Archive for the 'Gadgets' Category

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An Ode To Gadget Blogs

Published by Taylor on January 31, 2008 in Gadgets. View Comments

gadgetgeek.jpgSo, in the “Things You Might Not Know About Taylor” category, I’d like to discuss my casual obsession (do those exist?) with gadget blogs. Some people really like diving into the Soduku puzzle in their morning paper, zoning out in front of the Today Show with a bowl of cereal, or flying around their apartment in a flurry of chaotic activity trying to simultaneously shave, shower, dress, and make coffee…all in order to make it out the door 5 minutes late. I used to be the chaotic “mornings are hell” type, but since transitioning to the “real” world I’ve settled into a morning routine that generally includes equal parts NPR, not shaving (the joys of facial hair), and…you guessed it…gadget blog browsing.

Before I go on, I should clarify: I don’t own a lot of gadgets. Of the thousands (and I do mean thousands, but we’ll get to that in a minute) of nerdy, unnecessary, hillarious, and sometimes positively sweet shiny gizmos I view in my morning haze, there aren’t many I could afford or would want to buy. But that’s not even the point. Gadgets represent, in the best and worst ways, the cutting edge of change: little geeky harbingers of what we never thought we would need…but actually might be handy. They appeal to the inner techno-geek inside all of us (everybody has one of those right? no? oh…) that, let’s face it, thinks for just a moment that even the most wildly impractical items would REVOLUTIONIZE our work productivity, household, or even social interactions.

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Conversation about the future of books

Published by Jarred on January 17, 2008 in Apple, Books, Business, Consumer Behavior, Culture, Gadgets and Reading. View Comments

If you haven’t noticed, there is a great discussion taking place in the comments of my last post.  Several readers are chiming in with great insight about the Amazon Kindle, books, and reading in general.  Check it out, and join in!

Steve Jobs on Reading

Published by Jarred on January 16, 2008 in Apple, Books, Business, Consumer Behavior, Culture, Gadgets and Reading. View Comments

[Taylor, I pinkie-swear I won't write about Apple or Steve Jobs after this post for at least one month.]

I won’t go into detail about what happened at Macworld yesterday. I leave that to the multitude of other bloggers who are on the ground in San Francisco. But something was definitely in the air, and it was a pretty great event. If you want to catch Jobs’ keynote, see here.

In an interview with the New York Times following his presentation yesterday, Steve Jobs put in his word about several initiatives being undertaken by his competitors. He had this to say about the Amazon Kindle, the web commerce giant’s e-book reader that marks its first foray into physical products:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

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