The decline of Wikipedia

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Thoughtful piece from MIT Technology Review on the troubling growing pains of the world’s sixth most widely visited website.

The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia—and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation—has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking. Those participants left seem incapable of fixing the flaws that keep Wikipedia from becoming a high-quality encyclopedia by any standard, including the project’s own. Among the significant problems that aren’t getting resolved is the site’s skewed coverage: its entries on Pokemon and female porn stars are comprehensive, but its pages on female novelists or places in sub-Saharan Africa are sketchy. Authoritative entries remain elusive. Of the 1,000 articles that the project’s own volunteers have tagged as forming the core of a good encyclopedia, most don’t earn even Wikipedia’s own middle-­ranking quality scores.

The main source of those problems is not mysterious. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage.

Best Buy reportedly showing more than 30% return rate on Galaxy Gear watch sales

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A return rate greater than 30%. If this is true, that is a telling statistic.

Samsung has found that more than 30% of Galaxy Gear purchases are returned in Best Buy locations, and they have asked that Samsung employees on site help try to figure out why this is.

Read some of the reviews. Might be a clue there.

Lost Return of the Jedi footage discovered

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This was demo footage created to show off the EditDroid editing system. Watch it while you can. I suspect this footage won’t be up there very long.

Buying a PS4? Expect a 300 MB day-one patch

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Sounds like a good number of features will require this patch from the get-go. Which means a real test of Sony’s servers on day one. And, I suspect, on Christmas Day.

Review of new Retina MacBook Pro

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The new MacBook Pro could easily be mistaken for its predecessor. That said, there are definitely some significant differences.

Like the Airs, the Retina MacBook Pro has given up its wired Ethernet port, but it comes with a few others to help earn it that “Pro” label. In addition to two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, and a combination headphone/input jack, it includes a full-size HDMI port and two Thunderbolt ports that power users can count on to get their wired Ethernet and FireWire ports back if they really need them.

These are the first Macs shipping with Thunderbolt 2 ports. Great if you plan on buying a 4K display.

Those two ports have been upgraded to Thunderbolt 2 courtesy of Intel’s DSL5520 controller, and this is the first shipping Mac that uses the new version of the high-speed interface. The controller includes four Thunderbolt channels, which can provide data bandwidth of up to 20Gbps to each port (or 10Gbps per channel).

The original Thunderbolt used four 10Gbps channels too, but they were separated differently—the controllers provided two sets of 10Gbps channels, and the new ones provide one set of 20Gbps channels. Thunderbolt 2 additionally adds support for the DisplayPort 1.2 spec, which is necessary to support 4K output, though according to Apple’s spec sheet each Thunderbolt port can only support a single 2560×1600 display at once (for a total of three displays, including the laptop’s). The Retina MacBook Pro provides 4K video output through HDMI—that port supports 3840×2160 displays at 30Hz and 4096×2160 displays at 24Hz.

The biggest issue is the Retina display. Most of the mainstream apps support retina graphics, but outside that core, there are many that do not. Most web sites fit that latter category as well.

The biggest problem at this point is actually the Web itself. Having Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Retina-optimized means that text looks smooth and sharp regardless of the browser you’re using, but most sites still use lower-resolution images that look soft and vaguely blurry on a Retina screen. This situation should continue to improve now that high-density displays are proliferating in Windows laptops and Web standards are catching up, but for now browsing is still the least consistent thing about using a Retina Mac.

Lots more good stuff in this review.

If you are considering the highest-end Retina MacBook Pro, you might want to take a read of this review from The Verge.

Buffer hacked

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An email went out to Buffer customers at about 4pm ET today informing customers that Buffer, the popular Twitter scheduling service, was hacked:

I wanted to get in touch to apologize for the awful experience we’ve caused many of you on your weekend. Buffer was hacked around 1 hour ago, and many of you may have experienced spam posts sent from you via Buffer. I can only understand how angry and disappointed you must be right now.

Not everyone who has signed up for Buffer has been affected, but you may want to check on your accounts. We’re working hard to fix this problem right now and we’re expecting to have everything back to normal shortly.

This banner was added to the Buffer home page:

Sorry – Buffer was hacked and some scam posts were sent. We’re working hard to investigate. Stay updated via Twitter (@buffer).

Follow the headline link for the latest from Buffer.

Repairability, then reusability, then recyclability

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Yesterday I posted about the repairability scale, with the comment that a bad score on that scale is bad for the planet. The post generated a number of excellent comments, both here and on Twitter.

A big part of the argument was the bias on the repairability scale. In effect, saying that if a device is easily recyclable, it is not as important that it be repairable. Another related argument stresses that the folks at iFixIt are concerned with user repair and not professional repair.

