Netflix is increasing rates
Sometime possibly soon, Netflix will be raising subscription rates—but don’t panic yet. According to a letter to shareholders, existing members will only see a “one or two dollar increase” and “existing members would stay at current pricing (e.g. $7.99 in the U.S.) for a generous time period.” No word on what “generous” means, but only a few bucks shouldn’t hurt too bad…right?
Amazon Prime Instant Video adds HBO content
Helping it compete with Netflix, Amazon announced this week it now has streaming rights to some very popular HBO series. Starting May 21, Prime members can watch all of The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, Six Feet Under, Eastbound & Down, Enlightened, and Flight of the Conchords. Also, members will be able to catch some miniseries such as Angels in America and Band of Brothers, plus some seasons of Boardwalk Empire and True Blood. If that’s not enough for you, there will also be some comedy specials, documentaries, and some HBO original movies. More shows such as Veep and Girls will arrive over the course of the multi-year arrangement. You can get the full release here, if you care to read everything that’s coming.
Pinterest hits 30 billion pins, adds Guided Search
This week, Pinterest announced that the number of pins has grown by 50 percent in the last six months, bringing the current pin total up to 30 billion (!!!). With 75 percent of traffic coming from mobile apps, this week Pinterest announced out some app updates, including a new Guided Search and Custom Categories. Guided Search, available immediately, allows users to choose between searching for pins, boards, and pinners and then refine their search through a slideable row of commonly used additional terms. For an example, you can watch the video below:
The Custom Categories feature will be pushed out in the next few months. You’ll be able to add a category to find what you like to look at—even if it’s something super specific like one artist, musician, etc.
Andy Warhol art found on Amiga floppy disks
Did you hear about this? The Andy Warhol Museum announced this week that it managed to recover artwork the legendary artist created on his home Commodore Amiga computer in 1985. The work was trapped on the old technology so it took a team of technical experts from the Carnegie Mellon’s University’s Computer Club to extract the images from the disks. The press release has a few images of the newly discovered work, but this is the video that got the creator of the project, Cory Arcangel, wondering what happened to Warhol’s computer work:
Loch Ness monster not found on Apple Maps
The Internet was in an uproar this week over an unusual image on satellite views of Loch Ness on Apple Maps. Loch Ness Monster fans immediately declared the image, which looks not unlike a boat wake with the boat missing, was Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. TechCrunch explains saying, “…boats going missing from the satellite maps’ imagery is actually a common occurrence, and the result of how the computer programs stitch together overlapping images to form a coherent picture of the world below.” Sorry, monster fans!
…But you CAN turn back time with Google Maps
Google Maps Street View will now let you turn back time. The feature, only available on the desktop version of Google Maps, lets you flip through Google’s collection of street view photos from 2007 to now. This means you can watch the Freedom Tower being built, take a peek at the cleanup progress from Japan’s 2011 tsunami, or simply check out other places in the world in different seasons. Comments on the interweb suggest folks can only see this new feature in Chrome, so try that browser if you’re unable to find it in Firefox or IE.
Office space tech: How we all came to be working in cubes
If you work in a cube, you might find this Wired piece fascinating. Nikil Saval, the author of a new book called Cubed, wrote the article explaining the origin of the modern cube workspace. What made me guffaw was learning that cube design originated from something called the “Action Office” concept which was supposed to be all about movement and freedom. If you like design, and work in a cube, I recommend this somewhat long piece (completely interesting to read while you eat your lunch in your cube!).
Gods of the Internet
College Humor came out with this really funny list that includes:
