Footnotes: Hemophilic Weaponry and 1,001 Nights of Not Being Murdered

This week on Footnotes, I get my hair cut too short, thus exposing my funny-shaped head.

Now that that's out of the way, we can get into the search for the holy grail, which inspired countless knights to beat the hell out of peasants and other such inconsequential persons.

Also, a different kind of night: the 1,001 variety. For centuries, the 1,001 Nights tales have inspired Easterners and Westerners to not marry a new wife each day and kill her.

Come across something on Wired that you want me to talk about? Ping me on Twitter at @mrMattSimon or by email at matthew_simon at wired.com.

Articles under discussion this week:
Pulp Fiction 2.0: Cheap Thrills for Your Kindle Are Publishing's Latest Cliffhanger
World's Most Wired: Luke Fischbeck

Matt is the host of Wired's Footnotes show and editor of the This Day in Tech blog, where he writes about all manner of milestones while respectfully declining requests from friends and family to write about their birthdays.

Read more by Matt Simon

Follow @mrMattSimon on Twitter.

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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9 Awkward Hollywood Cameos by Tech Founders

If you want to know why technology executives aren't video stars, look no further than these eight founders – plus one founder's dog – trying to look natural in movies, TV shows, and commercials. Their performances are glitchier than Facebook's privacy page.

It's easy for Silicon Valley's top nerds to feel like gods among men as they long as they remain within the high-tech bubble, where big codebases and escalating revenues are more important than good looks or interpersonal finesse. And some, like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, can cross over into mainstream celebrity when there's a real star to do the heavy lifting, like Zuck's Social Network doppelganger Jesse Eisenberg.

But stick a tech bigwig in front of an actual camera and their inclination to commune, Borg-like, with computing machines becomes a liability. For evidence, look no further than the gallery above.

Tech founders' stiffness as entertainers is unfortunate; as analog art converges with digital networks, a great many Silicon Valley companies – Apple, Google, Netflix, Pandora, etc. – need to get cozier with Hollywood. Maybe shareholders should start looking for more natural ambassadors. If Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber ever get tired of their showbiz careers, they may be able to find new gigs in tech. At the top.

He might have looked goofy on Family Feud, but Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley considers his 2009 appearance on the game show to be a greater accomplishment than selling his first startup to Google. "My brother's been wanting to do this for 20 years," Crowley told branding guru Dan Schawbel. His brood emerged victorious, as did Crowley: The CEO brags on his homepage about winning the Feud's "Fast Money" round. Survey says, not bad. Not bad at all.

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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Review: The Master Elegantly Dissects Cult Psychosis

The Master follows a pseudo-religious movement and its leader, Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (center).
Images courtesy The Weinstein Company

Beautiful to look at, strangely hypnotic and utterly original, The Master examines cult dynamics through the '50s-era misadventures of a violent ex-sailor with horrible posture and zero impulse control.

Filmmaking artistry aside, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's picture hits home as a period-perfect examination of a perpetually recurring truth: When people hanker for a know-it-all authority figure who will tell them what to think, self-appointed "masters" will be more than happy to oblige.

Anderson brings cult behavior into fascinating focus by examining the bond between two characters portrayed by extraordinary actors: the accidental, alcoholic seeker Freddie Quill, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and the suave, all-American swami Lancaster Dodd, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)

The 2-hour, 30-minute story centers on nervous wreck Freddie, whose primary talent involves concocting cocktails with photo lab fluids, paint thinner and anything else that promises to obliterate consciousness. Drunk and on the run from ill-fated gigs as a department store photographer and farm laborer, Freddie stumbles onto a yacht commandeered by Dodd, his paranoid wife Peggy (Amy Adams) and their entourage.

Dodd, a speechifying, cigarette-smoking, book-writing, dancing, singing, deep-thinking charmer, bonds with Freddie — his "naughty boy" — through an interrogation "process" akin to Scientology's auditing routine that supposedly cleanses the soul of past impurities. Cycling through mood shifts in a stunning star turn, Hoffman coos to his charges in plummy tones redolent of Orson Welles during his Citizen Kane period, sours the entire room when he's in a crappy mood, engages loose-cannon Freddie with twinkle-eyed compassion, and hefts his chunky body through the scenery with self-assured grace that neither his groupies, nor the audience, stand much chance of resisting.

