Yeah, so I bought some BitCoin at a Liberty Teller kiosk in the South Station train terminal. I’ve been a BitCoin and virtual currency enthusiast for a while now but this was the first time I’ve actually purchased the stuff. Since acquiring BitCoin from online exchanges often takes multiple days and is still cloaked in some skepticism, the kiosk approach is a faster and more accessible alternative. My experience was quick and easy. I inserted $60 cash into a small atm-like machine with a touch display and received a ticket with a private key in return. I later transferred my BitCoin from that ticket to an app on my Nexus 4.

The Liberty Teller kiosk was dreamed up by two friends Kyle Powers and Chris Yim and is one the first first of its kind in the country. The pair have since opened an additional kiosk location at Clover Food Lab in Harvard Square and similar BitCoin outfits are continuing to sprout up across the globe. The future of BitCoin is both uncertain and exciting; finally having some skin in the game makes it all that much more exciting.

This is a huge surprise. Just when pretty much the whole world had already written off Microsoft as having failed at the mobile game, they come out with the Windows Phone 7 Series (let’s call it WP7S). Forget the cumbersome name and instead check out the freshest UI and mobile experience in years. The video above is a lengthy 22 minutes but if you’ve got the time, it’s a great way to learn about the main features of this new OS and actually see a device in action. I’d also suggest you check out Gizmodo’s thorough analysis here.

Microsoft’s new mobile OS is a complete departure from the past. Thank God! The interfaced is called “Metro” and borrows heavily from the Zune HD and XBox experience. Although it won’t be available until the holiday season, the WP7S team will have the cooperation of all the major carriers (with AT&T being the “premier” one… huh?). Also, 9 manufacturers are on board so far, including Dell, Samsung, and LG. And to ensure that each device lives up to Microsoft’s standards, each manufacturer will have to adhere to a “tough, but fair” set of hardware requirements — sounds like the only leeway they’ll get is whether or not to include a keyboard. Read more →

When Jobs & Co. unveiled their newest toy to the world last Wednesday, I was more disappointed at the long list of missing features than wowed by Apple’s magic. And it seems most people out there had the same reaction I did. Nearly half of CrunchGear.com readers that took this poll said they would not be forking over money to purchase an iPad. The remaining half was split between wanting to buy one and “Meh, I could go either way”. This reaction is completely logical; without some of the much-anticipated features such as a camera, simultaneously-running apps, an option besides AT&T, Flash, GPS, and an earth-shattering new user experience (just to name a few) the iPad simply doesn’t live up to the hype that had snowballed since rumors of such a device had surfaced years ago. At first, you may think the iPad is just a big iPod touch, but then you’d be under-appreciating what’s perhaps its most important feature: a glossy 9.7 inch, 1024 x 768 resolution screen.

Apple is no doubt taking a gamble by entering a relatively uncharted product category. Many people, including myself, aren’t convinced that this is a device  that actually solves a need. I’ve already got a smartphone and laptop, do I really want to pay for this in-between thingy? The feeling of “omg, this is going to change everything.” that followed the announcement Read more →

Swedish doctor and researcher Hans Rosling gives an awesome talk at TEDIndia on the trends in economies and when Asia (China & India, precisely) will overtake the West. Rosling sports a killer Swedish accent but has even better visuals and whit. He’s managed to put together software that clearly draws out the historical trend of the major economies over the past 150 years or so. He maps out income per person over life expectancy with the US, UK, China, India, & Japan on the graph and shows the trajectory each of these economies has taken up until today.  And he then predicts exactly when India & the Red Dragon will surpass Europe and the US. As he’s telling a great story throughout, the charts and visuals give the brain a way to really digest what he’s saying. I’m gonna watch some more of his stuff…

Update: you can try his visualization software free online: http://www.gapminder.org/ Well, it’s actually Google’s now…

It definitely was a fun & educational weekend a couple weeks ago here in Boston for 2009’s Voices That Matter: iPhone Developers Conference. The hundred or so attendees all had their MacBooks out, taking notes, downloading presentations, and even coding as some of the speakers demonstrated the challenges of tomorrow and the best ways to tackle them. It was great to be in a building full of smart people — mostly developers, some designers, and some business folks — and be able to get different perspectives on where the iPhone and mobile in general is headed.

There were 20 presenters in total covering topics  ranging from app submission best-practices, to advanced accelerometer techniques, to hybrid app development, and more. I thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of my favorite presentations and share some of the documentations (if available). Read more →

This is really interesting. Google Labs is experimenting with allowing users to incorporate their various social network profiles with their Google accounts. What this’ll do is provide a section in your search results that pulls content from your “social circle” that’s related to your search query. These results can come in the form of blog posts, tweets, pictures, and more. And it doesn’t just pull from your direct circle of friends but your extended networks as well — very cool. Check out the video above for a brief overview or see Google’s post here.

If this interests you, check out my friends over at Pinyadda. They’re are a bit ahead of the curve by building a social platform that collects news and various articles based on the sites and topics interest you the most; sort of like if Twitter or Facebook took on RSS.

Looks like the people over at the CNN’s Web Design teams have been busy. I think I need a bit of time to digest and get used to the new design before I can say if it’s a real improvement, but first impressions are also important:

• a bit jarring visually compared to the previous design/template — felt very RED and a bit heavier.
• I kinda wish they could have taken the new design across the entire site (minor criticism)
• looks like there’s more emphasis on media visuals. Video especially feels like it has more prominence.
• homepage gets a little bare below the fold.
• news pulse feature is great. It’s basically CNN’s flavor of Digg, but with ‘popularity'(???) driving the rankings.
• better integration of social features. comments are nice (why no facebook connect?), more prominent linking to facebook, twitter, & others, nicer iReport, and again NewsPulse is great.

Overall, I think CNN.com has a cool new design. CNN is setting the bar in the online space for news and media companies by proving their users with a very clean, slick look and feel, adding lots of great new features, and emphasizing their strengths in multimedia and social media. Sure there’s the whole issue of creating more serious revenue from these ‘sites’, but I think CNN’s strategy is to simply grow an audience first by concentrating on user experience… and the money will eventually follow (right, facebook?).

Just installed a WordPress plugin called Lifestream. After some headaches around upgrading to PHP5.0 and tweaking some CSS, I was finally able to get it running properly. Lifestream publishes all the activity from my social web “life”. So it’s basically a dumb facebook feed that is just part facebook activity… you’ll also see music I listen to on Pandora, apps I’ve rated on the iTunes App Store, new blog posts, stuff I Digg, my tweets, etc.

Check out my lifestream here.

Contrary to what Gizmodo posted today, I actually think this Verizon ad is somewhat clever. It may seem like the marketing execs over at VZW are getting a bit desperate with this obvious attack at the iPhone, but I think — despite it’s corniness —  it’s pretty smart and targeted.

Of all the US carriers, it’s safe to say that VZW has the collection of the least exciting mobile devices. AT&T, Sprint, & T-Mobile all have flagship smarphones, and perhaps Verizon is now ready to put some money behind their own, The Motorolla Driod. The specs are impressive and so is the Android 2.0 OS. Personally, I think the iPhone is still the device to beat, but not everyone buys into what Apple’s selling. And with this new Moto supposedly being “the Android device to beat,” I think this is a clever attempt at wooing all the smartphone users with contracts expiring and also those people that haven’t yet found something exciting enough to buy that isn’t an iPhone.