PersonOfTheYear
Latest
Tim Cook makes shortlist for Time's Person of the Year
Time Magazine has posted its shortlist for the annual Person of the Year awards, and there's at least one familiar face on there for Apple fans: Apple CEO Tim Cook has made the cut. Along with Barack Obama, Bill and Hilary Clinton and Yahoo CEO (and former Google exec) Marissa Mayer, Cook is under final consideration for this year's award, which will reportedly be announced tomorrow. The internet doesn't quite believe Cook deserves it: Time's annual fan poll (which is always buried under by a mob of votes from social sites like 4Chan) already chose North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as its choice. But the fan poll is basically just a stunt these days. The final decision comes down to Time editors. Given everything that's happened this year, it's hard to believe that Time will eventually choose Cook as its Person, but then again, who knows? Cook has definitely shined in his role of filling the shoes of Steve Jobs, and Apple has never been more influential in the various fields of tech, business and the creative arts as it's been this past year. So maybe we will see Apple's new CEO crowned tomorrow. [via MacRumors]
Steve Jobs nominated to be Time's Person of the Year
CNET reports that Steve Jobs has been nominated to be Time's Person of the Year for 2011. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams nominated Apple's founder and former CEO for the honor after citing the tremendous influence Jobs had in shaping the modern world. If Jobs is selected, he would be the first posthumous Person of the Year. Other notable tech figures who have been granted the honor over the past few decades include Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg in 2010, Amazon's Jeff Bezos in 1999, the computer itself in 1982, and "you" in 2006. According to Walter Isaacson's biography, at age 27 Steve Jobs believed he would be Time's Person of the Year in 1982, and he was dismayed when "the computer" was selected instead. Most other nominations for 2011's Person of the Year are for movements rather than individuals. "Populists" are one such nomination, with notable examples including participants in the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Tea Party movements. A strikingly similar nomination for "angry people" covers much of the same ground. Another individual nominated is Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation in Tunisia inspired the Arab Spring movement (another nominee who, if selected, would be the first posthumous honoree). US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has also been nominated.
iPhone a shoo-in for TIME's Person of the Year?
We tend not to make a lot of predictions around here, but we've totally got odds on TIME magazine's pick for 2007 Person of the Year (and not just because we're owned by the same parent-company). Since TIME already named the iPhone both Invention of the Year and, more recently, Gadget of the Year (along with devoting a fawning cover story to it), it seems to us that the obvious path of least resistance for jaded journalists eager to start their holiday vacations is to screw over Gore and go for another easy-bake geek pleaser. Plus, what better symbol to convey the restrictions on political freedoms still so prevalent in the 21st century than the current poster child for walled gardens? Granted, it hasn't been since 1982 that a piece of electronic equipment took home this prestigious honor (renamed Machine of the Year in deference to the PC), but after lowering its standards so drastically last year by choosing you of all people, well, TIME has shown that almost anything has a shot.
Time Magazine 'Person of the Year' cover redux, courtesy of that iSight trick
As you may know, Time Magazine recently declared you as the person of the year. While this is a mighty nice gesture on their part, Dan Wood has created a redux of the cover for iSight-enabled Mac users that truly resembles you as Time's award-winning person of the year. He's using that slick iSight trick that can turn on your iSight camera and place its feed on a web page, but remember: it isn't a security flaw, it's an actual feature. The trick doesn't send any video from your iSight over the web, it simply plays that video back through your web browser locally.As a side note: do any Mac users out there have a non-iSight webcam they can try this trick with? It would be interesting to see if it works only with Apple's camera or if everyone else can play along. That way, users with some kind of webcam have an easier way of adding themselves to Flickr's personoftheyear tag.[via Ranchero's blog]