Freddie quickly falls under Dodd's spell. And God help anyone who criticizes the master's grandiose self-improvement philosophy. When one skeptic questions his methods at a party, Dodd turns red and calls his critic a "pig fuck." Later, Freddie beats the naysayer to a pulp.

The Master casts its own weird, R-rated spell not because it yields shocking revelations or clever plot twists. We never learn why Freddie's such a high-strung mess, though his World War II combat experience would seem a likely source of trauma. Nor do we find out where Dodd — a character inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard — comes from or how he acquired his gift for wrapping people around his stubby fingers. There's not much in the way of catharsis, either, since everybody's pretty much the same at the end of the tale as they were at the beginning.

Instead, The Master resonates because its peculiar particulars illustrate why people like Dodd continue to proliferate with near-tragic frequency. Consider such characters as the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who picked spouses for his followers; California Coptic priest Zakaria Botros Henein, whose devotees made the Innocence of Muslims video; and positive-thinking guru James Arthur Ray, whose eager-to-please acolytes sat in a sweat lodge until they died.

Factor in Vanity Fair magazine's recent report about Church of Scientology matchmaking practices for Tom Cruise (denied by the organization), and it seems clear that the top-down command structure depicted in The Master remains in full force six decades on.

Freddie Quill (Joaquin Phoenix, left) and Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) scream at each other from adjoining jail cells in The Master.

Anderson, who's earned five Oscar nominations for previous obsession-themed films including There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, situates The Master at a comfortable remove from contemporary cult dysfunction. He shot using the near-obsolete 65-mm format to summon the sumptuous visual vibe found in Alfred Hitchcock films like Vertigo and North By Northwest. (The film for this review was screened at the optimum 65-mm format; most theaters will show The Master on standard 35-mm film stock.)

Another weapon in Anderson's powerful filmmaking arsenal: composer Jonny Greenwood. The Radiohead guitarist's lush score for The Master references spooky '50s jazz motifs and magnetic tape experiments pioneered by midcentury electronic music wizard Otto Leuning to orchestrate a queasy sense of unease.

Adrenalized by Phoenix's freakishly intense performance, The Master broke art-house box office records with last weekend's limited release and prompted a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. Prior to its nationwide opening Friday, it's already generating Oscar buzz for its stars.

For all its genteel period touches, The Master strikes a chord with contemporary audiences by probing the feral impulses that fuel groupthink then and now. Anderson strips the cult dynamic down to its rude essence when Dodd goes to jail for embezzling money from a wealthy patron. Freddie joins him in a nearby cell after pummeling the arresting officers. The men turn on each other.

"Nobody likes you Freddie," Dodd says calmly. "I'm the only one who likes you."

Freddie, who's just finished pounding his head against a bunkbed in a fit of inarticulate rage, finally screams the forbidden notion that everyone in the audience has surely already considered: "You're making this shit up!"

In The Master's portrait of cult dysfunction, the misfit and the mumbo-jumbo man share a toxic alchemy more dangerous than any mad cocktail that Freddie could dream up.

WIRED Seething performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams; sumptuous cinematography and queasy score.

TIRED Thrilling setup gives way to languor.

Rating:

Read Underwire's movie ratings guide.

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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How Windmills Are Making More Fuel-Efficient Mazdas

Image: Mazda

What do windmills and Mazdas have in common? More than you'd think. In an effort to boost fuel economy, the Japanese automaker is looking to pilfer the windmill parts bin for the resilient capacitors capable of standing up to fluctuating temperatures and the occasional avian impact.

Mazda is borrowing the windmill capacitor technology for its new "Intelligent Energy Loop" system. Mazda touts i-ELOOP as "the world's first passenger vehicle regenerative braking system that uses a capacitor." The i-ELOOP system will debut on the 2014 Mazda 6, and be branded as part of the company's suite of SKYACTIV technologies which focus on improving the efficiency of its conventionally powered cars.

However, describing i-ELOOP as a regenerative braking system is a bit misleading. As Mazda Vehicle Development Engineer and amateur racer Dave Coleman explains, there's no weird hybrid-esque brake pedal feel with i-ELOOP because there's really no regenerative braking going on. Instead, i-ELOOP is designed to capture energy from the inertia of the car, drawing power from the alternator the moment the throttle is closed.

"It's hard to figure out what to call it," Coleman admits. "i-ELOOP is our best compromise."

