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Chinese military bars smartwatches, smart glasses and internet-connected wearables

May15
by on May 15, 2015 at 11:53 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

china
Armies — regardless of nationality — are not designed to be bastions of freedom. So when the Chinese military found out that one of its recruits tried to photograph soldiers in his barracks with a smartwatch, it laid down the law: No smartwatches, “high-tech spectacles” or internet-connected wearables allowed — for security reasons. “The use of watches that have internet access, location information, and telephone conversation functions should be considered a violation of secrecy regulations at army barracks,” said the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily, the military’s official mouthpiece. Yahoo Tech quoted the newspaper report as saying, “When officers and men put…

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Oculus Rift drops Mac and Linux, targets Windows PCs only

May15
by on May 15, 2015 at 9:26 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Design & Dev

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While a certain portion of the cross-platform population has been lusting after the migraine-inducing charms of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, the audience will be narrower than some might have expected or wished. Oculus VR, in a blog post today, revealed that its specs would be met only on the Windows platform and on PC hardware, with Mac and Linux development on indefinite hold. “Our development for OS X and Linux has been paused in order to focus on delivering a high quality consumer-level VR experience at launch across hardware, software, and content on Windows. We want to get back to…

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Make your Apple Watch look even cooler, in grayscale mode

May15
by on May 15, 2015 at 8:53 pm
Posted In: Around the Web

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While in London yesterday I bumped into an old friend who already had an Apple Watch. He had the space-grey sports version, and to make it fit even better with his bespoke grey suit he had decided to use the accessibility features to enable the greyscale setting. It looked very stylish and it might even have a positive effect on your battery life. I don’t think I’ll turn it on permanently on my Watch except maybe when I’ll also wear a suit and want to color-coordinate, but do give it a try if you want to stand out from the crowd.

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Writing value propositions that work

May15
by on May 15, 2015 at 8:47 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, value proposition

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A well-defined problem is half solved. But getting there is harder than you’d expect. Enter the world of value propositions. Projecting “Here is why you should buy from us” seems easy from the company’s perspective: it already knows its product and may be over-valuing the perceived benefits. The reality is there are all sorts of inertia to overcome. Communication is hard, and it needs to cascade to every level if you want to be persuasive. Slapping up a new headline doesn’t count. Let’s take a look at what does. When Simple is Overrated “Blandvertising” happens via the best practices echo-chamber, in…

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WebGL Fluid Experiment is a browser-based LSD trip

May15
by on May 15, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Posted In: Around the Web

Remember the last time you took LSD? Sure you do! Relive all that without sacrificing 12 hours in this WebGL browser based visual experiment. A joy to use and a reminder of the 70’s, or maybe of that first time you opened iTunes and started the visualizer if you are a bit younger. Hat tip to Engadget’s Roberto Baldwin for finding this.

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