A great idea from two awesome, relevant companies.
Oh, never mind.
Category: General Tech
‘Not Everyone Gets a Trophy’
Android isn’t summer camp for handset vendors and not everyone gets get a trophy for showing up. Google is treating partners equally, but will not slow the rate of innovation so weaker players can keep up. By constantly raising the bar, both in terms of reference devices and software, Google aims to keep innovating and drive that innovation as a differentiator. Google wasn’t looking for volume sales with the Nexus One, it was looking to raise the hardware bar – and arguably the best way to do that is to do it yourself.
‘The Empire Strikes Back’ Turns 30
Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of The Empire Strikes Back, a film most Star Wars fans consider the best of the franchise’s six films. Just three years after Star Wars revolutionized the blockbuster, Empire redefined it again, proving that a film that took place in outer space and featured light sabers and blasters could also be smart and, yes, depressing. If watching Star Wars was kind of like being on an amusement-park ride—smiles for everyone! — watching The Empire Strikes Back might be more comparable to getting a root-canal. Han Solo would have gladly traded what happened to him in Empire for full set of root-canals. The Empire, seemingly defeated at the end of the first movie when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star, struck back in a big way, and it was ugly.
On Foxconn
We, the people who buy and love gadgets, who write about them, who obsess over their design and minutiae, must think about what this means. We should go into our purchases knowingly – the way most of us think with more knowledge than our ancestors about what we put in our mouths and how we clothe ourselves. Would I prefer that Apple assembled my iPhone in the US of A? Yes: there’s greater oversight and better working conditions here. Would that mean I would have to pay more? Yes, exponentially. Companies like Apple know that their images matter. It’s why they’re all scrambling to “green themselves up” and prove that their products don’t end up contributing to the toxic garbage dump that we call Earth. We shouldn’t accept companies’ meaningless “we’re looking into it” press releases, because at the end of the day, we should come to terms with the fact that they don’t actually care about the workers at Foxconn, not really – as long as the factories keep churning out the goods.
On Mobile Flash
We have to say, it’s really something to have a mobile browser that doesn’t pop up little cubes with question marks all over the web, but we found that rediscovering Flash was much like reuniting with a high school friend; at first you’ve so much to catch up on, but then you realize how far you’ve grown apart. Adobe’s pre-vetted list of Flash-enabled sites do a good job of showing off the technology, but we still can’t help but think the interactive elements still have a lot of catching up to do. As for video, the stream is good quality but gets fairly choppy – especially when you check out something “not optimized for mobile viewing.” Some of the HTML5 footage we’ve seen via the same device shows up in crisper detail and fluidity. Battery and heat are also of concern: the pre-release beta we have, according to Adobe, lacks hardware acceleration. Ergo, our beloved handset got piping hot after about 30 minutes of heavy video watching, and the battery indicator in the upper right had a sizable dent.
Iconfactory Outlines Twitterrific’s Future
When Twitter recently announced they were purchasing Atebits’ popular Twitter application, Tweetie, many critics wrote off all 3rd party apps, including Twitterrific. Well, we’re here to say that not only is Twitterrific alive and kicking, but it’s being actively developed with love by the Iconfactory. There are some exciting changes coming to the ‘Little Blue Bird that Could’ and we wanted to give you a wing up.
Google TV Announced
Pretty neat. Features include Google search for content (present and future), DVR integration, Hulu, Netflix, content downloads from Amazon and more.
The AppleTV looks even sillier now.
‘A Draconian Future’
Google Vice-President of Engineering Vic Gundotra:
If we did not act, we faced a draconian future. Where one man, one company, one carrier was the future.
Update: John Paczkowski quipped:
But we’re just fine with the two men, one company, one search engine model.
Ars Reviews Aperture 3
For pros who just want to get work done, Aperture 3’s improved interface, flawless curve adjustment, multiple maskable edits, and 64-bit update are more than enough reason to upgrade. Add the metadata improvements and the high-ISO RAW conversion, and you have an essential upgrade. If Apple can rein in the glitches, give pros a toggle for the gooey effects, and polish the masking tools, then the rest is just gravy.
‘Pick From This List of Things To Do’
I spent the whole day playing with a stack of Apple ][+, //e, and Enhanced //e machines, testing a stack of 80-column cards and memory expansions and fifteen Disk ][ drives and an Applied Engineering Music Synthesizer card, and the whole time I was using and/or abusing that old Apple hardware (several times I had to pull out the old “Programmer’s Reference” and call stuff from the Monitor ROM because I wasn’t sure what I was doing) I had one thought: “Apple would never allow me to do any of this anymore, if they had their way.”
‘ReclaimPrivacy’ Project Reviews Facebook Privacy Settings
This little bookmark will scan your Facebook account for possible security issues. It’s a neat tool — Facebook should include something like this for all users.
‘Curated Computing’
Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps:
The iPad creates a use case for a device that doesn’t do everything your laptop does, targeted at a consumer that uses devices more for consumption than production. The iPad ushers in a new era of personal computing that we call “Curated Computing”—a mode of computing where choice is constrained to deliver less complex, more relevant experiences. Let me repeat that, because it’s the essence of the Curated Computing experience: less choice; more relevance.