Fun to join Ira Flatow to talk about some of the tech stories coming out of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Thanks for having me, and to the SciFri crew for putting the interview up on Soundcloud so I can share it here.
More info at the Science Friday site.
Or, Using The Word "Cheeky" on National TV. I blame the anchor's accent.
Is there a way to survive without cable, and still see all the shows you want? That was the topic of my conversation with American Public Media's Future Tense -- you can listen to the interview below.
Yesterday on NPR's Morning Edition, I showed up briefly to talk about Polaroid, and whether it can regain its place in the market. Listen below!
You might have heard that Apple announced details of its new iPad device today. NBC News asked what I thought of it, and you can see the results in this segment from tonight's broadcast:
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Also, there are some outtakes with Brain Lam and I on the NBC website.
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As always, it seemed like it went by in about a millisecond -- here's the little piece I just did at CNBC talking about display technology:
I'm just tickled that my feature story on Nike+ and the data-driven revolution in athletics is the cover story this month at Wired.
I think it's probably the best thing I've ever written -- the product of months of research, thinking, and draft after draft. Here's one of my favorite sections:
The Nike+ sensor consists of just three parts. There's an accelerometer that detects when your foot hits and leaves the ground, calculating that all-important contact time. There's a transmitter that sends the information to a receiver, one that's either clipped onto an iPod nano or built into the second-generation iPod touch. And there's the battery. That's what Nike+ is.
What's more interesting is what Nike+ isn't. There's no GPS that automatically tracks your routes—if you want to map your run, you have to do it manually on the Nike site. There's no heart rate monitor, so even though you know how far and how fast you've traveled, you don't know what level of cardiovascular exertion it required. "We really wanted to separate ourselves from that sort of very technical, geeky side of things," Tchao says. "Everyone understands speed and distance."
In other words, Nike+ isn't a perfect tool; it wasn't designed to be. But it's good enough, and more crucially, it's simple. Nike learned a huge lesson from Apple: The iPod wasn't a massive hit because it was the most powerful music player on the market but because it offered the easiest, most streamlined user experience.
But that simple, dual-variable tracking can lead to novel insights, especially once you have so many people feeding in data: The most popular day for running is Sunday, and most Nike+ users tend to work out in the evening. After the holidays, there's a huge increase in the number of goals that runners set; this past January, they set 312 percent more goals than the month before.
There's something even deeper. Nike has discovered that there's a magic number for a Nike+ user: five. If someone uploads only a couple of runs to the site, they might just be trying it out. But once they hit five runs, they're massively more likely to keep running and uploading data. At five runs, they've gotten hooked on what their data tells them about themselves.
Huge thanks to all the people at Nike who took time to talk to me, and everyone at Wired who made it a much better story -- especially Thomas Goetz, whose editing and advice was crucial in the story's success.
Had a fun conversation earlier today on CNN.com's "Blogger Bunch" about the launch of the iPhone 3G S and some of our favorite apps. Weird to do an interview over Skype, and had a couple of technical problems, which led to me not hearing some of the questions! Check it out below, or on CNN.com.
Chris Hardwick from G4 was up at the Apple Keynote speech yesterday, and I was one of the gadget talking heads he grabbed to sound off on Apple's announcements. Check the clip out!
Good lord, sorry about the delay on this. At CES, I was interviewed for the NBC Nightly News -- if you like watching two month old news clips, you're in luck! Just wanted to archive a copy of it here....
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So, the other day I decided that I was going to jump into this whole Twitter thing full force, and see how it goes. If you're up for random news and observation, you can check out my Twitter stream at: twitter.com/markmcc.
For future reference: WordPress Developer’s Toolbox from Smashing Magazine.
Nullsoft's tethering app for the iPhone is a little light on documentation: here's a couple of walkthroughs.
Productivity nirvana: OmniFocus for iPhone and iPod touch. Merlin Mann has more.
New bata software out, a Subversion client for the Mac called Versions.
If you're as much of a Photoshop novice as I am, you'll appreciate Unsharp Mask: How Do You Actually Use That Thing?
The big gadget news today is the release of Roku's Netflix movie streaming box. You can check out my review at Wired.com
Fun hack to get rid of things like your Safeway card: WalletCards on iPhone