April 2011
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Apple Tweaks Mac OS X Lion UI →
Subtle changes make sense, but what’s with the return of fixed scroll bars? I loved the removal of them (they would appear only when scrolling to give a sense of place — like in iOS). Strip away the chrome and just leave the content.
Update: Reading the MacRumors comments, it looks like it still may be a user-defined option. (And MacRumors deleted that section of the post without saying...
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Bill Simmons' Grantland →
As a big fan of Bill Simmons, I’m excited for his new site (in association with ESPN): Grantland.
ESPN:
With Simmons as editor-in-chief, Grantland.com is scheduled to launch in June with a mix of original columns, long-form features, blog posts, and podcasts. The name of the site honors the legacy of Grantland Rice, the legendary sportswriter who helped elevate sports into American...
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Why Not Put A Skull And Cross Bones Sticker On... →
Great, just what the world needs, another ugly fucking warning sticker for the public to ignore.
This whole situation continues to be a complete farce.
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Idea Man? →
Buried in this take on Allen’s book by a former Microsoft co-worker, Mike Koss, is the key revelation: Paul Allen may have been an “idea man”, but Microsoft didn’t really have any original ideas. They simply extended upon existing ones.
Further, he suggests that while Allen may have been thinking about the “big ideas”, that was generally worthless next to...
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Logitech Makes A Measly $5M From Google TV →
Down from $22 million the previous quarter. They missed device sales estimates by 70 percent.
Ouch.
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Burning The Internet Oil →
Overall, Microsoft’s earnings for the quarter were fairly good, but this remains:
Microsoft had a $726 million loss from online operations, the second biggest lost since March 2006.
I reiterate: worst Internet startup ever.
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White iPhone 4 Slightly Thicker Than Black iPhone... →
Interesting. I assume to help with the UV ray issues?
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Spotify's Early Access Movie Stream? →
Mike Arrington:
And these aren’t your standard Netflix/Amazon/iTunes type movie deals, either, we’ve heard. Spotify is aiming to offer users much earlier access to movies. Similar to the release dates that hotel’s get for premium in-room movies. They’re expensive, but users can often see them just a couple of weeks after they’ve been in theaters.
Smart move. I’d pay for that.
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Another Lick Of Honeycomb →
Walt Mossberg reviews the LG “G-Slate” on T-Mobile.
Long story short: sucks.
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Daytum Team Joins Facebook →
Use Daytum everyday. Love the app. Didn’t expect Facebook to acquire them, but good move!
And Daytum will live on!
Between this and Beluga, I arrogantly think Facebook is somehow tracking my phone usage.
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“Also, like fair-skinned humans, white iPhones need a little more UV protection...”
– Ina Fried talks with Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller about the white iPhone hardships
As someone who just got badly burned by the sun in Mexico, I can relate.
“The white iPhone 4 has finally arrived and it’s beautiful.”
– Apple SVP Phil Schiller on the device set to hit stores tomorrow
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I'll Be Back, Indeed. →
Terminator 5 looks to be a go with Arnold. I just don’t have a good feeling about this at all.
Terminator Salvation sucked, but the cast was great. It just needed a better writer/director. It did not need Schwarzenegger (well, aside from the sort-of digital one). See: Terminator 3.
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“Competitors should take a page from Apple’s playbook here and be open...”
– Jason Kottke on how to beat Apple
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Beating The Apple →
Kottke on one of Apple’s potential weaknesses:
Someone should figure out how to leverage Facebook’s social graph to make the phone/app/gaming/music/video experience significantly better than on the iPhone/iPad and then partner exclusively with Facebook to make it happen.
That someone will be Facebook themselves.
He also notes:
the Apple products & services that Apple does...
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Academy Award Screeners Through iTunes →
Interesting, did not know this.
Though I assume it’s only for films that have been released to buy or rent at that point, and not films still in theaters (which studios will send to Academy voters on DVD by mail). So it’s essentially just a free coupon code.
Still, a good idea!
