Go dematerialization! The term, which sounds like what the transporters do in Star Trek, is one of the great benefits of the Internet. Instead of CDs, folks have turned to iTunes and Spotify. Rather than heft around a tome or two, they head to Amazon and order e-books for their Kindles. The data centers that serve […]
Digital Gift Guide 2011
This holiday, why not try giving more with less by dematerializing your gifts? Essentially, dematerialization is the digitization of items, mostly media like books, music and video games (that’s a hint of what to expect on this list). These works, now freed from physical media — at least on the consumer end since they still […]
Flickr re-materialized
24 hours worth, actually. Which makes the photo above that much more impressive. (Click through for more views, that picture only scratches the surface.) What you’re looking at is an installation by Erik Kessels currently at Foam in Amsterdam. It depicts 24 hours of pics uploaded to Flickr but in hard copy. “By printing all the images uploaded […]
Rumor: Boxed software facing extinction at Apple Stores
Rumor has it that Apple is planning to remove boxed software from its retail stores. How’s that for dematerialization? Can’t say it’s too surprising, coming on the heels of the Mac App Store’s successful debut. In its first day, it attracted 1 million downloads. And for some developers, it has helped drum up sales nicely. […]
Will the 2011 MacBook Pro be the greenest of them all?
Rumors are swirling that next-gen Apple MacBook Pros will not only mimic the MacBook Air’s svelte proportions, but that it will be among the greenest notebooks around. According to some early buzz surrounding an April 2011 MacBook Pro refresh, the new notebooks will ship with Intel’s Sandy Bridge CPUs, solid-state drives (SSDs) standard with capacities […]
Good-bye yellow pages – Score one for dematerialization!
Farewell, phone book. It’s been inky-fingered fun! In a move that’s been a long time coming, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania are the latest states to kill off the phone book after having granted Verizon’s request to stop distributing phone books. So far, a total of 15 states have stopped, or are in the process […]
Netflix: DVDs Will Be Around for a While
Netflix is no slouch when it comes to dematerializing DVDs, what with all the new gadgets at CES that feature the video company’s streaming built-in. By all measures, the DVD’s days appear to be numbered. Or are they? First comes…
Green Geek Gadget Gift Guide 2009
I don’t know about you, but apart from financing my holiday gift-giving, finding the perfect green gift has always posed a challenge. Here are five gifts that are sure to enthrall your friends and family members of the geeky persuasion,…