If you have been an avid reader of my posts here on MOD (and why wouldn't you be?), you must surely know that I have kind of a major lady boner for David Bowie. His constant transformations, even up until today, have made him one of the most influential and admired artists in the world, and he is still pushing the boundaries of music and fashion at the age of 67. Happy Birthday, David Bowie, and here's to many more! (And a show in Portland, maybe?)
The word “meme” was originally coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to draw an analogy between the way ideas and genes proliferate and evolve. Dawkins had loftier ideas in mind, but there’s evidence now that Facebook memes—those variants of “like/repost this statement if you agree” deals that seem impossible to banish from the newsfeed—evolve in much the same way.
Facebook’s data science team has posted a fascinating analysis of data collected from Facebook shares that allowed it to track the evolution of a popular meme. Originally in support of president Barack Obama’s health-care reform, the Affordable Care Act, and first posted in September 2009, it read: “No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day”.
It did well in its original form (470,000 exact copies of the status in the first month alone) but it quickly began evolving. First there were insubstantial changes in wording; then people began making jokes that played off it, turning it into a statement about other diseases like cancer; and finally some began shifting it into a political message against Obamacare instead of for it. By taking note of the political leanings of each person who posted it, Facebook’s analysts were able to track the evolution of the meme from its origins on the left to its culmination on right, where people posted variants of “No one should go broke because government taxes and spends.”
So there you have it: Just as we made the magnificent transition from single cells to meme-creators with a series of random mutations, a meme in support of healthcare reform went from zombies to beer to anti-Obama outrage. Because internet.
Typostrate Cookies
extra for winter we took out a traditional recipe from grandma to bake some fantastic cookies for typostrate. It’s easy to make these cookies.
Ingredients:
500g flour
250gr butter
200g sugar
3 small eggs
1 pinch saltPreparation:
Mix the the flou, sugar and the eggs with the butter in one big bowl and knead the dough with your hands till there are no more clumps in it. Than keep the dough at a place of your choice that it could respose for 15 minutes. Now coast the dough with a rolling pin and get your christmas shapes for cutting out the forms. after that you can paint the pieces with egg yolk and put chocolate or coloured crumbs on it. 12-15 minutes in the oven on 180°C or 350°F degrees should work. At least enjoy the cake and surpirse your family with lot’s of cool cookies.
OPB seeks a Corporate Account Executive to join our underwriting sales team. This full-time position with benefits is based in and seeks support from businesses throughout Oregon and southwest Washington for OPB and KMHD. For more information and instructions on how to apply, go to: http://www.opb.org/insideopb/careers/jobs/. OPB is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Our new adoptee is a friendly, rambunctious little gal full of endless energy. We do frequent dog parks but would like to connect with some of the younger pups out there. Still no prejudice against older dogs, as long as they are puppy friendly.
One of the comics I’m looking forward to this year is Ms. Marvel from writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona. Here is a preview of the first issue due next month.
I am DEFINITELY looking forward to this. Especially since I’m a huge Adrian Alphona buff and I’ve been waiting for him to get on a book for ages.
firehoseTilda Swinton beat
Whether the States will ever see the original director's cut of Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, or only the hacked up version The Weinstein Company wants to screen, only time will tell. But the drama hasn't dampened our excitement for Tilda Swinton's lunatic villainess, highlighted in this new international trailer.
    
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firehosevia Russian Sledges
Alexis Madrigal and Ian Bogost for The Atlantic reverse engineered the Netflix genre generator, analyzed the data, and then made their own. Then they talked to Todd Yellin, the guy at Netflix who created the micro-genre system. It's no accident when you see altgenres like "Visually-striking Goofy Action & Adventure" and "Sentimental set in Europe Dramas from the 1970s" in your browser.
The Netflix Quantum Theory doc spelled out ways of tagging movie endings, the "social acceptability" of lead characters, and dozens of other facets of a movie. Many values are "scalar," that is to say, they go from 1 to 5. So, every movie gets a romance rating, not just the ones labeled "romantic" in the personalized genres. Every movie's ending is rated from happy to sad, passing through ambiguous. Every plot is tagged. Lead characters' jobs are tagged. Movie locations are tagged. Everything. Everyone.
That's the data at the base of the pyramid. It is the basis for creating all the altgenres that I scraped. Netflix's engineers took the microtags and created a syntax for the genres, much of which we were able to reproduce in our generator.
