Apple's Maps App: Just How Bad Is It?
mashable.comThe answer, I’m sad to say as an Apple fan, is very bad indeed. Almost unusably bad. Maps takes all the trust Apple has built up among its users over the years — trust that its products just work — and squanders nearly all of it in one go.
Estimated reading time: 5 min
Flipboard: Behind Mobile's Most Beautiful Newsreading Magazine
mashable.comOn Flipboard, we encourage readers to do just one thing: flip. Just open the app, and flip from left to right. By minimizing friction and encouraging readers to focus on the content, we become transparent. And that, we believe, is the secret of great design.
Estimated reading time: 8 min
The Secret World of Video Game Speedrunners
mashable.comOcarina of Time is the speedrunner gateway drug for many.
Estimated reading time: 4 min
How to Stay Focused in a World of Distractions
mashable.comIn our connected world, it is easy to think that the more information we have the better our chances of success. While more information can be helpful for, say, logical problem-solving, it is often useless when it comes to innovation.
Estimated reading time: 4 min
Google Search Just Got 1,000 Times Smarter
mashable.comTo build this world of things, Google is tapping a variety of knowledge databases, including Freebase, which it bought in 2010, Wikipedia, Google Local, Google Maps and Google Shopping. Currently, Google’s Knowledge Graph has over 500 million people, places and things and those things have at least 3.5 billion attributes.
Estimated reading time: 5 min
What It's Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison
mashable.comThe Internet did not exist when I began serving my prison sentence in 1987. I didn’t have direct access to the Internet as it dawned onto popular culture and became mainstream for many Americans, throughout the “You’ve got mail!” craze of the '90s. Years would pass, until my release from prison in 2012 before I’d be able to experience the Internet first hand.
Estimated reading time: 6 min
4 Things Media Companies Must Do ... or Die
mashable.comThink Social First, Then Search
Estimated reading time: 9 min
Geena Davis: Hollywood Still Typecasting Women [VIDEO]
mashable.comIn her research, Davis found that most of the women portrayed in mainstream, family-friendly media — movies with G, PG or PG-13 ratings — are given roles that are very narrowly stereotyped or are hyper-sexualized. In fact, her organization’s study found that 81% of characters in G-rated movies that are portrayed holding jobs were male. Of females, there were no scientists, lawyers, medical professionals, business people or politicians. Essentially, very few women are shown holding positions recognized to have the most societal importance. This has a huge impact on the development of self[…]
Estimated reading time: 3 min
Given Tablets But No Teachers, Ethiopian Kids Teach Themselves
mashable.comEarlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. “I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,”
Estimated reading time: 3 min
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