Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web:
So, at this point it appears that the newspaper may have taken some liberties with its quotes of Schiller’s interview. A new quote from Schiller simply says “Apple has always focused on providing the best products for its consumers, we’ve never blindly chased market share.”
What an absolute clusterfuck.
Travis Bloom is Microsoft fan and even he sees the flaws.
Mike Abary, the head of Samsung’s PC and tablet business in the U.S., tells CNET that the company will not be releasing its Windows RT device in the U.S. because retail partners don’t see strong demand and because the value proposition for Windows RT isn’t clear to consumers.
Ouch.
Quvenzhané Wallis reads her acceptance speech from her iPhone.
Lee Hutchinson for Ars Technica:
The image displayed on the scope isn’t a direct visual, but rather a video image taken through the scope’s objective lens. The Linux-powered scope produces a display that looks something like the heads-up display you’d see sitting in the cockpit of a fighter jet, showing the weapon’s compass orientation, cant, and incline.
Linux in a high-powered hunting rifle. I’m pretty sure this is how every robot apocalypse movie ever made begins.
Malware expert and F-Secure Chief Risk Officer Mikko Hyppönen recently posted a bizarre photo to his Twitter account taken from the screen of his Windows Phone 8-equipped device.
It’s a pretty plain vanilla Windows error message indicating that something went wrong with the boot process. The first step to recover from the problem, according to the error message, is to “Insert your Windows installation disc.”
Uh. Where?
Don Melton:
Steve started the Safari presentation with, “So, buckle up.” […]
And for the entire six minutes and 32 seconds that Steve used Safari on stage, I don’t remember taking a single breath. I was thinking about that network failure during rehearsal and screaming inside my head, “Stay online, stay online!” We only had one chance to make a first impression.
What a great story.
Yesterday we posted a an article link entitled “CNet Bullshit” linking to CNET’s “Best of CES Finalists” awards page. More specifically, to a paragraph tacked to the bottom of the page that read:
The Dish Hopper with Sling was removed from consideration due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product.
As you might be able to tell from the title of our coverage, Jim wasn’t very pleased with what happened. Some of you may be scratching your head about it, though. And for you, John Herman at Buzzfeed has a good breakdown of what happened and why. Click the link to read more.
Nathan Olivarez-Giles for Wired:
As a gamer, I can’t help but be wowed by Nvidia’s Project Shield. But after getting to use the Android-powered portable gaming console/controller/mini-tablet hybrid device here at CES, I see some potential pitfalls.
The new Project Shield device currently in development from Nvidia. Announced earlier this week, Project Shield combines game controller, screen and Android operating system in one. It also interfaces with certain Nvidia cards in PCs to stream graphics to its built in screen, so you can play PC games on your device. Neat idea, but how well does it work in practice? Click the link for details.
Eight Wirecutter writers and I convened at the Consumer Electronics show this week. You know, CES–The big gadget trade thing that serves as a sneak peek into the future of hardware. Instead of soaking your news feed with hundreds of posts, we spent most of our time filtering 99.99% of the stuff out. This is what’s left.
Thanks Brian and crew for filtering it down for us.
The Dish Hopper with Sling was removed from consideration due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product.
CNET is supposed to be a news organization. News should be free from such bullshit.
Apple on Thursday will receive a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award during a special reception in Las Vegas.
Apple is being given an award for an “Eco-system for Real Time Presentation of TV Content to Mobile Devices without the use of Specialized Television Hardware.” It’s not quite clear what that is, but it sounds a lot like the company’s cloud infrastructure.
According to the organization, “awards are presented to an individual, company, or to a scientific or technical organization for developments and/or standardization involved in engineering technologies which either represent an extensive improvement on existing methods or are so innovative in nature that they materially have affected the transmission, recording, or reception of television.”
The event takes place tonight at the Bellagio Ballroom in Las Vegas.
Classic.
Still, AutoRip is painfully close to something I’ve found myself pining for since starting to use a Kindle e-reader: free Kindle copies of purchased physical books.
A lot of people would love that.
The challenge for Qualcomm was to find a way to showcase their technology and keep the keynote about them and not the products of the companies that use their technology. Not only did they pull it off, they did it in style.
Everyone in the tech industry looked at the Qualcomm keynote and said WTF? Except the Ottawa Citizen. Now you know which Canadian site to never read.
Empty states are places in apps that have no content or data. They are empty. A blank page. Traditionally empty states are overlooked as most designers focus on how best to display lots of content or data.
Great article. When I see an app where the empty pages have seen some attention, I’m confident that the designer has thought about the details of the app. Strangely, it’s these pages that often make you feel like the designer missed something.
While Apple released one new iPhone last year, Samsung let loose a whopping 37 different phone variations. (For those keeping score, HTC released 18, Nokia introduced nine, and LG launched 24.) Certainly good hardware design played a role in Samsung’s healthy sales. But it also didn’t hurt that the company flooded the market.