Be sure to play around with Bogost's generator at the top. It will amuse.
MiamiHerald.com |
NASA gets White House approval to extend International Space Station by four ... Fox News The $100 billion-plus International Space Station (ISS) is set to have its operations extended by four more years. NASA plans to announce this week that the White House has approved the station's operations to continue until 2024, according to documents ... International Space Station life 'to be extended'BBC News Misbehaving sun delays space station supply flightAlbany Times Union Rocket launch similar to those visible from Lehigh Valley scrubbed over solar flareThe Express Times - LehighValleyLive.com all 187 news articles » |
CNN |
Insane Clown Posse sues FBI for labeling 'Juggalo' fans a gang CNN Los Angeles (CNN) -- Insane Clown Posse and four fans are suing the FBI for designating the rap duo's followers as gang members. FBI analysts, using law enforcement and media reports of crimes committed by people wearing "Juggalo" tattoos and clothing, ... Insane Clown Posse Sues The FBIantiMUSIC.com Hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse sues US Justice, FBI over gang IDReuters Insane Clown Posse sues FBI over gang listingSan Jose Mercury News Houston Chronicle all 286 news articles » |
Nintendo’s stock has soared on news that China is moving to end its 14-year-old ban on foreign-made video-game consoles. But don’t believe the hype. Nintendo doesn’t have what the country’s gamers are looking for these days.
The ban on consoles was originally put in place for fear that the industry’s penchant for producing violent video games would have a bad effect on Chinese children. But as an entire generation has grown up without Sony’s Playstation, Microsoft’s Xbox, or Nintendo’s Wii, China’s game industry has developed on mobile instead. The country’s mobile game industry is by far its fastest growing gaming industry (others are PC and online gaming). The sector grew by nearly 250% in 2013, and is now an almost $2 billion business. (The global mobile games market was worth $3.5 billion in 2011).
Nintendo’s problem is that unlike its competitors, which sell portable devices as well as games, the company has had pretty cold feet about going mobile, or even sharing its games on any platform other than its own. None of its games—Super Mario, Zelda or Pokemon—are offered anywhere other than on Nintendo’s gaming consoles, which at this moment amounts to the Wii. And, most detrimental to its chances of capitalizing on the massive Chinese market, the company has completely ignored the smartphone and tablet game market. The argument on Nintendo’s end has been that by focusing its energy on hardware—like the latest version of the Wii—it will be able to keep its customers happy. But that hasn’t exactly panned out. The company posted a near $250 million loss in the six months leading up to September last year.
So now that China has lifted its console ban, Nintendo is at a disadvantage against its competitors. How is the company going to win over Chinese consumers who don’t know its brand or cast of characters? Clever marketing may be the answer, but targeted ads and billboards can only go so far. “China’s game console market is virgin territory,” Zhang Yi, the head of research at iiMedia, told the Financial Times. What’s more, Nintendo won’t merely be competing with Playstation and Microsoft for control of the Chinese game industry, it will be competing with the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, both of which have just been released and can’t keep up with demand despite selling millions of units apiece. Nintendo, on the other hand, has had trouble getting the Wii U, now more than a year old, and its games off the shelves.
And that’s all assuming China will even have an appetite for video game consoles. There remains the possibility that the platforms won’t catch on, either because people are too used to phones and tablets (where games are also a lot cheaper than on consoles) or because the country’s government is likely to closely oversee newly produced and released games, as it already does with mobile versions.
firehosevia Russian Sledges
One of the suites at this year's Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, features blocks of ice carved into the shape of Parisian rooftops and chimney pots by French designers Les Ateliers de Germaine (+ slideshow).
Located 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, the Icehotel is the largest hotel built of snow and ice in the world. It is constructed afresh every year and various artists are selected to create different themed rooms, allowing visitors to spend the night in sub-zero temperatures.
Luc Voisin and Mathieu Brison of Paris-based Les Ateliers de Germaine designed their space to represent "a postcard from France".
The room is based on Montmartre, one of Paris' most famous areas. It features a carved outline of the Sacré-Cœur basilica at one end, as well as a series of rooftops with illuminated dormer windows and chunky chimney pots.
"Paris seemed to be the best example of a French city known all over the world," Voisin told Dezeen. "We thought about the way Paris is showed in cinema and literature. Because everything is a bit crooked in the room it looks like cartoon scenery."
