December 12, 2012
Apple’s attention to detail ∞
When you are willing to pay this level attention to detail you can be as great as Apple, and not a moment sooner.
Tablet-native journalism ∞
Felix Salmon wrote a very smart article on Tablet-native journalism. I don’t agree with everything he said, but it’s worth a read.
Australian police now warn about Google Maps ∞
Now police in Colac, west of Melbourne, say faults with Google maps are putting people’s lives at risk along the Great Ocean Road and in the southern Otways.
So it’s not just Apple after all.
Eric Schmidt says Android is clear winner with iOS ∞
Matthew Handrahan for Gamesindustry.biz:
Google chairman Eric Schmidt believes Android is now emerging as a clear winner in mobile, racing past Apple’s iOS in a manner similar to Microsoft in the desktop software market in the Nineties.
In related news, Donald Trump thinks that Trump Steaks are the best-tasting steaks in the world and Jim Koch thinks Samuel Adams beer is the best beer.
Squarespace Note ∞
Squarespace Note helps anyone record their ideas on the fly. Writers, bloggers, and others can use the app to record inspiration and ideas as they happen; notes can be sent via e-mail, or synced with a range of popular services including Squarespace, Evernote, Dropbox, and more.
Until yesterday I thought this app was just another way to interact with the Squarespace Web site, but it’s more than that. It can be used as a notes app. Oh, and if you shake the iPhone when the app is active, it changes from day to night mode.
GOG offers up Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition for free
If you’re hankering to relive some good old fashioned gaming fun on your Mac this week, check out GOG.com. They’re giving away Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition for free.
GOG.com – originally Good Old Games – is a gaming service for people with a taste for older computer games. The service provides a large library of classic video games that have been reworked to run on modern computers, and this year they began supporting the Mac too – already they have a ton of games available, with more planned for the future. They’re also selling new games from current Mac game publishers like Virtual Programming. When you sign up, you’ll get access to a bunch of additional free games to help get your GOG game collection off the ground.
Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition is the 1996 release from 3D Realms that helped put the gun-wielding flat-top muscleman in the forefront of gamers’ consciousness. Along with Doom and other games of the era, Duke Nukem 3D helped make to define the then-burgeoning first person shooter genre. In it, you play a wisecracking action hero saving the world from vile alien scum. The game’s ribald humor and risqué content (levels featuring strippers and porno shops) earned it no small measure of controversy when it was originally released, though it’s positively tame by today’s standards.
Bear in mind that this isn’t the MacSoft port of the game – like many other GOG offerings, this is the tried-and-true DOS version running inside an emulation layer on your Mac – but it’s the same game you might remember from the mid-90s, for sure, and it still holds up well.
Buying iTunes gift cards from Facebook ∞
Dave Caolo has a rundown on how to buy gift cards from Facebook in case that’s on your wish list this year.
Sporting News end its print edition ∞
“After 126 years of printing ink on paper with weekly, biweekly or monthly frequency, Sporting News will officially become a digital brand as of January 1, 2013. … Having spoken with many of our longtime subscribers, we recognize this is not a popular decision among our most loyal fans.”
Unfortunately, there aren’t enough loyal fans to pay the bills. Time to move on.
A question Twitter should ask itself ∞
Om Malik:
I asked a Twitter spokesperson to describe Twitter’s core design, product and engineering capabilities — stuff they are really good at. What is Twitter’s core competency? So far, no comment.
I don’t expect an answer, but I had to ask. In fact, it is a question that Twitter should ask itself. Because in doing so it will be able to confront the deeper issues that have plagued its relationship with who used to be its customers — people.
Redbox Instant aims to give Netflix a run for its money ∞
Associated Press:
Later this month, Redbox will offer an unlimited streaming-video plan that includes movies from Warner Bros. and pay TV channel Epix, along with four nights of physical DVD rentals, for $8 a month, or $9 a month if customers want Blu-ray discs.
The service will stream video on iOS and Android devices, along with select products from Samsung and LG, according to Redbox’s press release.
The service is designed to augment Redbox’s existing offering; the company provides automated kiosks that allow customers to rent recent top movie releases on Blu-ray and DVD for as low as $1 a day. The service also provides video game rentals, though that isn’t included in the streaming-video service.
December 11, 2012
S.F. supervisors back micro-apartments ∞
SFGate:
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to give pint-size apartments a try, approving legislation that would allow for the construction of hundreds of 220-square-foot residential units.Up to two people will be allowed to live in the micro-apartments that are estimated to go for $1,300 to $1,500 a month.
How much space do you think you really need to live in? Would you give up a lot of space in order to live in a desirable area – say downtown San Francisco or New York City?
Microsoft increases Surface production, moves up retail availability ∞
Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to make Microsoft Surface available at additional retailers as soon as mid-December. In addition, the company announced the extension of the Microsoft holiday stores, including the transition of several of the stores into permanent Microsoft retail outlets.
So far the only place to buy a Surface has been online or at Microsoft stores, so this means the Surface will be coming to a regular retailer near you soon.
Honest resume ∞
You have to appreciate the honesty.
“Earth at Night 2012” ∞
We’ve all seen the famous “Earth at Night” composite image showing our planet at night and how much light there still is, sometimes in unexpected places.
Now Google has a new global view of Earth’s city lights that is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite.
With this version of the image, you can even zoom in to get a better (if not necessarily higher resolution ) and closer view.