Specifically, i-ELOOP features a 12-25V variable voltage alternator, a low-resistance electric double layer capacitor and a DC/DC converter. The system starts to recover kinetic energy the moment the driver lifts off the accelerator and the vehicle begins to decelerate. The variable voltage alternator generates electricity at up to 25V for maximum efficiency before sending it to an Electric Double Layer Capacitor (ELDC) for storage.

The ELDC borrows technology developed for windmill and hybrid heavy equipment applications which brought down the cost of robust, temperature tolerant, vibration and crash resistant capacitors.

The DC/DC converter steps down the electricity from 25V to 12V before it's distributed directly to the vehicle's electrical components. The system also charges the vehicle's battery as necessary, and i-ELOOP reduces the need for the engine to burn extra fuel to generate electricity. The result, Mazda claims, is up to a 10 percent fuel economy improvement.

"That's in a best-case scenario," Coleman allows, "like at night, in winter, when it's raining with the wipers, heater, lights, and radio running and in traffic. On the EPA cycle we get about one MPG with it."

A singular MPG might not seem like much, but taking the accessory load off the engine is a strategy other manufacturers are following to hit ever-higher fuel economy standards. The next steps, according to Coleman, will be moving the air conditioning compressor and water pump from belt drive to electric power, making even the most mundane bits under-hood even more efficient, and reducing fuel consumption in the process.

"So many of the fuel economy technologies out there just make the car dull to drive," laments Coleman, but the i-ELOOP technology should maintain the high level of driver involvement that's crucial to Mazda's brand values, while simultaneously boosting fuel economy and reducing emissions in the process.

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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Ultimate Silicon Valley Perk: Custom Chips From Intel and AMD

Google and Facebook design their own servers and all sorts of other hardware for their massive data centers. Evidence suggests they're also getting customized processors. Illustration: Ross Patton

Asked if Intel customizes microprocessors for its biggest customers, Diane Bryant said: "Yes."

Bryant heads the Intel group that builds server chips and other hardware bound for large data centers. Last week, during a dinner with reporters in downtown San Francisco, she was explaining just how much the server business has changed in recent years. In 2008, three server giants — HP, Dell, and IBM — accounted for 75 percent of the revenues Intel pulled in from the sale of server chips. But today, Bryant said, that 75 percent is spread across eight server makers, and one of them is Google, a company that only makes servers for itself.

Then a reporter asked if Intel customizes parts for its largest customers. "Yes," Bryant said. "We want to give them a way of differentiating their machines."

Bryant didn't say much more, but those few words shine a light on another part of the big-time chip business that's rarely discussed. There are cases where a large chipmaker such as Intel and AMD will provide certain customers with chips that others may not have access to. Sometimes, this merely means that when the chipmaker cranks out a big batch of processors, one customer gets the chips that happen to have the best speed or power ratings. But in other cases, the chipmaker will actually modify processors at the request of a particular customer.

This practice may show how determined the Dells and the HPs are to offer machines that stand out in what has become a commodity market. But it may also show how far Google and other web giants will go as they work to customize the servers that underpin their online services, pushing to reduce power and cost in the data center.

Intel declined to provide additional information about its efforts in this area, and Google declined to comment as well. But rumors have long held that Google pushes for more than just ordinary chips from Intel. Intel rival AMD says it has customized chips in certain cases. And Facebook — which also designs its own servers — acknowledges that it requests specific silicon from the big chip makers.

According to John Williams, vice president of server marketing and business development at AMD, there are situations where his company has turned off certain parts of a processor at the request of customers — or even added "instructions," the fundamental operations that define how a processor works.

Asked if Facebook makes such requests, Facebook spokesman Michael Kirkland said: "We do work with Intel and other vendors in these ways." But he stopped short of providing details, saying the company had not yet asked chip makers for approval to discuss the matter with the press.

As the big web companies step up their efforts to remake the hardware driving their massive data centers, chip customization could become a key battleground in the ongoing microprocessor wars. In recent months, Intel has acquired several technologies that would allow it to heavily customize server chips, but its rivals question whether it has the freedom to do so.

Intel operates massive chip fabrication plants, or fabs, that have traditionally been geared towards the production of millions upon millions of largely identical chips. According to Andrew Feldman — co-founder of a new-age server maker called SeaMicro, which was recently acquired by Intel rival AMD — there are other companies better suited to the creation of customized server chips for the big web players. Yes, one is AMD, which no longer runs its own fabs. The other is ARM.

