512 Pixels

Wired has the details. It raises two obvious questions:

1. Will Apple reject this app like they rejected Google Voice?

2. How long until “Kindle” is just a service and not a device.

Developer Craig Hockenberry, on testing software on iPhone OS devices:

Apple currently lets each iPhone developer, whether a company or an individual account, assign 100 devices for testing purposes. A large chunk of those available devices get used by employees with multiple devices. We also have a valuable group of external testers that we use for Ad Hoc beta testing. Many of these individuals buy the latest and greatest hardware, so each time there is a new product introduced, we use up more devices from our list.

[…]

As developers, we want to maintain a pool of testers, not devices that they test on. Devices are ephemeral: they change as new hardware is introduced and replaced. The thing that remains constant are the people who test our products.

A tweet from Mike Piontek crystalized this thought: the limitation for Ad Hoc provisioning should be based around individuals, not the devices that they own. It makes more sense to regulate Apple IDs rather than UDIDs. I want John Gruber to be able to run my apps on whatever devices he currently owns. I want to put my own name on the provisioning list and enable the five iPhone OS devices sitting on my desk. All that Apple cares about is that are only 98 other people besides Gruber and me.

I think Hockenberry is on to something. Hopefully Apple will change the way this works sooner rather than later.

Google:

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Good for them.

This is a great interactive page by the New York Times.

The White House:

This year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will have the opportunity to purchase quality, affordable health insurance. Beginning in 2010, small business owners will no longer be forced to choose between offering health care and hiring new employees because they’ll be offered tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help insure their employees. Medicare beneficiaries will no longer wonder how they’ll afford their prescription drug bills because they’ll be given a rebate of $250 if they hit the prescription drug donut hole in 2010. And early retirees will be provided help through the creation of a temporary re-insurance program to help offset the costs of expensive premiums.

This year, you will now have the security of knowing that insurers cannot deny coverage to your child because of a pre-existing condition. You won’t have to live every day in fear of having your insurance taken away from you if you get sick. And for new plans, there won’t be lifetime or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care you receive from your insurance companies.

It means my boy will be able to be insured in the future. Which is pretty damn awesome.

Looking good, my Linuxy friend.

CNN:

All 178 Republicans opposed it, along with 34 Democrats.

As a father of a terminally ill child, I know better than most how complicated and evil the insurance companies can be. If it weren’t for St. Jude and their paying for Josiah’s treatments, I don’t know what we would do. His care over the last ten months has totaled well over $1 million, with no end in sight. Is this bill perfect? No. Will it help millions of people retain coverage and protect them from being excluded for preexisting conditions? Yes. Can the GOP suck it? Yes.

CNN:

Reboot — a nonprofit organization aimed at reinventing the traditions and rituals of Judaism for today’s secular Jews.

Composed of Internet entrepreneurs, creators of award-winning television shows, community organizers and nonprofit leaders, these “Rebooters” are people who typically have their cell phones glued to their palms. Several of them go so far as to say they have an addiction to their devices.

But this weekend they will be observing 24 hours of freedom from their devices: a National Day of Unplugging lasting from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

I like it.

NPR’s David Folkenflik:

ABC News is facing sharp criticism over the disclosure that it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Florida woman who now stands accused of killing her own daughter.

The $200,000 payment in August 2008 to Casey Anthony was used for exclusive rights to reproduce family photographs and videotape of her then-missing 2-year-old, Caylee.

The pictures and footage were used on Sept. 5, 2008, as the heart of a story on ABC’s Good Morning America and a full-hour treatment later that night on the prime-time newsmagazine 20/20. Casey Anthony was charged with child neglect and endangerment that day. The next month, she was indicted by a grand jury on charges of murder.

This is one of the most unethical things to take place in the journalism industry in a while. Horrible.

Gruber has posted two snippets from Windows guru Paul Thurrott, regarding copy and paste on mobile devices:

Unreal, indeed.

Boom; roasted.

I just ran across a link to Jacqui Cheng’s 15-page review on Ars Techinca of the original iPhone, and it feels like that thing was released a lifetime ago