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Great article by Horace Dediu looking at Apple and Amazon.

Amazon, Kobo and Sony are petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to permanently exempt e-readers from certain federal accessibility laws for the disabled, arguing that e-readers are barebones devices designed for a single purpose: reading text.

The petition is interesting because it argues that e-readers’ value lies in the fact that they are inherently limited devices and that any non-reading functions they include, like experimental web browsers, are “rudimentary” and not very useful. Amazon, Kobo and Sony say that if they were forced to comply with FCC regulations and make e-readers fully accessible to people with disabilities, the essential nature of the devices would change, making them more like tablets, more expensive and, overall, less useful for their express purpose.

Okay, admittedly your products suck balls, but to go against implementing accessibility is wrong.

‘In 2009 the Smithsonian found a “secret” message engraved in Abraham Lincoln’s watch by a watchmaker who was repairing it in 1861 when news of the attack on Fort Sumter reached Washington, D.C.

I’ll be speaking at SecondConf this year, closing out the conference on the last day. If you’re attending, bring your instrument because we’ll be having a jam session too.

If you can’t understand this then your an idiot.

I agree with Joe, I’d love to see the Post get back to that old style journalism. Clearly they need to still compete with the newer, quicker news items, but mixing it with some investigative journalism would be welcomed by everyone.

Peter Cohen:

An anniversary of sorts quietly passed us this weekend: Saturday, August 3rd, marked the 20th year since Apple began selling the Newton MessagePad, its then-groundbreaking tablet device with handwriting recognition. While the device was never hugely commercially successful, its development, creation and sale inevitably, inexorably lead us to where we are today, a “Post PC world” dominated by touch-sensitive smartphones and cellphones. The Newton’s influence can even be felt in Apple’s Mac line, with products like the MacBook Air.

I still remember the first time I saw one of these.

I must say, that was very good.

You know you have to be good to win a National Geographic photo contest.

[Via Jim Coudal]

This kind of reminds me of what the guys did at Barley—except Barley is finished and implemented.

MG Siegler did a great article on Jeff Bezos, but it still didn’t convince me that buying The Washington Post was a good deal.

The Washington Post Co. agreed Monday to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family’s stewardship of one of America’s leading news organizations after four generations.

Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world’s richest men, will pay $250 million in cash for The Post and affiliated publications to The Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses.

There is no doubt Bezos is a smart man, but I’ll admit, this move took me by surprise.

A collection of f-bombs from Malcolm Tucker, Peter Capaldi’s character in the ’09 comedy “In The Loop.” Capaldi is taking over as the 12th regeneration of the Doctor in the SF series Doctor Who.

Auto Adjust is a photo rescuing app for iPhone and iPad designed to fix photos as fast and as pain free possible. Contrast stretching, levels, curves, color correction, and noise reduction are right at your fingertips without having to dig through menus and popovers. There are no “Projects” or photo libraries that are stuck in the app. Photos are saved to your camera roll and photo stream at their original size with all EXIF and metadata preserved.

Matt Gemmell:

We act as if we take concentration for granted, yet everyone has had trouble keeping their mind on the task at hand. We litter our menubars with icons, keep notifications enabled, and run our email programs, chat apps and social media clients all day. Something’s got to give, and invariably it’s our creative output.

This is why I like the Notification Center so much. It’s not perfect, but it does allow me to see at a glance what’s coming in and if I need to deal with it without leaving the project I’m working on.

Some of these portraits are pretty good.

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It’s annoying as hell, but damn it’s funny.

Easily one of the funniest bits on TV.

The world of wine is unnecessarily complicated. Bottles are identified by exact percentages of specific grape varietals except for when they’re labeled according to where the grapes were grown regardless of where the winery is, or by the village name within the wine region of origin, or by how long the wine was cellared before its release… you get the point. It’s no wonder some people give it all up and just drink Heineken… Jim.

This issue’s free article from The Loop Magazine.

The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.’s Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said. Google declined to comment.

Thanks Google.

The flaws in Samsung Smart TVs, which have now been patched, enabled hackers to remotely turn on the TVs’ built-in cameras without leaving any trace of it on the screen. While you’re watching TV, a hacker anywhere around the world could have been watching you. Hackers also could have easily rerouted an unsuspecting user to a malicious website to steal bank account information.

I don’t even know how to express how creepy this is and how thank I am that I’m not using a Samsung TV.

This is funny.

Samsung’s marketing company is trying to buy off StackOverflow forum posters.