Color

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Discussion: Are you spoiling a movie for yourself by listening to the soundtrack before watching the movie? Inspired by Clint Mansell's new "Stoker" score available to stream.

- Discussion: Which programs are still shown in standard definition?

- The New York Times warns against sitting at work.… Read more

The basic color picker that has been a part of Windows for ages is fine for most uses. It can create any color your PC's graphics can render. Millions of different shades and hues are possible. But graphics professionals, software designers, programmers, photographers, and artists need more than it offers, such as the ability to specify colors by code number in a variety of formats. Anny's Just Color Picker is just the sort of program these users need. It's a compact tool that loads and works quickly. You can select areas as small as a single pixel … Read more

LAS VEGAS--LG showcased a trio of monitors at CES 2013 including the 27-inch EA83 ColorPrime. The monitor is geared toward professional use with its 2,560x1,440-pixel IPS display, 90-degree rotating display and dedication to accurate color reproduction.

LG calls the monitor a "graphics powerhouse" with its ability to reproduce a wide variety of colors that accurately represents 100 percent of sRGB and 99 percent of the Adobe RGB. The EA83 ColorPrime offers a hardware calibrator and True Color Pro calibration software to adjust the monitor's color accuracy.

The other two LG monitors announced at CES 2013 … Read more

I've always heard that smell plays an important role in how food tastes. I didn't expect that color could also sway the taste buds. A study published in the Journal of Sensory Studies found that the color of a cup can influence the way people taste hot chocolate.

Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, and Charles Spence, a professor at the University of Oxford in England, subjected 57 participants to what may be one the tastiest science experiments ever.

The participants tasted samples of hot chocolate served in four different colors of plastic cups: white, cream, red, and orange. The sippers preferred the flavor of the beverage in orange or cream-colored cups. … Read more

Tablet prices just seem to keep dropping.

Acer is the latest company to lower the bar on pricing. The company is planning to sell a $99 Android tablet, the Iconia B1, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company plans to target consumers in emerging markets, though the report notes that Acer will get clearance from the Federal Communications Commission for use in the states.

The report, which cites unnamed sources, said the Iconia B1 will come with a 1.2 gigahertz processor and pack a 7-inch display with 1,024x600-pixel resolution -- which matches the specs from the older … Read more

Do you own a Barnes & Noble Nook Color or Nook Tablet? If so, perhaps you've wished for a way to stretch beyond Barnes & Noble's custom OS to enjoy a more traditional tablet experience -- and run whatever apps you want to run, not just those curated by B&N.

N2A Cards has long offered such a way: a bootable microSD card that transforms the Nook into a real Android tablet, complete with the Google Play store and everything.

Originally, that option limited you to Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread, but N2A Cards now offers a … Read more

Color Labs, the photo-sharing site that was the apparent target of an acqui-hire by Apple, is shutting down.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup announced the development this evening via a banner notice on its Web site.

"Alert: We hope you've enjoyed sharing your stories via real-time video. Regretfully, the app will no longer be available after 12/31/2012," the notice reads.

The tale of Color is a bit of a mystery that continues to unfold. After initial reports that the troubled app maker was shutting down, it was reported that Apple was acquiring the company … Read more

Color Labs, whose intellectual property and engineering team were purchased by Apple earlier this year, is the target of a new lawsuit from a former founding employee.

Adam Witherspoon, who served as a quality assurance engineer at Color, today filed a suit against the company and its CEO, Bill Nguyen, accusing both of creating "an extremely hostile, unsafe, and harassing atmosphere."

The suit, which was filed in the Superior Court for the County of Santa Clara and spotted by TechCrunch, accuses the company of violating three labor codes, including retaliation for reporting unsafe work conditions, reporting illegal conduct, … Read more

When you set up your displays in OS X, you have the option of selecting a ColorSync profile that will adjust the colors to match a specific color scheme and accurately display colors on your computer. If you have multiple monitors connected, it's recommended that you calibrate your displays to have colors appear consistent across them.

While the system should keep assigned ColorSync profiles associated with your display, there may be times when an incorrect profile is used. For instance, upon opening some applications, switching display settings, or changing your active GPU (i.e., from the internal graphics to … Read more