Voisin said the process of creating the sculptures was challenging because of the extreme weather conditions: "It is very interesting because the texture of the snow and ice changes so much depending on the temperature."
"From one day to another you might have to adjust your gesture if it is ten degrees less," he explained. "If it is warmer, the snow is wet and sticky, if it is very cold, the ice cracks and is very fragile."
This year is the twenty-fourth edition of the Icehotel. Other suites created this year include a room modelled on a laboratory for a crazy scientist by Swedish designers Pinpin Studio.
Photography is by the designers.
Here's a description from Les ateliers de Germaine:
Icehotel Jukkasjärvi
Magical city, legendary city, romantic city, poetic city, symbolic city, Paris will always be Paris.
The cinema, literature and music have tried to capture the atmosphere and essence of Paris: it seems like it is an endless source of inspiration for artists and keeps attracting billions of tourists from all over the world.
Climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower, walking on the Champs Elysées, visiting the Musée du Louvre, shopping in Le Marais, wandering along the River Seine or simply sipping coffee at a café, everyone can live and explore the city as they see fit, like adventurers.
More than a design, more than an architecture, it's a trip to the heart of one of the historical districts that we offer. You can feel the people living all around you, you might even see them if you're curiously peeking out the window. You are part of the city, you are the city.
Suspended between heaven and earth, far from the chaos of the city, rocked to sleep between dormer windows and chimneys, overlooking the city skyline and its countless shining windows, this room will take you to Montmartre's rooftops, as Satine and Christian in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge.
The post Icehotel suite by Les Ateliers de Germaine
recreates the rooftops of Paris appeared first on Dezeen.
I…
I…
I am going to make a cup of tea.
firehosevia Osiasjota
developed to explore the limits of 3D printing as an art form, the miniature sculptures feature an elaborate network of 64 interlocking gears and support structures.
The post mechaneu v1 3D printed spherical gear system kinetic sculpture appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
There’s been a lot of scrutiny of the character since the announcement, particularly because of her Muslim faith. Do you feel like there’s extra pressure to treat her as a representative for all Muslims?
"There’s a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren’t enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture. So the few ones that do exist come under increased scrutiny and pressure, because they’re expected to represent everybody. Obviously, you can’t do that with one character and you shouldn’t, because it would stifle the narrative and prevent them from becoming a fully-realized person. So I think in situations like that, you just have to tread lightly and trust your gut. Kamala is not a token anything in any way. She’s very much her own quirky, unique, wonderful person. She’s not a poster girl for her religion and she doesn’t fall into any neat little box.
If you put the shoe on the other foot and said we’re going to have one Christian character that represents all Christians, the ridiculousness would be obvious right away. Are you talking about white Methodists from Oklahoma? Are you talking about Anglicans in Africa, who are the fastest growing group of Christians on planet Earth? It’s patently impossible for a Muslim character to represent 'all Muslims.'"—Wired has a preview of the new Ms. Marvel, in which the titular heroine is Muslim teen Kamala Khan. There's also an interview with writer G. Willow Wilson. The whole thing’s a good read, but this answer is my favorite bit.
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firehosewhat!
that shit ain't voltron, that's like someone welding a Gundam and a Gundam knockoff together
Red Hat and the CentOS Project today said they will team up to build what they called "a new CentOS" in a bid to accelerate adoption of the free operating system.
CentOS is a clone of Red Hat's most important product, compiled from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It could be seen as taking paying customers away from Red Hat. The two organizations could also be bitter rivals, but today they showed that they think working together can benefit both the customers who pay Red Hat gobs of money for enterprise-class Linux and those who use CentOS for free.
Although Red Hat gives away all of its source code, it makes more than a billion dollars a year. Software subscription prices guarantee updates, patches, bug fixes, support, training, compatibility with mission-critical applications, and legal protection from patent trolls that target open source users.
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As criticism of Google's private shuttle bus service for employees living in San Francisco has reached new heights, the company quietly turned its eyes to the sea. CBS is reporting that Google has contracted a private catamaran called "The Triumphant" that ferries workers from San Francisco bay to Redwood City, California, about halfway to the company's global headquarters in Mountain View, California. Presumably, then Google employees hop out and take a bus the remaining 14 miles.
