512 Pixels

Yes, you read that headline correctly. This might be the coolest Hackintosh ever.

Dean Starkman:

So, all in all, it’s more than instructive to check in on longform newspaper writing, and the start of a new year isn’t a bad time to do it.

And it’s pretty to shocking to see what’s become of the time-honored form since the newspaper industry’s great unraveling started a decade ago.

Want to go paperless in 2013? Check out my guide over on Tools & Toys to get the ball rolling.

Eric Mack:

Just to be clear on what I’m saying, my best educated guesses are that we will see a new iPhone this summer, and it will be an iPhone 5S with mostly iterative updates, a choice of colors, and perhaps the lower-cost model of the latest rumors. But the real question is: then what?

My gut tells me the iPhone as we know it will be done at that point. I have a hunch there will never be an iPhone 6, because Apple will be forced to move into a significantly different form factor to keep people interested and compete with the movement toward bigger phablet-like thingies and emerging wearable electronics (lots of us have fat thumbs, after all). Or, there will be an iPhone 6 and it will disappoint.

Sounds like CBS told CNET to censor common sense.

Too soon?

The Daily Show’s John Oliver discovers that pretend news is the media world’s sole remaining home for intrepid investigative journalists.

In other news, I’m weeping under my desk, clutching my diploma.

via @danfrakes

This week, Myke and I show off our completed Lego projects, and talk about my phone, CNET and censorship.

This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the secret behind exceptional websites. Go to squarespace.com/70decibels to start your free trial and use the offer code 70decibels1 at checkout to get 10% off your first order.

Ten year ago, the space shuttle Columbia launched for the last time.

The mission — STS–107 — was the 113th flown.

Everything was normal until re-entry, but the disaster was a result of an incident at take-off. A briefcase-sized piece of foam came off the external tank, striking Columbia on the leading edge of the left wing.

Such foam strikes were considered normal. In fact, on STS–112, a 4”x5”x12” section of foam came off the external tank and struck Atlantis’ left solid rocket booster, leaving a 3“ deep dent just shy of 4” wide.

Turns out, the foam that struck Columbia damaged its thermal protection system, which was made up of a grid of tiles designed to stand up to the heat generated on the shuttle during re-entry.

The strike was caught by numerous cameras at launch, and the tapes were reviewed by NASA. However, as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board would find, the agency decided that in a vacuum of reliable information, the mission would continue as planned.

Director of Mission Operations John Harpold was quoted as saying:

You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS (thermal protection system). If it has been damaged it’s probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don’t you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?

Sadly, Harpold was right: the crew died unexpectedly while re-entering the atmosphere.

Hot gas entered the left wing. While traveling at Mach 19.5 at an altitude of 209,800 feet, the shuttle shed its first Thermal Protection System tile.

17 seconds later, the shuttle began to pitch and yaw, and 58 seconds later, Columbia began to break up. At 8:59:32 EST on February 1, Mission Commander Rick D. Husband uttered the last communication received from the shuttle:

Roger, uh, bu – [cut off in mid-word] …

In the following weeks, debris (including human remains) were found from southeast of Dallas, through East Texas and part of Arkansas.

James Galbraith:

Apple’s largest all-in-one desktop computer, the 27-inch iMac, was recently updated with a long list of under-the-hood changes, but it’s the strikingly thin design that people notice first. And while the 5mm edge on the new iMac is certainly impressive, you can’t help but wonder if the tradeoffs Apple made for the new design are worth it.

While the 27-inch model does include user-upgradable RAM, Galbraith bemoans the loss of the internal optical drive and Firewire ports. That said, he likes the less reflective screen, speed, speakers, FaceTime camera and the Fusion Drive.

Chris Foresman at Ars Technica:

Apple isn’t giving up on Thunderbolt anytime soon. All of its computers come with at least one Thunderbolt port—save the Mac Pro, which Apple CEO Tim Cook has all but promised would be upgraded in 2013. The latest Retina MacBook Pros include two Thunderbolt ports. And it appears that its Thunderbolt Display is due for a refresh sometime soon.

Though Thunderbolt hasn’t exactly taken the Windows PC world by storm, several motherboard makers now offer options for built-in or add-on Thunderbolt support. And notebook makers are adding Thunderbolt as well—Intel’s booth this year featured a classy-looking HP Envy Spectre Ultrabook for demonstration purposes.

When thinking about Thunderbolt, I can’t help but consider Firewire. While it didn’t take the world by storm, it was an important standard, especially in our Mac-centric world. While I think Thunderbolt holds more promise than Firewire ever did, time will tell if the new standard will enjoy wider adoption than the old ever did.

For months, Poster has been my go-to app for posting to 512 Pixels when on an iOS device.

Today, the app hits version 2.0. The new version includes lots of helpful goodies. If you run a WordPress site, this $3 app is well worth the money.

Be sure to check out Viticci’s review of the update.

Thanks to DesignScene for sponsoring the 512 Pixels RSS feed this week!

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Lindsey Turrentine, Editor-in-Chief at CNET:

We were in an impossible situation as journalists. The conflict of interest was real — a legal case can impact the bottom line of our company and introduce the possibility of bias — but the circumstances demanded more transparency and not hurried policy.

I could have quit right then. Maybe I should have. I decided that the best thing for my team was to get through the day as best we could and to fight the fight from the other side. Every single member of the CNET Reviews team is a dedicated, ethical, passionate technology critic. If I abandoned them now, I would be abandoning the ship.

Shawn King at The Loop:

Anyone else want to join me in calling bullshit on her statement? She didn’t do “everything within my power” to stop it this time. What makes us believe that she will next time?

While I’m not sure Shawn is in a position to say if Turrentine did everything she could, I agree with her statement that she was in an impossible situation.

Journalism only works when its free of restrictions like the ones CBS put on CNET last week. What the tech blog did by recalling its award to the Dish Hopper sucks, and puts its journalistic integrity on the line. That said, Turrentine is being open about what happened.

Here she is again:

Later that evening, we were alerted to the legal conflict for CBS. All night and through to morning, my managers up and down CNET and I fought for two things: To honor the original vote and — when it became clear that CBS Corporate did not accept that answer — to issue a transparent statement regarding the original vote.

That bit about issuing “a transparent statement” is key here, and why I think Shawn’s comment might be unfair. By passing along the official CBS statement, Turrentine exposed CBS to be a censor, turning their own words against them. In an impossible situation, I think she made the best choice she could. Quitting would not change the policy, and ignoring it would just lead to her losing her job. Painting CBS in to a corner on this was the best call any editor in her position could have made.