[Thanks, Jim]

iMAME4All gains experimental support for iCade, iOS gamers gain infinite happiness originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPad is not childproof. It’s fragile and expensive and we can’t imagine why you’d want to hand it over willy nilly to your kids. That said, if you’ve got money to burn and don’t mind letting small hands tool around with high-end consumer products, then this should tickle your parental fancy. Announced as a collaboration between Griffin Technology and Crayola, the Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad matches a marker-shaped digital stylus — the inventively titled iMarker — with your child’s LCD-colored imagination. The chunky, kid-friendly stylus mocks the tip of a pen, crayon, marker or paintbrush as your doe-eyed youngin’ swipes along 30 plus animated pages — all while sitting too close to the screen. If free is the key to your heart, go ahead and grab this now on the App Store — it’s the marker clone that’ll set you back 30 bills. That said, it’s a small price to pay for your child’s happiness. Also, digital Burnt Sienna — need we say any more?

Continue reading Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad swipes its way to your child’s heart

Crayola ColorStudio HD app for iPad swipes its way to your child’s heart originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To recap, this past week, I sent out the following two newsletters and they sparked a great deal of discussion in comments and on Twitter:

• The economics of attention and why there are no second chances on the Internet. (Read)
• When is a tech company dead? (Read)

However, some of the more detailed responses came via email and I am sharing edited down versions of some of them.

Vijay Sundram in response to The economics of attention

One thought is about the equation I would actually refine it say that MVP = f(happiness, utility), which you could think of as an indifference curve above which early traction is outcome. Depending on the market and customers, I think you can get away with more of one and less of the other. I’d argue there’s even a more general pattern, which is that in the earlier stages of a market (e.g. early PC and Internet era) technical innovation, prices, performance, etc. drive adoption, and therefore there is a bias towards “utility”. As these markets mature, the raw technology becomes commoditized and the competitive landscape is crowded so branding, design/UX, and attention are the core drivers of traction and so the bias tilts towards “happiness”.

Martin Joseph Brej in response to When is a tech company dead?:

Agree that Oracle and IBMare outliers—and both share similar strategic alignments:  while people often mention services when describing IBM’s business, I would point out that increasingly IBM is software-driven.  Services drive a lot of revenue, but software drives most of the profitability @ IBM.  Furthermore, IBM also has an established and successful strategy to grow via acquisitions—generally not of the size that Oracle has, but still a fundamental strategy by which IBM reinvents (or ‘reboots’) itself.

Kurt Collins in response to When is a tech company dead?

I don’t believe either Yahoo, Microsoft, or Nokia is dead. I understand the point you’re trying to make, however, there’s one example of a company that everyone thought was dead at one point: Apple. There are exceptions to every rule, and Apple may be one huge exception.

However, my point is more about the intellectual energy you were speaking of. Just because intellectual energy may be missing from the current employees at a company; but that doesn’t mean that same company doesn’t have a chance.

I think Silicon Valley is impatient. We dream about the future and we can’t wait to make it happen, so we’re often quick to dismiss the present. Tech companies may “die”, but every company has a chance; even the “dead” ones.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Defining Hadoop: the Players, Technologies and Challenges of 2011
• Putting Big Data to Work: Opportunities for Enterprises
• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview

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I believe that the economics of attention is much more ruthless and unforgiving than the real economic underpinning of a product. What I mean is that you can find money for your company from an investor, but it wouldn’t really matter if you don’t have users’ attention.

This is a hard reality that has been obvious in highly competitive and somewhat subjective marketplaces. Hollywood movies, music and even fashion are markets where “attention” determines the outcome. As far as I am concerned, the Internet and mobile applications fall in the same category.

No Second Chances

And just as it is hard for a movie to recover from a bad opening weekend, today’s “apps” are likely to lose their place in the marketplace if they don’t make a good first impression.

For nearly a decade, the start-up mantra has been release early and release often,” a concept that first was applied successfully in the development of Linux. I think it is time to amend that line of thinking a little. That means that developers will have to find a balance between the speed of offering a service and the promise of happiness and utility from the get-go.

If an app makes you happy or if it is useful, then you will more likely focus on the positive and overlook the shortcomings, argues Chaitanya Sareen, co-creator of the foodie app, Chewsy.

MVP + Happiness + Utility = Early Traction

Sareen makes a good point. If you look at some of the more successful products, they found early traction because they combined a concept popularized by Eric Ries as the “minimum viable product” and “happiness/utility.”

I distinctly remember the day I downloaded MoveableType’s blogging software and installed it on my server. It was an arduous process, but in the end it was worth it because it made my blogging experience so much better. Ben and Mena Trott added features as they went along, but it was that first stage of “satisfaction” and “happiness” that made me use the platform for nearly four years.

