recommendations

The 404 1,065: Where it's all in our heads (podcast)

Today's episode of The 404 is a valuable resource for anyone obsessed with headphones -- classic audiophiles, young audiophiliacs, musicians, producers, and casual listeners will all benefit from Steve Guttenberg's knowledge, and he brought a friend! Tyll Hertsens is largely credited for creating the first portable headphone amp and currently the editor-in-chief of InnerFidelity.

With Tyll's help, we'll run through the differences between on-ear and in-ear headphones, give credit to two companies responsible for introducing high-quality headphones to the next generation of audiophiles, and we'll even spend a little time dissecting the criteria for what makes a headphone "sound good."… Read more

When in Roamz, do as the locals do

Roamz is an "intelligent" local discovery app that pulls real-time data from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram in order to show you what's going on in your area. It can even "learn" what you're into and calibrate its recommendations accordingly.

Roamz opens up to a Hot Now screen, which shows public photos, check-ins, and other status updates originating in your immediate vicinity. So, right off the bat, you can swipe through all of the updates and see if anything looks interesting. For instance, in my trials, I saw that several people checked in to … Read more

When in Roamz, do as the locals do (exclusive)

Roamz, the "intelligent" local discovery app for iOS, has just made its way to Android, bringing its social-powered local content to a swath of new users. The Android app has the capabilities of Roamz 2.0 for iOS (released in March 2012), but of course, it's wrapped in the stylings of an Android app, with its main navigation up top.

If you're not familiar with Roamz, it pulls data from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram in order to show you what's happening in your area. This means you get to see pictures of events, check-ins … Read more

Find the apps that matter with 1Mobile

The 1Mobile Market for Android offers a curated selection of fun, useful, and otherwise interesting apps, all of which are free. It's unique because it's managed by a team of actual editors, rather than a set of algorithms that try to home in on what you're looking for.

First thing you'll notice is that 1Mobile's main panel looks a bit like a cheap knock-off of Google Play, with its large tiles and similar color scheme. For some, this might be comforting, but for me, it feels a little tacky.

While looks may not be 1Mobile'… Read more

Get better movie recommendations

Most of us have used Netflix or iTunes recommendations to check out movies or TV shows, and while they can be pretty good, they do offer up duds from time to time -- especially duds that happen to be quite popular. FlickChart aims to fix this by offering recommendations based on relative ranking of movies instead of a five-star system, and can deliver much more focused movie options. Here's how to use it:

Point your browser to Flick Chart and set up a free account. They don't want much info from you. Rank movies. They will show you … Read more

Is Jybe the recommendation app Yelp should be?

If you ask a friend where to eat or for their favorite dish at a specific restaurant, you'll probably give their suggestion a lot more weight than an automatically generated one, especially if that friend knows your tastes in food.

That's the basic premise behind Jybe, a brand-new iPhone app that launched today. Built by a small team led by three longtime search industry veterans, the app is designed to give users highly relevant suggestions for restaurants--including specific dishes--as well as movies, books, and other things.

These days, there's plenty of ways to get recommendations and reviews … Read more

Apps to Appreciate

With such an overwhelming number of products flooding the Google Play Store (aka the Android Market), Appreciate helps you cut through the clutter to find the apps that are tailored to your tastes. It's free, simple, and it works.

Appreciate takes inventory of the apps you have installed on your device, those you've uninstalled, and your usage habits across them all. It even takes into account your demographic and Facebook friends if you make that info available. After plugging the data into its formula, Appreciate serves up a menu of recommended apps for you to download, with new … Read more

Data vs. models at the Strata Conference

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--That this week's O'Reilly Strata data conference was sold out says a lot about this corner of tech. It's hot. Like cloud computing, big data is all the rage, even if, like cloud computing, it's not so much a single thing but an intersection of technologies, market needs, and critical mass.

One of several themes that kept popping up this week was data vs. models.

In 2008, Wired's Chris Anderson wrote a provocative article titled "The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete." His thesis was … Read more

How to buy a hi-fi system

Back in the day a hi-fi was simply a pair of speakers, an amplifier, a turntable, and maybe a radio or tape deck. Nowadays even the speakers are optional, and the rest of the system is an open question.

With "regular" speakers you have to think about getting an amplifier or maybe a receiver, and this is where it can get a little complicated. And what sources are you planning to play through the system: a turntable, CD player, iPod, radio, TV, games, or Internet radio?

You can eliminate the amp/receiver if you buy self-powered speakers (with … Read more