BuzzFeed backtracks after Oatmeal hit piece falls flat ∞
Jeff John Roberts for GigaOM:
Popular viral news site BuzzFeed this week slammed a cartoonist as an amoral hypocrite. Unfortunately, the story turns out to have been based on a grievous factual error — leading the cartoonist to issue a savage counterattack that has stoked popular anger at BuzzFeed and the author.
BuzzFeed quickly corrected the story, and editor-in-chief Ben Smith offered an apology of sorts on Tuesday — but the response still feels inadequate.
BuzzFeed should never have posted the original piece without much more carefully vetting it, and their attempt to smooth over their mistake after the fact smacks of second-rate New Media Douchebaggery – a weak correction tacked on to the end of the original smear piece.
Meet Jon Gnarr, Mayor of Reykjavik ∞
Jón Gnarr, Mayor of Reyjavík, Iceland has posted an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit. His responses are entertaining and interesting. No surprise – we’re talking about a guy who was diagnosed with mental retardation as a child, was a teenage punk rocker, drove a taxi, had a career as a comedian, and entered politics as a joke.
He offered questioners suggestions on cool Icelandic bands to check out, info on some of his favorite video games, and answered some serious questions about politics.
The key to the Apple TV puzzle
There is an ongoing debate about whether Apple will release a physical television or an enhanced box similar to what we have now. People on both sides of the debate square off every few weeks and rehash the same arguments. Ultimately, we get nowhere, but I think that’s because nobody is asking the right question.
There is no doubt that Apple is interested in the television market. While it is a hobby, they have kept it around for quite a while. That says to me that they see something in the future, we just don’t know what that something is.
Tim Cook has already said that Apple has an intense interest in the market, but while everyone is arguing about what size Apple’s television will be, I can’t help thinking what problem Apple will solve. For me, that is the key question.
Apple has transformed itself into a problem solving company. They did it with the iPhone, iPod and iPad and I think that’s what they will do when they enter the television market in a serious way.
Here’s the thing. Apple will not enter a market unless it feels it can make a significant impact on the current state of the industry. They will want to provide something different than what’s currently available, something that nobody else can do. Apple has the power to do that because they think about how to solve problems first and making money second.
Some have speculated that an Apple product will have Siri integration or maybe television channels as apps. You could argue that both of those ideas have some value.
There are significant problems to overcome in the television industry, but one of them is not what size TV will be released. Having content available for the consumer whenever they want it is a problem we would all like to see solved.
But that’s just one problem — there are many others.
The impact of Apple entering the television market will not be whether they release a physical television or a box — those are only the vehicles1 that will deliver the innovation that Apple will bring to the industry.
Of course, the hardware Apple uses as a delivery method could include innovations of their own. Siri integrated into the hardware is one example. ↩
Making money ∞
A picture — or chart — is worth a thousand words.
Google CEO Larry Page talks about Apple ∞
It’s always the company that steals shit that thinks everyone should share.
And what the hell is this answer from Page:
I mean, obviously we talk to Apple. We have a big search relationship with Apple, and so on, and we talk to them and so on.
He sounds like Miss South Carolina Teen USA Caitlin Upton talking about “the Iraq.”
DOJ may join lawsuit against Lance Armstrong ∞
Under the whistleblower law, the government can intervene in Mr. Landis’s suit, essentially pursuing the case on its own behalf. According to people with knowledge of the case, the Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice have been investigating Mr. Landis’s allegations and continue to weigh whether to join the case.
It’s been a tough year for Lance.
Switching from iPhone to Windows Phone ∞
Matt Rosoff posted a great piece of his switch to Windows Phone 8.
Field Notes: Expedition Edition ∞
You have to love Field Notes.
Lettering vs Calligraphy ∞
A new letter every day to vote on. I mostly chose calligraphy.
Technology is imperfect and people are idiots ∞
Jason Cartwright from Australian site TechAU on people using Apple Maps.
Ikea monkey heads to Canada primate sanctuary ∞
A primate sanctuary in Canada?
December 10, 2012
Australian government may be the data source for Maps debacle ∞
Richard Chirgwin at The Register:
To be blunt, there is a place called Mildura whose location is given as exactly where Apple put it – at least, there is in an authoritative source for such a location.
[…]
In this case, the Australian Gazetteer – the authoritative list of 300,000-plus placenames, complete with coordinates – includes two Milduras. One is the “real” town, the other is an entry for “Mildura Rural City”, coordinates -34.79724 141.76108.
This just keeps getting crazier.
Apple updates Maps, fixing one problem in Australia ∞
Charles Arthur for The Guardian:
Apple has updated its new maps system after police in Mildura, Australia, said a number of people trying to find the town of 30,000 people became hopelessly lost in the bush in scorching temperatures.
Great that this problem was fixed because it was so serious. I hate to think how many others are still out there.
“You bitter, uninspired, bottom-feeding ass” ∞
The Oatmeal and BuzzFeed are having somewhat of a tussle.
The Brontosaurus never existed ∞
NPR:
It may have something to do with all those Brontosaurus burgers everyone’s favorite modern stone-age family ate, but when you think of a giant dinosaur with a tiny head and long, swooping tail, the Brontosaurus is probably what you’re seeing in your mind.Well hold on: Scientifically speaking, there’s no such thing as a Brontosaurus.
Why can’t these damn scientists leave our childhoods alone!? Columbus didn’t discover America, Pluto isn’t a planet and now this!
iPhone 5 gets 300,000 pre-orders in China ∞
China Unicom is one of two mobile carriers in the country that will be selling the device, and has about 232 million mobile subscribers.
This is a huge opportunity for Apple.
Update: When I said it was huge, I meant a huge opportunity for Apple in the Chinese market.