The Cupertino-based firm is conscious that any retail layoffs would give a negative impression of its health and hurt its share value, and instead plans to scale back the hours worked by its part-time Mac Specialists that greet customers and promote products. This would keep them on the store floors while trimming employment costs, those aware of the changes say.
To compensate for the shortfall, Geniuses normally assigned to servicing products and answering questions will be asked to spend four of their weekly hours in the Mac Specialist role. Creatives manning the Studio sections of some stores will be asked to work as many as eight hours selling products.
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The Internet Isn’t Lively Anymore
The NY Times on Google’s failed “ Lively” services:
Google portrayed the move away from user frivolity as a sound business move. “It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business,” the company said on a blog post.
In the past Google has shown a willingness to let projects linger with a “beta” tag for months and months. But the virtual experiment was apparently not worth even that effort.
Google Street View Ain’t Everywhere
Here’s a list of where it is, though. Memphis isn’t on the list.
12 Inches of PowerBook
In April 2003, Apple announced a new low-end and high-end PowerBook to wrap around the Titanium PowerBook family. The new 12-inch and 17-inch models sported a new, all-aluminum case, silver keys, and faster insides. (The 15-inch PowerBook would remain “Titanium” for several more months. My first Mac was one of those Titaniums.)
The 12-inch model was especially interesting, size wise. Low End Mac, in their Guide to the 12-inch PowerBook:
The Little Al ’Book was the smallest PowerBook ever built (110.6 cubic inches vs. 168.3 for the PowerBook 100 and 169.6 for the 2400c - only the MacBook Air has had a smaller volume), although at 4.6 lb. it was not quite as light as the original PowerBook Duo 210.
OpenCL Says Hello
Nvidia’s Neil Trevett on OpenCL, part of Snow Leopard that will allow the OS (and apps) have greater access to the GPU:
“If Apple ends up following through on the plans they stated on building this specification into Snow Leopard, I think you could see opportunity for imaging applications vendors, video application vendors to tap into the goodness of GPU hardware. Everyone has a supercomputer locked away in their Mac, but it’s hard to get at it. And OpenCL will unlock the potential of that supercomputer.”
A Key Aspect of iPhone Development
I am a big Remember the Milk user, and up until last week, was using Todo to sync RTM with my iPhone. RTM has since come out with a native iPhone app, and it’s stunning (and much better than Todo, in my opinion). Here’s the thought that led the company to create such a great app:
Building an app that simply gave access to your RTM tasks online wasn’t enough (after all, the web-based iPhone version does that already) The app needed to give you the power of all of RTM’s functionality in your pocket (Smart Lists, tagging, search, etc), take advantage of the device’s features (like knowing your location), and of course the whole thing needed to work offline too (it’s no good carrying RTM around with you if you can’t manage your tasks as soon as you’re out of phone or Wi-Fi range!).
More on Paperless Media
From the Memphis Flyer:
Almost nothing has worked this year for E. W. Scripps, the parent company of The Commercial Appeal.
First, however, a little perspective is in order. The CA can and does still make money, although Scripps won’t say how much or what its profit margin is at individual properties. The Scripps newspaper chain earned $58 million in profits on $431 million of operating revenue in the first nine months of 2008. Not great, but hardly a General Motors-style loss either. That said, the trend in circulation, advertising, and finance is not good.
PC Mag Ditches Paper for Pixels
Lance Ulanoff over at PC Magazine has announced that the January 2009 edition will be the last printed edition of the 27-year old publication:
While we are energized by the endless possibilities of the digital format, I assure you that the decision to stop producing a hard-bound copy was not an easy one. But the reality is that the ever-growing expense of print and delivery was turning the creation of a physical product into an untenable business proposition.
Yes, Virginia, Prototypes Exist
MacRumors has a forum thread about a reader who just bought a used MacBook Air on eBay:
I recently picked up a used Macbook Air 1.6 The bottom case is black without any markings on it. Computer does boot up, but the battery has swollen and distorted the case. I removed the bottom of the case and pulled the battery with thoughts of purchasing a replacement battery. When looking at the connections they are different from the disassembly pictures on the web, and then most of the other internals are slightly different than on the various disassembly sites as well.
Open Radar
Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch, a well-known developer has created OpenRadar.app, an OS X application designed to help developers keep track of bugs that they submit to Apple’s internal (private, locked-away, secret) bug-tracking system called Radar.
First, little on Radar:
Radar is Apple’s internal bug tracking system. How Apple views Radar and how external third-party developers view Radar causes a bit of a conflict…
Apple encourages developers to file bugs, even those we know are probably duplicates, in order to “vote up” individual bugs and hopefully give them more priority when it comes time decide schedules.
NY Times on the iPod Mini
David Pogue of the NY Times has re-released a review of the iPod Mini. If you haven’t seen his videos before, here’s a spoiler: he’s a major dork.
Project 365 Update
Today is day 321 of my Project 365. As the year winds down, it is becoming harder to find photographs that capture the day. But today was not one of those days. I had to go to campus and take some photos for class and came back with one I am very happy with:
