criticism

The critics vs. the people

Henrik Franzon is a Swedish statistician who's created a remarkable site called Acclaimed Music. Over the last seven years, he's compiled hundreds of lists that rank music--best albums of all time, best singles of year X, and so on--from every source he comes across--the Rough Guide to Jazz, Rolling Stone, Attitude magazine's top 50 gay albums of all time. (Can an album have a sexual preference?) Then he's aggregated the results, organized them into a sort of "best of the best of" list, and provided links to various views. You can see the … Read more

Cycling bib has built-in MP3 player

As clothing with built-in gadget controls is becoming increasingly common, from mini-skirts to pinstriped suits, the variety of tech-friendly sportswear has expanded exponentially. But you know the concept is truly valid when it's taken seriously by bicyclists.

The "MicroSensor MP3 Bib" from Pearl Izumi goes a step further than most wired apparel, which usually includes only controls sewn into the fabric. ProductDose says this cycling bib actually includes an integrated 512MB MP3 player along with its embedded controls, which are strategically placed for easy access so you won't kill yourself while riding--unless, of course, you keep … Read more

A flash mob planner with sandwiches: Picnicmob

I've seen a few good flash mobs in my day. San Francisco lends itself to the strange, including the simultaneous zombie mob and Critical Mass bike ride, which was chronicled by CNET's Declan McCullagh a few months ago. But what if you don't feel like riding a bike, or eating brains? Do sandwiches and potato salad sound better? Picnicmob is a new site full of questions like that--30 in fact. Answering them will help the service figure out where to sit you, in a virtual grid of picnic goers in an upcoming mass picnic flash mob, taking … Read more

Critical Mass meets iPhone Day

Downtown San Francisco is going to be one interesting place this evening, as the iPhone line outside Apple's store bumps up against the monthly Critical Mass ride.

Presumably, you're familiar with the iPhone. The lines in San Francisco awaiting the 6 p.m. launch might not be as deep as those outside the Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York, but at last check people were lined up along two city blocks.

At 5:30 p.m., just down Market Street in Justin Herman Plaza, the monthly gathering of bicyclists known as Critical Mass will kick off. Critical Mass … Read more

Let's talk toolbars: Conduit and Critical Mention

And here we have two more companies that were featured Tuesday at AlwaysOn's media event:

Like many of the companies presenting at this conference, Critical Mention has released a variety of products, some geared toward corporate clients and others toward individual media junkies. Critical Mention's raison d'etre in both cases is to connect Internet users to what's happening on TV. It's developed a set of tools that help companies, agencies, and political campaigns find out when they get television mentions, but Critical Mention also has a downlodable toolbar that can perform similar functions for ordinary … Read more