launch next year. Reservations for the system come at a fairly hefty price, but those interested can lay claim here to join the Cruise Founders Club and take their hands off the wheel and pedals before everyone else.

Just because you’re a law firm doesn’t mean your headquarters have to be stuffy and boring. Take Axiom Law. The NYC-based law firm throws out every idea you had about law firms and prides itself on thinking outside the box with a non-traditional way of doing business. To complement that, they needed an office space that reflected their ideals, so they hired BHDM Design to make it happen. Located in the historic Puck Building, the space was a huge empty white loft that became the colorful, modern setting you see here.

Dan Mazzarini and Brian Humphrey, of BHDM, took a look at Axiom and their energetic style and came up with a plan that conveys a fun space full of quirky and whimsical details that will make you okay with working overtime.

Spaces that feel like living rooms are set up for meetings and gathering places for employees and clients.

Pops of energetic orange are used throughout tying each of the separate zones together and providing spiciness in the mostly white space.

Suspended chairs and orange sharks totally make you think “we practice law”, right? I love it!

An in-house cafe-style kitchen offers a comfortable space for employees to eat their lunches.

Bleachers offer seating for larger meetings and grass covered stools break from the norm.

Photos by Adam Macchia Photography.

The Vancouver Craft Beer Bicycle Tour is perfect combination of beer, bikes and brunch. A small group, guided 3-hour bicycle ride including 3 behind the scenes tours of Vancouver’s new […]

The post Vancouver Craft Beer Bike Tours appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

Are you looking to improve your children’s skills around the computer? Throughout July, select Apple Stores in Metro Vancouver will be offering free summer camps for kids between the ages […]

The post Apple Stores in Vancouver to offer free summer camps for kids appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

Despite promised and much-anticipated reforms, it appears that there is still some more work to be done with modernizing B.C.’s liquor laws. SEE ALSO: Only 2 of 53 grocery stores […]

The post Is Happy Hour actually Unhappy Hour? appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

I don’t know why but I was thinking a lot about Andy Warhol this past week. How he’s a household name. How does that happen? Is it celebrity? Is it how he pioneered an art movement? Is it because he was shot? I don’t know… but his legacy lives on, and this week I rounded up four pop art-style modern artist products from Society6. Are you a pop art fan?

Pears – POP ART by Julia Tomova

POP ART shower curtain by Klaff Design

Pop art Broken by Artwork&Caffeine

Pop-art Ampersand by Debbie Albin

In an ongoing effort to support independent artists from around the world, Design Milk is proud to partner with Society6 to offer The Design Milk Dairy, a special collection of Society6 artists’ work curated by Design Milk and our readers. Proceeds from the The Design Milk Dairy help us bring Design Milk to you every day.

Vancouver has once again proved that it is a city that makes the best out of a bad situation. After being shot and losing mass amounts of blood in the Yaletown […]

The post Hundreds gather in Yaletown for shooting victim’s fundraiser appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

If you aren't drinking your own Bulletproof/butter coffee right this second then it's like you don't even know about things that everyone is doing now. So let's talk more about this new trend that is not really new but looks to be headed straight for a mainstream near you.

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When it comes to forecasting the future, there are two schools of thought: one that sees our planetary cup still half full, the other alarmingly half empty. You can cast Bernardo Schorr, MFA candidate in Parsons’ Design and Technology program and Creative Technologist, with the camp predicting a gloomy dystopian future… a future where a great many of the world’s population will have to live in much smaller dwellings out of necessity, “in windowless apartments with areas limited to 100 square feet.”

But not all is lost! Schorr also believes digital technologies can be engineered to allow occupants of these micro-apartments to escape the sensation of being confined within prison cells by projecting immersive virtual environments to “expand” the walls far beyond their true dimensional boundaries. Offered as an “utopian solution for a dystopian scenario”, Schorr’s “Mixed Reality Living Spaces” project serves as an experiment for a future when windows will have become a luxury and our circadian rhythms regulating sleep and activity will be cued increasingly by a pixel perfect simulacrum of the world outside.

