amazon reviews

Wendy Davis' filibuster shoes praised in Amazon reviews

While junior Texas state senator Wendy Davis got thrust into the national spotlight this week for her starring role in an anti-abortion-bill filibuster, her tennis shoes are enjoying their own run with fame on Amazon reviews.

"Best damn shoe for being on your feet for 13 hours. Also the best shoe to kick Governor Rick Perry's ass!" reads one of a growing number of Amazon reviews of the Mizuno's Wave Rider 16 running shoes the Democratic lawmaker made famous overnight.

Reads another: "I am so glad that I have a choice about what shoes to buy! Imagine if some legislator tried to tell me what type of shoes worked best for me or what type of shoes were available to me... that is so un-American!" … Read more

The 404 1,077: Where we scrape the Surface (podcast)

The mystery of the magic Microsoft device is finally solved, but what's with all the unanswered questions? In trying to add fuel to the Surface hype machine, Microsoft leaves too much to the industry's collective imagination as we all keep speculating about the tablets' battery life, release dates, prices, and UI experience.

The competition among tablets is still presently in favor of the iPad, so we're hoping that Microsoft has more compelling announcements in the future that integrate some of the company's other inventions.

Jeff and I always fight about which popular musician deserves credit for this generation's aural decay, but the Imperial College in London may have a solution to our problem: let computers compose the music!

A team of researchers believe that digital music can move beyond human creation and evolve autonomously without a real composer. They've developed a learning computer algorithm that continuously creates and combines loops in a random sequence.… Read more

The 404 1,005: Where the iPad HD is Hardly Different (podcast)

Extra-short show today to make room for this morning's Apple iPad HD coverage, but we'll quickly speculate about the deal-making features that would push us to run out and buy an iPad HD--we'll also talk about the possibility of a haptic feedback display, a new AppleCare+ program, and what sites you should use to sell your old tablet if you upgrade.… Read more

The 404 946: Where our hand is on Fire (podcast)

We're going hands-on with the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, released ahead of schedule to a few lucky customers today.

Also leaked from today's 404 podcast: Apple replacing original iPod Nanos, breaking up on Facebook, waging war on infographics, and tap-to-pay apps coming to Ultrabook laptops.

Also, a big congrats to CNET's Bonnie Cha, the new chief correspondent at Crave!

Stream the podcast on audio or video after the page break!… Read more

Pluribo summarizes Web content, starting with reviews

When I'm parsing product reviews on Amazon.com I usually look at two things after the price tag: the rating and how many people have reviewed it. This simple system tends to breaks down when it comes time to dig deeper into those sometimes thousands of reviews, which is where Pluribo comes in handy.

This small browser extension will go over everyone's ratings and pull out bits and pieces it finds noteworthy based on a similar words that pop up in rated reviews. The developer says it currently works the best on electronics items but that other items … Read more