It is hard for any of us to remember that Google’s Gmail was a pretty bare-bones product when it first launched, but it had search and seemingly unlimited storage, which helped us focus on the upside and less on the downside. Ditto for Apple’s iPhone 1.0, which seems downright dowdy compared to its younger siblings. It was so delightful that we put up with AT&T’s terrible network, the lack of copy-and-paste and long wait lines.

What Doesn’t Work?

Now compare these examples with the likes of search engine Cuil, video platform Joost and more recently Color — they all found themselves in a hole from the minute they launched. All the focus was on their shortcomings.

Before focusing on the latest whipping boy of the web, Color Labs, I wanted to point your attention to Joost, one of the most anticipated startups of its time. As an early enthusiast, I loved the possibilities of the company, which was started by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstram and Janus Friis.

It had pretty much everything going for it, and yet it flopped. It had gained so many early adopters but it didn’t have content for them and it didn’t know how to solve the technology problems it faced.

Cuil, which was co-founded by an all-star team from Google, had similar issues — it had a ton of money ( million and change) and an idea that made perfect sense. Except it wasn’t able to deliver on its original promise — to out-Google Google — and to it all, the site went down when faced with an onslaught of visitors to the website.

Cuil lacked that aha feeling that keeps end-users coming back for more. The service’s initial promise turned into a negative experience, and the company failed to recover. Joost and Cuil are cautionary tales for anyone, and I cannot but notice eerie similarities between the three companies

• Exceptionally well-known and talented founders.
• Big hairy audacious goals
• Tons of initial investment money
• Promoting a new consumer usage behavior
• Lack the happiness/utility balance

I would argue that the Joost and Cuil failures came at a time when social media amplification was not as effective as it is today. Today, the sentiment good or bad news gets amplified very quickly, thanks to the growing number of people using Facebook and Twitter. Furthermore, it takes a lot longer for those waves of negativity to slow down.

Now if there was only a little competition on the market, then Color could find its way back to the forefront, but these days there are just too many options. Tomorrow there will be a new hot app, and another and another. And if you miss your chance once, then as I said earlier, you are toast.

So What Does Work?

In my post mortem of Joost, I wrote:

Remember what your mom used to say when you took too big of a bite? If you’re not careful, you’re going to choke. Startups are just like that. Unless you focus, you’re going to choke. Joost couldn’t focus on one single market — and startups need to focus on one market at a time in order to win.

What that means is that you need to do one thing and do it well. If you are making a mobile app, then you focus on developing for one platform — one that offers the path of least resistance, has the highest market penetration and, more importantly, is the platform of choice for the people who are likely to use and talk about your product. In the U.S. at least, developing for Apple’s iOS platform is a good bet.

And once you have made the platform choice, I think it is important to get the user experience just right, even if it means holding out for a couple of weeks.

With over 650,000 apps across multiple mobile platforms and tens of thousands of web services, it is pretty clear that there are no second chances on today’s Internet.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Report: The Ongoing Battle for the Digital Home
• Why Color Is More Than “Yet Another Photo-Sharing App”
• Putting Big Data to Work: Opportunities for Enterprises

GigaOM

The essential aspect of Christmas is music. Everybody loves to listen to modern Christmas songs for kids simply because they offer you an added feeling of what all this period is about. You love to sing about Santa, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, manger, stars, angels and reindeer. The arrival of Christ has brought new hope to this world. Similarly, singing great melodies on the day of Christmas will bring optimism into your life. The music of Christmas ranges from the sacred type to the secular type.

‘Believe’ by Josh Groban is among the modern Christmas songs which was launched a couple of years ago. This has become a hit song during the Christmas period when it was sung as a component of the soundtrack for the film, the polar Express. Yet another song that was hailed during the joyful seasons is ‘wizard in winter’ sung by Trans Siberian Orchestra. This is completely instrumental but is used in holiday commercials and digital light displays. When there is a blend of traditional music with modern sounds of rock and roll and pop, you get a new mixture of music that captivates your heart. This music of that variety and is used in the joyous occasions.

You cannot say any group of songs as modern Christmas songs list simply because by that time, there will be an introduction of new album and this will turn out to be modern. Therefore modern Christmas songs are ever transforming. For every Xmas season, new songs are introduced. Some of them are composed and sung basically for Christmas while few others are from movies. Though there are so many modern Xmas tracks introduced, only few of them remain after some time. These ageless songs are real treasures.

Among so many modern Christmas songs, some songs are well-liked by men and some songs are loved by ladies. The songs with quick beats are usually preferred by young individuals. Everybody loves to welcome the season with incredible music. These songs provide deeper meanings to the Christmas while making the hearts of everyone jump in joy. Prepare to welcome this Christmas having a warm heart and cheerful thoughts.