One moment the room is decorated like a bedroom with a nighttime cityscape view. As sleep hour gives way to the work day, the room instantly transforms into an office setting, complete with morning view, work schedule/calendar, and clock on the room’s walls. Modular furniture allows for physical reconfiguration to interplay with the virtual reality elements to expand the occupant’s sense he or she is inhabiting more than a 100 square feet room.

With the advent of 4K Ultra HD displays with barely distinguishable pixels even at nose-to-screen distances making way to market, this level of projected or displayed reality doesn’t seem so far fetched. But let’s hope Schorr’s predictions come and go unrealized, and we’re all afforded a room with a view… a real view.

Odds are, you already have a streaming box hooked up to your main TV, but today's a great chance to outfit the rest of them on the cheap. Woot is selling refurbs of the current Roku lineup, and you take home a Roku 1 for $35 shipped, a Roku 2 for $45, or a Roku 3 for $67.

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Maybe it was the combination of Google’s purchase of Nest, Apple’s recent announcement of their own Home Automation Protocol, HomeKit, and the sudden proliferation of add-on smart appliances, but home appliance giant Honeywell has read the writing on the wall and has stepped up their game. The newly unveiled wi-fi network connected thermostat, the Honeywell Lyric thermostat, improves upon many of the features which made the Nest thermostat a surprise hit in the increasingly competitive connected smart home market.

There’s little doubt the Honeywell design and engineering team has taken note of the industry disruptive, Nest, as the Lyric thermostat shares more than a passing resemblance, both physically and features-wise, with Google’s newly-acquired smart thermostat. A round dial interface and touch sensitive digital display is used to adjust temperature, display the local 12-hour forecast, and works with an audible clicking rotation interface for temperature adjustment which may remind you of the first iPod scroll wheel.

The most notable evolution in the smart home automation category in recent times has been the emergence of user-adaptive and learning features, progressing beyond static set-and-forget or even schedule-based interfaces between user and appliance. It’s in this realm the Lyric begins to distance itself ahead of other smart thermostats on the market.

Connected to Honeywell’s Lyric iOS or Android app, the thermostat uses GPS geofencing parameters to activate adaptive features. Once set, the system proactively monitors the comings and goings of users to adjust cooling and heating settings according to user preset preferences, turning back on from energy-saving mode automatically when users approach, dialing energy use when nobody is home. Urban and suburban households even get their own optimum “away” distances: 500 feet for city dwellers or 7 miles in the suburbs.

Households where different family members harbor different ideas about an ideal temperature (the shiver vs. sweat syndrome) will enjoy the ability to set user-specific temperature settings via app, with the option to connect multiple Lyric thermostats across the home (though it’s unclear which occupant’s preferred app settings takes precedence when sharing a space). Then there’s the Lyric’s “Fine Tune” feature, which uses internet wi-fi access to adjust interior temperature according to local outdoor temperature, humidity and weather condition reports, a useful temperature comfort and energy-saving innovation where, for example, “dry heat” vs. “humid heat” require different temperature management for optimal comfort and energy use.

The Lyric thermostat is the first of smart home devices Honeywell plans to brand under the Lyric platform, likely extending out to include other smart home monitoring, automated lighting, energy monitoring, and air quality solutions in due time (alongside play nice with Apple’s Home Automation Protocol, HomeKit).

For now the Lyric thermostat is only available via Honeywell’s network of certified contractors for professional installation, but DIYers will soon have the option to buy the thermostat from Lowe’s for $279 in August and install one themselves using step-by-step installation instructions directly from the Lyric App.

Last night’s private fireworks over Coal Harbour weren’t the only surprise light show over Metro Vancouver’s night skies. Local nighttime sky gazers spotted the Northern Lights above the North Shore Mountains […]

The post Strong solar storm sets off dazzling Northern Lights show over Metro Vancouver (PHOTOS) appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

Modern and mid-century design lovers: If you’ve ever built a house or just decided to spruce up the exterior with a few updates, you know how hard it is to find a mailbox that fits. modbox took inspiration from mailboxes produced in the 50s and 60s and created the Retro Mid-Century Modern Mailbox to help solve the major void in mid-century mailboxes.

