Seems Hoskins died yesterday. Best known for Mona Lisa and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, though my personal favorite was his take on Nikita Kruschev in the excellent Enemy at the Gates.

I knew it!

Whether it’s playing “Stairway to Heaven” until your fingers bleed or always finding yourself in the center of a group of people intent on singing “Wagon Wheel,” some things are common to all guitarists.

Including, as it turns out, their brain chemistry.

Fascinating. [Via Brother Stu]

Earlier reports that Google is building a new Silver brand of handsets got a big boost in this report (subscription required). This Tech Crunch article lays out the details.

To me, the biggest impact is this:

The phones would be designed to extend Google’s recent efforts to control its presence on Android devices more than it has in the past, like the mandatory ‘Powered by Android’ logo on boot screens and the folder of Google-created apps. Silver devices will also get more timely Android updates, like Nexus hardware.

Seems like a shot across Samsung’s bow.

In fact, part of the motivation behind Google’s Silver program is said to be winning back more control of Android from Samsung in particular. Reports have long suggested there could be some unease at Google about the amount of influence Samsung has over Android given its dominant global market share.

This move is sure to extend the fragmentation in the Android market, meaning fewer phones will be running the latest and greatest.

Mercury News:

Harold McElhinny, Apple’s lead attorney, urged the jury to side with Apple and order Samsung to pay as much as $2.2 billion in damages for violating the patents on five iPhone and iPad software features, such as slide-to-unlock and auto-word correct. Samsung, Apple estimates, has sold 37 million of the nine smartphone models and one tablet alleged to have copied those patents.

“Apple cannot simply walk away from its inventions,” McElhinny told the jury. “And so, here we are, 37 million acts of infringement later, and we’re counting on you for justice. The size of this illegal (conduct) is beyond comprehension.”

Samsung lawyers, however, again stressed that Apple’s allegations center on Google’s Android technology, which ran the Samsung devices, and that Apple is carrying out late CEO Steve Jobs’ 2010 internal pledge to conduct a “holy war” on the Mountain View search giant.

Hoping for justice here.

Every once in a while in my travels, I come across a place I just have to share with people. I spent the last week in Kilkenny, Ireland, much of it at the Zuni Hotel. This is a quaint place in the center of Kilkenny, close to all of the major sites, pubs and restaurants. The rooms were clean and modern, the restaurant superb, but the friendly, helpful staff really made my stay something to write about—they couldn’t do enough to try and make me comfortable and happy. If you ever go to Kilkenny, do yourself a favor and stay at Zuni.

It’s an interesting list, but I agree with their top choice.

Gerry Conway:

This is a very big deal, because it strikes to the heart of what made Comixology’s app a near-perfect venue for discovering and falling in love with new comics, a venue creators and publishers have been searching for since the collapse of mainstream newsstand distribution in the late 1970s-early ’80s: it destroys the casual reader’s easy access to an impulse purchase. And that’s a terrible development for the future of comics.

There are so many good parts of this article I could have quoted.

Marcin Treder:

Design is not principally measured by a product’s visual appeal; its aesthetic qualities.

It’s also measured by how it was planned and articulated, how it was built, how it functions. It’s about the design’s ability to improve upon the current reality.

It seems to me that it’s the function part that many people often leave out. It matters, a lot.

When Netflix signed their traffic peering deal with Comcast, that was a precedent. This deal with Verizon makes these deals a way of life.

The details of the arrangement are currently confidential. However, they surely must come as a foregone conclusion at least for Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, who said that he expected to sign a deal with the streaming company days after the Comcast agreement. However, the deal flies in the face of the stance Netflix has thusfar espoused, saying that preferential treatment violates their definition of true and total net neutrality. In an impassioned blog post, CEO Reed Hastings wrote, “The essence of net neutrality is that ISPs such as AT&T and Comcast don’t restrict, influence or otherwise meddle with the choices consumers make.” After the company made what many saw as a Faustian pact with Comcast in February for direct connectivity, Hastings conceded that the company would reluctantly make deals of that kind going forward, while still fighting for net neutrality.

A Faustian bargain indeed.

Bloomberg:

Nokia named Rajeev Suri chief executive officer, picking the head of its networks division to chart the company’s future and forecasting a return to sales growth after selling the mobile-phone business to Microsoft Corp.

The stock jumped the most in six months after Espoo, Finland-based Nokia also said it plans to spend about 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion) on dividends, share buybacks and debt reduction. The appointment of Suri, 46, ends the search for a replacement for Stephen Elop, who returned to Microsoft with the sale of Nokia’s handset division for $7.5 billion.

By choosing Suri, 149-year-old Nokia is intensifying its focus on wireless-network equipment as it faces a new start without the phones that made it famous. Suri, who has run the network unit for four years, needs to challenge larger Ericsson AB (ERICB) and Huawei Technologies Co. to reverse falling equipment revenue, which accounts for about 90 percent of Nokia’s sales.