Google Tech Talks March 15, 2007 ABSTRACT If happiness is an inner state, influenced by external conditions but not dependent on them, how can we achieve it? Ricard will examine the inner and outer factors that increase or diminish our sense of well-being, dissect the underlying mechanisms of happiness, and lead us to a way of looking at the mind itself based on his book, Happiness: A Guide to Life’s Most Important Skill and from the research in neuroscience on the effect of mind-training on the brain. Speaker Bio: Matthieu Ricard, a gifted scientist turned Buddhist monk, is a best selling author, translator, and photographer. He has lived and studied in the Himalayas for the last 35 years…

US $300.99 End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 7:56:59 PST Buy It Now for only: US $300.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

This video was made with love. I’m usually behind the camera, so thank u to tech, jude, zef, anthony, doc and tripod for camera work. Thanks to LBM for these extraordinary beats. 2k10, real interesting and incredible times to be living in right now. The past few months complete, incredible transformation. The most special of thanks to taimak, fio, rosa, tech, megan, rachel, gabriela, big bro, pops, my mother, my sister, my aunt for you know what. bar-barians.com ALWAYS LEARNING/CHANGING Each day, perfectly different. Each day, notions of new. Knowledge that one’s heart may already know, but the brain does not yet understand. Like most people, BLIND, simply because one does not want to know, yet it’s all but an ILLUSION. Realization that people are SICK. All of us. We choose suffering. Whether the reasons are subconscious or sympathetic, it does not matter. This is where it stops. Act in the face of anticipated pain. ACCEPTANCE. VULNERABILITY. As a child, society/parents/teachers say what is right and wrong. This subconscious shape everything. Fears instead of dreams… Though temporary as is everything. HAPPINESS. PEACE. A way to truly understand is to give up one’s own beliefs, only to see that of another. PAINFUL. Being open with understanding and HONESTY, a beautiful way we can all learn and grow as much as we can. Objectivity is not our reality, yet it’s the only true reality. Taking 100% responsibility for ourselves and everything that comes into our lives, since we …

Living in an electronically numbed world is a bit like kicking the ATV tires but refusing to ever get on the ATV for a wild ride. The rush of the ride is well worth the effort, but sometimes the tire kick just seems easier.

Every day we get to choose the direction in which our life takes. We can try to make money online or we can stay with what feels safer despite the low pay. We can embrace spiritual growth as fast as we can disown it. We can move away from our family drama just as fast as we can choose to accept our family’s flaws.

Just like when we gear up for another digital day, complete with our laptop computer bags and our cell phones clipped securely to our hips, how much time do we put into the human effort? It’s the human effort that truly enriches our lives.

Where does the thought of happiness land in all of this? Where is our meaning when we live so electronically that we start to feel like we are part of the robotics department? There is someone right next to us that could use a warm smile or a friendly word. There is a balance that can be struck in order to develop more of who we are on a regular basis. Too much time in front of our various devices can tax us and help us forget that we can still be effective people in the world.

Remember how good it feels to love someone while you’re both laughing? Remember how good it feels to eat at the dining room table and talk rather than eat in front of the TV after a long day in front of the computer? Remember how easy it is to love a dog or play a game of checkers with a child?

Some of us have stopped caring because we are afraid of potential pain. There is more pain in the human element than there is in the electronic element. But there is happiness ten fold in the human element as well. The more we offer our hearts to each other the happier we actually become.

Either go to the Windows home page and search for Messenger or go to a search engine of your choosing and run a query on this particular program and download. You can install the program to your computer immediately and set up is a breeze.

If you’re unable to speak to someone on the phone due to privacy or time constraints, chatting through an IM program is the best way to go. You can also use emoticons to show emotions in your chats. Messaging with emoticons is easy. You’ve got the ability to either use symbols that create certain emotes or some versions of messaging services provide you with a pop up box from which to choose your emoticons.

Keeping in touch has never been easier. Make sure to tell all of your friends to download this communication tool so that you may keep in contact. Let them know how simple it is. It’s very simple to download the program one of two ways, quickly and easily.

Emoticons help you put expression and personality into your conversations. You can interject happiness with smiles and laughs, express concern, shrug your shoulders and so much more. Maybe even send someone a rose or other gift using emoticons in your instant messaging sessions.

Using a free download Windows messenger will change the way you communicate. Download this fun and simple to use messenger now, let your friends know and be chatting within a few minutes. It’s just that simple!

emoticons msn

Smiley Download

Download Smileys

It’s going to take $40,000 worth of diamonds to get me to buy an iPad. So nice try, Mervis Diamond Importers. They’ve taken an ordinary iPad—not sure which model, I’m afraid—and added 11.43 karats worth of diamonds. Yup.

This particular iPad goes on sale on June 1 for the low, low price of $19,999.

Rumor has it that if Manchester City gets that fourth place spot, all the players will be getting one of them.

And to break the fourth wall: this is the type of post that’s merely meant to kill some time, and not particularly add any happiness to your day.

via Luxist