Google's Blogger gets a refresh

Google's Blogger gets a refresh: A set of major user interface changes--from edit tools to management--is coming to the Web-blogging service.

Trash your smartphone - Neuroscience - Salon.com

Trash your smartphone - Neuroscience - Salon.com: There you sit, hammered by stimuli: On your computer screen, you're pounded by an overflowing RSS reader, twitching Facebook and Twitter feeds, an email box constantly chirping at you and IM bubbles doing their best pop-up video impression; off in the distance, your television frantically flits between images of explosions and a screaming, overcoiffed suit whose impossibly fat head floats disembodied above a never ending ticker-tape; and on your desk, face up, a cellphone perpetually spasming with text messages, photos from friends, yet more email and, of course, phone calls.

Yale gives iPads to med school students

Yale gives iPads to med school students: The Yale School of Medicine is distributing an iPad 2 to each one of its students this fall, joining a trend at medical schools across the country.

A Dangerous Method - Trailer

A Dangerous Method - Trailer:

A Dangerous Method - Trailer Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as his patient in A DANGEROUS METHOD. Jung's weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Both men fall under Sabina's spell. Directed by: David Cronenberg Starring: Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbander, Vincent Cassel

A David Cronenberg film about Freud and Jung, with Keira Knightley?! I am so there!

Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half: Algorithm has passengers board in a set order, reducing the aisle traffic jam and potentially saving more than $1 billion for the industry.

CNN acquires iPad news app Zite

CNN acquires iPad news app Zite: CNN on Tuesday announced that it had acquired Zite, the popular personalized news app for iPad.

The decade's biggest scam - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

The decade's biggest scam - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com: Last year, McClatchy characterized this threat in similar terms: "undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism." The March, 2011, Harper's Index expressed the point this way: "Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 -- Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29." That's the threat in the name of which a vast domestic Security State is constructed, wars and other attacks are and continue to be launched, and trillions of dollars are transferred to the private security and defense contracting industry at exactly the time that Americans -- even as they face massive wealth inequality -- are told that they must sacrifice basic economic security because of budgetary constraints.

First, this wastefulness is seen as inefficient only if one falsely assumes that its real objective is to combat Terrorist threats. That is not the purpose of what the U.S. Government does. As Daniel Weeks explains today, the Congress -- contrary to popular opinion -- is not "broken"; it is working perfectly for its actual owners.

The LA Times, and most people who denounce these spending "inefficiencies," have the causation backwards: fighting Terrorism isn't the goal that security spending is supposed to fulfill; the security spending (and power vested by surveillance) is the goal itself, and Terrorism is the pretext for it.

Exaggerating, manipulating and exploiting the Terrorist threat for profit and power has been the biggest scam of the decade; only Wall Street's ability to make the Government prop it up and profit from the crisis it created at the expense of everyone else can compete for that title.

Steve Jobs made Apple great by ignoring profit

Steve Jobs made Apple great by ignoring profit: Steve Jobs retires as the CEO of Apple with a reputation that will place him amongst the pantheon of history’s great global business leaders...

iPad, I Saw, I Waited: The State of E-Textbooks

iPad, I Saw, I Waited: The State of E-Textbooks: If you're looking for a textbook example of technology obstruction by the media industry, look no further than e-textbooks.

Comixology revamps app, requires re-download of comics

Comixology revamps app, requires re-download of comics: Comixology has issued a major update to its digital comics app, now at version 3.0, that brings many improvements and changes to the graphic-publishing management and storefront app -- so many, in fact that the upgrade will require a one-time, no-cost re-downloading of the comics on users' devices. The overhaul brings a new on-demand store, a completely new interface, background downloading and a host of user-management options for their digital collections....

Flipboard to carry movies, TV shows

Flipboard to carry movies, TV shows: Flipboard will begin carrying movies and TV shows in the near future, Reuters reports. The developer's CEO, Mike McCue, says that he will take on the project at the end of 2011. The executive is refusing to comment on which studios have been approached; it is also unclear how the content might be formatted, though by definition the change will suddenly put Flipboard into competition with other iPad video apps such as Netflix and Hulu....

NFL's Buccaneers equip every player with an Apple iPad 2

NFL's Buccaneers equip every player with an Apple iPad 2: The coaching staff of the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers has equipped every one of their 90 players with an iPad 2 to view playbooks and watch videos.

Steve Jobs’s Movie Legacy: Pixar and the Technology That Freed Indie Filmmakers | Film School Rejects

Steve Jobs’s Movie Legacy: Pixar and the Technology That Freed Indie Filmmakers | Film School Rejects: In 1985, the Graphics Group in LucasFilm‘s Computer Division was on the chopping block. As Robert Sutton relates, George Lucas wasn’t confident that computer animated films had much of a future, and as a result, department heads Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith (two pioneers of extreme importance) were being pressured to fire some of their workers. Instead, they offered up their own names to be culled, which saved the entire division. At least for that moment. It’s unclear what fate might have fallen on the Graphics Group had the Computer Division not been purchased in 1986 by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a tidy $5m.

Of course, we know this department by another name: Pixar.

Jobs put his money down on a company he believed in, and the result stands currently as 26 Academy Awards, an absurd amount of box office money, a legion of fans worldwide and nearly complete animation dominance in the movie world. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar at an evaluated worth of $7.4b, making Jobs the largest Disney shareholder. He is stepping down as Apple’s CEO today, and even though it’s hard to say what kind of effect that might have on the film world, Jobs’s legacy already extends far beyond Pixar and beyond The Mouse.

