Arts & Letters Daily (30 Jan 2010): "Philip K. Dick bounced in and out of love affairs and marriages, stints in rehab and drug overdoses, never losing his cool. Well, almost never... more
"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
MacDailyNews: "PC Magazine hands-on with Apple iPad: ‘What this thing can do is mind-boggling’ (with video)"
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Five System Preference tweaks everyone should know: "Do you know how to display the date in your menu bar or how to reorder your Spotlight results? Kirk McElhearn shows you these fundamental System Preferences tweaks and more.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Arts & Letters Daily (29 Jan 2010): "
J. D. Salinger, reclusive author whose Catcher in the Rye caught the mood of a generation, is dead
... Charles McGrath
... AP
... Stephen Miller
... Elaine Woo
... London Times
... Bart Barnes
... FT
... Telegraph
... Mark Krupnick
... Richard Lacayo
... Tom Leonard
... Martin Levin
... Rick Moody
... Richard Lea
... Malcolm Jones
... Morgan Meis
... Chris Wilson
... Robert Fulford
... Ian Shapira
... Michael Ruse
... Christopher Reynolds
... David Usborne
... Joe Gross
... Stephen King
... John Walsh
... Henry Allen
... Mark Feeney
... Ron Rosenbaum (1997)
... John Timpane
... Alex Beam
... Verlyn Klinkenborg
Love: once ferocious and passionate, it has today been defused and made tepid - streamlined, safety-checked, and emptied of spiritual consequence... more
Stephen Toulmin and John E. Smith were both philosophers in the grand sense that still draws young people around the world to the subject. Till logic-choppers drive them away... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
How HTML5 could finally kill Flash video: "Vimeo's new HTML5 system is just like YouTube's, in both execution and technical details..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Mossberg: Apple’s iPad is handsome, feels comfortable and solid, offers impressive software: "After attending the rollout of the new device today and trying out some of its features for myself..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Gizmodo hands-on with Apple iPad: ‘It’s fast! Feels at least a generation faster than iPhone 3GS’: "It's substantial but surprisingly light. Easy to grip. Beautiful. Rigid. Starkly designed..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Apple’s new ‘A4’ chip inside iPad offers unmatched speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness: "Along with the iPad, the Apple chip has arrived..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Apple CEO Steve Jobs discusses Apple iPad with Walt Mossberg (with video): "Walt Mossberg and I talked about whether Apple could innovate enough to make a tablet computer finally become popular..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
iPad SDK 3.2 Details: External Display, File Sharing System, No Multitasking: "
Apple has unleashed iPhone OS 3.2 SDK to developers today to prepare for the launch of the Apple iPad. The new iPhone OS 3.2 only runs on the iPad device and will not run on the iPhone or iPod Touch. The accompanying documents are said to h..."
MacRumors - http://www.macrumors.com
Arts & Letters Daily (28 Jan 2010): "Disney's Three Little Pigs is Aristotelian from start to finish: plot, necessity, fear, revenge, resolution, catharsis. Now a new version challenges these values... more"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
"Catcher in the Rye" author J.D. Salinger dies: "Legendary American writer, recluse passes away at 91
Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/
New Animations Take You Flying Over Mars: "Beautiful new renderings of NASA data let you fly over Martian geology.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Quantum Computer Simulates Hydrogen Molecule Just Right: "Almost three decades ago, Richard Feynman — known popularly as much for his bongo drumming and pranks as for his brilliant insights into physics — told an electrified audience at MIT how to build a computer so powerful that its simulations ‘will do exactly the same as nature.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Ten Things Missing From the iPad: "The iPad was supposed to change the face of computing, to be a completely new form of digital experience. But what Steve Jobs showed us yesterday was in fact little more than a giant iPhone. A giant iPhone that doesn’t even make calls. The iPad, though, is better defined by what isn’t there.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to U.S.: "Thanks to smart tech, ambitious planners and boatloads of cash, the much-stalled concept actually has a future. But for trains to beat planes and automobiles, the hardware needs to really fly.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
The Apple iPad: First Impressions: "Some wild speculations of a guy who's never even tried the iPad. Believe me, I'll review it when I get one. But I like what I'm seeing."
