December 4, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Matt Alexander:
I have no doubt that QNX is promising, but why on Earth would you push it when it’s not even compatible with your flagship email software? Why would you build Android emulation when you’re looking to develop your own App Store?The whole project screams of mismanagement, and it’s time to stop. Stop trying to peddle subpar products to the unsuspecting Christmas shopper, stop advertising it, and stop defending it.
I only disagree with one thing Matt said in this article — I don’t believe RIM will mount an offensive in the coming months. It seems to me the problems with RIM come from the top and until the co-CEOs are replaced, the company doesn’t stand a chance of making a comeback.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I’d like to thank Fantastical for sponsoring this week’s RSS on The Loop.
Fantastical is the Mac calendar you’ll actually enjoy. Create events with simple sentences like “Go to lunch with John on Tuesday” or “Summer vacation 6/9-6/16.” Easily locate and search for your events with Fantastical’s beautiful and easy to navigate calendar. Fantastical works with iCal, BusyCal, Entourage, and Outlook and is compatible with OS X Lion and Snow Leopard.
Try Fantastical now for free, or purchase it from the Flexibits Store or on the Mac App Store for only $19.99.
December 2, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
CNN:
Most of Gowalla’s employees, including founder Josh Williams, will move to Facebook’s offices in Palo Alto. The team will work on Facebook’s Timeline feature, which launched at this year’s F8 conference and is gradually rolling out to Facebook’s 800 million members.
Probably a great deal for Gowalla.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Marco Arment does an extensive review of each device.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Erik Sass:
But cash flow remained absurd, with revenues of $3 billion in 1983 and $2.3 billion in 1984, netting Escobar alone at least $1.3 billion in profit.Around this time he bought a Learjet to fly cash out of the U.S., and the Cartel’s expenses included $2,500 per month for rubber bands for bricks of cash.
That’s a lot of rubber bands.
[Via Matt Alexander]
Boing Boing’s Rob Beschizza offers this helpful PR tip in comparing four different wireless carriers’ statements about CarrierIQ. Click through for the image.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Wow, so many beautiful cars.
From RIM’s advisory this morning:
As previously disclosed, RIM has a high level of BlackBerry PlayBook inventory. The Company now believes that an increase in promotional activity is required to drive sell-through to end customers. This is due to several factors, including recent shifts in the competitive dynamics of the tablet market and a delay in the release of the PlayBook OS 2.0 software. As a result, RIM will record a provision that reflects the current market environment and allows it to expand upon the aggressive level of promotional activity recently employed by the Company in order to drive PlayBook adoption around the world.“RIM is committed to the BlackBerry PlayBook and believes the tablet market is still in its infancy. Although a number of factors have led to the need for an inventory provision in the third quarter, we believe the PlayBook, which will be further enhanced with the upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 software, is a compelling tablet for consumers that also offers unique security and manageability features for the enterprise,” said Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “Early results from recent PlayBook promotions indicate a significant increase in demand across most channels. We look forward to continuing to grow the installed base of PlayBook users and to attracting more and more developers to expand the volume of applications, content and services that leverage the power of the industry leading QNX-based platform.”
In other words: The PlayBook sucks balls and the only way we can get rid of the warehouse full of product is to give it away.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
The Star:
George Campbell, 45, of Conestogo, Ont., and Paul Alexander Wilson, 38, of Kitchener, pleaded guilty to one charge of mischief in Richmond Provincial Court on Wednesday.They were each given suspended sentences and one year’s probation, and ordered to pay restitution to Air Canada of $35,878 each, and barred from having any contact with Air Canada crews or flying that carrier during the probation period.
They certainly weren’t celebrating record PlayBook sales.
This news is sure to warm the hearts of many old-school Mac gamers: Bungie Software’s legendary first-person shooter Marathon series has been rebuilt using a new game engine and re-released for free. They’re available for Mac OS X, of course, along with Linux and Windows.
Before Myth, before Halo, Bungie earned a place of honor in the pantheon of great game developers when it introduced Marathon, a first-person shooter that came out on the Mac. The game series was innovative for its time, featuring network play, advanced physics and Bungie’s legendary attention to detail and immersive storyline.
