King of the (virtual) world
Are you a gamer? Or, perhaps, are you a GAMER. The difference might not be obvious, until you read the story of Jorge Yao at the NY Times. It’s a crazy story about one man’s quest in the online game Clash Of Clans. It details what led him to the game, and continues with the story of he became an internet celebrity. The number one player in the world for six months, Jorge attracted 90,000 twitter followers, 30,000 facebook likes, and hundreds of thousands of views for youtube videos.
It’s a great article, chronicling what it took to remain on top for so long. A few quick details: $250 a week in in-game purchases. $3000 over the first three months of his run. That led to getting a sponsor to continue. Playing up to five accounts at a time, even in the shower. Eventually, it became too much, but the work paid off in the form of a job with a gaming company.
The World’s Scariest Trail
If you happen to find yourself in China, and you are feeling adventurous, you might want to check out the Heavenly Stairs at Mt. Hua Shan. It’s a giant stone staircase that leads up the side of the mountain. And if you are still feeling frisky after the climb, you can continue on to the plank path. But you might not want to. Have a look at it.
Crazy, right? There is more to this than the views or the usual ‘because it’s there’. If you do make your way past the plank path, there is a surprise waiting at the top of the mountain. But I won’t spoil it. Check out this post on Viralnova for more pictures and the reveal of what is at the end of the trail.
The two wheeled pickup truck
CES is in full swing, with all manner of strange and new things being displayed. As I navigated down the rabbit-hole inspired by all of that nuttery, I landed on the Kubo. Billed as a pickup truck on two wheels, the Kubo is a scooter from Lit Motors. It boasts a top speed of 45mph, a range of 80 miles, and has a giant cargo hold right there in the middle. It would seem to be the perfect in-city run-about. Deliveries are expected to commence this year.
Hardware keyboards are not dead yet
One of the casualties of the mobile space’s march toward thinner phones and bigger screens has been the physical keyboard. It’s a rare thing. After all, if you want that keyboard, the phone is going to have to be thicker, or the screen is going to have to be smaller. It is something of an odd choice that manufacturers have decided to ignore the userbase that is interested in the physical keyboard. There is enough of an audience still around to support a keyboard accessory market.
One of the latest is from Typo, which is notable for two main reasons. First, it is funded in part by Ryan Seacrest. And most recently, because they are being sued by Blackberry for copying the Blackberry keyboard. You can hit the links for more on that. I’m more curious about the decision to go with the portrait style keyboard. It does avoid the problem of making the screen smaller, but the iPhone is a pretty long and skinny device to start with, and this makes it oddly longer. More perplexing though, is holding it in use. That’s just not a natural thing with so much phone above the keys. I like the idea of the physical keyboard, but I would lean more to the classic slide-out landscape form factor, like you see on the BoxWave Keyboard Buddy.
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