News you need to know
Amazon's using robots to get your goods delivered faster this holiday season
The robots are here, but they're not taking your jobs just yet. This week Amazon showed off its super nifty little robots that move shelves around to save workers walking across giant storage warehouses. This is a pretty amazing solution to a physical restriction us humans have on the speed we can move around.
Google wants to kill those confusing CAPTCHA tests
Basically everyone has trouble with blurry, distorted CAPTCHA's when doing something online. Google discovered that those very tests were beatable by a computer, so it set out to design a smarter CAPTCHA.
The result: a checkbox that simply asks if you're human or not and uses what Google knows about you to determine if you're human, which is so much easier than trying to read a blurry image on your screen.
Following Sony hack, internal data leaks online
Sony is having a terrible week. After it was hacked last week, the attackers have begun releasing data online to hurt the company in every way possible. New leaks are appearing every day and include everything from movie star salaries to thousands of unencrypted passwords and even social security numbers of employees.
It's becoming clear that the attacker is attempting to hurt Sony as much as possible; reports are suggesting the attack was coordinated by North Korea.
Apple deleted rivals' songs from users iPods
Interesting revelation from a new court case against Apple this week; the company admitted it blocked users from putting purchased music from competitors on their iPods with generic errors.
A number of other interesting tidbits have come out of the case this week, like Apple's Eddy Cue talking about how the company thought about sharing its music protection technology.
Goodbye, Clip Art
Microsoft is killing off Clip Art in favor of Bing image search in its Office desktop suite. It's probably for the better, but I'll miss those crappy cartoon images regardless...
YouTube's view counter wasn't ready for 'Gangnam Style'
YouTube "never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater" than what the counter could handle. Wow.
Must reads
The iPhone 6 Plus Changed My Brain!
It's eerie that the writer of this post basically had the same iPhone 6 Plus experience as me; approaching it with reservation and ultimately falling in love with the size. I thought I'd hate the iPhone 6 Plus and after using a review unit for a few months, I can't go back.
"The smartphone as we know it (i.e. the iPhone and its followers) is only seven years old — and already it has seen dramatic changes in form. There’s nothing that indicates that we’ve frozen the form factor."
Confessions of a Mortician
A great look at an industry I didn't know anything about; this piece was enlightening into something that we ultimately all have to face but mostly avoid.
Thoughts on Google+
Why does Google+ matter? Because "the future of digital identity should not be determined by one company (Facebook)."
How to do what you love
An incredible post by Paul Graham of YCombinator on how to do what you love, which inspired me this week.
"How much are you supposed to like what you do? Unless you know that, you don't know when to stop searching. And if, like most people, you underestimate it, you'll tend to stop searching too early. You'll end up doing something chosen for you by your parents, or the desire to make money, or prestige—or sheer inertia."
Freelancing: How to talk yourself into charging more
Ever had to come up with a number to charge someone for a project and struggled, then ultimately ended up charging far too low? Here's a great piece on how to convince yourself to charge more. Value yourself.
Trending Products
Wire
Yet another way to chat people? Wire is a gorgeous new chat app that takes advantage of a number of modern technologies to deliver a vastly better chat experience. These guys have big ambitions and based on what I've seen so far, I really dig it.
Ironically, Wire is backed by one of Skype's co-founders, who thinks Skype has become a little outdated.
Facebook's Slingshot hits 2.0, changes direction entirely
Slingshot was an obscure Snapchat clone when it launched, but with this new version it's pivoted to be about telling stories to all your friends (in a similar way to Snapchat stories). The new version makes much more sense to me and is far easier to use than Snapchat stories ever were; they might actually have a chance with this.
The Final Word
Happy December! I can't believe the year is almost over already; Charged started out just six months ago and broke through 3,000 subscribers just this week. Thanks for being a part of the newsletter, I hope you've enjoyed it so far!
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