After doing months and months of research, Greg Kelly took the best design elements from all of the mid-century mailbox manufacturers from a 20-year period and the result is the modbox. And just like it was in the 50s and 60s, modbox is made in the USA.

There will be five color choices, which are original Eichler Exterior Accent Colors: Turquoise, Sunflower, Pumpkin, Eucalyptus, and Paprika.

modbox has been seeking funds on Kickstarter to help launch the brand. Check it out!

For another option, see the House Milk post about installing a modern mailbox.

Who knew that LEGO designed their figures' hands perfectly to hold Apple lightning and other types of cables? Stick a LEGO brick on your desk, attach LEGO figure(s), and, voilà, an ingenious cord-catching solution.

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Although National Home Remodeling Month is over, we’re still exploring ways to update and modernize your home. Let’s visit the heart of the home and talk about modern kitchen design upgrades that will make a big impact.

I’ll be honest. I strongly dislike cooking. And chopping. And slicing and dicing, frying, broiling and sautéing. But I can tell you from experience, having a kitchen you love makes cooking so much more tolerable. And if you already love cooking and your kitchen, you probably never want to leave.

Every kitchen is made up of the same essentials, but design is what sets it apart. Whether you’re looking to build new, remodel, or just update a few minor details, we’ve put together 10 ways you can modernize your kitchen. We even talked to a few kitchen design experts to offer their opinion on the best ways to upgrade. Put all of them together for the ultimate modern kitchen overhaul.

But first, what make a kitchen “modern?” Susan Serra, CKD, believes that “current modern kitchen design increasingly places functional and aesthetic elements on equal footing. The interplay of new and interesting products and materials is more open to personal expression than ever before. Modern means change that is designed into the kitchen. I do not want to see the same kitchen design year after year. I want the decorative layer designed from the outset to be able to change as my mood changes.”

Lisa Wilson-Wirth, CKD, President & Design Principal of Wilson-Wirth Design, says “Modern can mean many things to different homeowners. It could mean a European style cabinet, which is frameless, with a design program featuring strong horizontal elements in cabinetry and recessed (integrated) handle profiles, but this also could be a design program featuring more traditional cabinets employed with modern finishes and materials. And while it is a beautiful space to look at and enjoy, a modern kitchen addresses functionality by providing a custom tailored cooking set-up to meet the unique needs of its users designed by work zone. It should also encourage and support their goals for healthy eating and overall wellness.”

1. Toss The Triangle for a Functional Floorplan
Before you do anything, consider your floorplan first! If you’re remodeling, think about what you can improve upon with the existing layout. Serra explains “today, there’s a different, yet important approach to designing the kitchen floorplan that includes analyzing your lifestyle situation and then planning for an adequate and comfortable space.”

Figure out what’s functional for you—modern doesn’t have to mean form over function. The traditional triangle of sink, fridge, cooktop/oven doesn’t work for everyone, so figure out how you move around the space and work from there. If you can’t change the layout or you have a small budget, don’t fret! In my previous kitchen, we didn’t have a choice as to where most major things were located, and we had to work with the existing layout. Instead we added functional cabinetry and storage, making improvements where we could.

Schiffini Italian kitchen manufacturer’s new showroom in Zurich, Switzerland

2. Counter and Cabinet Cohesion
Monochromatic mania seems to have entered the kitchen world with white on white or black on black kitchen cabinet and countertop combinations. A seamless, cohesive look makes for a sleek look.

3. Seamless Appliances
When it comes to picking out appliances for a modern space, most modern kitchens tend to have appliances that lean toward the industrial. The modern essential is a matching set of appliances with clean, rectilinear lines and coordinating handles. GE’s Monogram line of appliances is a great example of a series that looks and feels professional but is still attainable by the average consumer. They offer a range (pun intended!) of options that all maintain a sleek, modern look that will have your neighbors envious. The built-in fridge look is a great way to carry on the seamless modern lines and create harmony between cabinet and appliance, but if you want to take it one step further, integrate your appliances directly into your cabinets with panels. An alternative look I particularly like is using a lighter-colored cabinet so that the appliances blend in and everything looks like one solid piece.

