Feeling punky today - the usual post-Christmas let-down coupled with an adverse reaction to an excess of desserts plus a lack of sleep. Hope your day is much better. Not much on the web today - we're getting to that point in the year where everyone's busy writing Ten Best lists for the weekend. Anyway:
MEDIA What was Newsweek like in its glory days? Full of drunks, apparently. You'd turn in your copy, it would be edited and laid out, then a senior editor would come back from a three-martooni lunch and tear it all up. But it was great because there was lots of money and no one ever questioned your expense account.
It's a look at the lost culture of the "Mad Men" era, and your liver hurts just reading about it. Reminds me of my first few months working in DC, before Deborah Howell shook up the newsroom culture; some reporters would go to lunch, come back hammered, and type a few words before giving up for the rest of the day.
TECH Heaven forfend a moment goes uninterrupted by the sudden intrusion of a text: here's a watch that relays your iPhone alerts.
Granted. If it brings back watches, that's not bad thing. Right now when I take out my phone to check the time, I feel like it's the 19th century, and I'm pulling out a timepiece on gold chain.
The next step will be a smart earpiece that talks to your smart watch, which talks to your smart phone.
Then there's this: you may have read the dire stories about Snapchat, which supposedly encourages sexting because its pictures self-destruct quickly. TechCrunch looked at the stories and the authors and the facts, and wrote:
The idea that the self-destructing photo can't be captured just means that some people will try very hard to work around it. This may bring back cameras, which have seen their popularity wither due to smart phones. In a year, then, the really hip people will have watches and cameras in addition to their smartphones. This will require fanny packs, but don't worry: at first they will be used ironically in Brooklyn, and then Urban Outfitters will sell them as semi-ironic trend objects. Full-scale re-adaptation will continue nation-wide through 2015.
