Ever since the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch took the spotlight, most of Apple ads have been focused on those devices. So it’s always nice to see the company try new things for less important devices, such as the AirPods.
With today’s new ad, Apple is going back in time to the good old days of the iPod. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I instantly thought about the iconic iPod ads. It’s probably the fact that this ad is all about seeing someone dancing like there’s no tomorrow with noticeable white earbuds.
The iPod was arguably the first mainstream device from Apple after Steve Jobs’ comeback. At the time, it was something new and insanely cool — something that was quite unusual for consumer electronics devices at the time.
The iPod hasn’t been updated for a few years now, but I always look back at the original iPod ads that started in 2004. The silhouette ads ran for a few years and were some of the most iconic Apple ads ever made. If you can remember an ad ten years after it aired, it means that they did something right.
Things have changed quite a lot. With the new AirPods ad, Apple has traded the colorful backgrounds for a black-and-white urban landscape — Mexico City. Freestyle dancer Lil’ Buck is the only one dancing in the song, and it’s a bit more sophisticated than your average iPod ad.
For instance, Apple found a way to show you many, many AirPods features without telling you anything. It shows that pairing your AirPods is as easy as opening the carrying case. It shows that you can dance and they won’t fall out of your ears — in my experience, this is only true if the regular EarPods work well with your ears, your mileage may vary. It shows that you can remove an AirPod and the music will automatically pause.
More importantly, it shows that you can finally move around without thinking about it. There’s no wire, so if you want to wave your arms like a mad person, you can.
This is by far my favorite feature of the AirPods and it’s quite hard to describe if you don’t experience it yourself. The ad visually shows you that the AirPods give you a sense of freedom as the dancer starts dancing on the walls of the buildings.

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Being heard amongst a vocal crowd definitely poses its challenges, especially amongst the avid gaming community. Watching the comments section of a live video can be just as dazzling as it is frustrating, but there is an alternative, and it comes at a price.
Today, Google has released a new feature called “Super Chat” that will give users the ability to pin messages to the top of the chatbox for up to five hours. The catch? The longer you want your message to stay at the top, the more you’re going to end up paying.
In the announcement on the YouTube Blog , Product Manager Barbara Macdonald said:
Google previously stated Super Chat is designed to help bring fans and content creators just a little bit closer, and it is also a great revenue stream – that’s if users actually take advantage of the feature. Super Chat arrives at the expense of Fan Funding which was introduced back in 2014 and didn’t gain traction as expected. Although the feature will remain active on enabled channels for now, it will be discontinued on February 28.
Google has not stated how Super Chat comments will be moderated, to ensure stability and obscure profanity. A maximum of five hours is plenty of engagement time, and it is possible spammers, marketers and advertisers may take advantage of this capability.
Super Chat is still in beta form, and currently supports only select channels such as Alex Wassabi, and iHasCupquake. The feature will begin to roll out publicly on January 31.
Source: Google Blogs via Engadget

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Today, SpaceX successfully launched its first mission in more than four months. The last attempt was conducted towards the end of the 2016 and ended with a catastrophic blast. It was later revealed that the explosion was caused due to the failure of three composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) inside the second stage liquid oxygen (LOX) tank.
The company has now bounced back in fine form with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket that delivered 10 satellites to low-Earth orbit for Iridium. Those satellites are the first of at least 70 satellites that the firm will be launching for Iridium’s new generation of mobile voice and data communication satellites, Iridium NEXT.
The launch also marks the first West Coast landing of the Falcon 9 on SpaceX’s droneship stationed in the Pacific Ocean. If you missed today’s live stream, you can watch the replay down below with the launch starting at the 28 minute mark.
Source: SpaceX | Images: SpaceX Flickr

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Steam is great for PC gamers. A seemingly endless list of everything from AAA blockbusters to tiny indie releases, some of which use the platform to break through to the big time.
But standards dropped when Valve introduced Greenlight in 2012 and offloaded much of the curation of fringe titles to users.
The push to support indie developers with Greenlight was laudable, but it also seems to have allowed some very questionable practices to flourish, which Valve seems only now, belatedly, to be trying to stamp out. For example:
As a result, keeping this article down to just 13, which you lucky people can buy on Steam, proved exceptionally hard. So please, Gabe, don’t leave it until spring before you start a thorough ‘Steam clean’.
13. Infestation: Survivor Stories Classic /WarZ, £6.99/$9.99
Owners ( according to Steam Spy ): 1,041,642
This is a game you may well have heard of for all the wrong reasons. Originally called WarZ , perhaps to piggyback on the relative popularity and success of DayZ , the game promised what can only be described as completely non-existent features. When people who had paid good money for it complained on the WarZ Steam forum, they were (they claim) banned.
Remarkably, Valve, the laid back company that runs Steam, intervened and the game was taken down. But not for long. The developer simply tweaked a few things, removed some of its more egregious claims, changed its name and re-pimped it on Steam.
This, as you might have guessed, is yet another zombie survival horror. Except you’re not just trying to survive attacks by hordes of zombies, but from other players online.
However, the mechanics are poor, and the zombies not especially challenging (except in sheer volume). Furthermore, the game in its heyday was infested with cheats, while legitimate players who complained said they were banned.
That said, setting the game to Offenbach’s Can does offer a whole new entertaining perspective …
Steam reviews :
“Got banned after five hours of gameplay. Submitted post on their forums for a reason why. That was years ago and I still don’t know why. 10/10 best customer service. ”
User name: Zone
“The less than two hours of my gameplay was riddled with hackers using no clip, aim bot, super jump, super strength, unlimited health, no detection etc. I died countless times in 30 minutes from hackers shooting from more than three miles away, through walls. The mechanics in the game are poor, as well as the mêlée combat. ”
User name: Kitsune_Akki

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