Photo by Eric Piasecki for Martha Stewart

4. Warm Hardware
Brass and copper are making a serious comeback right now. I will warn you that we don’t know if they’re here to stay or it’s a trend, but even if it’s trendy, then it’s best to get trendy with something you can easily change out: knobs and handles.

If you already have stainless steel appliances but really want brass handles, don’t worry. Wilson-Wirth says, “mixed metals are trending heavily now, and there are some beautiful options available in brass, bronze, blackened steel. This can be paired with a decorative lighting fixture in same or contrasting finish [see #8 below]. Both items are the ‘jewelry’ of the kitchen.”

5. Deep Dark Faucets
I am a faucet snob. I admit it. When it comes to faucets, I’m super picky. You could say I’m a purist. Which is funny, because my favorite faucet is called The Purist by Kohler. Dark faucets from shiny and matte black to slate gray are all the rage now. I also love this matte black Moen—wouldn’t it be great with light ash wood cabinets and floors? This Delta one is pretty hot, too. The budget-friendly IKEA RINGSKÄR is also pretty darn nice. Another interesting up-and-coming finish is Slate, like this one by Pfister (pictured above, top right)—a brushed gray that’s darker than regular stainless. You heard it here first that this trend might be creeping into appliances soon…

6. Modern Farmhouse Sink
If ever there was a sink that stole my heart, it would be the stainless steel farmhouse sink. It’s a modern update on a classic and looks great with any cabinetry. It adds just the right amount of interest where that useless fake drawer would be. If you can find one of these in brass or copper – you’re golden (so to speak! Ha!).

Photo © Richard Powers

7. Tile it Up!
Tile all the way up to the ceiling is a trend that we noticed when doing research for our 12 Creative Kitchen Tile Backsplashes post. The bolder the tile, the better, and we love this moody kitchen from the book New Paris Style, written by Danielle Miller and photographed by Richard Powers.

Design by Lou & Hernández Interior Architecture Studio

8. Copper, copper and more copper!
Copper is a huge trend right now and specifically copper pendants and lamps. In the kitchen or an adjacent dining area, you may have an opportunity to take advantage of the copper craze and install some new lighting. It’s a quick update that makes a big impact.

Tom Delevan’s kitchen photographed by Manolo Yllera for Architectural Digest

9. Art Away!
While I am not going to recommend you put baskets of fake plants on top of your cabinets, I am going to mention how important accessories are to the kitchen. We recently talked about how art can transform a kitchen into a homey and inspired space, and it’s true of decorative elements and accessories. When buying art, don’t forget about your kitchen! After all, you do spend a lot of time there…

Serra suggests “Bring in small branches from the outdoors and create a series of designs on one or more walls which add dimension in an unexpected way. Or, install a wall mural. Simple forms, thoughtful textures and quiet countertops and walls allow artwork, for me, the soul of the kitchen, to communicate emotion.”

Sabrina Soto, HGTV host and designer and Founder of CASA & Company, says you should go bold in the kitchen. “Go bold with a piece because you don’t have to deal with as many textures and patterns that you would in a living or bedroom.”

Garde Hvalsøe

10. Warm Underfoot
Rugs in the kitchen are not only functional (cushion you while you cook, protect your floor from food), but can be decorative too! We rounded up kitchens with kilims last year and we think this trend of decorative rugs in the kitchen is here to stay. I like the rug-on-rug layered look, especially when it comes to kilims, so the more the merrier!

Have something to add? What updates have you made to modernize your kitchen? 

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Google's recipe search tools have waffled back and forth in the past. If you want to filter results by ingredients or calorie count, Google's about to win some brownie points with you. You can find several helpful search utensils when searching for food items.

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Spruce up your deck with a clever DIY patio table that also keeps drinks cool and within arms reach.