A vessel called the Triumphant that appears in CBS's report is also listed as a whale watch boat for rent on the website of a company called All American Marine, with prices starting at $1 million. For Google, it reportedly makes two trips daily, one in the morning and one at night, and can hold up to 149 passengers at capacity. The service is said be just a trial, according to CBS. But that's not likely to quell the growing tide of concern that Google and other Bay Area tech companies with private worker shuttles are isolating themselves from those outside the industry. It's also interesting timing given Google's other controversial seaborne project, the enigmatic Google barges in the Bay Area and off the coast of Maine, which Google has said will be an interactive technology space but has yet to reveal to the world.
luigi eats a pancake that is so good, he momentarily loses his grip on his godly powers and floats upward, his soul attracted to heaven. mario looks on, horrified at luigi’s sudden ascension. goodbye luigi
firehose“[I]t’s Nissan delivering a Versa Note, the final component of the advertising program we worked with them on late last year.”
firehoseAndrei Kirilenko - Кириленко
Jesus Shuttlesworth? The Big Ticket? The Heat and Nets are set to wear nickname jerseys when they play Friday.
The Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets are all set to wear "nickname" jerseys when they play on Jan. 10, and both teams have unveiled the nicknames players have chosen for the game. The Heat have gone the extra mile, creating a "microsite" promoting the "name collection," which you can find here. Here's a few of the notable jerseys that will debut riday:
So what names can we expect to see from Miami?
LeBron James - King James
Ray Allen - J. Shuttlesworth
Mario Chalmers - Rio
Dwyane Wade - D. Wade
Chris Bosh - CB
Udonis Haslem - UD
Michael Beasley - B-Easy
Norris Cole - Cole Train
Shane Battier - Battle
Roger Mason Jr. - MoneyMase
Chris Andersen - Birdman
Rashard Lewis - Sweet Lew
Greg Oden - G.O.
Joel Anthony - Doc
James Johnson - JJ
Some of these were expected -- like Kings James, Birdman and Rio, for example. Others are just awesome, like Ray Allen referencing Jesus Shuttlesworth from He Got Game. On the topic of that movie, Spike Lee and Allen have been talking "for months" about making a sequel to He Got Game. A big swing and a miss here? Dwyane Wade, who has gone by plenty of other monikers and somehow settled on D. Wade. What about Flash? What about "Three," the name he gave himself after his third title.
The Nets will feature a few classic nicknames as well but haven't unveiled their full roster:
Kevin Garnett - The Big Ticket
Paul Pierce - Truth
Deron Williams - D-Will (If he can play after spraining his left ankle and lacing up a walking boot)
Joe Johnson - JJ (not to be confused with "JJ" James Johnson)
Jason Terry - Jet
Miles Plumlee - Plums
Andrei Kirilenko - Кириленко
Both teams will wear the jerseys throughout the season.
• The Hook: When no one is clutch, everyone is
• He Got Game 2? Ray Allen, Spike Lee mull sequel
• O'Donnell: Bulls dumping Luol Deng proves business isn't always pretty
• Power Rankings: Can Warriors join top 5? | Pictures: Dubs blend old with new
firehose"Hey, we're just reporting the news here. Don't get testes.
At first glans, that looks like a pretty accurate representation."
Check it out, you ding-dongs.
Someone on Reddit came up with the best $20 bet of the week. Their friend was happy to oblige. Behold: a Nike+ run penis.
I was intending to make a bunch of penis-related puns here but couldn't think of any, so maybe I'll just wang it.
Hey, we're just reporting the news here. Don't get testes.
At first glans, that looks like a pretty accurate representation.
(The runner also promised to draw a football-field-sized vagina, but so far that seems like it may just be a phallus-y. Hopefully we don't get shafted on that one.)
UPDATE: SHE LIVED UP TO HER PROMISE.
Hero.
firehosevia the hoopla service
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A couple years ago, I reviewed typographer-lawyer Matthew Butterick’s book, Typography for Lawyers. It “isn’t just for lawyers,” I said then, “it’s for anyone who cares about how text looks in print or on the Web.”
Now Butterick has web-published a new book on typography for a general audience, Butterick’s Practical Typography. It covers the same subject, but without directives specific to the legal profession.
