Linked List: May 6, 2013

Monday, 6 May 2013

MG Siegler:

It was almost exactly 19 months ago that I laid down the proverbial writer’s pen and picked up the less proverbial pen for writing checks. It has been an amazing experience getting a fund up and running, learning, and ultimately, making a lot of wonderful investments. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’ve decided to dive deeper by joining Google Ventures as a general partner.

Whoa. Did not see this one coming.

Nintendo Taps Smartphone Apps for Console Boost ★

The Japan Times:

Nintendo Co. is trying to modify its game consoles so customers can use smartphone applications on them as it searches for a way to return to profitability, company sources said.

The game console and software maker has offered professional-use conversion software to application developers so they can produce smartphone games that can be played on Wii U, a struggling home video game console that helped widen the firm’s operating loss in fiscal 2012.

They’re on the right road, but driving in the wrong direction.

Designing ‘Faraway’ ★

Rob Dubbin, writing for The New Yorker:

That year’s festival juries named Faraway a finalist (indie gaming’s Oscar nominee) for Best Mobile Game, as well as an honorable mention (benevolent Oscar snub) in the big-ticket category of Best Design. Faraway was not on my judging docket of randomly assigned games that year, so my iPad was not granted permission to install a provisional copy. At the time, I figured it wouldn’t be long until I could experience the game for myself, as a device-carrying member of the app-consuming public. I even got to try an unfinished version of it once, at the apartment of a friend of the developer, in a somewhat frantic thirty-minute session that left me both slack-jawed with awe and certain I’d no more scratched Faraway’s surface than I had physically exited our solar system’s heliosheath.

That was two years ago.

Kara Swisher on the Instagram/Facebook Acquisition ★

Kara Swisher, profiling Instagram founder Kevin Systrom for Vanity Fair:

On a beach walk one day, Nicole told him she would be reluctant to use the app he was working on because her pictures would never be as good as the ones a mutual friend took. “I said, ‘Well, you know what he does to those photos, right?’ She’s like, ‘No, he just takes good photos.’ I’m like, ‘No, no, he puts them through filter apps.’ She’s like, ‘Well, you guys should probably have filters too, right, then?’ I was like, ‘Huh.’”

Great piece. No word on bringing back Gotham, though.

IBM Wearable Computer Commercial From 2000 ★

Not only predicted the hardware design of Google Glass, but also the glasshole personality of its users. (Thanks to Kieran Healy.)

See also: Fred Armisen on SNL Weekend Update, reviewing Glass.

Photoshop CC ★

Some big new features for designers coming in the next revision of Photoshop, including editable roundrects and support for the system’s text anti-aliasing. (Those new app icons seem a little nutty, though.)

Stroke of Luck, Indeed ★

Daniel Jalkut:

The “I’m Feeling Lucky” button hasn’t, to my knowledge, been changed to “stroke of luck” in any regional version of Google’s home page. It has, however, been changed into a useless button whose behavior has no relevance to the original “most-relevant result” behavior. It’s just a piece of useless junk on Google’s otherwise still admirably minimalist home page.