Beware of geeks bearing gifts…

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Like most magazines, we like product exclusives. A shiny new laptop, in our hands before the rest of the press, and a review online early enough to sate the baying masses. We get plenty of hits on the website, a way to reach readers who otherwise may have looked elsewhere, and the pride that comes from a few days or weeks of being the only place to read about a product.

But what worked for the old days of magazines is just getting ridiculous in this online, instant age.

In the last month alone I’ve spent days with several brand new products from several different manufacturers, each interesting in its own way, and each so new that no reviews currently exist on the internet. But rather than basking in the glow of all that humming web traffic, I’m just about ready to put my foot through the next TFT that lands in our loading bay.

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Playing Pong, Hollywood style

Monday, June 9th, 2008

This is Nolan Bushnell, unassuming computer science student of the 1960s. With his corduroy trousers and his delightful stripy sweater, he certainly doesn’t look like typical Hollywood fodder.

But after growing up watching, and then repairing, the old midway arcade machines in the theme parks of his native Utah, this man would quickly go on to found Atari, give the world the long-enduring Pong, and eventually end up heralded as one of Newsweek’s “50 Men Who Changed America”.

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