RIM’s future

Written by

Jean-Louis Gassée:

The trouble for RIM is simply stated: Too little too late, while the money runs out. If only the cure were as easily put.

Could have said it better myself.

Apple turns technology into art

Written by

Ben Bajarin:

They create objects of desire and out of that focus comes a visually and easy to use user experience paradigm that drives emotional responses in consumers of their products.

Great way to put it. Apple products, like few others, elicit a response from its users. It’s not just the design or the interface, it’s the whole package.

BMW i8 Concept Spyder

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Barely a year after the unveiling of the BMW i8 Concept, BMW i unveiled the second variant of this innovative hybrid sports car. Like its Coupe sibling, the emotionally charged BMW i8 Concept Spyder combines intelligent lightweight design with the leading-edge drivetrain technology eDrive, while its open-top two-seater construction delivers an even more intense driving experience.

Impressive.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame loses Lemmy’s ‘Ace of Spades’ jacket

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“They lost my ‘Ace Of Spades’ tour jacket,” Lemmy said. “They had this heavy metal presentation thing and they said, could they borrow a pair of boots and a bass and my ‘Ace Of Spades’ tour jacket, so I lent it to them, and they said they lost it. A likely story. Look me in the eye and tell me again. One of their girlfriends is wearing it, no doubt.”

Idiots.

Creepy

Written by

Nick Bilton for The New York Times:

Girls Around Me uses Foursquare, the location-based mobile service, to determine your location. It then scans for women in the area who have recently checked-in on the service. Once you identify a woman you’d like to talk to, one that inevitably has no idea you’re snooping on her, you can connect to her through Facebook, see her full name, profile photos and send her a message.

C.R.E.E.P.Y.

German soccer fans hold arrows pointing to the net to help scoreless team

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During a match against Berliner AK 07, a group of fans stood behind the visiting team’s goal, each with a large, brightly colored arrow pointing to the net so their team would know where to shoot. And just to clarify their intentions, another group of fans held up a banner that read, “We’ll show you where the goal is!”

WOW, BRUTAL!

Apparently the team hadn’t scored in five games.

RIM is now not exiting the consumer market

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Patrick Spence, its managing director of global sales and regional marketing, told British news site Pocket-Lint that “The claim that RIM has said it will withdraw from the consumer market is wholly inaccurate.” He says that the company will still go after “targeted consumer segments” but may seek partners for stuff such as media-consumption apps.

Come on RIM, seriously?

It’s about the experience, not features

Written by

Marcelo Somers:

Unfortunately, most organizations and even start ups still start with a list of features or things they want to build. People don’t consume features. They experience activities that add to their lives.

This is why Apple has been so successful. They build a problem to solve a problem and make our experience better. Consumers may not understand that’s what happening, but when they use an Apple product, they immediately get it.

Apple makes the difficult look very easy. There’s a lot going on under those simple-to-use apps, but they hide all of that from us so we can just get things done.

Sidekick 4.0

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Many thanks to Oomph software for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. If you haven’t seen the special “beard page” they made, you really have to take a look.

This has to be the most amazing sponsor page ever made. The guys at Oomph made this page to promote Sidekick as the sponsor on The Loop this week. (Tip: click on the lightning bolt on the right hand side).

Sidekick is a stealthy little Mac app that automatically updates laptop settings based on where you are. It takes care of annoying tasks so you can focus on what you need to do.

Foxconn workers wonder why their hours are being cut

Written by

Reuters:

But at the Foxconn factory gates, many workers seemed unconvinced that their pay wouldn’t be cut along with their hours. For some Chinese factory workers – who make much of their income from long hours of overtime – the idea of less work for the same pay could take getting used to.

What would people in North America or Europe think if a Chinese company came over and said “we’re cutting back your hours and the amount of overtime you can work.” I’m betting it wouldn’t be a welcomed decision.

I understand what Foxconn is doing and if the workers end up benefiting from it, then that’s good.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos discovers Apollo 11 engines

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The original rocket engines — “one and a half million pounds of thrust, 32 million horsepower, and burning 6,000 pounds of rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen every second” — that powered that historic launch fell to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and have not been seen in the four decades since. But that won’t be the case for long. Today on his blog, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos announced that he has located the rockets, and he plans to bring them to the surface.

Wow, that’s impressive.

Heineken Design Challenge winners

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Selected from a pool of six finalists among more than 30,000 entries from 100 countries, design student Rodolfo Kusulas of Monterrey, Mexico and freelance designer Lee Dunford of Sydney took top honors in the Heineken Limited Edition Design Contest, and their winning design will be featured on the brand’s 140th anniversary bottle.

No, no, no! I like my Heineken in a green bottle.

Android has generated just $550 million since 2008

Written by

Charles Arthur:

Android generated less than $550m in revenues for Google between 2008 and the end of 2011, if figures provided by the search giant as part of a settlement offer with Oracle ahead of an expected patent and copyright infringement trial are an accurate guide.

Almost 50% of U.S. mobile subscribers have smartphones

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Overall, Android continues to lead the smartphone market in the U.S., with 48 percent of smartphone owners saying they owned an Android OS device. Nearly a third (32.1%) of smartphone users have an Apple iPhone, and Blackberry owners represented another 11.6 percent of the smartphone market. Among recent acquirers who got their smartphone within the last three months, 48 percent of those surveyed in February said they chose an Android and 43 percent bought an iPhone.

MailTags 3

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MailTags 3 is an enhancement for Apple’s Mail client in OS X 10.7 to add powerful tagging and search capabilities. MailTags 3 seamlessly integrates into Mail.app to make the attachment, search, and collation of tags, such as keywords and notes, a powerful part of email management.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about MailTags.

An iPad firestorm about nothing

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Apple’s newest iPad hit the market three weeks ago and already their have been a number of controversies surrounding the device. As expected, all of the issues fizzled out because there was really nothing there in the first place.

My latest column on Techpinions.

Samsung ships 5 million Galaxy Notes, but who cares about ‘shipped’ numbers

Written by

Macworld:

Samsung Electronics has shipped 5 million units of its “smart notepad”, the Galaxy Note, surpassing most expectations, according to analysts.

How can shipping 5 million units possible surpass anyone’s expectations? That is not the number of Galaxy Notes sold, that’s just the number that Samsung managed to get out of its factory.

Samsung could ship 100 million Galaxy Notes and have them sit in a warehouse somewhere — that doesn’t mean they sold 100 million. I’m never impressed with shipped numbers because they don’t mean anything.

Loren Brichter talks about pull-to-refresh

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It was recorded before this became news (about a week ago actually), so it’s kinda weird it came up in this chat! Loren talks about how he came up with it and about the patent itself, but also talks about much more interesting things regarding being an indie dev, supporting your apps, paid upgrades and dispenses some sage wisdom on those topics.

Loren is the guy that came up with the concept. Worth a listen.

Tim Cook visits Foxconn

Written by

Reuters:

Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, on his first trip to China as the chief executive officer, has visited an iPhone production plant run by the Foxconn Technology Group, which is being accused of improper labor practices.