9th January 2015
1) With the rain bucketing down in Blighty, no better time to think about summer travel. Here are Monocle Magazines Travel Top 50 for 2016. As they say – ‘Our annual survey of the best in class from carriers to train nations, architecturally blessed inns to tasty food concepts’. (video)
2) Will we ever be rid of this turbulent mode of communication? ‘Email works. It’s open. It’s lovely on mobile. And as other forms of communication theoretically lighten the burden email places on people, perhaps it will become more tolerable again.’
3) Brevity on The Brink, as Jack Dorsey explains long form tweet rumours with a Twitter essay. How about 10,000 characters…?
4) It’s CES time in Las Vegas and so The Guardian takes a look at what is making waves at the show, this year. How about the Smart Bra?
When the Consumer Electronics Show first opened in 1967, it featured just 14 vendors and was dominated by televisions. Sony launched their first VCR there in 1970 and, in the 1980s, Nintendo debuted its first games entertainment system on the show floor. This year, 3,200 vendors will take over Las Vegas for the technology industry’s pre-eminent trade show.
5) Is the web creating a generation of miserable kids? ‘Children are struggling with low self-esteem, loneliness or deep levels of unhappiness as a result of using the Web, a new study published by a child support group in the UK suggests. ChildLine said it was contacted 35,244 times in the last year by children struggling with how to be happy.’
6) Interesting development in the ongoing tussle between old and new media, as 200 German publishers file a complaint against Google in a row over whether or not the search engine should pay the publishers to show their articles online.
7) The entire universe in one clever map, which uses a logarithmic scale to compress the distances as you travel outwards, and deliver a rather gorgeous and slightly Eye-of-Sauron image.
8) When are you really adult? In an age when the line between childhood and adulthood is blurrier than ever, what is it that makes people grown up?
9) Compelling – This photo of people falling over on New Year’s Eve is being compared to Renaissance Art.
10) Oh dear, #DrummondPuddleWatch, the first great internet sensation of 2016 has arrived… and departed.
Finally, some additional light viewing for the weekend –
More drone fun – this time underwater.
And did you know…..that the Chameleon has one of the fastest tongues in the animal kingdom?