RIM selling its corporate jet

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Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), which has lost 95 percent of its market value since 2008, is selling one of its two business jets under a plan to save $1 billion in operating costs, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Wait a minute. You’re telling me that while thousands of employees lost their jobs, market share tanked and the stock price plummeted, executives kept a corporate jet? Yep, everything is just fine at RIM.

Ballmer is off his meds again

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“But we are not going to let any piece of this [go uncontested to Apple],” shouted Ballmer. “Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch.”

But that already happened on your watch.

Stupid San Francisco

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Erica Ogg:

Just days after news hit that Apple no longer wants its computers and monitors evaluated for EPEAT certification, the first public agency has said it will no longer be allowed to buy Macs as a result.

Instead of looking at a certificate, why not visit Apple’s environmental Web site and see what the company is actually doing with its products to help the environment.

This is why iCloud isn’t in more apps

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Kyle Baxter:

…naturally I’ve also been thinking through how syncing should work. This seems like an easy question to answer: iCloud. If only. I wish it were that easy, but it’s not.

As a user, I want iCloud implemented in everything I use. However, for developers, there are reasons why iCloud doesn’t make sense yet.

Unofficial Spotify app on Kickstarter

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As you might or might not know, Spotify terms and conditions don’t allow developers to make money from app sales or advertising. That means I need your support to make this a reality.

Nexus 7 is not a game changer

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Jerry Hildenbrand, Android Central:

The Nexus 7 doesn’t bring a compelling reason to “go Google” when considering a tablet purchase like we were hoping.

[Via iMore]

More ways the iPad can’t create cool things

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Wes Ball goes through his workflow during the production of his short film, RUIN.

Incredible video, but if you go to about 1:30 he talks about using the iPad to create the trees for the project (Yes, I said create). […]

iPad helps scientists

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Joel Mathis, Macworld:

It wasn’t so long ago that Chris Grant would regularly take a whole laboratory’s worth of equipment with him into the wilderness. These days, he just takes an iPad.

This must be wrong. The iPad is only for consumption.

Busy

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An interesting look at being busy from Rob Pegoraro.

RIM’s positive outlook could get it sued

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“They’re going to get sued and they should get sued because I think a closer look at the record is likely to unearth knowing and willful misrepresentation,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, the former president of Apple’s products division and the founder of the software maker Be, who is now a venture capitalist and blogger in Palo Alto, Calif. “When the C.E.O. says there’s nothing wrong with the company as it is, it’s not cautious, it doesn’t make sense.”

Apple kills sites selling iOS betas

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Federico Viticci:

While most of our emails bounced, we heard back from one of the site owners (who asked to remain anonymous), who confirmed his hosting provider took down the site after a complaint for copyright infringement by Apple.

This is a good thing. You’re not allowed to sell access to the beta, so they should be shutdown. Here’s the thing — these OS updates are betas and most people don’t realize the damage they can do to their phones if something goes wrong. As a developer, I have full access to the beta, but I still don’t have it on my phone.

Judge: Samsung ‘not as cool’ as Apple

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Samsung Electronics defeated Apple in the latest spat in the rivals’ patent wars when a British judge ruled Samsung’s Galaxy tablets did not infringe the U.S. company’s designs for the iPad because they were “not as cool”.

I laughed. Hard.

One announcement away from destroying the Nexus

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Abdel Ibrahim:

But unfortunately for Amazon and Google, as good as their impending tablets are shaping up to be, Apple’s got something up its sleeve, too.

I agree with Abdel on Google, but not as much with Amazon. When Apple releases its smaller iPad, all tablet manufacturers are going to feel the heat — there is no doubt in my mind about that. However, I believe people purchase the Amazon products for a different reason. They buy into the Kindle brand as opposed to just purchasing a tablet. While some people may choose to buy the smaller iPad, many will continue to buy the Kindle because it does the one thing they really want from it — read books.

Canadian weather

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I mentioned Canadian weather on Amplified the other day, which lead Dan Ruswick to make this funny page.

Christianity isn’t the only religion?

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It’s an honest mistake, assuming that the Constitution only protects your own personal megachurch faith. But one Louisiana Republican is learning the hard way that religious school vouchers can be used to fund education at all sorts of religious schools, even Muslim ones. And while she’s totally in favor of taxpayer money being used to pay for kids to go to Christian schools, she’s willing to put a stop to the entire program if Muslim schools are going to be involved.

Hate

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Erin Gloria Ryan:

Obscene images, hate sites and a game where people are invited to beat you up have been inflicted on Anita Sarkeesian.

Just terrible.

The bullshit story of the week

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There’s a a lot of shit stories out there, but a site called “Trusted Reviews” outdid everyone. They actually did a comparison between the Microsoft Surface and the iPad to see which one was better.

How in the sweet hell do you compare a product that isn’t on the market, nobody has touched and we don’t know the full specs or even price.

Bullshit.

Who wrote this shit?

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg talking about his speech at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. […]

Marketcircle Daylite 4

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

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Learn more and download your free trial at Marketcircle.

Def Leppard will re-record hits to spite record company

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“Our contract is such that they can’t do anything with our music without our permission, not a thing. So we just sent them a letter saying, ‘No matter what you want, you are going to get “no” as an answer, so don’t ask.’ That’s the way we’ve left it. We’ll just replace our back catalog with brand new, exact same versions of what we did.”

The band doesn’t like the way the record company is paying them (or not paying them) for digital downloads, so they will re-record and bypass the company altogether.

The stylus

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I have mercilessly ridiculed products like the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Microsoft Surface for including a stylus. Here’s why. […]