These and other comments, all good stuff. Thanks for opening my eyes a bit more.

My 2 cents on this? The best solution, the one that is most respectful to the planet and our limited resources, is that of repairability. Better if it’s user repairability, but if it takes special tools and/or a pro, so be it.

Next down on the scale is reusability. If your device still works, but you want to replace it, find a new home for your old one, if possible. Not always practical, so if you can’t find a new home for your old device, recycle it.

One point I really missed out on is Apple’s incredible dedication to recyclability. This is from Apple’s web site:

Apple recycles responsibly. When you recycle with Apple, your used equipment is disassembled, and key components that can be reused are removed. Glass and metal can be reprocessed for use in new products. A majority of the plastics can be pelletized into a raw secondary material. With materials reprocessing and component reuse, Apple often achieves a 90 percent recovery rate by weight of the original product.

Apple meets the requirements of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. All e-waste collected by Apple-controlled voluntary and regulatory programs worldwide is processed in the region in which it was collected. Our recyclers must comply with all health and safety laws, and we do not allow the use of prison labor. Apple recyclers do not dispose of hazardous electronic waste in solid-waste landfills or incinerators. For an example of the stringent processing and operational controls Apple places on its directly contracted recyclers, read an excerpt from our recycler requirements agreement [PDF].

Hopefully, both Google and Microsoft have similar policies for the devices they make themselves and partner policies for the manufacturers of devices that run their operating systems. If not, worth considering I think.

New MacBook Pro 13″ retina benchmarks

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Good to see some benchmark numbers. Worth noting that all the new MacBook Pros use Iris integrated graphics, with the exception of the high end 15″ model. I’m looking forward to seeing the benchmarks for that high end model, which uses Nvidia’s GeForce GT 750m with 2GB of dedicated video memory instead of the integrated Iris solution.

Blackberry’s rep tarnished by fake BBM reviews

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Hundreds of fake reviews of BBM.

BlackBerry’s BBM app was downloaded 10 million times within 24 hours, but at least on Android, some of its many positive reviews seem to come from a less than savory source. Writer Matt Baxter-Reynolds noted yesterday that a huge number of reviews contained the exact same praise for BBM:

Thank you so much blackberry team. I was waiting this app. Its really great user friendly and smooth Blogger Terence Eden looked through more reviews and found more evidence that somebody was astroturfing the Play Store. In addition to the sheer numbers he found, at least one person seemed to have accidentally copied and pasted more of the text than intended: “Dear Mr Ahmed, please post the following comment on the new BlackBerry Messenger APP…” Fake reviews are a frequent issue across many sites, and a September crackdown resulted in fines for 19 companies. More recently, Samsung was fined for hiring commenters to talk up its own products online and leave negative comments about those of its competitors (allegedly HTC.)

Who would do this? Blackberry? Someone looking to harm Blackberry’s rep? Definitely an unneeded black eye.

How to use Mavericks’ new tools to extend battery life

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Spend some time with Activity Monitor to get a sense of the energy usage of your particular installation.

Apple’s new suite of energy saving settings, App Nap — not to be confused with Power Nap — doesn’t really have an interface. Which is fine! The whole idea behind App Nap is that it runs in the background, looking for apps that fit certain criteria like whether they’re maximized or currently downloading or playing media.

That doesn’t mean App Nap can’t benefit from some occasional monitoring. The venerable app, Activity Monitor, has a new tab labeled “Energy” that lets you do just that. It lists your currently running programs and daemons, their energy usage, and whether the application is App Nappin’. If you see an app that has a disproportionate energy impact, kill it, and consider uninstalling it.

Good article. Pass it along.

Surface Pro 2 tablet gets 1 out of 10 on repairability scale

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This is bad news. Bad for Microsoft and bad for our planet.

The result is a tablet that is practically unrepairable and is therefore, in essence, disposable. The Reg has criticized Microsoft before for adding to the pile of discarded tech in the world’s landfills, and we’re disappointed to report that the Surface Pro 2 does nothing to slow this trend.

The original Surface tablet got the same score. Was hoping the Surface 2 would show some advancement in that department. To be fair, the 4th generation iPad did not do much better, scoring a 2 out of 10. We’ve got to do better than this.

Ukraine Boxer Klitschko running for president

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Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir are world championship boxers and, together, one of the greatest sports stories ever told. If you are at all a sports fan, watch the documentary Klitschko. You’ll see what I mean.

Both brothers made their professional debut on November 6, 1996 in Hamburg. Since then both have been heavyweight world champions in boxing. They have stated they will never fight each other.

There is a lot to admire about both brothers. Vitali made his fortune as a boxer, then went on to get his PhD and serve as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. And now Vitali is running for president of his native Ukraine. Fascinating story.