This time it’s not a print book. It’s not an e-book, either. It was created and coded by Butterick himself specifically for the Web. You can read it through like a book, but it’s set up as an easy reference guide, with links to font basics, font recommendations, text formatting, sample documents, etc. For those in a hurry, there’s a “Typography in Ten Minutes” section.
The book is freeware, but you can kick the author some compensation for his work through the website.
I love type. I’ve read many bookis on the subject. Butterick’s are by far the clearest and most useful of them all.
-- Russ Mitchell
Butterick’s Practical Typography
Free
Sample Excerpts:
Criticizing Helvetica is one of the favorite pastimes of typographers: It’s bland. It’s overused. It’s inapt for most projects. All true statements.
Yet they sort of miss the point. It’s like criticizing Star Wars because the visual effects are unrealistic. Or because the dialogue is wooden. Or because the plot is pinched from The Hidden Fortress. All true statements. But so what? It’s still Star Wars. And like Star Wars, Helvetica will be with us for the foreseeable future.
Should you use Helvetica? Look, I like Helvetica. Though mostly in the rear-view mirror. Today, we have better options. For Helvetica diehards, there is neue haas grotesk, a lovely revival of the original Helvetica design. Others can try a font that’s neutral without being dull, like my own concourse, or the excellent new atlas. Even good old frutiger would be an improvement.
And don’t worry—no matter which alternative you choose, Helvetica will still be with us.
*
The hyphen (-) is the smallest of these marks. It has three uses.
1. A hyphen appears at the end of a line when a word breaks onto the next line. These hyphens are added and removed automatically by the automatic hyphenation in your word processor or web browser.
2. Some multipart words are spelled with a hyphen (topsy-turvy, cost-effective, bric-a-brac). But a prefix is not typically followed with a hyphen (nonprofit, not non-profit).
3. A hyphen is used in phrasal adjectives (viewer-supported radio, dog-and-pony show, high-school grades) to ensure clarity. Nonprofessional writers often omit these hyphens. As a professional writer, you should not.
For instance, consider the unhyphenated phrase five dollar bills. Is five the quantity of dollar bills, or are the bills each worth five dollars? As written, it suggests the former. If you mean the latter, then you’d write five-dollar bills.
firehosevia saucie
Emily Johnson Dickerson, the last person to speak the Chickasaw language — and no other language — died at her home in Ada, Oka., last week. Dickerson, 93, was one of about 65 people fluent in the Chickasaw language. There were thousands of Chickasaw speakers as late as the 1960s.
firehosesheeeeeeeeit
Thomas Sheraton, Metamorphic Library Table-steps, 1795. Mahogany. England. Via Cooper Hewitt.
Don’t you need this library table?
yes.
firehoseR.O.F.L
Chinese students from wealthy families have been pouring into American colleges in record numbers. One of their favorite American destinations is metropolitan Boston and its many elite schools—especially Harvard University, home to the progeny of Communist Party leaders like president Xi Jinping, Jiang Zemin, and the now-disgraced Bo Xilai.
An article in the January issue of the Chinese-language edition of GQ praises the influence of Chinese “Bostonian” alumni, but has inspired derision on social media for its way that it has idealized the city, and its implication that the city’s college graduates are building the future of China.
The article’s Chinese author, international student Shen Danqi, writes, “The young Chinese people graduating from Boston’s top-notch schools will make an impact on their motherland 20 years from now.” After all:
There’s no other place in the world like Boston, where so many top-notch U.S. college are aggregated…Harvard, MIT, Brandeis, Babson—and also the largest density of Chinese international students. They are the sons and daughters of the privileged class, the middle-class or even from poorer families. But in Boston, they are equal, temporarily.
Shen, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is particularly hopeful about the entrepreneurs coming from the area’s schools:
Many of the rest of China’s over 200,000 students now going to school the United States were not impressed. As one reader on Zhihu, the Quora-like Chinese Q&A site, grumbled:
The labeling ‘Bostonian’ is questionable. Bostonian is merely a descriptive and neutral word, but the categorization in this article makes the word superior and conveys a tone of moral judgement.
On Renren, a Facebook-like social media site, Feng Chucheng, a political science student at UC Berkeley, complained that it was misleading and shallow to equate Boston with idealism and entrepreneurship:
The fact that “Bostonian” is published on GQ actually says something about this article, it’s written to target those people who love to define their lives by labels and occasionally put on the pretense of idealism.
