untitled Close your eyes and look beyond the Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Safari of today. Do you see a "stream browser"? David Gelernter does. The Yale computer science professor has been musing about what comes next for all the digital information that swarms and surrounds us, and it has led him to write an op-ed piece on Wired called "The End of the Web, Search, and Computer as We Know It." The emphasis in the online time/space continuum, he says, will be shifting from the "space-based web" of the present day to a "time-based worldstream" -- an outgrowth from the "lifestream" phenomenon that Gelernter and Eric Freeman wrote about in the 1990s. Gelernter argues that we're already in the midst of the shift to a dynamic, diary-like structure -- consider what we have already in the form of RSS feeds, blogs, Facebook's Timeline, Twitter and other "chatstreams" -- that's taking us beyond the flat Earth of the desktop. What people really want is to tune in to information.
Autoblog — We Obsessively Cover The Auto Industry untitled This had almost passed me by. Things do sometimes. And then, searching for something fascinating on the Web, I bumped into this highly peculiar teaser for Cars.com's Super Bowl ad. It reeks of pain, passion and dramatic twists of fate. Which is rare for a focus group. It reeks of unbridled passion and a love triangle that has gone terribly wrong. As if love triangles ever go terribly right. The teaser promises that during today's big and possibly unpulsating game, Cars.com will bring the drama. What might happen? Will there be a bedroom scene? Surely the NFL wouldn't allow that. untitled "Windows or Android?" It seemed like an innocent enough question. But for one moment, I wondered whether Amy Poehler would waft through her local Best Buy during the Super Bowl -- while being paid a lot of money to do it -- and avoid anything that might have been designed in Cupertino. Still, the more she came on to the gorgeous, virginal men in the blue polo shirts, the more it was clear that this was an amusing fantasy. There was, indeed, a more than subliminal suggestion that Windows and Samsung objects were somehow sexier. But we don't try to make too big a deal of these things here. As we muse and take another sip of whatever my engineer friend George has just poured into this rather tall glass, we wonder whether this might be a new and rich vein for Best Buy. Will it replace your local Safeway and launderette as a place where women can find a better quality of male than the pool boy (and one who doesn't demand commission)? Hope may well be a strategy, after all.
untitled My remarkably imposing, draconian, single friend Taylor -- who's a girl -- tells me there are only two types of men: those who have two sheets on their bed and those who have one. Similarly, there are two types of online travel sites: those where you bid and those where you don't. It seems, however, that Priceline has tired of all that bidding. Which makes you wonder what they will do with the resurrected Negotiator, or, indeed, with whatever people used to think of Priceline. In a campaign that launched three weeks ago, but is now given heightened exposure during the Super Bowl, Shatner is given a daughter. A daughter whom he's cruelly locked up for 20 years to learn the art of deal-making. Yet is the art of deal-making so useful now? You feel that the frustrated daughter (played by Kaley Cuoco of "Big Bang Theory") want to toss her dad off a cliff, just as Priceline did to him not so many moons ago . Priceline is easier. This seems especially mean. She's really not happy about this.
untitled In the first quarter of today's Big Game featuring big people doing big things to each other, Amy Poehler will be trying to do big things for Best Buy. Unlike the players -- who will probably be tied 3-3 in a dull defensive battle when Amy appears -- Poehler has one shot to give the Best Buy brand a shot in arm. Or perhaps a shot at redemption. Best Buy has been crossing some turbulent oceans recently , so securing the services of one of America' funniest actors is a pleasant coup. The company has released a sneak preview (embedded here) of Poehler asking questions that are sweetly self-referential, so it may be that this theme will continue during today's spot. The idea seems to be that whatever questions you have, those nice people in blue polo shirts will have the answer for you.
untitled It is possible for an online business to endure. It's even possible for an online business to have the same ad campaign for more than a few clicks of the mouse and the clock. So during the third quarter of today's roughhouse foot-fest, you will see E*Trade's baby again. Yes, yet again. While CareerBuilder's chimps have departed the Super Bowl arena, this little tyke is still offering his wise, non-Madoffian assessment of how you can ensure people won't make off with your money. E*Trade's little ones have captured hearts in ways that adult financial people rarely do.
untitled Here's a few things I need to tell you about BlackBerry's Z10. You cannot launch a Soyuz rocket from it. You cannot use it to make scrambled eggs with truffle oil. You cannot cut your hair with it. You cannot milk a cow with it. You cannot use it to floss your teeth, steer your alpaca or clean your windows with it. You cannot marry 12 wives, using it as your minister. You cannot get it to construct a new mansion for you in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Sadly, another of the things you cannot get it to do is defend you in court on an embezzlement charge. Converse with an intellectual orangutan or an elephant that is walking upon stilts? It cannot dissuade you from getting a tattoo of a goat's shoulders across your face. It cannot show you how to open your mouth wide enough to emit a college marching band. It cannot whistle like a cathedral or expectorate like a former nun who's lost her winning lottery ticket. It cannot turn your lampshade into a four-bedroom apartment in Queens.
untitled Some brands will make you wait to see their Super Bowl ads. Not Samsung. Having teased quite brilliantly with its mockery of the NFL's strict trademark regulations, Samsung has now released the full version of the real thing. The real thing from The Next Big Thing again features Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd. Like Samsung's Galaxy Note, this ad is a slightly bloated but likable affair, indulgently allowing its stars to free-associate with good humor and not so much dwelling on niceties such as, well, the products. Mr. The ad asks you consider just how old Rudd really is. There's even a little mockery of Psy and his Gangnam Style. Then LeBron James appears and you're asked to appreciate what real stardom is about. It's all enjoyable enough, and well suited to the gout-inducing starfest that is the Big Game.
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