ARM is the company behind so many of the chips that drive today's smartphones, but it's slowly moving into server chips as well. Though its new server chip designs are still a long way from live data centers, they've piqued the interest of many tech outfits because they consume relatively little power, a major concern for the big web players. But there may be an added attraction: ARM doesn't build its own chips. It licenses chip designs to others so that they can then be, well, customized.

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Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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Bonfire of the Van-ities: Burning Question Fuels Photog's Social Media Rise

Name: Fernanda Ávila

Age: 21

Location: Santiago, Chile

Occupation: Engineering student

What would you take with you if your house caught fire? That's the burning question Foster Huntington came up with to filter potential dates, a provocative query that eventually turned into a wildly successful blog and book.

"If they said 'a Chanel purse' I would have been like, 'Screw that,'" says Huntington, 24, in an interview with Wired.

Within days of coming up with the concept at a dinner party, he had started The Burning House blog and posted photos of his and a couple friends' prized possessions. The blog went semi-viral over the next two weeks, with readers from around the world submitting photos of their favorite things.

"It just kind of snowballed," he says.

At the time, Huntington was living in New York City and working as a concept designer for Ralph Lauren, a job he initially liked but had quickly become disenchanted with.

"I was having to sit through these meetings where grown men were screaming at each other about small differences in cashmere sweater colors and I was like, 'There is no fucking way I can do this for the rest of my life,'" he says.

Luckily, the blog became so successful that he was able to line up a publisher for the Burning House book and received enough cash from the advance to leave the city. He bought a four-wheel-drive Volkswagen van and has traveled more than 45,000 miles around the country over the past 13 months, taking photos and expanding his digital footprint.

"It's been wild," he says.

Interestingly, The Burning House wasn't the first time Huntington had used a blog to break out of a stale situation.

Back in 2008, he was a struggling, dyslexic college student facing an economy that was circling the toilet bowl. He didn't particularly like what he was studying and knew his job prospects were dim.

He bought a DSLR on a whim and started making photos that he posted on his first blog, A Restless Transplant. The photos didn't have a clear theme, but Huntington quickly developed a unique kind of Americana/retro aesthetic, often focusing on landscapes, cars, clothes or other objects he liked.

"Up until that point everything had always been this huge battle for me," he says. "I was a mediocre student at best but when I started taking photos and doing visual stuff, everything started clicking."

At the time, Huntington was living in Waterville, Maine, and somehow a Ralph Lauren employee who grew up in the area happened upon his blog. That employee liked Huntington's eye and his style choices enough to offer him the internship that eventually led to his job.

It was the first step in what Huntington now refers to as the "Field of Dreams, build it and they will come" kind of social-media-infused life he would build on with The Burning House.

"I quickly realized that I had to make my own opportunities," he says.

In addition to surfing a lot, Huntington has been trying to diversify the coverage on The Burning House during his time on the road. When he first started the blog, it was particularly popular with the younger urban crowd. Well-known hipster items, like old toy cameras and antique clothing, became recurring themes.

Huntington says the occasional surprise also found its way into the photos, including a pet parrot, a slice of pizza and a photo of a girl standing over her stillborn sister in the hospital.

"I was like, 'Holy shit, that is incredibly personal and emotional,'" he says.

Huntington says that since leaving New York he's tried to photograph the objects of people who lead a more normal and less "hip" lifestyle.

"I didn't want people who drive a Subaru or an Audi and have a Moleskine to dominate the site," he says. "I wanted to broaden the perspective."

Out on the road he's started a third blog called Van Life, which features his and other photographers' photos of vans that serve as mobile homes. He also started using the #vanlife Instagram hashtag, which has helped him reach more than 225,000 followers on the photo-sharing site.

"I'm totally a product of social media," says Huntington, who estimates that he communicates with about half a million people each day online.

His creativity has continued to pay off: In addition to the book deal, he's hooked a couple of corporate clients who've paid him enough to keep his adventure alive. He just came back from a two-week surf trip to northern Russia (sponsored by Patagonia), where he was in charge of documenting the excitement on Tumblr and Instagram; he's about to head out on another Patagonia-backed adventure with a bunch of surfers as they bicycle and surf their way through Big Sur in Northern California.