Apple puts all of its efforts into making one great product for users. Clearly everyone else is just throwing as much at the market as they can.
Scarbee Rickenbacker Bass captures the unmistakable sound of a Rickenbacker 4003 for the first time in software. Delivering meaty, low end thunder and the crisp, defined midrange that has shaped rock and pop history, Rickenbacker BASS is the first software instrument to be officially approved by Rickenbacker.
Sounds good.
Matthew Panzarino for The Next Web:
Apple SVP of Worldwide marketing Phil Schiller gave an interesting interview to Chinese newspaper Shanghai Evening News yesterday. In the interview, he directly addresses the rumors surrounding a potential cheaper iPhone, saying that this will ‘never be the future of Apple products’.
This doesn’t entirely discount the possibility that Apple is looking to move into emerging markets, but Schiller’s comments reinforce Apple’s image as an innovator rather than a mass-market supplier.
Rebecca J. Rosen’s well-intended editorial in The Atlantic suggests that the right course of action to promote gender diversity at tech conferences is to simply boycott the ones that feature all-male speaker lists. The editorial has been bouncing around the blogosphere since it was posted last week, and Rosen’s comments are a response to a larger debate about gender diversity that’s been bouncing around the tech industry for some time.
Brittany Tarvin, in an editorial on her own Tumblr blog, thinks this is the wrong approach and offers more constructive suggestions, like mentoring a minority in your own personal network to speak on topics they’re knowledgeable and passionate about, and advocate for them to be part of the speaker list at conferences you attend or are interesting in.
Tarvin’s point, if I’ve interpreted it correctly, is that in order to affect change, sometimes it’s more important to act positively than it is to just say no.
If the topic interests you, make sure to read both posts and feel free to share your thoughts with us.
Amazon.com on Thursday announced the launch of AutoRip, a new service that gives customers free MP3 versions of audio CDs they’ve already purchased. The tracks are available for download through Amazon’s Cloud Player service. What’s more, this applies to CDs you’ve bought through Amazon as far back as 1998.
The files are presented in MP3 format, encoded at 256 Kbps. If you’re concerned with your Cloud Player library suddenly being populated over capacity, don’t worry – Amazon says the new files don’t count against Cloud Player storage limits. The new files should be visible immediately the next time you log into your Amazon Cloud Player account.
Not all audio CDs purchased from Amazon.com are eligible for the AutoRip treatment. The company counts the number now in the thousands. A new graphical embellishment is used on Amazon.com catalog pages to signify whether the CD is eligible for AutoRip.
Amazon also used the opportunity to take a swipe at Apple. “In many cases, customers can buy an AutoRip CD, including the free digital copy, for less than they would pay for only the digital album at iTunes,” the company said in a statement.
[Editor’s note: A quick check of my own Cloud Player account shows hundreds of new tracks in the “recently added” section, including many that for whatever reason, I haven’t ripped to my iTunes library. Nifty!]
I love this little guy.
Dave Masters, The Sun:
A pub has started serving 150oz supersized steaks – ten times bigger than your average portion and believed to be the largest in the world.
The outrageous rumps are 12 inches wide, 12 inches long and four inches thick.
They tip the scales at 9lb and more than half a stone – about the same weight as a newborn baby.
Glad to see gluttony isn’t a uniquely American virtue.
The only explanation is that the people doing the social media hate their own company.
This small but important update shuts down a widely used scam tactic, where developers would upload game screenshots to get an app approved by Apple and then switch them out with screenshots from another popular app.
Great move by Apple.
Philip Michaels for TechHive:
In a world where dozens of games can fit on a device tucked neatly into your pocket, why would you want a pinball machine to call your very own? Because pinball machines are undeniably awesome. And the machines made by Stern Pinball fit very nicely into your home.
One of the first truly awesome, “OMG I WANT THIS” things I’ve seen from CES coverage this year. Seems like the perfect addition to a man-cave, play room or just about anywhere in the house I’d like to hang out for a few hours.
Now, which one of my kids do I sell to organ harvesters to come up with the money? Decisions, decisions…
Joseph Leray for Touch Arcade:
Let’s clear the air: clean lines and futuristic stylings aside, Pixelbite Games’ Repulze [$0.99] shares little in common with Wipeout. One is an iOS racer that costs less than a dollar, the other is one of Sony’s most popular and enduring racing franchises. That’s not to discount Repulze, though — it’s from the same team that developed the excellent Reckless Racing 2 [$1.99]. Whereas RR2 included drifting mechanics and a dynamic difficulty system, Repulze is comparatively stripped down: it only does one thing, but it does it really well.
So begins a very thorough review of a new racing game I downloaded the other day from the App Store. I’m having a lot of fun with it and it looks like Leray did too. If you’re fond of fast and furious futuristic racing games, there’s a lot to recommend there. Check out Touch Arcade’s review.