Pogue's Posts - http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?=rss2
The iPad Arrives: "Apple today announced the iPad, the tablet-sized computing and communications device that has generated more bits of industry speculation than any previous product in memory. Featuring a 9.7-inch display and an optional keyboard dock, the iPhone OS-based iPad will be available for prices ranging from $499 to $829, depending on storage capacity and 3G data capability. Wi-Fi-only models will go on sale in March 2010, with Wi-Fi+3G data models in April."
TidBITS - http://www.tidbits.com/
Scientists Turn Mouse Skin Cells Into Nerve Cells - BusinessWeek: "The new approach could revolutionize human stem cell therapy and science's understanding of how cells choose and maintain their specialized roles in the body, the researchers said.
The findings also seem to radically upturn established thinking about how cells become cells, and potentially avoid the controversial approach of using embryonic stem cells for cellular therapy. And the research could conceivably open new doors in the future to treating diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, the researchers said."
Andy Ihnatko's Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA) » Apple Tablet Week: The Event Liveblog: "It’s looking as if ‘A big iPod Touch’ is looking like its distressingly spot on as a description."
-
Apple iPad tablet makes debut (live blog) | Circuit Breaker - CNET News: ""
-
Five secrets of Open and Save dialog boxes: "You use the Open and Save dialog boxes every day, but do you really know how to use them efficiently? Sharon Zardetto shares some of her favorite tips.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Oracle buys Sun, becomes hardware company: "The last chapter for Sun Microsystems closes, and the next for Oracle begins as the software company adds hardware to its portfolio."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Apple's tablet: It's all about developers: "Apple and Google are increasingly competing for the hearts and minds of developers, and Apple's tablet threatens to undermine Android growth by changing the rules of engagement."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Utilities to store megawatts of juice with ice: "A group of utilities in southern California plan to shift 54 megawatts worth of electricity use from peak times using ice-powered air conditioners from Ice Energy."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Samsung begins mass producing 3D TV screens: "Samsung began mass producting of 3D TV screens this month, a first step to prices coming down to more affordable levels.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Arts & Letters Daily (25 Jan 2010): "The number of different possible chess games is 10120, says Garry Kasparov. Look eight moves ahead and you confront as many games as stars in the galaxy... more"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Arts & Letters Daily (23 Jan 2010): "
After the main performance, crowds in 16th-century London playhouses were treated to a late-night B-feature of rude, lewd farce, known as the 'jig'... more
From Freud to Marxism to ESP to a whole series of women, when in the grip of a mania, Arthur Koestler was incapable of seeing anything else... more
It's hard to think of an American movie before the 1960s that concerned itself with food, says Paula Marantz Cohen. But look at what's happened since then... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Manuscript recalling Newton apple story lands online: "Manuscript of 1752 biography of Isaac Newton, which recounts how a falling apple led him to the theory of gravity, is available on U.K.'s Royal Society Web site."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Alcohol's Neolithic Origins: Brewing Up a Civilization - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International: "His bold thesis, which he lays out in his book 'Uncorking the Past. The Quest for Wine, Beer and Other Alcoholic Beverage,' states that agriculture -- and with it the entire Neolithic Revolution, which began about 11,000 years ago -- are ultimately results of the irrepressible impulse toward drinking and intoxication."