It may be hard to find anyone in the city of Boston to refute the GQ’s article’s premise. Encouraging entrepreneurs, after all, is part of Boston’s growth strategy for 2014.
firehose"Q: What temperature is the inside of a Tauntaun?
A: Lukewarm"
It’s so cold in NYC that there are Tauntauns running through Times Square! (at Midtown Comics)
Q: What temperature is the inside of a Tauntaun?
A: Lukewarm
Ride your Tauntaun here tonight for Comedy Notebook with an all-star lineup.
firehoseeverybody is making fitbits beat
Every year there's a few obvious trends at CES, and this year wearables are everywhere. We've seen fitness tracker announcements from Sony, Intel, Garmin, and one rather surprising candidate: Razer. Best known for its stylish peripherals and gaming laptops, the company is jumping into the fray with a smartwatch and tracking band mash-up called the Razer Nabu. It's a stylish band that melds smartphone notifications with a suite of fitness-tracking features, but unlike its competitors — who focus primarily on all-in-one turnkey solutions — Razer is hoping third-party developers will take the reins and turn the Nabu into a full-fledged platform.
"We've been working on the Nabu band for about three and half years," says Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. "So we've looked at everything from smartwatches to fitness bands along the way, and we were pretty unhappy with the state of things." Smartwatches often suffer from mediocre battery life, he says, while fitness bands have a hard time retaining users after the honeymoon period ends. Razer's approach was to think of the device in broader terms: less of a single-use device, and more of a lifestyle-focused accessory.
Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan.
On the outside, the Nabu's biggest differentiating feature is the inclusion of two OLED screens (despite the dual displays, Razer says the device will achieve between 7 to 10 days of battery life). The smaller screen on the outside of your arm lights up with icons for emails or calls, for example, letting you know when you have a notification. The larger "private" screen is on the inside of your arm, and displays the name of the caller or specific details on the notification. It's a thoughtful approach: people you're talking to at the dinner table may know you're getting a phone call, but only you will know who it's from.
The device will work with both iOS and Android phones over Bluetooth Low Energy, and Tan says any notification that a phone displays can be surfaced on the Nabu. It also contains an accelerometer and altimeter for counting steps walked, stairs climbed, and tracking your sleep. That feature lineup is pretty much table stakes in the fitness tracking market at this point, but it's the uses that haven't even been dreamt up yet that Razer is betting will really set the Nabu apart.
"We're opening up all this information."
"We're opening up all this information, all this data — subject of course to the user's permission — to developers out there. So first-party and third-party developers can now use all this data that they didn't have access to before." Whether it's the steps you've taken or the locations you've visited, all of the data collected by the Nabu is synced back to a user's smartphone via a Razer utility app, at which point developers can work with it all.
While many similar products have APIs, access is usually limited to reading or modifying data from a user's account rather than keying off the device itself. It opens up a realm of possibilities, particularly considering that one Nabu band will be able to talk to another. Using a set of pre-defined gestures — such as a handshake — users could share information or add each other over a social network. While the company will be releasing its own apps for sleep and fitness, it's otherwise an accessory-style approach, with Razer providing the device that collects the information, but letting developers out there find clever and exciting uses for it.
Of course, that only matters if the device itself is fantastic, and it was hard to get a sense of the final product from the early prototype we saw. The design was minimalist and unobtrusive, the twin screens fading into the black band when not in use, but in terms of functionality things were rather spotty. It was running with an alpha version of the smartphone app, we were told, and the Nabu wouldn't reliably connect. The OLED displays also weren't as effective as we'd hoped; while the icon notifications were nice and clear, the text on the private screen was tiny and required some squinting to make out the messages.
Selling direct to developers first
Razer will have time to iron out those kinks, however. It plans on selling the device in the months ahead for $49 — but only to developers. That will give the company time to drum up support and make sure there are apps that take advantage of the Nabu when the consumer version launches later this year at a slightly higher (and unannounced) price.
Either way, Razer is heading into a hotly contested market segment with some established competitors, but the company is hoping it can leverage its own pair of secret weapons against the Nikes of the world: gamers and game developers. He describes a scenario where a gamer could be driving home, and an online game — aware of his location through the Nabu — could send him a message asking him to join in when he arrives home. "Or for that matter, if they can see he's meeting his guild mates in real life, and send him cool stuff along the way. That's the stuff we're really, really excited about."
