The Public Access Weekly: Come out and play
Okay y'all. We have been up to our eyeballs in E3 and WWDC and Microsoft announcements and Sony announcements all week, and I'm still pretty bummed about what went down last night in Game 6 so let's just dive right in, shall we?
Monday is going to be a big day for community news: The Q&A contest post will go up (if it kills me), and we'll have some additional news about the future of the comments section (hint: It still has one). For those of you who missed the mention a few weeks back, user history is now live so clicking on a commenter's user name will get you a pop-up box displaying all their comments. We're still working on avatars and profiles; notifications are next in line. Additionally -- and this one is pretty useful -- comments can now get flagged as either "Technical Issue" or "Correction Needed" to get the attention of our editors.
Also, and I feel like I shouldn't have to specify this, but Public Access is for your stories and thoughts and opinions and tales and experiences on technology. While we are really flexible about what falls under that giant umbrella, we cannot accept stories that are about say....who you should hire as your guide for a trek through Nepal or a profile of all twenty-four soccer teams that will be competing in France. Those are great topics, we're sure, but they're for a different website. People come here to read and discuss stories about computing or internet culture or science or gadgets. So, please keep that in mind when selecting topics and publishing articles to Public Access. I won't delete your post (that would be rude), but I will push it to draft status and send you an email explaining why. And hey, if you want help on a topic or have a question about whether something qualifies, you can always send us an email. We're super helpful.
Looking for something to read? Check out:
Some of our most popular E3 posts -- Like this OnePlus 3 review! Our reviewer, Chris Velasco, calls it "beautiful...sleeker and more elegant than you might expect from a phone with this big a screen." In contrast, some commenters are saying that earlier version left them disappointed by poor battery life and aggravations with the Cyanogean mod OS. (Just a reminder: If you snag one and want to submit your own review, you can do that here.)
True story: I have probably 100 LinkedIn notifications, messages or alerts that I just have not responded to. But Microsoft's recent acquisition of the company is a pretty intriguing change, and Devindra does a good job of breaking down why this could be a great move for both companies.
Alibaba has a counterfeit problem, and this probably isn't news to you (or anyone). While the company has been under pressure to address the issue, founder and chairman Jack Ma recently got some heat for appearing to endorse the counterfeits saying they were manufactured from the same materials and often in the same factories. This has provoked quite a discussion in the comments.
Looking for something to write about? Mull over:
This article about Microsoft's E3 Xbox announcements dares to ask: Why would anybody buy an Xbox One S? Did Microsoft err by announcing Project Scorpio, and will that announcement hurt sales of the One S? Is VR support that big of a draw? Is Sony's Neo announcement really any different? Folks in the comments had plenty to say, so if you've got a bone to pick, now's your chance.
Over on the PlayStation side we have this piece which argues that Sony didn't even really need to debut a new console this year, because their software game is just that bad-ass. Plus, it's got the PlayStation VR release upcoming, so it didn't need to muddy the waters by demoing hardware. People in the comments had a lot to say, from touting Microsoft's "decent line up" to comparing the presentation times. Did one company 'win' E3 this year? If so, which one and why? More importantly, which console announcement are you most excited about?
Remember when everyone used to say "There's an app for that" all the time? You know, before everything was "An Uber for" something or "A Keurig for" something? Yeah. I'm glad that's over too. However, my question to you is: What ISN'T there an app for? Can you think of something that couldn't be (in some way) served by a smartphone app? Alternatively, what do you just simply not need an app for?
