Author: JD Rucker

There was once a time when being a geek or a nerd wasn’t cool until you bought your first Porsche. Today, thanks in part to a heightened awareness of intellectual necessities mixed with the onslaught of the internet, smart is chic and the wildly popular TED conferences and their Talks series are leading the charge to make it even more socially acceptable. Part of the revolution has been social media. In the early days, it was better to be frivolous than brainy on social. Today, the funny cat pictures are still popular, but there is a growing sentiment of more refined sensibilities and contributions…

The internet didn’t create trolls. It made them more widespread because it made being one easier. There are many publications that make a living by trolling and, despite what some would say about the practice, it really isn’t that big of a deal. You know that when you go to popular publications like Buzzfeed, Gawker, or Techcrunch, there’s a good chance that they’ve recently published something that was intended to make fun of the actions of others. They’ve even been known to troll themselves. There’s definitely a place for it on the internet and it can be both lucrative as well as informative. I…

There’s a minor journalistic debate currently happening surrounding the marketing, particularly how social media played into the Super Bowl ads, that is happening right now between Matt McGee and Bobby Grasberger. McGee said that Twitter was the big winner amongst social media sites as he claims that 50% of the ads included mentions of Twitter. Grasberger says that only 3 of the ads mentioned Twitter with the others using hashtags which can be used on multiple platforms. In ways, both are correct. In other ways, they both missed two of the bigger points. First, it’s clear that businesses can…

When a headline such as “Broad Powers Seen for Obama in Cyberstrikes” appears on the NY Times, my initial response is a skeptical one. I’ve long viewed the ways that the last two administrations have handled cybersecurity as failures to understand Golidilocks; they are too harsh when it isn’t warranted and lackadaisical in times of the greatest need. Many countries are growing more dangerous in the world of cyberterrorism with China leading the way. They are arguably more advanced than the United States in understanding the realities of cyberwarfare. To my pleasant surprise, the reported…

Nintendo ushered in the era of modern console gaming with its first and second generation systems. Their history since then has been up and down as it fights with their primary competitors, the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox systems, to stay relevant. Things turned for the worse with the introduction of the Gamecube, clearly inferior to the competition at the time. They revived the family of systems (and arguably the company) with the innovative Wii. Now, they’ve taken a turn for the worse with the Wii U, the first entry into the 8th generation of gaming consoles that has disappointed fans…

Traveling can be logistically hard and fiscally challenging, even when staying in the boundaries of the United States. There are so many places to see, so many activities to do, and so many roads to drive that getting a great view of the wonders of America can be challenging. For those who simply want to get a good view and “see” the spectacular sites of the country, we have Google Street View. You won’t be able to smell the dusty air of the Grand Canyon or taste a slice of real New York Pizza in front of the Empire State Building, but you can get a pretty detailed visual of these attractions and others from…

Imagine a camera, drone, and integrated video storage system that can shoot detailed images of a 15-square mile area that can see objects on the ground 6-inches wide from 17,500 feet in the sky. You would be imagining the ARGUS-IS system, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) searching and tracking technology. The Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance – Imaging System is designed to give the government the capabilities to pinpoint vehicles, people, and even objects of interest from far above the ground. It combines wide view and zoom capabilities that automatically…

The CES Best of Show award is a big deal, so this isn’t exactly a case of the Streisand Effect, but CBS certainly didn’t want to draw such a spotlight to one of their litigation opponents. The decision to censor CNET and disapprove their choice for the award has turned from a mild spectacle to a major blunder. Adding insult to injury, CES issued a press release today, awarding DISH’s Hopper with Sling the “Best of Show” award with co-winner Razer Edge. “The CNET editorial team identified the Hopper Sling as the most innovative product of the show, and we couldn’t agree more,” said Karen Chupka,…

The human rights atrocities in North Korea are no laughing matter and Google is doing their part with a different sort of activism, exposing many of the known concentration camps on Google maps and even calling them “gulags” in some cases. As CNN reported, they are showing more than just the monuments now. They’re putting nuclear facilities and buildings known for torture on their service. According to Buzzfeed: The purpose is obvious: to make the existence of these camps known; to point out that North Korea is secretive, and would never release this data on its own; to emphasize that the country…

There was a faux-PSA posted last year that was enjoyable to watch but that rang a truth within its contents. Vertical videos, most often created on smartphones when the user captures video holding the camera vertically rather than horizontally, have continued to spread on YouTube and across the internet. The wonders of mobile technology have helped to increase the number of videos being recorded every day by a mile and the expansion of YouTube and other video services makes distributing these videos as easy as pressing a couple of buttons. Unfortunately, the quality of the videos are diminished…