The Public Access Weekly: D'oh!
As a die-hard Simpsons fan, I have been really excited about FXXs 600 episode marathon but I think I vastly underestimated the stamina it was going to take to get through thirteen days worth of the longest-running animated series ever. And I've seen the extended versions of all three LOTRs, in a single sitting, multiple times.
You really can have too much of a good thing apparently.
Anyhow, last Friday a few of you noticed we had a small snafu and sent out a duplicate newsletter -- hence the title of this weeks newsletter. So... that was a bit embarrassing, and my apologies! I did not file the newsletter correctly and because it was a holiday, I didn't catch the error in time. But thank you to those who sent me an email about it!
In Public Access news, we've noticed a lot of shady tweets and online offers to write paid guest posts for Engadget/Public Access using dofollow links. Let me be entirely clear here: Public Access does not permit dofollow type linking, and if we find you using it we will strip it from your articles and suspend your account. If you have no idea what dofollow linking is or what I'm talking about here, then you are almost certainly not violating this rule so don't worry.
Next week we'll have Public Access stats and numbers from November, but until then, on to the must reads and topic suggestions!
Looking for something to read? Check out:
For his first post on Public Access, Parth Misra treats us to a look at four early virtual reality head mounted display systems with a full examination of the specs, technologies and features available. It's fairly astounding how old the headsets look --even though some of them were released only ten or twelve years ago.
Another first time poster, Hossein Rahnama, looks into the future with an article about the ways artificial intelligence will require governments to set standards and safeguards. It's an interesting start of a complex discussion that includes aspects of cybersecurity, user privacy, ethics, and law.
Meanwhile, Jim Marggraff writes on the ways that VR manufacturers need to get "down to the metal" in order to truly push the technology into a viable future -- meaning essentially, that in order for VR to be fully adopted, it will require an intuitive feel and interaction that far exceeds touchscreens and voice controlled assistants; and arguing that human interactions with machines will become ever more natural to us.
Looking for something to write about? Mull over:
The Game Awards 2016 aired this week, and streamed live on YouTube for those eager to find out if Overwatch would win the coveted Game of the Year Award. Timothy Seppala covered the highs and lows in this post, saying this years show was the best yet. Do you watch game awards shows? Why or why not? And if you watched The Game Awards 2016 show, do you agree that it was the best one yet?
We looked at the pros and cons of the Google Home this week (and gave it an official Engadget score of 79), and liked it but didn't feel it was an essential experience. With competing products like the Amazon Echo also getting a lot of attention, it seems like a good time to ask: Do you want a smart home assistant like the Home or the Echo? Why or why not? And what do you most wish you could get a smart home assistant to do for you?
Last Friday was the fabled day of crazy consumption, Black Friday. Did you participate in any Black Friday deals, events or midnight lines outside of a brick-and-mortar store? If so, what did you do and why? Do you feel like you got some good deals, or that Black Friday deals are usually overinflated to create a sense of savings?
