Yearly Archives: 2012

AT&T chief regrets unlimited data, iMessage for iPhone

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New York Times:

Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive said that he wished the company had never offered an unlimited data plan for the device and that he loses sleep over free texting services like Apple’s iMessage.“If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.”

Perhaps if Mr Stephenson’s company hadn’t consistently boned their customers with ridiculous charges, he wouldn’t find so many of us happy to use iMessage or Skype or any number of other services to get around the usurious costs we are forced to pay by AT&T.

Earblowing Space Shuttle launch

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Gizmodo:

If you never attended a shuttle launch, you must watch this perfect video. Watch it with good and big headphones. Or better yet, with an amazing sound system. In fact, this is the perfect video to test your audio setup with gigantic subwoofer.

But beware. It’s loud. Deliciously loud and crispy.

The bigger iPhone screen

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Zach Weigand:

I find it much more likely that Apple will just keep the phone the same width (as claimed in all the rumors), get rid of the dead space on both sides of the screen, and keep the aspect ratio 3:2.

Turn any iOS device into an AirPlay audio receiver

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Many thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

Want to send audio on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad? Airfoil Speakers Touch has you covered! With it, you can send audio via AirPlay directly from iTunes or from one iOS device to another. There’s no reason to spend hundreds on costly third-party AirPlay receivers – the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch you already own can do the job!

Airfoil Speakers Touch also receives audio from Airfoil, making it possible to send any audio from your Mac or PC to your iOS device. Cool!

Download Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store and check out Airfoil right from our site.

Bookshelf porn

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A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.

Some amazing pics in here.

The beard according to Darth

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If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you’re probably aware of Darth on Twitter. He takes photos of me and Photoshops them in funny and weird scenarios. Here is a page of some of the most recent ones.

Nokia sued because its Windows Phone sucks

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The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants told investors that Nokia’s conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market. It did not,” the lawsuit states. “This became apparent on April 11, 2012, when Nokia disclosed that its first quarter performance would be worse than expected. Nokia expected its first quarter 2012 non-IFRS Devices & Services operating margin to fall by 3%, and projected first quarter 2012 Devices & Services net sales of €4.2 billion.

It’s a good thing RIM owners never thought of this.

Smithsonian to showcase Steve Jobs’ patents, trademarks

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Washington Post:

The Smithsonian Institution is preparing an exhibit featuring Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ technology patents on the National Mall in conjunction with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.The exhibit opening May 11, entitled “The Patents and Trademarks of Steve Jobs: Art and Technology that Changed the World” will be on view through July 13 at the Ripley Center near the Smithsonian Castle.

Pocket artillery mini cannon

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Cool Material:

The Pocket Artillery Mini Cannon looks like a harmless desktop accessory, it’s nicely polished, available in some eye-catching colors and it seems like an ideal way to show off your eye for design and love of little trinkets. Then you light the fuse. All of a sudden that fun office party turns into a hospital run cause Dottie took a BB in the hand.

Don’t lie – you know you want one.

Which music subscription service should you use?

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TechHive:

You’re well aware that you can purchase music directly over the Internet—from Apple’s iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, Google Music, and a host of other sites. And these are perfectly fine options if you want to own your music. But, for those who like to listen to—but not necessary collect—a vast library of music there’s an alternative: Music subscription services.Cough up $5 or $10 a month and you can listen to any of millions of tracks in a wide variety of genres, whenever and (within reason) wherever you want. I took a look at the major subscription services—Mog, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, and Spotify—to see how they shake out and which might be the best fit for you.

15 Spectacular European Libraries

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Mental Floss:

Here are fifteen of the most beautiful libraries throughout Europe.

I’ve posted in the past about beautiful libraries in personal homes. These are ones the public has access to.

Eight Track Stereo for iPad

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When the best in portable music players of today just isn’t quite good enough, just add in a little bit of rich mahogany, shag carpeting and tacky wallpaper, it doesn’t get much better than this!

This looks cool.

Apple and 4G

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Alex Brooks:

There are a number of baffling points here though, why would Apple only release an iPad with LTE capable of working on the 700Mhz band which is only used in North America? And then why on the full knowledge that the new iPad has 4G that doesn’t work in the likes of Australia and Europe did it insist on advertising so?

I admit to finding this confusing as well. Why go through the mess of being investigated in a number of countries when you could avoid it?

Apple could argue that the iPad is 4G compatible around the world, but the carriers just don’t support it yet, I suppose. That argument is flimsy at best.

Jony Ive wins British Visionary Innovator Award

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Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, has won the “British Visionary Innovator” award given out by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office in honor of World IP Day. The designer topped a list of ten notable designers, inventors, and other creative people, including Tim Berners Lee, J.K. Rowling, and Simon Cowell.

Jony deserves all of the awards and accolades he gets.

Court bans Microsoft’s Xbox, Windows 7 from Germany

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Reuters:

A court in Mannheim ruled on Wednesday that Microsoft infringed Motorola Mobility’s patents and ordered Microsoft to remove its popular Xbox 360 gaming consoles and Windows 7 operating system software from the German market.

This is getting ugly.

A look at font rendering

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The Web font revolution that started around two years ago has brought up a topic that many of us had merrily ignored for many years: font rendering. The newfound freedom Web fonts are giving us brings along new challenges. Choosing and using a font is not merely a stylistic issue, and it’s worth having a look at how the technology comes into play.