Last week, when Instagram was valued at $500 million, people scoffed.
It's just a simple photo sharing app with only 30 million users and no real business model. How can that be worth $500 million?
Turns out that they were right. It's worth $1 billion instead.
Behind every great product is... money. Yes, you need a good idea. But without the cash to turn it into reality, it's just an idea.
That's where Kickstarter comes in.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I cannot live without my phone. It virtually holds my life together. But instead of an emotional ode to my iPhone, I thought the best way to truly show you how attached I am to it is to take you through a day in my life.
11am: iPhone alarm rings. I suppose I could have used an actual alarm clock, but I can’t eyeball my email on my alarm clock, can I? (Note that I didn’t actually say “read” my email; I just like to skim the subject lines to decide how guilty I should feel for not actually reading them.)
1pm: On the way to work, I’m struck by an inane thought. In the past, I’d keep it to myself, or use as small-talk. Now? Out comes the phone, and inane thought becomes an, er, “insightful” tweet.
130pm: Arrive at work. Instinctively use foursquare to “check in” and share the fact that Ravi Has Arrived At The Office with the world. Co-workers give me funny looks. FULL POST
Anyone who's seen the Mission: Impossible films will remember seeing characters rip life-like masks off their faces to reveal Tom Cruise underneath.
Now a Spanish coder has figured out a way to put someone else's face on your own through the power of software alone - no mask required.
It's hard to imagine Apple without the iconic turtleneck-clad figure of Steve Jobs at the helm. It's a future that will soon be upon us.
I've spent the last day crossing Silicon Valley, balancing my iPhone and iPad, trying to get as clear a picture as possible as to what Apple will be like under Tim Cook. And the answer is: it won't change much ... at first.
He entered the NBA with a promise like few others. Yao Ming brought a rare combination of talent and the ability to unlock a massive new market for the sport. Nine years later, reports say Yao is set to retire. And despite his best efforts, the sad truth is his career wasn’t what it could have been.
Yao could have been the NBA’s next great center. The NBA has a long history of dominant big men leading their teams to the title, from George Mikan in the 50s, to Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaquille O’Neal. Yao was drafted at the height of Shaq's dominance in 2002, but he had the tools to take him on.
Shaq’s strength and weight made him an unstoppable force in front of the basket. But Yao’s ability to shoot from further out forced Shaq to leave his comfort zone and chase him; physically moving a seven foot tall obstacle from the hoop. And Yao was a full four inches taller. In their eagerly awaited first meeting, Yao demonstrated his height advantage by blocking Shaq twice in the first few minutes. The Rockets won that game, and Yao had arrived.
But success didn’t quite follow.
FULL POST
It took 14 long years, but gamers can finally get their hands on 'Duke Nukem Forever'.
For those born after 1996, it's the sequel to 'Duke Nukem 3D', a raunchy, violent, but critically acclaimed and popular first-person shooter. It followed 'Doom', but took the genre to another level; instead of a generic Martian base, it's set in Los Angeles. Instead of brown, dreary corridors, you could interact with everything from toilets to pool tables to strippers. And instead of a faceless, mute space marine, it starred Duke Nukem: A man who looked like the result of throwing every 80s action movie star into a blender, with a set of one-liners ripped from all of them.
So when developer 3D Realms announced in 1997 that a sequel was on the way, fans rejoiced and waited eagerly.
And waited.
And waited.
14 long years later, 'Duke Nukem Forever' is finally available. But is it worth the wait? FULL POST
When Apple boss Steve Jobs took the wraps off iCloud, the company's new cloud services, he gave us a glimpse at the future of computing.
(Confused by cloud computing? Watch News Stream's handy explainer right here!)
What is iCloud? It's a system for storing various bits of your data online, and pushing all that data to all your devices so that they are always in sync. For example, let's say you create a document on your Mac. Without needing to hit "Save", iCloud will automatically save a copy of it online, and push it out so you can edit that same document on your iPhone or iPad.
Apple calls iCloud a breakthrough. Jobs says it's the culmination of a decade-long effort to kill the desktop file system.
It's certainly a bold step forward. But is it bold enough? FULL POST
In sport, there is always a burning desire to know: Who’s the greatest of all time? The answer, unfortunately, is never that easy.
It is almost impossible to compare teams and players from one era to another. Still, we try: Could World Cup winners Spain beat Pelé’s Brazil? Is Tiger Woods better than Jack Nicklaus? Never mind that sports evolve considerably down the years; rules change, equipment changes, and we change. Humans are in general bigger, faster and stronger than they used to be.
Even when eras do overlap and we get the match-up we want, time and age do not always cooperate. Witness the long-awaited fight between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. Lewis was at the peak of his powers; Tyson was far from the fighter known in his prime as “The Baddest Man on the Planet.” Lewis knocked him out but could he knock out a young Tyson?
And then there's the case of Roger Federer. FULL POST
The headlines say it all:
"Chinese video game targets American troops"
"Watch China kill American soldiers in new video game"
It sounds outrageous. But is it really? FULL POST
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| 