Samsung is being attacked from both ends. Chinese brands like Huawei (largest telecom equipment maker in the world) are attacking from the low-end and Apple is attacking from the higher end. Tough strategic position.

From AT&T:

AT&T* today announced plans to launch a high-speed 4G LTE-based in-flight connectivity service for airlines and passengers in commercial, business and general aviation. The service, planned to be available as soon as late 2015, will be capable of providing in-flight broadband for customers including fast, reliable Wi-Fi and onboard entertainment.

Looks like a shot across the bow of in-flight internet provider Gogo.

[Via Business Insider]

The big stories here are the $100 price drop and the battery boost:

The new models also received a slight bump in battery life for iTunes movie playback, with the 11-inch model jumping from 8 hours to 9 hours and the 13-inch model from 10 hours to 12 hours.

That’s a nice little boost. Love this update.

The Code Conference takes over where All Things D left off. It’s already sold out.

Fascinating article by Gary Gibson.

At New Relic, we make it super easy to build faster and better performing mobile applications. Is using New Relic really that easy? Yes, yes it is. We know you’re busy coding (and reading The Loop), that’s why in just five minutes you can deploy New Relic and be looking at game-changing data. Our first-of-its-kind SaaS mobile app monitoring solution pinpoints problems quickly in your mobile app. Spend less time troubleshooting, get more positive reviews and focus your time where it matters – on developing new features and growing your user base. Use New Relic to track your app performance across devices and networks and get full end-to-end visibility. The people using your app will thank you for it.

I love this show. It’s satire, but underneath it all is well researched, sharp witted, down to the bones truth. And funny as hell, too.

x2y is a beautifully simple aspect ratio calculator for the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. Built for designers and web developers who need to resize images and videos in code, x2y calculates dimensions for you automatically. Just choose the original aspect ratio or size, enter one of the new desired dimensions, and the missing dimension will be calculated instantly.

This is a cool app.

Sounds to me like this is a very large exploit (impacts IE version 6 through 11) that is currently active, being used in attacks. If you use Windows, the quickest fix is to switch to another browser, at least until a patch is made available.

The zero-day code-execution hole in IE versions 6 through 11 represents a significant threat to the Internet security because there is currently no fix for the underlying bug, which affects an estimated 26 percent of the total browser market. It’s also the first significant vulnerability to target Windows XP users since Microsoft withdrew support for that aging OS earlier this month. Users who have the option of using an alternate browser should avoid all use of IE for the time being. Those who remain dependent on the Microsoft browser should immediately install EMET, Microsoft’s freely available toolkit that greatly extends the security of Windows systems.

The vulnerability is formally indexed as CVE-2014-1776. Microsoft has blog posts here, here, and here that lay out bare bones details uncovered at this early stage in its investigation. Although there is no exploited vulnerability in Adobe Flash, disabling the browser add-on will also neutralize attacks, analysts at security firm FireEye Research Labs wrote in a separate blog post published Sunday. Disabling vector markup language support in IE also mitigates attacks.

From Microsoft’s security advisory:

Microsoft is aware of limited, targeted attacks that attempt to exploit a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Internet Explorer 10, and Internet Explorer 11.

The vulnerability is a remote code execution vulnerability. The vulnerability exists in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated. The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer. An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website.

This is the cost of a widely splintered user base. To fix this, Microsoft has to patch all versions of IE. And what will this mean for Windows XP users? Microsoft has ended support for Windows XP. Will those users remain vulnerable unless they switch?

Microsoft is in a tough position here. Short term, I’d switch browsers or follow the instructions in this blog post, which might solve the problem for some.

Wired:

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (is) the cult-­stoking comedy series that provided awful films with hilarious, sharp, high-speed detractors’ commentary. MST3K is the story of a sarcastic Earth dweller—played initially by series creator Joel Hodgson and, in later years, by head writer Mike Nelson—who’s exiled to a ramshackle spaceship called the Satellite of Love, where he’s forced to watch an endless supply of crapola movies. Our hero’s response to such torture, naturally, is to unleash a torrent of withering one-­liners, or “riffs,” that he delivers with the help of a couple of robot pals.

I never actually saw the show but have heard many geeks and nerds refer to it lovingly.

This bike lock is pretty clever. Most of these U-shaped locks are notoriously easy to pick, often just using a simple Bic pen.

This lock offers no apparent keyway. And when you do find a place to put the key, all you get is a hollow cylinder. Watch the video to see how this works. The coolness starts at about the two minute mark.

If someone buys Jim lunch with Tim Cook, pick me up one of these locks, too!

In short: the FCC would allow network owners (your Verizons, Comcasts, etc.) to create Internet “fast lanes” for companies (Disney, The Atlantic) that pay them more. For Internet activists, this directly violated the principle of net neutrality, which has been a hot-button issue in Silicon Valley for a long time.

Net neutrality is the idea that any network traffic—movies, web pages, MP3s, pictures—can move from one place (our servers) to any other place (readers’ computers phones) without “discrimination.”

Definitely a hot-button topic.

You have to respect someone with this much talent.