-
Hello World: Bill Gates joins Twitter, Facebook: "In a big week for social networking, President Obama and then former Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates send their first tweets.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Firefox 3.6 brings speed improvements, new Personas feature: "Firefox 3.6 is the latest update to the popular Web browser, adding support for one-click themes, improved HTML5 compatibility, and better performance."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Arts & Letters Daily (21 Jan 2010): "
Did our Neolithic ancestors start to grow crops so they could bake bread? Perhaps not: maybe the real point of agriculture was beer... more ... more
American literary culture is insular? Oh, yeah? Are Nigerians all that taken by fiction coming out of Denmark? Do Latvians groove on Philippine poetry?... more
Any European intellectual can easily tell you: Europe, not America, offers the world the best model of social and economic life. But, as Clive Crook explains, the case is not so certain... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Report: Apple tablet is a shared media device: "Anticipated device is expected be a hub for all kinds of media: magazines, newspapers, books, text books, music, games, and video, according to a Wall Street Journal report."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Nathan Fillion Talks Firefly, Dr. Horrible, and Why Kids Need to Read: "Nathan Fillion has, in the space of seven years, risen to the status of a geek icon. Beginning with his best-known role as Captain Mal Reynolds on Firefly, his work on several of Joss Whedon’s projects has transformed the former soap opera actor into a huge draw for the geek crowd. But there’s a lot more to Fillion than tight pants and a pistol — and a heck of a lot more than a shirt with a picture of a hammer on it."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Arts & Letters Daily (20 Jan 2010): "
John Mackey thinks capitalism, along with human creativity, can make the best world we might hope for, with 'no limit to where humanity will be in the 21st century'... more
A world governed on anti-Enlightenment principles would be infinitely worse than one governed by Voltaire and Diderot. Zeev Sternhell is certain of that... more
Now that President Obama has made his first tweet, he ought to study Cicero. Twitter may be absurd; but it can also hasten the inner ear to the voices and glories of the past... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Arts & Letters Daily (19 Jan 2010): "
Compassion and benevolence, as Charles Darwin knew, are rooted in our evolved psychology, ready to be cultivated for the greater good... more
'I remember staring into his kindly eyes, tartly thinking to myself that my cousin was shyer than a virgin under the veil.' The young Osama bin Laden... more
'All the uses of nature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of man an infinite scope.' Yep. Another pointless koan from Ralph Waldo Emerson... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Writing Good English: A talk by William Zinsser to foreign students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | The American Scholar: "The epidemic I’m most worried about isn’t swine flu. It’s the death of logical thinking."
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The Amazon.com of pot: "A California IT entrepreneur is trying to emulate Amazon.com by creating a central online hub for legitimate marijuana sales."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Led by Bat Boy, 'Weekly World News' Deranges Comics: "The former supermarket tabloid finds a natural second life as a comic book. Recurring characters like Ed Anger, Ph.D. Ape and the defunct weekly newspaper's half-bat, half-human cover creature take center stage in a new series that's crammed with pop-culture ephemera."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Insight: "The three most common structures in programming are the list, the tree, and the tangle. The list is traversed by iteration, the tree by recursion, and the tangle, which I do not recommend, has never been successfully traversed. Guess which one I'm dealing with today."
Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/
Big Picture: 570-Megapixel, Intergalactic Camera: "Physicists and astronomers at Fermilab join forces to build a 570-megapixel (and the biggest ever) digital camera to answer one of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos: What is dark energy?"
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Killing me softly with your TV screen: "Researchers in Australia find that watching TV more than four hours a day increases risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 80 percent."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
RCA creating Wi-Fi-powered gadget charger: "RCA shows off an energy-harvesting battery that converts Wi-Fi signals to DC power, which is suitable for charging up cell phones."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Elgato announces EyeTV One tuner: "Elgato has announced another television tuner for the Mac. The EyeTV One is specifically designed to work with antennas to deliver free, over-the-air HD broadcasts to a computer.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
CES: 3D comes home: "It's important to underscore that the 3D being shown at CES is not akin to the 3D you'd get with anaglyphic red-and-green glasses folded up into a Cracker Jack box.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
How Google tells you what men and women want: "An analysis of, 'How can I get my boyfriend/girlfriend to...' Internet searches is very amusing. But nothing compared to 'How can I get my wife/husband to...'"
Adium 1.3.9 - Popular instant messenger client, supports multiple services. (Free): "Adium is a fast and free instant messaging client which supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, QQ, Novell Groupwise, SIP/SIMPLE (Text), and Lotus Sametime. Adium supports beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer, and more. Give it a try; you won't look back."
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
Arts & Letters Daily (12 Jan 2010): "
Carbon fiber and aluminum are so 2009. The latest in bicycles is the bamboo frame. It makes for a smooth, organic ride with less vibration... more
Teenage peasant girls in the Middle Ages did have occasional religious visions. Few went on to advise kings and lead armies, as did Joan of Arc... more
Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience, we now have sins of leaving water running, lights on, not recycling, or using plastic grocery bags. It's our green religion... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Prinicipal Photography Begins on "Thor": "It's official -- Marvel Studios has announced that principal photography on 'Thor' began today. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth, the film is scheduled for a May 6, 2011 release."
CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com/
Vandals damage historic Oregon lighthouse: "
Weekend vandalism damaged a'lighthouse lens'manufactured in Paris, France, and shipped around Cape Horn up to Oregon in the late 19th Century, along with other windows and equipment at the Cape Meares Lighthouse.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Toshiba announces Cell TV HDTV | HDTV | Playlist | Macworld: "So what does all that processing power mean to the person on the couch? The biggest thing, perhaps, is 2D to 3D conversion. The TV takes everything from 2D gaming and home video, processes it, fills in missing pixels, and turns it into video that looks like 3D.
In terms of resolution, the TV uses its processing power to up-convert all video to 1080p 3D. The TV also connects to the Internet to receive net video sources like VUDU and Netflix; it applies noise canceling technology to that content to clean up the noise and image distortion that can be present in net video.
Toshiba says the Cell TV cranks out far more brightness than any other TV, and feature 512 different zones that separately adjust black and white levels as you watch."
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Video: Open Source 3-D Printer Turns Designs Into Objects: "Wired.com checks out MakerBot's Cupcake CNC 3-D Printer. This open source, $950 device allows the user to design and fabricate small objects of almost any shape."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Review: Breezy 'Simpsons' Special Revels in 20 Yellow Years: "Director Morgan Spurlock crams a lot of fan love into his one-hour documentary about Homer, Marge and the rest of Springfield's animated citizens. The special, which airs Sunday, takes a fast-paced look at the show's lasting influence."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Blazingly Fast Wireless HD Hits the Mainstream: "A new wireless interface standard called Wireless HD that could get rid of the wires connecting your TV to accessories and offers hi-def video data transfer is going mainstream."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Marvel Sues To Invalidate Kirby Estate Copyright Claims: "The legal battle over the Jack Kirby estate Marvel copyright claims heated up today as Marvel struck back in court. ROBOT 6 has the details."
CBR News - http://www.comicbookresources.com/
Bee Colony Collapse May Have Several Causes: "There's no single answer for why honey bees are getting harder to keep alive — and that's part of the problem.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
"If Monks Had Macs" Available for Free: "
It's always sad when something comes to an end, but thanks to its creator, Brian Thomas, the groundbreaking multimedia project 'If Monks Had Macs' that started 21 years ago will live on as a free download.
We've written about 'If Monks Had Macs' in several of our gift issues in the past; rather than attempt yet another explanation of something that seemingly tries to defy all description, I'll bring forward what we wrote in the past.
In 2003, Matt Neuburg described 'If Monks Had Macs' like this: 'I'm not sure whether this counts as software, a game, a multimedia experience, a book, or nostalgia. It's 'If Monks Had Macs,' which started life as a HyperCard stack before I even knew HyperCard existed, turned into a Voyager multimedia CD, and is now available cross-platform, thanks to Runtime Revolution. If Monks (as we like to call it) is impossible to describe. It's a truly visionary hyperlinked collection of books, music, art, games, and activities, plus several applications you can use separately, such as a hyperlinked journal-writer and an ebook text reader that works with Project Gutenberg files and other free online books. It's genuine New Media - a
multi-dimensional, quirky vision from the mind of an eclectic thinker. If you've been wondering (and who hasn't?) what Chesterton's Father Brown, Heart of Darkness, Schubert, Thoreau, and the Kennedy assassination have to do with one another, this is your chance to find out. I remember the earliest If Monks incarnations with fondness, so this new version is on my wish list.'
And I wrote in 2004, 'A word you seldom see applied to software is 'thoughtful,' and in this case, I mean it literally, as in 'full of thought.' But I can think of no better label for Brian Thomas's 'If Monks Had Macs,' an interactive multimedia CD-ROM title that defies prosaic description. It's packed with original texts from the like of Henry David Thoreau and G.K. Chesterton, highly readable essays and critical analyses, a visual exploration of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Tower of Babel painting, a telling of the story behind an underground newsletter called The White Rose from an underground student resistance group in Nazi Germany, and far more. A playful sub-current swirls through everything - there's an illustrated medieval text
adventure game (you're a monk, needless to say) in which you find cards for a solitaire game. A journaling application helps you record your impressions and musings as you meander through the application's many byways. 'If Monks Had Macs' started out life years ago as a HyperCard stack (now converted to Runtime Revolution, supported by a separate ebook reader), and that retro aesthetic now merely adds to the whimsy.'