At the moment, Huntington says he has no plans to rejoin the static world anytime soon.

"After seeing what kind of online and mobile opportunities are out there, I figure that I'll never really have a desk job again," he says. "Now more than ever, people can live free lives but still be connected."

All photos: Courtesy Foster Huntington

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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7 Scholastic DIY Projects to Customize Your Study Space

Make a lamp out of an old globe. Photo: Frida Ramstedt for Trendenser.se

Nine months of algebra homework doesn't feel so bad when you're studying in style. And now that school is back in swing, it's time for one of our favorite activities: personalizing our stationery and supplies. These seven DIYs give classic study gear a new twist, from making a glass globe desk lamp to creating a map-shaped cork board.

Above:

1. Old Globe Lamp

Frida of Trendenser spotted this unique globe lamp, created by her friend Marie. Follow the brilliantly easy conversion (Google translation for you non-Swedes) to make your own: Peel off the pasted-on paper map from an antique, internally illuminated globe, then polish and clean the glass for a charming lighting solution.

Map Pinboard. Photo by Kim & Scott Vargo.

2. Map Pinboard

If you're learning about maps or planning a trip, this clever bulletin board idea will suit you well. Print the outline of the map you wish to use, trace it onto a regular corkboard, and carefully cut with an X-acto knife. Mounts nicely in the home office or on your fridge. Get the how-to at Yellow Brick Home (inspired by Life Blessons).

A faux vintage pull-down map is made using wrapping paper. Photo: jessicaNdesigns

3. Faux Vintage Pull-Down Map

Loving vintage pull-down maps but not their high prices? Jessica of jessicaNdesigns felt the same, so she made her own, using map-printed wrapping paper and a few dowel rods. It's a tad smaller and less rugged than the classic classroom version but every bit as educational. Get the how-to and material list on her blog.

Cut geometric shapes out of leftover felt for some modern bookmarks. Photo by Jessica Jones.

4. Geometric Felt Bookmarks

Keep your nose in the books with a DIY modern design bookmark. Jessica of How About Orange crafted this bright geometric set using leftover felt scraps and a hobby knife,  mimicking that laser-cut look. Her blog details how she put it together.

Update an old tape dispenser with this fun makeover idea. Photo: Smashed Peas and Carrots

5. Tape Dispenser Makeover

Instead of spending gobs of money on cutesy, imported stationery supplies, you can beautify an ordinary, black, dollar-store tape dispenser for a similar effect. A few coats of primer and colored spray paint and your washi tape collection will be cradled in unique, personalized holders. Get the how-to at Smashed Peas and Carrots.

Make a modern-day writing slate. Photo: Smashed Peas and Carrots

6. Rustic Chalkboard

Another how-to from Smashed Peas and Carrots: using a wooden board slice (available at craft stores) and some colored chalkboard paint, make a modern-day writing slate with this simple DIY.

Customize a desk. Photo: Livet Hemma (Ikea)

 7. Customize a Desk

Update a desk or customize a new one with this easy DIY idea from the folks at IKEA's Livet Hemma. Pencil in your favorite saying or quote, fill in with paint, and add a coat of protective finish.

Jan is the co-founder of Poppytalk, a blog about the beautiful, the decayed and the handmade, and Poppytalk Handmade, an online curated marketplace. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest!

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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Post-Interception 'Momentum' Is a Myth, Researchers Say

The Carolina Panthers' Charles Godfrey (30) is congratulated by Haruki Nakamura after his interception return for a touchdown against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. Many said the play changed the momentum of the game. They're wrong. Photo: Rainier Ehrhardt/AP

Charles Godfrey of the Charlotte Panthers anticipated the play perfectly.

As New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees rolled to his right and threw the ball to tight end David Thomas, Godfrey sliced in front of Thomas, snatched the ball out of the air and strolled nine yards for a touchdown. The Panthers bench erupted. The crowd went nuts. And sportswriters breathlessly proclaimed the first-quarter play in Sunday's game a turning point where the momentum shifted decisively in favor of the Panthers, who won 35-27.

Except it didn't.

The widely held and devoutly believed idea that a big play can change the momentum of a game is, in a word, bunk. So say a trio of MIT stats geeks with a decade of data to back them up.

