“Ungoogleable”

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In December, the council unveiled its customary annual list of new Swedish words. Among the words that Swedes had begun using in 2012 was “ogooglebar” (‘ungoogleable’).

The California-based multinational soon got into a huff, asking the council to amend its definition. But the language experts refused to bow down to the demands, instead choosing a third option – removing the term all together.

Now Google is trying to control the words a country and its population can use? Really Google.

Google Reader’s readers

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MG Siegler:

I can’t help but get the feeling that the ramifications of Google killing off Reader are going to be far more wide-reaching than they may appear at first glance.

RSS is important to many sites and people in a variety of ways. MG looks at it from TechCrunch’s point of view and from his own site.

EZ-PR [Sponsor]

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Want great press for your startup, app or company? EZPR specializes in getting great stories written about what you’re working on. Call 646-569-9027 or email Ed Zitron to get started.

Teenager racks up £3,700 iPad app bill; father blames Apple

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‘In theory the local police station would contact me and ask for Cameron to come in to be interviewed.

‘I could make it difficult of course and refuse to bring him in and they would have to come and arrest him.

‘Really I just want to embarrass Apple as much as possible. Morally, I just don’t understand where Apple gets off charging for a child’s game.’

So the father reported the kid to the cops. This isn’t Apple’s problem, it’s the father’s problem. Deal with it and stop blaming other people.

Mobile vs console at Game Developers Conference

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If you only read one gaming statistic this week, let it be this one: In a pre-conference survey, GDC 2013′s organizers found that 58 percent of gaming professionals attending either last year’s conference or this one plan to release their next game on smartphones or tablets. That’s a tad greater than commitments to the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s next console, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U and Wii, which combined garnered “next game” pledges from 56.5 percent of developers.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this week plays out.

Analyzing the chords of 1300 popular songs

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First we’ll look at the relative popularity of different chords based on the frequency that they appear in the chord progressions of popular music. Then we’ll begin to look at the relationship that different chords have with one another. For example, if a chord is found in a song, what can we say about the probability for what the next chord will be that comes after it?

This is a three part series and is very interesting. I can’t imagine what must have gone into analyzing so many songs.

iPad is changing lives in Japan

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It’s great to see how businesses are using the iPad to make things better for its customers. I can’t see many iPads sticking around a restaurant in North America though.

iTunes Business Review

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Horace Dediu is getting set to publish a report on iTunes and how the business is doing. He put together an excerpt on his site.

In design, less is more

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Jake Savin:

Software should empower you, not distract you. It’s a tool, and like any good tool it should feel like a part of you. Once you know how to use it, the software itself should fade into your subconscious.

Jake makes some good points.

Design thinking

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I observed design students who were acting mindlessly, simply doing their assignments as presented. No creativity, no imagination, no questioning. That’s not what design thinking is about. As a result, I have changed my mind: Design Thinking really is special. Alas, it isn’t embraced by all designers, but where it exists, it is powerful.

Apple acquires indoor GPS-location firm

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The two-year-old startup has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user’s location in a building using Wi-Fi signals. It has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social networking apps. The company has a handful of employees, and its co-founders include former Google software engineering intern Joseph Huang.

Squarespace

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I’d like to thank Squarespace for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week.

Squarespace is a beautiful and intuitive website publishing platform that allows anyone to easily create professional web pages, blogs, and galleries all in one place.

Simply start with one of Squarespace’s award-winning designs, add images and content, connect your social accounts, and you’ll have a website that looks great on every device.

All Squarespace accounts come with award-winning 24/7 support, as well as cloud hosting, real-time analytics, and a free domain.

Whether you’re a creative professional, business owner, or blogger, Squarespace makes it easy to bring your ideas to life.

Start your website for free today at Squarespace.com.

Feedbin: A Google Reader alternative

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I saw this mentioned on App.net the other day and it looks interesting. I pinged its creator Ben Ubois and asked if it was meant to be a Google Reader alternative and he said yes. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I will.

A special guitar story

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More than two decades later he found out a dark, but compelling secret about the guitar. It had been stolen and once belonged to a well-known artist in the Austin, Texas, music scene.

It had been handmade by Ted Newman of Austin for alternative country artist Joe Ely, who has toured with The Clash, Lyle Lovett and Guy Clark, among others.

What a great story.

School principal foils iPad thief

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A high school principal took a hands-on approach to school safety in San Francisco when he chased down a suspected iPad thief and pulled him off a fence as he tried to escape, school officials and authorities said.

LG is making a watch too

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Korean technology giant LG Electronics is developing its own smart wristwatch, effectively joining the competition between Apple and Samsung Electronics who are making theirs as well.

Okay, so now we have LG, Samsung and Google that are making a watch to compete with a product that Apple is supposedly going to make.

Symbol fonts

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Brian Suda for A List Apart:

Now it’s time we embrace the third epoch in performance optimization: symbol fonts.

Embedding a symbol font lets us move some of those tiny icons into a single font file rather than a sprite. This has the same caching and file size benefits as a CSS sprite, as well as some additional benefits we’re only now realizing with high-resolution displays.

iPads at the Cleveland Museum of Art

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Throughout the museum, the iPad offers options for learning about items in the collection. “There is only so much information you can put on a wall, and no one walks around with catalogs anymore,” Mr. Franklin said. One of the app’s simplest features is also one of the most effective: in many cases, it can produce a photo of the artwork’s original setting — seeing a tapestry in a room filled with tapestries, rather than in a white-walled gallery, is revelatory.

User experience trends

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I spent a lot of time thinking about the user experience when redesigning The Loop a couple of years ago.