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Amazon Probably Sold A Few Kindles This Past... →
Still find it a bit odd that Amazon does not release their actual Kindle unit sale numbers. The product is clearly a huge hit — what are they worried about?
Are they concerned people will figure out what poor margins they make on each device sold? Or that they’ll be overwhelmed by tablet sales numbers soon — or already?
This Businessweek story from December cites people “aware”...
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PlayStation Network Credit Card Data Comprimised,... →
Yesterday, I noted the Playstation Network was an “awful black eye” for Sony — one of the worst tech meltdowns I can remember seeing.
Scratch that.
This is a massive fucking nightmare now. This will go down in infamy. It will be a cautionary tale in the tech industry told for years to come.
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A Charge In The Clouds →
$20 - $25 a year seems very reasonable for Apple/Google cloud music lockers if the storage space is unlimited.
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Real Artists Ship →
Music. Television. Movies. For whatever reason, Google is really bad at getting content licensing deals done.
Fox, Paramount, and Disney are all now apparently holding out out on the YouTube movie streaming service. The other studios are in, but would like everyone on board for the launch.
We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of Google pre-announcing their iTunes competitor.
...
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How many people has James Bond killed? →
So far, it’s up to 610 with five films to go.
Also, only six people were killed by Bond in The Man with the Golden Gun?!
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Sony's Teardrop And Foldable Tablets →
Both look nice. The S1’s teardrop side/back design is a bit odd — they tout an “off-center of gravity”?
The S2 seems more interesting as a concept to me thanks to the dual-screens. But won’t it require some sort of customized version of Android (Honeycomb) to fully work as shown? And using the two screens for one piece of content will probably suck.
Of course, all of this...
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PlayStation Network Shut Down Indefinitely →
Wow. This is an awful black eye for Sony.
It’s one thing when a startup goes down for a few hours. It’s another when one goes down for a day. It’s another still when a big company has a big outage. And then there’s this.
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“The Ohio State fan base blindly is supporting Ohio State and Jim Tressel....”
– Former Buckeyes QB Kirk Herbstreit on Ohio State coach Jim Tressel
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The "Send" Button →
All those sites that keep the “email this story” button for the olds can effectively replace it with this. I approve.
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Programming Note
I’m back from this this and this.
It was a great week off.
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On Apple's Must-See TV
All of the reasons Marco Arment lists as to why Apple won’t build an actual television are good ones. But they’re also all good reasons why the market badly needs to be disrupted — and is ripe for it.
The argument that televisions are “an extremely competitive, commoditized market with very slim margins and most purchasing decisions going to whoever has the most...
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Vulnerability In Skype For Android Is Exposing... →
I guess Android really is open after all.
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The Hollow DVD Boost →
John Marmaduke talking to CNET’s Greg Sandoval:
DVDs are still a $12 or $14 billion business. What people from the tech world often do is confuse themselves with the entire marketplace.
No, what people from the “tech world” do is give insight based on earlier adoption of new technology and forecast how things are going to play out.
I’ve noted in all my posts that this...
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The Hobbit Video Diaries Begin →
I’m so happy that Peter Jackson is back making these next films.
As he notes towards the end, he didn’t always think it would be a good idea to revisit the world to try and recapture what they did the first time around. But now he’s all-in.
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4.2.7 →
Interesting that Apple still won’t label the Verizon build as “4.3”. I assume that means it’s still missing the faster browser and maybe a few other things?
I wonder what the hold up is?
I also wonder what build the white iPhone will get?
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World of Goo Now Available for iPhone, Now... →
Excellent. Right before I leave of vacation.
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A PlayBook To Take On Apple? →
My review of the BlackBerry PlayBook. It’s all in there, overall a valiant effort. But the key question: does it compare to the iPad?
No.
But I will say this — at least they have a goddamn way to take screenshots right on the device without having to install some SDK bullshit and hook your device to your machine.
You hear that, Android?
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Does It Come In Black? →
Yes. And soon white too. Like I said a couple weeks ago.
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