Aaron Johnson, Alex Stimpson, and Torin Clark analyzed 473,621 plays run during the 2,931 NFL games played between 2000 and 2010 simply to determine whether big plays change the momentum of a game, motivating teams to perform better in subsequent drives. The results, presented in Turning the Tide: Big Plays and Psychological Momentum in the NFL (.pdf), found no evidence that a big defensive play has any effect on offensive performance later in the game.

That flies in the face of all that sports writers and armchair quarterbacks will tell you. Like many football fans, Johnson and his friends believed the conventional wisdom, but being engineers, they're skeptical of everything until they've seen the data. So they decided to test it.

They gleaned stats from ArmchairAnalysis.com to examine 69,330 drives, which they divided into two categories: those that started after a big defensive play — an interception, fumble recovery, fourth-down stop, safety, or blocked kick — and those that did not. Then they analyzed three variables: the result of the first play after the change of possession, the success of the first set of downs, and the points scored on that drive. They discovered that a big defensive play doesn't improve the performance of the offense on the subsequent drive.

In other words, the momentum doesn't shift.

The key reason lies in something called the momentum chain, defined by scholars Jim Taylor and Andrew Demick in 1994. For a precipitating event to have an effect on performance, they found, a number of factors and internal attitudes must align perfectly. In Sunday's game, for example, the Panthers' offense would have had to gain positive momentum after Godfrey's interception and the Saints defense would have to see negative momentum. That's not what happened: Godfrey's pick-six tied the game at 7-7, but New Orleans bounced back with a pair of field goals to take a 13-7 lead before Carolina came back to take the lead for good.

So if the momentum doesn't actually change, why do we think it does?

"People do this with a lot of psychological phenomena that don't actually exist," Johnson said. "Fans watch the games, and we associate the positive outcomes with a particular perceived phenomena and we fail to associate the negative ones with our phenomena. So if a team scores a touchdown right after they intercept the ball, we say that the touchdown happened because of the interception. We take that causal leap. And these are the situations we all remember instead of all the 3-and-outs that happen after interceptions."

Dr. Robert Corb, a sports psychologist on the UCLA athletics medical staff, said it's the sports version of the placebo effect: If you believe something will work, it often does.

"We know from social learning theory that people learn from watching others," Corb said. "If the offense sitting on the sidelines watches their defense get pumped up after making a big play, those offensive players are likely to get pumped up as well, and perhaps go out and make a big play themselves. If that happens a few times, and coaches and announcers start talking about a change in momentum, perception becomes reality."

After their paper was published for the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference earlier this year, the students expanded their research to examine whether coaches are significantly riskier after big defensive plays or turnovers. Do they "go for the kill" after the defense turns in a big play? Again, the answer was no. There was no evidence to suggest their plays grew more aggressive to take advantage of the big play.

For their next move, Johnson, Stimpson, and Clark hope to expand their research into college football to see whether younger players are more influenced by psychological factors. For now, though, they have plenty of opportunities each week to add to their NFL data.

"Now we pay more attention to when the commentators talk about momentum, which seems to be all the time," Stimpson said. "We also tend to point it out to our friends, which has probably become annoying by this point."

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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Payment Processor Stripe Goes Loonie

Payment processing company Stripe has a growing base of U.S. fans, and it's about to get some love in the Great White North. The company is launching its beloved online credit card processing service in Canada. If you don't accept credit cards online, that may not sound revolutionary, but the move is one small step in Stripe's plan to take easy payment processing global.

Before Stripe, if you wanted to accept credit cards for your online venture you had essentially two options: Get a merchant account or use a payment gateway. To get a merchant account, you have to convince a bank that your business is valid and that your credit risk is low. Once you get approved, you have fees for each transaction, as well as monthly dues to keep your merchant account current. Payment gateways, like those offered by PayPal, Intuit, or Authorize.net, though easier to deploy, aren't dramatically cheaper. Rather than having your own merchant account, payment gateways accept credit cards on your behalf, but also slap you with monthly and transactional fees.

Backed by PayPal founders Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Max Levchin, Stripe launched in 2011 to offer a third option. The company sets up merchant accounts with banks so you don't have to. All you do is drop a few lines of code into your website and you have a payment form that you can brand anyway you like. There are no monthly or set-up fees, but for Stripe's trouble it keeps 2.9% of the purchase and a $0.30 transaction fee. According to co-founder Patrick Collison, the same merchant account woes that American merchants face exist all over the world. So, naturally, that is where he is headed next, outside the United States.