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The cast and crew members of TOTEM are pleased to announce that the three costume pieces stolen on Saturday, May 31 have been returned anonymously to the trademark blue-and-yellow Big […]

The post $28,000 stolen Cirque du Soleil costumes have been found appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

Molecular gastronomy began as a scientific exploration of the chemical and physical processes of cooking, a scientist’s search for “the mechanisms of phenomena occurring during dish preparation and consumption”…an academic field driven more about “why” things taste the way they do versus the traditional “how” ingredients taste when prepared. Curious culinary talents like Rene Redzepi, Ferran Adrià, and Dave Arnold (whose food+tech blog, Cooking Issues, dazzles like his fine cooking) quickly realized the formal discipline of food science – and the tools at their disposal – could greatly expand their repertoire, revolutionizing haute cuisine beyond the pan and deep into the laboratory.

By hacking and utilizing an array of cool sounding contraptions like heated baths, rotary evaporators, anti-griddles, and thermal immersion circulators modernist cuisine chefs ventured into new frontiers where taste, texture, and the molecular state of ingredients are manipulated to expand the sensory experience of food. Unsurprisingly, some of the form-follows-function mad scientist machines used in the revolutionary cooking science are now trickling down into the home kitchen, with a few promising countertop sized, user-friendly smart kitchen tools available today and beyond…

Mellow: sous-vide is a method of gently cooking sealing food inside airtight plastic bags and placing them into a temperature-controlled water bath or steam environment usually for for 24-72 hours. The resulting delicate texture and flavorful taste is achievable because of the 20 lbs of pressure per square centimeter and slow cooking duration, both which aid in keeping flavor and moisture intact.

Current machines range from unwieldy industrial appliances to others appearing to be cobbled together by would-be Doc Browns. Mellow aims to change all that.

Introduced as a “kitchen robot“, the Mellow is a smart, learning countertop cooker which aims to simplify sous-vide cooking into a single button (or rather, smartphone tap) affair, further simplifying the cooking technique with real-time feedback, remote start/stop controls via iOS or Android app, and a continual monitoring system which adjusts settings to according to a home chef’s preferences. Impressively, Mellow can keep foods cool at refrigerator temperatures as well as heat food for cooking, meaning dinner could be dropped into the Mellow in morning, scheduled to cook before leaving work, and timed to finish as you arrive back home.

Anova: Where the Mellow is a self-contained sous-vide machine, the Anova Sous Vide Immersion Circulator is designed as a more adaptable kitchen tool capable of being dropped into a wide array of cooking equipment. At just $199 the touchscreen equipped, stick-style sous-vide circulator clamps onto pots or any large container to heat water to a precise temperature, with cooking times ranging from a 20 minutes (fish) to several days (confit).

The Anova has earned glowing praise as an affordable gateway device into the realm of molecular gastronomy style technique for its ease of use and sturdy construction, but currently lacks remote app controls and programming.

THINGK GK Series: comprised of the GKILO, a wood-like kitchen scale, and CLOGK, a timer with touch interface, this tandem of kitchen tools for the Internet of Things disguises Arduino-powered app integration into minimalist designs well suited for a futurist kitchen.

The dual function GKILO works as an ingredients scale on one side, and when flipped over operates as clock and timer. And since cook’s hands are often dirty, the designers equipped the GKILO with gesture control for hands-off resetting the scale or adjust the time. The sidekick CLOGK is a wireless, app-connected kitchen clock and timer. Features are a bit sparse, but the Italian based team of THINKG imagine expanding utility and integration with future wireless modules, alongside keeping the GK Series open-source for user modification and hacking.

Capsul8 Automatic Algin Spherizer: One of the signature techniques in the molecular gastronomy repertory is using sodium alginate, a natural gelling agent taken from the cell walls of certain brown seaweed species, and using it as a thickening agent for the creation of foams, sauce, and most dramatically, forming gelled “caviar”.The technique can be arduous when attempting consistency, each droplet sphere requiring a steady hand with a syringe.

Designer Jake Bjeldanes’s concept is designed to circumvent the need for manual labor and make algin spherizing as simple as using one of those battery powered pepper grinders. An electromechanical solenoid valves mechanism is designed to pop out consistent sized spheres to be dropped into a calcium bath for precise spherification.

What do you think? Would you use any of these devices in your kitchen?