The game engine making it possible is Aleph One, an open source project that combines the Marathon game code with a modern OpenGL shader, Internet-based multiplayer support, modern mouse look and gamepad support and plug-in support for future modifications. Aleph One’s development has carried on for 12 years, and the Aleph One development community is celebrating the milestone with this release, which incorporates all three Marathon games: Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity.
Marathon now has a modern Heads Up Display (HUD), high resolution graphics and extensive changes to the game scenario. Marathon 2 gets the high-resolution graphics that were previously only available in the Xbox Live Arcade release of the game. And Marathon Infinity also gets a high-res overhaul.
The Marathon Open Source repository also makes many third-party scenarios and network maps available for download.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Dan Frommer gives his advice on how to write a better blog. There are definitely some good tips in here.
One of my main rules for writing: Be honest with yourself and your readers.
December 1, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Mashable:
On Thursday, Napster will officially merge with Rhapsody, the largest on-demand music service in the United States. Rhapsody signed an agreement last month to purchase Napster for an undisclosed sum from its parent company, Best Buy.
I didn’t even know Napster was still around.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Ian Hamilton:
But a roof with solar panels that help extend the range of your vehicle? Instant feedback so I can tell exactly how much my driving style impacts my mileage? An electric car that feels perfectly smooth as you drive? When you press the accelerator (not the gas pedal) it instantly moves? It doesn’t require gasoline but can use it if you need it? And it rides so silently it needs a noisemaker to let pedestrians know it’s coming?
I’m so jealous of Ian right now.
In what is surely the most ridiculous, manufactured controversy in – well, at least 15 minutes – Apple has been accused of having a pro-life stance because Siri, the voice-based assistant built in to the iPhone 4S, is unable to locate nearby abortion clinics upon request. I won’t be linking to any of the relevant links, because they’re not worth your time, and I don’t want to give them traffic.
What some of the more hysterically-minded conspiracy theorists fail to acknowledge or understand is that Siri is simply a front-end for a very sophisticated – but still very fallible – search engine database. And one of the first things that any beginning programmer learns is GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. In other words, your software is only going to be as good as the data it’s working with. What’s more, Siri is a beta product, and Apple is striving to improve it.
This is basically what Apple said to the New York Times when asked.
Hopefully some enterprising iOS developer is already on the case and working on a GPS-based abortion clinic-finding app as we speak.
This is one of those days that working in Apple’s PR department must be a truly thankless task.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Reuters:
Apple’s iPhone edged past major news events, celebrities and pop stars as the top searched term on the Web in 2011, according to Yahoo!
Not to be rude, but Yahoo only holds 15.2 percent market share. I’d be interested to know where “iPhone” falls on Google since it controls 65.6 percent of the market.
November 30, 2011
Written by Peter Cohen
Jared Newman for Technologizer:
Effective December 5, the magazine and its website are shutting down after 22 years of publication. GamePro’s website says PCWorld.com will take over editorial (both publications are owned by IDG), while IndustryGamers reports that GamePro Media will focus on custom publishing, such as specialized gaming publications for trade shows and events. There will be layoffs, but it’s not clear how many people are affected.
Very, very sorry to hear this news. GamePro has been a great magazine over its life, but it’s no secret that the magazine publishing industry – the publishing industry in general – has fallen on very hard times and is struggling. My heart goes out to my former IDG colleagues who are losing their jobs as a result of this change.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
For the holiday season-to-date, $15 billion has been spent online, marking a 15-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending, up 22 percent versus year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.
I guess people have money after all.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
MarkdownMail is the easiest way to compose HTML emails and blog posts on your iPhone or iPod touch. Based around John Gruber’s popular Markdown markup syntax, you can now send emails with bold text, italics, bulleted lists and more. MarkdownMail will convert your Markdown formatted messages into an HTML message that you can send to your friends, family or colleagues.
Justin makes great software.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
HP CEO Meg Whitman:
“It’s possible if you integrate the tablets,” she was cited as saying by the French daily. “We will try to be champion again in 2013. It will take time for the products that I have influence on to make it to the market.