Stripe's first stop is Canada, a logical choice and the first international foray for many U.S. companies because of the geographic and cultural comfort level it offers. Canada also offers Stripe a population of would-be online merchants who suffer long waits, onerous requirements, and antiquated technology, says Stripe beta-tester Colin Percival, who runs Tarsnap, a Vancouver, BC-based UNIX backup service. "For a long time, accepting credit cards in Canada meant dealing with banks — not a problem if you have millions of dollars of revenue, but far from a friendly process for a small business just starting up," says Percival. "Stripe makes all the problems of credit card processing go away."

With $38 million in its own bank account, Stripe is intent on taking its business – and hearing that sentiment – all over the world.

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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How Do You Make Home Heating and Cooling More Exciting? Add a Touchscreen

Image courtesy of Venstar

Who'd a-thunk thermostats could be sexy? No one, that's who. And yet when the Nest thermostat started hitting walls earlier this year, homeowners went ga-ga over its Jetsonian design, web-savvy features, and almost sentient learning capabilities.

Hoping to cash in on our newfound love of climate control, Venstar endowed its already impressive ColorTouch T5800 thermostat with Wi-Fi connectivity and app-powered controls. The result is a home HVAC controller that's not quite as smart or streamlined as the Nest, but still very cool and capable.

For starters, it's buttonless. A 4.3-inch color touchscreen handles everything from setting your preferred temperature to creating a schedule to viewing a custom slideshow. Yep, say hello to the world's first thermostat that doubles as a photo frame.

There's nothing quite like nudging the AC down a couple degrees without getting out of bed, or making a cold house nice and toasty just before you return home from vacation.

Before you can start packing it with pictures of Fido, however, you'll have to install it. That's theoretically a 10-minute job, provided you're handy with a screwdriver and can manage some basic wiring. However, if there's no power lead running from your furnace, you may need to call in a pro.

You may also need a firmware update to get the T5800 to recognize the Skyport Wi-Fi Key, which plugs into a side SD slot and sticks out like a sore thumb. Not that the rectangular ColorTouch was all that sexy to begin with, but the key totally kills any aesthetic it had going.

Ironically, you need to transfer some files via SD card to install that first firmware update, though once you get the ColorTouch connected to your Wi-Fi network, future updates can be downloaded directly. Photos, however, cannot: You have to copy them over via SD card.

That's not only a hassle, it's a disappointment: Why couldn't Venstar add a "Send Photos" option to its web-based control panel or Skyport app? They're otherwise quite capable, letting you adjust temperature settings from afar, monitor heating and cooling runtimes, turn various modes on or off, and even send a text message to the thermostat.

All these functions work quickly, easily, and awesomely: There's nothing quite like nudging the AC down a couple degrees without getting out of bed, or making a cold house nice and toasty just before you return home from vacation.

Image courtesy of Venstar

More cleverness: The app, web panel, and thermostat will show you the outside temperature and forecast so you can plan your indoor settings accordingly. You can set up a passcode to lock out kids or visitors, schedule temp adjustments for morning, daytime, bedtime, and no-one's-home time, and pore over runtime graphs to see just how much heating and cooling is happening.

Those are some admirably smart features, and yet if you're looking for serious thermostat intelligence, the Nest wins the day. The ColorTouch can't do things like sense your presence in a room, monitor your habits, or learn how quickly your furnace heats or cools the house. Nor can it determine when you're away and adjust the climate accordingly.

What's more, although Venstar doesn't specify a list price for the T5800 and optional Skyport Wi-Fi Key, they sell for around $225 online — just $25 less than the Nest. As much as there is to like about the ColorTouch, it feels less like a wildly advanced climate-control system and more like a kludge that's straining to keep up with the times.

WIRED Replaces your boring analog thermostat with a big, colorful touchscreen. Companion app lets you tweak the temperature from anywhere — and send text messages. Doubles as a small but attention-getting photo frame.

TIRED Wi-Fi dongle costs extra and protrudes awkwardly from the side. Can't receive photos from your phone or the web. Not nearly as smart as the Nest, but nearly as expensive.

Sarah Mitroff 20 Sep, 2012

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Source: http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/513qvnIjHx8/
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