There are many milestones being celebrated in Vancouver this year. We have the 40th anniversary of the Whitecaps, the 25th anniversary of Bard on the Beach, The Arts Club’s 50th anniversary, the 50th anniversary of the Stanley Park Train, and several more. Many of these organizations and businesses have also been online for a long time and I thought it would be fun to hop into the Wayback Machine at Archive.org to check out what some popular Vancouver websites looked like at least a decade ago.

Vancouver Websites Years Ago

Vancouver Art Gallery in December of 1996 (includes site visitor counter)

Canucks.com in July of 1997 (was the Orca Bay home page)

UBC in November of 1996 (not pictured here, the Guestbook at the bottom of the page. Remember those?)

Canada Place in June of 2000 (-5087 days 10 hours and 47 minutes Until Canada Day 2000!)

Museum of Anthropology in January of 1998

CKNW in May of 1999 (includes helpful instructions to “simply point and click on the buttons at the side or the links at the bottom of this page” to navigate)

Bard on the Beach in August of 2000 (complete with an animated GIF of a lightning bolt)

The Arts Club Theatre Company in August of 2000 (with popular Comic Sans font)

White Spot in March of 2000 (best viewed in Internet Explorer 5)

And to be fair, here’s the evolution of Miss604 since 2004:

I salute all of these businesses and entities for not only being online for 10 to 15 years, but for evolving their web presences and keeping up with the times. I look forward to seeing what the future of web design holds for all — and to see if other trends like the animated GIF will make a come back.

The post Vancouver Websites Years Ago appeared first on Vancouver Blog Miss604.

Shortly after raising the possibility of Trump for President campaign in 2016, Donald Trump tugged at his hair Tuesday.

“It’s actually my hair,” he said, during a lunchtime address at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Indeed, it was. His presidential ambitions, however, may be less substantive, though he did not hold back in teasing the gathered reporters. “We’re going to see what happens in ‘16,” he said. “If I don’t see the right person I will do something in ’16, I will do it sure as you’re sitting here.”

Those words neatly echoed threats he made during the last presidential campaign in 2012, not to mention the threats he made in the 2000 campaign to run on the Reform Party ticket. Back in 1987, he took out full page newspaper ads that suggested he might get involved in politics. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians,” Trump wrote in one of those ads. He never ran for public office.

Officially Trump was speaking at the National Press Club to talk about the power of branding—“It’s all about winning”—and to plug The Old Postal Office, a luxury hotel renovation project which his daughter Ivanka said would open in, you guessed it, 2016. After feasting on a lunch of Caesar salad, seared Atlantic codfish and Trump cookies—a sugar cookie with symbols of his various real estate properties—the billionaire gave a wide-ranging, seemingly extemporaneous, nearly hour-long speech that riffed on everyone from Cher to President George W. Bush.

Trump talked about how he vanquishes celebrity foes through Twitter, including Rosie O’Donnell and Cher. “I hit [Cher] so hard she still didn’t know what happened,” said Trump, who had feuded with the superstar singer over issues of politics, plastic surgery, hair implants and his line of products at Macy’s. “It’s the last I heard of her.”

Trump has 2.6 million followers, or as he put it, “many, many millions.”

Trump also fielded a few personal questions, including one on how he relaxes. “I build buildings,” replied Trump to laughter.

Trump briefly flickered at the top of the GOP polls at the beginning of the last presidential cycle, and said that the next round of candidates will have a particularly difficult time governing with most of the aspects of Obamacare in place. Trump even claimed that 2016 will be a “catastrophic year for the economy” because of delays in the President’s health care law.

“Republicans better get smart because they are going to inherit a mess that has never been inherited before,” said Trump. He also said he “heard” that HealthCare.gov cost $5 billion, which is not true, and joked he builds websites for $3. He ripped the Obama Administration for, among other things, creating a “red line” on Syria, saying America should not be involved in the brutal civil war, not approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and for yielding power to China.

He even threw in a knock on the previous occupant of the White House. “What positive thing has happen to this country in the last 10 years?” asked Trump at one point, apparently forgetting the success of his NBC reality show The Apprentice. “I’m not a Bush fan, believe me. He got us into Iraq.”