Brian Thomas isn't just shoveling old software out there; he has worked to remake the Killing Time game (also available as a free download, and it's only about 10 MB), and has added more recent photos and essays to the main project. But as he told me, he's returning to his roots as a photographer, and is leaving shortly for Cambodia, and wanted to make 'If Monks Had Macs' available for free download before he left.
But it's not quite as easy as it seems to distribute a 130 MB disk image, and after some discussion on TidBITS Talk, Brian opted for three disparate methods, all of which are free (to him and to downloaders, which was important), but which all have their limitations as well, outlined below for anyone else who is thinking about distributing a very large file to the public. All three download methods are linked from Brian's Web site.
I would strongly encourage people to download a copy of 'If Monks Had Macs' via BitTorrent soon, purely to make sure you have a copy while it's definitely still available. And, if you have plenty of bandwidth, leave your copy of Transmission running to seed the file to other people, which will lighten the load for everyone.
Kudos to Brian Thomas for refusing to let 'If Monks Had Macs' simply fade away, and we wish him the best of luck.
'
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Where did San Francisco Bay's sea lions go? Try the Oregon Coast: "
Hundreds of sea lions that abruptly blew out of San Francisco Bay's Pier 39 last Thanksgiving have apparently found a new home at another tourist attraction — 500 miles north on the Oregon coast.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
CES: New pico projectors debut, aim for prime time: "New pico projectors are making their entrance at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, from Microvision, 3M and others.
"
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
'He was a welcome member of this community. You are not': "
Judge Gregory Foote had harsh words for the two Eugene men convicted of beating Herbert Bishop, a homeless man, to death last May. 'Mr. Bishop was a human being. He had worth. People cared about him. He had friends,' said Foote. 'He was a welcome member of this community. You are not, at least not now.'
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Show only exact duplicate tracks in iTunes: "In iTunes, a very useful feature is the File » Show Duplicates menu item. As expected by its name, you can use this feature to help weed out duplicates from your iTunes library. However, many people (myself included) have different versions of songs, remixes and such, which will show up as duplicates when using this feature.
The solution is to hold down the option key prior to selecting this menu item. When you do, Show Duplicates changes to Show Exact Duplicates. In this mode, iTunes shows only true duplicates, and not remixes or alternate versions.
"
Mac OS X Hints - http://www.macosxhints.com
Sony Pushes 3-D to Playstation 3, TVs, Introduces 'Bloggie': "Highlights from Sony's latest announcements at CES 2010 include 3-D for your Playstation 3, a new line of 3-D Bravia LCD TV's, partnerships with Discovery Channel and ESPN for 3-D content.
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
A look inside Oregon's first marijuana cafe: "
The Cannabis Cafe opened on Nov. 13 at 4:20 p.m., Oregon’s first marijuana cafe. No marijuana is sold at the establishment, but patients can bring their own or sample buds donated by growers. The cafe does not serve alcohol.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Young men get 25 years in prison for beating homeless man to death: "
The two young men who beat a'homeless man to death and left his bloody body in a city park near a children's playground last spring will spend 25 years in prison for the crime.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
Legal marijuana: a cure for state budget woes?: "
Legalizing marijuana for adults could help plug holes in the state budget, supporters of legalized marijuana said Wednesday, but opponents warned of hidden costs.
"KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local
New Year's resolution: Have more sex - CNN.com: "You can't help but say, 'Holy God! Sexual activity is a very important thing to do. Human beings were really meant to do this.' "
Toshiba Crams Supercomputer Guts Into 3-D, Web TV | Gadget Lab | Wired.com: "Powered by LED (KIRA2) backlighting, the 55- or 65-inch Cell TV features multiple eight-core 3.2-GHz processors. It’s 10 times faster than standard desktop computers and will have 143 times the processing power of today’s televisions.
The Cell TV includes a converter to make everything that’s normally 2-D on your screen — football games, videogames, Blu-ray movies and so on — pop out in 3-D when viewed through active shutter glasses.
It also features a video camera, microphone and software for video conferencing over an internet connection. Also, the Cell TV will have a software menu called Net TV Channels to download streaming content from Netflix, Vudu and other web-based video services. On top of that, the TV uses a technology called Net Super Resolution+ to reduce compression artifacts seen in web video content."
