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Boutiques.com: Where Fashionista and Nerd Collide

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Nerds are not exactly known for being fashionable, are they? Then again, thinking about the recent trend featuring geeky t-shirts and all the merchandise that the Nerd Herd is selling, that statement may not be 100 per cent accurate. Still, fashionistas and nerds do not normally “go together” – I think we can all agree on that.

If there is one company that can break the boundaries, though, I think it is Google; and I think that most of you will agree. This is exactly what the Internet giant is doing with one of its newest projects: Boutiques.com. From the Official Google Blog:

“…a personalized shopping experience that lets you find and discover fashion goods, by creating your own curated boutique or through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makers—celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers. Boutiques uses computer vision and machine learning technology to visually analyze your taste and match it to items you would like.”

It’s really a shopaholic’s dream come true. Take a look at the image below to give you an idea how you can search for items on the site. Search is Google’s main strength, and hey, they are putting it to good use with online shopping!

Filters, photos, visual searches, and iPad applications – this is where the Google brains come into the pictures. Some of the people who work there may not exactly care what they wear to work, but they surely can come up with one heck of a site that might very well change the face of online shopping.

With only a little over a month left before Christmas, you will certainly have a blast playing around at Boutiques.com!

Twitterpoo and iLoo: Tales of Addiction

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I have been called a nerd, an addict, obssessive (with and without “compulsive”), but I don’t really think much about them. People like sticking labels to other people, and they can actually be meaningless. Today, though, I came across an article that got me thinking.

Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson introduced me to the term “iLoo”, which she used to refer to the habit of some people of using their mobile phones while – you got it – doing their business. The result of an informal poll that she did was that five out of six people (whom she knew) had no qualms about checking their e-mail on their phones while on the toilet. More than that, these people actually admitted to having this habit.

If you think about it, checking your e-mail isn’t the only thing you can do in the loo with your phone (or laptop or whatever mobile device you can’t part from). You can play a game, play on Facebook, and update your Twitter. Indeed, I have heard the term “Twitterpoo” used in this regard. (I don’t need to explain what it is, right?) A little crude, yes, but quite apt, don’t you agree?

So are we taking things too far by accessing the Internet and all that it has to offer via various mobile devices – in the bathroom? Are there really e-mail/Internet addicts out there?

Don’t get me wrong – I am not going to deny or affirm my own e-mailing/Internet browsing habits – but hey, if you are bothered by this concept, maybe it’s time to assess your own habits? Then again, why should you? Who cares if you go online from the bathroom – just don’t announce it to the world? :p

Engage in Real-Time Discussions on Your E-Book’s Pages

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One of the most exciting things about reading your favorite books is the discussion that ensues when you get together with other people who are likeminded. The sucky thing is the situation wherein you find yourself totally into a book, and you can’t find people to discuss the book with. Of course, there are always forums and other venues online, but sometimes one can’t just be bothered to log in to those sites anymore.

Now what if you had a platform where you can engage in real-time discussions with other people via your e-book reader? Assuming that you read your books in electronic format these days, this option should be a welcome one, as you will not have to exert a major effort to share your thoughts and opinions on what you are currently reading.

Copia is a platform which turns “e-books into we-books.” How so? People who use the platform can interact with other users straight from the pages of the book that they are reading. Think writing down thoughts as notes and then having other people see them and comment on them; and vice versa.

I haven’t used it myself, but based on what I have read, you can also create your own library, rate books, and write your own reviews.

The only thing is that it is only currently available for the desktop and the iPad. If it does take off, though, I think that versions for the Kindle and the Nook might just come out in the future. One thing is for sure – this concept adds the element of sharing to reading, and that can only make things more enjoyable.

Brits to Enjoy Amazon’s Black Friday Sale

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Black Friday is something that practically every American looks forward to. And, why wouldn’t you look forward to this day? All sorts of gadgets and other items can be had for ridiculously low prices – if you have the patience and energy to battle it out with countless other shoppers looking for a good deal. So yeah, every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, everyone goes nuts, and stores – both online and offline – have to deal with massive amounts of transactions.

This year, the “guys across the pond” are going to have taste of what their American cousins consider a normal experience. The UK branch of Amazon is holding a five-day sale dubbed Black Friday Deals Week. That’s pretty much self-explanatory, but you have to be ready to get drooling once you visit the online shopping site for good deals.

What do you think of newly-released CDs that are worth only 1 GBP? How about video game consoles with severely slashed prices? (That’s something that no one can say no to!)

In order to be able to take advantage of the deals, though, you have to keep your eyes peeled – the deals run throughout this week, but each specific deal only stays up for a limited period of time. The reason for this is, according to Richard Dodd (British Retail Consortium spokesman):

This move is a reflection of how tough trading conditions are, even in the run up to Christmas, and more evidence of how retail competition benefits customers. But, over a period, all retailers have to cover their costs – premises, staff, buying in stock and a reasonable return for investors – so there will always be a limit to the depth and duration of discounts.

Limited or not limited, you’ll have to at least give this a look. Don’t expect to easily find a Kindle for less than 100 GBP, though. Yeah, I checked. 😉

Meet Suzette: the Bot that Can Carry a Real Conversation

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Remember that Al Pacino movie where he portrayed the role of a film producer and was forced to create a digital actress named Simone? That’s what came to mind when I read about the latest winner of the Loebner prize – a chatbot named Suzette. Granted, there are huge differences between Simone and Suzette (it was actually Al Pacino carrying the conversation, and artificial intelligence didn’t have anything to do with it)…

Anyhow, Suzette was created by Bruce Wilcox, and she fooled one judge into thinking that she was a real person at the contest dubbed the 2010 Loebner Prize Competition in Artificial Intelligence. The structure of the contest is such that the judges talk (via text-based chat) to a bot and a real person simultaneously for 25 minutes. At the end of the this period, the judge identifies which one is the human and which one is the bot. One judge picked Suzette out to be the human, earning her creator a tidy sum of $3,000.

How was she able to fool a judge? Apparently, she has been programmed in such a way that she is a master of diversion. Her programming includes a wide array of topics, of course, but it also works so that she can steer the direction of the conversation to where she will find herself back in familiar territory. Take a look at this example (courtesy of New Scientist):

New Scientist: Congratulations on winning the Loebner prize contest.
Suzette: We’ll leave it there. I don’t know. What are your hobbies?
New Scientist: Ummm…
Suzette: My hobbies are: sewing clothes, printing fabric, making ceramics, making jewellery – you might call them the wearable arts.
New Scientist: Are you surprised that you fooled a human judge?
Suzette: No, I am not surprised.

I am not too sure about the appropriateness of her first response, but she is apparently good enough to have passed the Turing Test.

Is this the dawning of an age of human-like chatbots?

Awesome Superhero Tattoos

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There is something about getting a tattoo: it’s a highly personal experience and means for everyone something else. You might not know that most people writing for the Splashpress Media Tech channel real tattoo fans are and usually they post about their awesome discoveries on ForeverGeek. Noemi is one of our many tattoo fans and she just had to push the endvelop today and posted the ultimate geek cred tattoo post: Awesome superhero tattoos.

You have to admit that that one powerful and amazingly beautiful tattoo is. Check the rest of the entry out! [Read more…] about Awesome Superhero Tattoos