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you own an iPhone and want to switch to Android or Windows Phone. Doing so wouldn’t cost you much, if anything. Most of your favorite apps are probably free to download, your music catalog is easy enough to move around, and you can sync your contacts and calendar to Google or Outlook to break them free of Apple’s iCloud. The biggest loss would be the time it takes to complete the switch.

Now, imagine trying to leave Apple’s ecosystem when everything in your home — the lights, the locks, the thermostat, the garage door and even the coffee maker — are iPhone-controlled. Suddenly, the hundreds or thousands of dollars you’ve spent automating your house would be for nothing. You’ll have a wonderfully convenient set-up, but you’ll be stuck with it.

This scenario may not be hypothetical for much longer. Citing unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” Financial Times reports that Apple will announce a home automation platform at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week.

The platform will reportedly allow users to control many aspects of their homes through the iPhone and other iOS devices, in some cases automatically. For instance, the platform could reportedly detect when you’ve arrived at your house and connected to the home network, and turn on the downstairs lights.

While many companies have tried to solve home automation before, the market is currently a mess of competing standards, and disparate apps and devices that don’t easily talk to each other. And right now, there isn’t a single major computing platform that integrates home automation at the system level; if you have a Nest thermostat, you can’t just ask Siri to turn up the heat (at least not without some trickery).

If Financial Times’ report is correct, Apple would still let other companies build all the home automation pieces, such as the lights and the security systems, but iOS would be the glue holding everything together.

It’s not hard to see the appeal of such a system. Apple is known for making things easy to set up and use, so it could remove the hassles that have kept home automation out of the mainstream. People who own lots of iOS devices already could buy into this system knowing that everything is likely to work well. At the same time, home automation product makers could have a single, widely popular platform to target, with a common set of software tools to build around. Apple could then use its marketing prowess to get the word out about these products, and sell the best pieces through the Apple Store.

But as exciting as this sounds, it’s also a bit scary, because the more you invest in an iOS-only home automation system, the harder it may become to leave for another platform.

The idea of platform lock-in isn’t new, nor is it unique to Apple. Amazon, Google and Microsoft also dream of having customers who are unwilling or unable to move to competing platforms. But with home automation, the stakes are higher than ever because the hardware is so expensive. A smart thermostat costs $100. A single smart light bulb can cost around $30. A smart door lock can cost $200. You could easily spend over a thousand dollars turning your home into something out of the Jetsons, and the convenience may be totally worth the monetary cost.

But what happens if you decide the iPhone isn’t right for you anymore? Maybe you like the way Android handles notifications, or the way Windows Phone integrates with Xbox and Office. Perhaps you want a screen that’s bigger than anything Apple offers, or a phone with killer front-facing speakers. Only now, the decision to switch isn’t so simple. You’d better hope your home automation gear supports some other platforms, or else your expensive smart home investment could start to look pretty dumb.

Using classic, hand-honed marble, Joe Doucet designed these gorgeous modern tables that use only gravity to stay together. The Annex Tables easily snap fit together leaving them completely sturdy and secure for daily use.

The Annex set is a signed and numbered limited edition exclusive to the Shop at Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum. The Annex Side Table and the Annex Coffee Table are both available for purchase.

I love the subtle ‘X’ that remains from the base once the pieces fit together.

Dubbed by many as Vancouver’s “Yoyo Kid”, 14-year-old professional yoyo-er Harrison Lee is looking to represent Canada at the World Yoyo Contest held this year in Prague — but needs […]

The post Vancouver’s “Yoyo Kid” needs help to fund international dream appeared first on Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More.

iOS: Ever find yourself staring at a menu at a restaurant trying to decipher what a particular ingredient is? Or maybe you've been lost at the grocery store trying to find yarrow on the shelf? Ramps is an app that helps answer those questions by providing a simple, well-illustrated dictionary of obscure foods.

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Print Collection is a company that produces museum-style quality prints for your home. With summer just around the bend, they’ve released a special collection fittingly named, See America.

Yosemite National Park

See America is a collection of 10 vintage-style CPA travel posters by Steven Thomas that will inspire you to travel across the country. They’re also a great way to vicariously travel and see those famous US sites if you don’t have time to squeeze in a cross-country road trip this year.

