The Brooks Review is a year old today. Here’s what Ben says he has learned:
While Ben’s grammar sometimes makes me bang my head into my Extended II keyboard, without a doubt, he’s become a superstar in our corner of the Internet. Congratulations, my friend.
Chris Ziegler, at This is my Next:
It seems a few American carriers have started working with Google to disable access to tethering apps in the Android Market in recent weeks, ostensibly because they make it easier for users to circumvent the official tethering capabilities offered on many recent smartphones — capabilities that carry a plan surcharge. Sure, it’s a shame that they’re doing it, but from Verizon’s perspective, it’s all about protecting revenue — business as usual. It’s Google’s role in this soap opera that’s a cause for greater concern.
I really like this photo of Obama, laboring over a speech at his desk. The guy really seems to be a writer, and I love that.
This is a brilliant piece of Applescript by Kevin Cranford.
Why are you still here? Go get it!
Most nine-year-old boys dream of meeting sports stars like Ichiro, Matt Hasselbeck or Kasey Keller. Not Owain Weinert. Weinert simply wanted to learn from the masterminds behind Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies. As part of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, the fourth grader at Loyal Heights Elementary School got a unique opportunity to develop his very own Apple iOS game with help from the experts at PopCap Games.
The company’s page about the beta instills confidence:
<img style=“display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; margin-top:10px”“ src=”https://media.512pixels.net/wp-content/uploads/S3/Screen-shot–2011–05–02-at–12.47.08-PM11.png“ alt=”Screen shot 2011 05 02 at 12 47 08 PM“ border=”0“ width=”536“ height=”233" />
Although RIM has delivered excellent hardware and a well-designed user interface, the software experience still falls short of expectations. The tablet offers little functionality out of the box and suffers from an abysmally poor third-party application ecosystem. The PlayBook’s lack of standalone messaging software further erodes its potential value to a mainstream audience and will pose a serious barrier to adoption.
Despite the major weaknesses out of the starting gate, the underlying platform has compelling technical assets that could make future iterations of the PlayBook appealing to consumers. More significantly, the excellent work that RIM has done to polish the PlayBook home screen and built-in software sheds some light on how the company could modernize its aging phone operating system and boost its competitiveness relative to Android and iOS.
It was one of those typical hospital sofas.
The rubbery, terrible green, squeak-when-you-move jobs. It was long enough for a couple of people to sit on, but too short for any normal sized person to lay down on. The cushions were made of some type of foam that probably should be reserved for things like dampening vibrations in car doors.
On that hospital sofa, on a Saturday morning, my family changed forever.
There is an endless stream of reports coming out these days about how Android stacks up against the iPhone. The problem is, most of them are flawed.
Here is the first giant flaw — you may have noticed in the headline of this story. You cannot compare Android to an iPhone. That’s comparing an operating system to a hardware device.
There is no compelling argument that anyone can give that says that comparing an operating system to a hardware device makes sense. None.
iLounge Editor-in-Chief, Jeremy Horwitz:
In any case, the white iPhone 4 is as safe of a purchase today as the black version is—if you’re still considering the purchase of an iPhone 4, there’s no strong reason other than aesthetic taste to choose one color over the other. Late though it was, Apple appears to have fixed or significantly mitigated the engineering issues that plagued the white iPhone 4, leaving only the black pill-shaped proximity sensor as an awkward little scar on an otherwise beautiful design. That little cosmetic blemish aside, this model is as good of a pick as its black predecessor, and worthy of the same ratings and recommendation.