Netflix, Warner Bros., rejigger online movie renting: "Netflix has agreed not to rent new DVD and Blu-Ray titles for 28 days after they are released. In exchange, Netflix gets more streaming content and that's the company's future."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
First dedicated 3D networks coming to TV: "A joint venture between Discovery, Sony, and Imax will bring 3D to your home in 2011. And a new network from ESPN will deliver the technology later this year."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Google unveils Nexus One | Android Atlas - CNET Blogs: "As described by Erick Tseng, Google's senior product manager for the Nexus One project, the feature set includes everything you'd expect from an Android phone and adds a couple of unique goodies. Inside you'll find a GPS with Google Maps and turn-by-turn navigation, an accelerometer, a virtual keyboard, a light sensor for adjusting the display to save battery power, a proximity sensor, a compass, a 5-megapixel camera with a LED flash, Wi-Fi, a new media gallery interface with access to Picassa and YouTube, Facebook access, and stereo Bluetooth. Tethering and multitouch are not yet supported and app storage will be limited to the 512MB of internal memory."
-
A Few Thoughts on the Nexus One: "
There will be many posts focusing on the look, feel, and features of the Nexus One, so I'm going to focus on what Android's latest incarnation says about the competitive landscape - what I've elsewhere called the war for the web. Android vs. iPhone is one important front in that 'war.'
News from the front: a possible turning point for Android. I've been a huge iPhone fan, but after using the Nexus One for a few weeks, I find so much to like that I'm close to the point where Android might be my first choice. While I may yet go back to my iPhone, I'm conflicted.
The key to the turning point is not how slick the phone is - even though it's thin, fast, bright, and beautiful, with amazing sensor-based capabilities including noise-canceling headphones, automated brightness adjustment based on external light levels, voice-activated search, navigation and data-entry, different 'home' screens based on whether it's in your pocket or sitting in car-dock. Nor is it the fact that you can buy unlocked phones without any plan, or that you will soon be able to choose plans from Verizon and Vodaphone as well as T-Mobile. The real turning point is Google's commitment to making the Nexus One a web-native device. As Google VP of Product Management Mario Queiroz said in today's press conference, a nexus is a place where multiple worlds meet. 'The Nexus One is where the phone meets the web.' It's a connected device in a way that is more fundamental than any previous phone.
The biggest pluses of the Nexus One are all around the simplicity and completeness of the cloud integration:
I'm delighted by the useful security warnings (now, that's unusual!) that show what system features each app you download will have access to. I also love that the Market shows you how many times the app has been installed, so you can immediately see how popular it is.
(Henry Blodget makes this case in Hey, Apple, Wake Up -- It's Happening Again. On the other hand, Mark Sigal raises a different historical analogy, Novell vs. Microsoft, asking whether Google's release of its own anointed phone might end up blunting adoption by other vendors, while Google takes the eye of its core business. A lot depends on whether Google holds back anything from the platform available to others. At today's press conference, Google emphasized the open platform aspect of Android, so they are trying to address that fear. The model seems to be to work with individual partners to push the ball forward, but to return those innovations to the pool available to all partners.)
Overall, though, it seems to me that Google's experience in delivering cloud-based data-driven applications is aligned with long-term trends in a way that Apple's device-bound heritage is not. Apple is playing catch-up in cloud infrastructure, building its own location services, for instance, but iTunes and the App Store excepted, Apple's cloud experience is limited, especially in the area of algorithmically driven applications, which I believe is so central to the future of computing. Meanwhile, Google has so many data assets, and so much experience in algorithmic applications, that it may be difficult for Apple to compete in the long term.
There's also the matter of cloud-native 'killer apps.' Apple's email, calendar, and address book show their PC-era roots. They live on the PC and must be synced to the phone. Google's web-native equivalents are always up to date, with syncing happening in real time.
In Apple's favor: software and design patents, which hold the competition at bay in a way that they didn't in the 1980s. Also in Apple's favor, its own killer apps, like iTunes, which is still the gold standard in music, but also the hub for podcasts, audiobooks, and ebooks. Audiobooks and ebooks might make it into the Android Market, but it's hard to imagine the Market becoming the same kind of content hub that iTunes has become.
