Welcome to another edition of What We’re Reading, Marxent’s weekly series featuring staff members highlighting the best articles, videos, music and more they saw over the prior 7 days. This week, those finds included stories from theArs Technica, Business Insider, MacRumors, The Verge and many more. Up first, it’s …
The Best Thing We Read This Week
Marxent Director of Sales Jeff Morrow had his eyes on the sky — or Wired stories about cool things being done in the sky, anyway. Disney has teamed with Intel to produce “Starbright Holidays” at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. “With the push of a button, 300 drones ascend from a ground station and float over a nearby lake,” a Wired Magazine story on the display begins. “You can’t see them at first — it’s well after sundown — but you can hear them falling into formation. The music starts, the drones light up, and the choreography begins. This isn’t just the latest Disney World attraction. It’s a whole new breed of entertainment.”
The Best Thing We Wrote This Week
Fresh off being featured as part of the School of Advertising Arts “Be You” series, Gabbi Hardin wrote about her journey from student to Marxent Graphic Designer in the Marxent @ Work piece, “Want to find your dream job? Start with the right education.” “For as long as I can remember I’d set a timeline for myself: Finish high school, earn a college degree, get a job, get married, buy a house and have babies. Sometimes I’d get so caught up following the timeline, I’d forget I had to, say, pick a major or decide on a career path,” Gabbi wrote. “Luckily, one of my high school teachers suggested I go to art school. I was against it at the time — coming from a small farming community, I didn’t realize I’d actually be able to support myself with an art degree.”
Also of note, Marxent Human Resources Manager Megan Gray turned up in Forbes Magazine this week, quoted in the story “15 Questions Technical Hiring Managers Love To Ask In Interviews,” by Laurence Bradford. Check it out for Megan’s explanation of why she likes the question, “Can you tell us about a time you failed?”
Go on, keep reading
A recent Ars Technica story boldly proclaimed, “VR’s killer app has arrived, and it’s Google Earth,” catching the eye of Marxent Project Manager Patrice Hall. “Thrilling to read that Google built an immersive experience for Google Earth. I can’t wait to try this out,” Patrice says.
Ars agrees, saying “Squishy geometry aside, you won’t find a cooler free VR app on any device.”
Making his first appearance in What We’re Reading is Core Content Management Engineer Ian Newland, who shared a different Ars Technica article, this on on Space X’s ambitious plan to fill the sky with low-orbit satellites. “Elon Musk is at it again with more space technology to beat everyone else to the market,” Ian says. Why is this interesting? Ian provides bullet points!
- Bold strategy to integrate over 4000 satellites that will orbit the earth
- Talking about very specific speeds (gigabit speeds) which we have a hard time distributing on the ground itself
- Their technology plan and reasons behind this deployment
A hearty welcome, Ian! Anyone who will bullet out a list of reasons they enjoyed an article is definitely a friend of mine.
On the heels of Tim Cook’s positive comments about Augmented Reality come two rumors about Apple’s future plans: the first involves integrating AR functionality into the iPhone’s camera system, while the second says the big brains in Cupertino are developing AR glasses that will wireless connect to and piggy back off the iPhone.
In related news: An Augmented Reality solution to previewing the results of cosmetic breast enhancement? There’s an app for that (NSFW).
Business Insider asks the question on everyone’s mind: Is this chimp having a great time or a terrible time in Virtual Reality?
And Finally …
Sometimes you just want to play a little Doom. Press the space bar to begin. Arrow keys move around. Control fires. Numbers change your weapon. Happy hunting!