This echoes recent research from Canalys.
Last night John Gruber pointed out how bad The Next Web was to load in a Web browser. Here’s what Gruber found using Safari’s inspector on The Next Web:
I measured a few of their articles using Safari’s web inspector, and Cody wasn’t exaggerating. One article at TheNextWeb weighed in at over 6 MB and required 342 HTTP requests. 73 different JavaScript scripts alone. Absurd. I did a reload on the same page a few minutes later and it was up to 368 HTTP requests but weighed “only” 1.99 MB.
It got me thinking about some of the other sites I visit, so I did some tests loading the homepage of each site and here’s what I found. There are three stats for each site — the number of http requests, the size of the page and how long it took the page to download. To be fair, I also included The Loop.
Clearly most of the Web sites I tested are pretty good. At least they don’t come close to The Next Web.
The Loop: 38 requests; 38.66KB; 1.89 secs
Daring Fireball: 23 requests; 49.82KB; 566 milliseconds
Macworld: 130 requests; 338.32KB; 8.54 secs
Ars Technica: 120 requests; 185.99KB; 2.08 secs
Apple: 46 requests; 419KB; 1.39 secs
CNN: 196 requests; 269.41KB; 4 secs
BGR: 368 requests; 2.74MB; 35.33 secs
AppleInsider: 141 requests; 649.39KB; 5.64 secs
Facebook: 137 requests; 993.54KB; 11.19 secs
MacStories: 119 requests; 2.16MB; 2.13 secs
Written by Peter Cohen
Amy Thomson, for Bloomberg (via BusinessWeek):
Nokia Siemens aims to eliminate 17,000 jobs by the end of 2013, sell real estate, cut businesses and consolidate jobs and suppliers to reduce annual expenses by 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in the next two years. WiMax, a high-speed network technology for mobile devices, has been overshadowed by a rival system called long-term evolution, which has been adopted by the largest telecommunications companies in the U.S. and Europe.
Nokia plans to sell its WiMax business unit to NewNet Communications Technologies. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Written by Peter Cohen
Susanna Kim for ABC News, (via Yahoo):
You’ve got mail–not. Employees of tech company Atos will be banned from sending emails under the company’s new “zero email” policy.CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months, forcing the company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.
It’s an interesting, and somewhat bizarre, concept – a rather extreme solution to the omnipresent issue of workplace spam. This isn’t a startup company trying this on a lark, either. Atos is a multi-billion dollar multinational with offices in 42 countries.
November 29, 2011
Written by Jim Dalrymple
There’s something in this bundle for everyone… Whether they’ve been naughty or nice. So don’t waste your time waiting in line this Holiday season, give the gift of software! You can get all your holiday shopping done while sitting in your pajamas sippin’ eggnog in front of your computer screen.
The first 10,000 people also get MacScan free.
Written by Peter Cohen
Kevin Fitchard, for GigaOM:
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) intends to apply the age-rating icons now familiar on PC and console games to mobile apps, providing a way for parents to monitor and restrict the games and content their kids download. Five mobile operators and Microsoft have signed on to the new system, but more notable are the players missing: Apple and Google.
It figures, since Apple and Google both have their own well-established and robust systems for rating apps in their respective stores.
The ESRB rating certainly carries name recognition with consumers and software publishers alike, but at least in the case of PC and console games, it costs a lot of money to get that rating. Which may partly explain Apple and Google’s reluctance. Another is the ESRB’s admission that it is relying on application developers’ honesty to fill out their applications, since the company doesn’t have time to test them all.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I’m a bit late with this link, but there’s still time. Cameron Moll has put together a number of letterpress designers that will give you a discount today only.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Matt Gemmell on the decision to turn off comments on his blog:
It’s been a very difficult decision (I love reading comments on my articles, and they’re almost unfailingly insightful and valuable), but I’ve finally switched comments off. Since I used the excellent Disqus service, the easiest way was simply to disable it globally, which also removes (but doesn’t delete – I still have them) comments on all previous posts too.
I must admit, I’ve considered this approach too, but decided to leave them on.