Also in Apple's favor: Google must make some of its key assets available on the iPhone or cede the real estate to competitors. It would be a major blow, for example, if Bing search were the default on the iPhone instead of Google. It's easy to imagine an Apple-Microsoft alliance in areas like search, location services, speech recognition, image recognition, and other cutting edge areas that will be a key part of Google's competitive advantage in the future.
Meanwhile, there are key third party apps that can make or break either platform - perhaps not quite as essential as in the days when Adobe's commitment to the Mac before Windows helped give Apple an insuperable lead in the design market, but still significant.
Google needs to aggressively map out a partner ecosystem in areas like music, ebooks, and the like, to make sure that they have a compelling offering to match what's already available on the iPhone.
Meanwhile, Apple needs to either beef up its capability in the kinds of data-backed applications, or partner aggressively with companies with more expertise than they currently have. They also need to re-factor their core applications like iPhoto and iMovie to make them web-native, turning them into a base for collective intelligence. Picasa and iPhoto both sport image recognition, but Apple has to train its algorithms on sample data sets, while Google gets to train Picasa on billions of user images. As Peter Norvig, Google's chief scientist, once said to me, 'We don't have better algorithms. We just have more data.' Collective intelligence is the secret sauce of Web 2.0, and the future of all computing, and by locking user data into individual devices, Apple cuts itself off from this future. Rather than having MobileMe as a separate revenue add-on, Apple needs to make all of its applications learn from their users.
What we see then is a collision of paradigms, perhaps as profound as the transition between the character-based era of computing and the GUI based era of the Mac and Windows.
We're in for an interesting ride.
O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/
Hubble Finds Oldest, Farthest Galaxies Ever Seen: "The Hubble Space Telescope has detected galaxies that are 13.2 billion light-years from Earth, formed just 700 million years after the Big Bang. They are the oldest galaxies ever found and the farthest away from us."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
DIY Jet Almost Ready to Fly: "Sixty grand and some skills with a wrench will put a plane capable of 240 mph in your garage."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
'Kama Sutra' most pirated e-book of 2009: "The list of 2009's most pirated e-books reveals that those who downloaded illegally are people with rather narrow minds and broad frustrations."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Arts & Letters Daily (05 Jan 2010): "
An extinct race of humans found in Africa had big eyes, child-like faces, and a high IQ - genius ancestors... more Maybe, but not everyone is buying it.
Facebook, we rather easily forget, needs to build a profit with our 'friendships.' Jaron Lanier, barefoot guru of the web, is on the case... more
Just-so stories: unscientific yarn-spinning, mere guessing? Or a part of imaginative hypothesis building in science? David Barash explores a question too-long ignored... more
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Elusive Supermassive Black Hole Mergers Finally Found: "Astronomers have found 33 pairs of supermassive black holes dancing around each other in the process of merging into one, even bigger black hole. The absence of these observations had been a problem for theories about how galaxies grow."
Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
Understanding Windows 7's 'GodMode': "Enthusiasts are buzzing over a trick that lets users get access to all of the operating system's controls in one folder."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Accessory turns iPhone into the mother of all remotes: "A Florida-based company has announced a hardware add-on that turns any iPhone or iPod Touch into a universal remote for your home entertainment devices."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
L5 Remote turns Apple iPhone and iPod touch into universal remote controls: "L5 Technology today introduced a accessory and free app that turn any iPhone or iPod touch into a universal remote control..."
MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/
Major Apple product announcement set for January 27: "So, that rumored Apple event everyone has been jawing about these past few weeks? It's on and it's going to be a big deal...on a Wednesday."
CNET News.com - http://news.cnet.com/
Arts & Letters Daily (04 Jan 2010): "Michel de Montaigne hated the cruelty of religion: 'It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account'... more"
Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/
Manage OS X's downloaded file warning system: "The first time you launch a downloaded application in OS X, the system will warn you that the file was downloaded, and ask if you're sure you want to open it. This hint explains how to remove that warning from files you've already downloaded, and optionally, from all future downloads."
Macworld - http://www.macworld.com
Dropbox 0.7.97 - Online synchronization tool with Finder integration; free 2 GB account (Free): "
The Dropbox application is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. A video on the site explains more.
MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php
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