A good hotel can become great with solid Wi-Fi

marriott-central-park

Awhile back I wrote about the tallest hotel in North America, which is right around the corner from my current office. I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to stay there twice. The second time, I had Internet issues, and it turned what was an otherwise comfortable experience into something a bit closer to frustration. Continue reading

YouTube has everything: Lily Tomlin as Ernestine

ernestine

A recent audio clip of former journalist Ryan Block fighting with Comcast to cancel service has been making the rounds, reminding us of some of the challenges that happen when a company treats customer retention as more important than the customer itself. Continue reading

If a computer handled redistricting

redistricting-via-computer

Every 10 years, when census numbers get updated and shifts are required to ensure “equal representation,” complaints of gerrymandering and district tampering inevitably arise, as humans try to cope with a variety of variables that can lead to all sorts of accusations of favoritism or marginalism. Continue reading

A font change that set the Internet abuzz

twitter-font-change

Twitter made waves recently when it decided to roll out a more modern font as its primary typeface. Many sites do it, but the ubiquity of Twitter made the decision more prominent, enough so that they even announced it on their support handle. Continue reading

Exploring the evolution of a neighborhood

new-york-streets

I’ve written here about New York’s evolution, but neighborhoods all around the world inevitably change and evolve with the communities, with people and businesses coming and going. A new feature from Google’s Street View lets you see the changes that have occurred in a neighborhood by comparing pictures from various time periods. Continue reading

YouTube has more everything: Video quality report

google-video-quality-report

Netflix has for years provided reports about the quality of networks and how that’ll affect your ability to stream video, and now Google is getting in the game with their Video Quality Report, which lets you know how a provider’s doing and what level quality of video you can count on when watching video. Continue reading

From big budgets to guerilla games

threes

The enormous budgets of A-list video game titles, and the risks they bring, along with huge successes by indie publishers like the successful Threes! game written about here earlier, have encouraged game companies to think smaller when it comes to a portion of their release schedule. Continue reading

Drooling over Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 3

microsoft-surface

I’ve been intrigued by Microsoft’s Surface line ever since the introduction of the original. There were certainly flaws, and the pricing made it that a laptop seemed more advantageous, but it was a really cool idea. When we got one at work for testing, I liked as much what I held in my hand as what I had seen in articles and reviews online. Continue reading