Microsoft’s Frank Shaw calls out Apple and the Reality Distortion Field

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I feel compelled to add to John Gruber’s take on Frank Shaw’s blog post. I think John is being too charitable.

Frank starts with some twisty little prose, criticizing Apple for giving away iWork with all new iOS devices:

Surface and Surface 2 both include Office, the world’s most popular, most powerful productivity software for free and are priced below both the iPad 2 and iPad Air respectively. Making Apple’s decision to build the price of their less popular and less powerful iWork into their tablets not a very big (or very good) deal.

I am not a fan of snark, and this was snarky. Frank didn’t say, “throw in the iWork apps for free”, which is what happened. Instead, he implies that Apple raised the price of the iPad so that us hapless customers have no choice but to pay for something we don’t want. That might be considered true if the price of the iPad went up, even one penny. But the iPad Air added a bunch of new features, found a way to slim down significantly, and kept the price the same. Oh, and, we’ll throw in our productivity apps, too.

There was no decision to build the price into their tablets. That’s just snark.

And so it’s not surprising that we see other folks now talking about how much “work” you can get done on their devices. Adding watered down productivity apps. Bolting on aftermarket input devices. All in an effort to convince people that their entertainment devices are really work machines.

In that spirit, Apple announced yesterday that they were dropping their fees on their “iWork” suite of apps. Now, since iWork has never gotten much traction, and was already priced like an afterthought, it’s hardly that surprising or significant a move. And it doesn’t change the fact that it’s much harder to get work done on a device that lacks precision input and a desktop for true side-by-side multitasking.

Really Frank? How many tablets in the world have Word on them? How many have Pages? I would wager that any iPad productivity app will have more “traction” than any comparable Surface app.

And I use my iPad every single day, all without a single bolted on aftermarket input device, just the ones I was born with.

As to precision, I would love to see a side by side comparison of the iPad and Surface touch precision. I can’t imagine the Surface even coming close. Yeesh.

Apple to open retail stores at 8 a.m. on November 1 to sell iPad Air

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As they did with the recent iPhone launch, Apple plans on opening their retail stores at 8 a.m. on launch day, November 1, to begin selling the iPad Air. The iPad mini with Retina display is coming later in the month.

This text is from the Apple iPad retail site:

Buy iPad Air at your favorite Apple Retail Store beginning at 8:00 a.m. on November 1. We’ll set it up just the way you like.* iPad mini with Retina display coming to stores later in November.

* Supplies may be limited and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

NASA laser comm test from the moon a big success

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Last month, I wrote about LADEE, NASA’s experiment in laser communication from the earth to the moon and back, replacing traditional radio communications.

Though there were a few glitches along the way, the experiment now works flawlessly and it looks like we have a much faster way to communicate with spacecraft near the Earth and, most importantly for potential Mars explorers, far from Earth as well.

“We could send 30 channels of HD video down from the spacecraft,” said Cornwell. “For example, you could do telepresence with this. Future missions to the moon or asteroids will have astronauts. They may need to see a doctor or need instructions on how to fix something and they could do it in HD video.”

A very important step for further space missions.

The world’s first video game

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Homage to William Higinbotham:

Fifty years ago, before either arcades or home video games, visitors waited in line at Brookhaven National Laboratory to play Tennis for Two, an electronic tennis game that is unquestionably a forerunner of the modern video game. Two people played the electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and used an oscilloscope for a screen. The game’s creator, William Higinbotham, was a physicist who lobbied for nuclear nonproliferation as the first chair of the Federation of American Scientists.

Mavericks review

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John Siracusa dives deep into Mavericks

DNS switching services and the NFL

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While I’ve posted on this topic before, the rules and the solutions are evolving. While the NFL remains committed to their deal with DirecTV, the public remains determined to watch the games on line in real time.

The only Americans who are technically allowed to watch NFL’s live streams are those customers who purchase DirecTV’s (DTV) all-access Sunday Ticket package, a deal worth $1 billion to the NFL.

What’s a cord-cutting fan to do? For just a couple of dollars you could digitally pretend to be from somewhere overseas, which would give you access to every single NFL game, live and in high definition, through your Internet connection. And while doing so almost certainly violates the NFL’s terms of service, it might not be otherwise illegal.

That’s the promise of Canadian startup Adfreetime.com, one of a handful of providers to offer what’s called a DNS-switching service.

Apple releases iOS 7.0.3

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Lots of good stuff in this update, including a calibration fix for the iPhone 5s accelerometer.

Apple’s live stream of today’s special event

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Click the link.

Live Streaming video requires Safari 4 or later on OS X v10.6 or later; Safari on iOS 4.2 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second- or third-generation Apple TV with software 5.0.2 or later.

Very excited.