Sequoia National Park.

The collection ranges from vintage-style travel posters to architectural photography. As a San Francisco native, I have to say that the Golden Gate Recreational Poster is my personal favorite :).

Niagara Falls State Park

Joshua National Park

Grand Teton National Park

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Everglades National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park

Acadia National Park

Attention ’90s nostalgics and craft beer enthusiasts: Hanson’s MmmHops beer is now available online for your next retro kegger.

The boy band of brothers who caused an entire generation to have the phrase “MmmBop” stuck in their head for an entire decade have branched out into beer with the establishment of the Hanson Brothers Beer Company and the release of their debut brew.

MmmHops is a smooth-bodied Pale Ale crafted with rich malt and a signature blend of hops, with 7.5% alcohol, according to a press release. (The average beer is closer to 5% alcohol, so don’t think the Hanson Brothers don’t know how to go hard.) While the brew has been available at select fine retailers since 2013, it’s only now available for online sale to nostalgia-fueled beer drinkers around the country.

As for possible brand extensions, Taylor Hanson told TIME that, “We take our music very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. So we joked about a pilsner and we have a song called ‘Penny and Me’ so ‘Pilsner and Me.’ Or ‘Where’s the Lager?’” He added, “If the beer is great, then we feel like that ultimately will win out.”

We can all raise a frosty cold glass to that, while wondering if there will ever be a “Get The Girl Back” bock.

MORE: 14 Music Festivals to Check Out In 2014

MORE: Q&A: Taylor Hanson Talks New Album, Old Songs and Tie-In Products

Long after the gag of joke birthday candles wears off, they still have one helpful use: getting that darned campfire lit.

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Get ready to hear a lot about Alibaba in the coming weeks. The Chinese e-commerce giant filed for its initial public offering in the United States Tuesday, and the hype machine is quickly heating up for what could be the largest tech IPO ever. Though Alibaba’s filing indicates that the company plans to raise just $1 billion, that number is only a placeholder — the company is expected to raise as much as $20 billion in its offering, leading to an overall valuation as high as $250 billion.

What is it about Alibaba that’s causing such a furor on Wall Street? The uproar is most easily explained through these two charts:

Massive volume: Alibaba says it’s the largest e-commerce company in the world. The company operates a wide number of businesses, but the most lucrative are Taobao Marketplace, a large, eBay-like commerce site with more than 8 million vendors; Tmall, an online marketplace for name-brand retailers like Apple; and Juhuasuan, a daily deals site similar to Groupon. These sites generated a massive $248 billion in retail transactions in 2013 between them, dwarfing both eBay and Amazon.

Alibaba processed 254 million orders on a single day last year. Amazon, by comparison, sold 36.8 million items on Cyber Monday in December. With China’s online population expected to grow to 800 million by next year, Alibaba will soon have even more customers to serve.

A low-expense business model: The key to Alibaba’s financial success—and a significant differentiator from Amazon—is that the company doesn’t actually sell any products. Instead, Alibaba operates vast marketplaces for third-party sellers who either pay a commission for sales or pay an advertising fee to have their wares displayed more prominently on Alibaba’s sites. Amazon spent $8.6 billion on its fulfillment centers in 2013, a cost that never dings Alibaba’s bottom line. Alibaba also has less than 21,000 full-time employees and 4,500 part-time customer representatives, compared to 33,500 total employees for eBay and 117,300 for Amazon. In short, the company doesn’t have to spend more to make more to the same extent that Amazon does.

Before you call your broker to bet the farm on Alibaba’s IPO, though, there are some caveats to consider. The company has a troubled history with counterfeit items, for example. There were once so many knockoff goods on Alibaba’s shopping sites that it was on the U.S. government’s list of notorious markets, but the company says it has since cleaned up its act. It’s also worth learning about the company’s odd governance structure that makes it nearly impossible to remove chairman Jack Ma from power. And even if Alibaba continues flying high, it’s possible the Wall Street hype machine could over-inflate its stock. That’s what happened to Facebook, the last heavily-sought tech stock, which didn’t reach its IPO price for its first 14 months as a public company.