In a sense, Apple erased the need for an Avid workstation. It had a revolutionary effect on how indie filmmakers are able to make their art. It put that art within reach.

Steve Jobs: The insanely great comeback kid - How the World Works - Salon.com

Steve Jobs: The insanely great comeback kid - How the World Works - Salon.com: It's easy enough to rhapsodize over Job's incredible track record -- his accomplishments include the first great personal computer, the transformation of both the music and the telephone business, and the creation of one of the greatest movie-making studios of our time. Just writing that sentence is breathtaking. We will not see its like again. But for me, Jobs' career signifies something more primal -- his comeback saga is a story of redemption, a fantasy epic in which a great king is toppled, but through force of will and grit and brilliance fights his way all the way back to the throne, and inaugurates an even greater empire. It's hard to think of parallels.

Ruminations on the legacy of Steve Jobs

Ruminations on the legacy of Steve Jobs: "That day has come." Four simple words that signaled that Steve Jobs felt compelled to step down as CEO of Apple, the company he founded, then lost, then saw ridiculed and written off, only to lead its rebirth and rise to new heights.

It's an incredible story of prevailing (read: dominating) over seemingly insurmountable odds. A story that has no peer in technology, or any other industry, for that matter.

The realization that one man sits at the junction point of cataclysmic disruptions in personal computing (Apple II/Mac), music (iPod + iTunes), mobile computing (iPhone + iOS), movies (Pixar) and post-PC computing (iPad) is breath-taking in its majesty. A legacy with no equal.

'Weak' Jobs worked full day on last day as Apple CEO

'Weak' Jobs worked full day on last day as Apple CEO: Steve Jobs was in Apple offices for a complete work day on the day of his resignation as CEO, according to a person described as "close" to the executive. Jobs is in fact said to have attended a regular board meeting, in spite of being in a "weak" condition and having been housebound for several weeks. The resignation is not a sign of a sudden plummet in Jobs' health, the anonymous source claims. A separate source alleges that Jobs had an emotional meeting with his executive staff after talking to the board, whom me told he intends to be an active chairman....

Tim Cook to Apple Employees: "Apple is Not Going to Change"

Tim Cook to Apple Employees: "Apple is Not Going to Change": Ars Technica reports that new Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent out an email to Apple employees expressing his enthusiasm for officially taking the reins of the company and reassuring employees that "Apple is not going to change." The full text of the email:

Team:





I am looking forward to the amazing opportunity of serving as CEO of the most innovative company in the world. Joining Apple was the best decision I've ever made and it's been the privilege of a lifetime to work for Apple and Steve for over 13 years. I share Steve's optimism for Apple's bright future.





Steve has been an incredible leader and mentor to me, as well as to the entire executive team and our amazing employees. We are really looking forward to Steve's ongoing guidance and inspiration as our Chairman.





I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple's unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.





I love Apple and I am looking forward to diving into my new role. All of the incredible support from the Board, the executive team and many of you has been inspiring. I am confident our best years lie ahead of us and that together we will continue to make Apple the magical place that it is.





Tim

Cook has gained a solid reputation for his leadership abilities and work to streamline Apple's operations. He has also clearly embraced the Apple concept as revealed by the "Cook Doctrine" he laid out over two years ago as he took on the role of overseeing Apple's day-to-day operations during one of Steve Jobs' medical leaves of absence.





TUAW's Michael Grothaus, a former Apple employee, also offers a personal impression of Tim Cook, noting the thoughtfulness and careful consideration he gives when speaking as an example of his leadership abilities "sans ego".

Tim Cook is one of those rare people who stop and think before speaking. Standing in the same room with him I realized that he's comfortable with silence as long as that silence is productive and appropriate. He's not like other tech execs who ramble almost immediately and incoherently at any question lobbed at them, as if doing so will convince others they know everything about everything.





Tim Cook is a person who has confidence in his position as a leader, sans ego. Ego doesn't take pauses. It's rapid-fire. And it's that confidence and lack of ego that allows him the time to examine the issues and questions at hand, no matter how lowly or silly others may think them, and address them appropriately.

Cook has been at Apple since 1998, and while he has played a primary role in hosting Apple's earnings conference calls, he has until relatively recently remained quietly in the background when it comes to Apple's mainstream public appearances. But the company in recent months has been making a more active role for him, most notably as the on-stage representative for Apple at the introduction of the Verizon iPhone earlier this year.





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Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs: Stepped down as CEO of Apple today. We must suppose, now, that it is only a matter of time. Poor man, he's younger than I. If I were some day to assemble a pantheon of heroes who died during my lifetime, even if I were to limit their number to ten, Steve Jobs would undoubtedly be among them. Mad genius, insanely great, an adopted child, a self-made man and a gentle soul, he would make a near-perfect role model for any of my children. That, in my opinion, is the very definition of hero. ...

A look at Tim Cook, the man replacing Steve Jobs

A look at Tim Cook, the man replacing Steve Jobs: The man tapped as Apple's new CEO has served as Apple's COO for seven years and filled in for Steve Jobs during three medical leaves of absence.

Jobs resigns at Apple CEO; Cook named successor

Jobs resigns at Apple CEO; Cook named successor: Steve Jobs has resigned as Apple CEO.

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO, Will Stay On As Chairman, Tim Cook New CEO

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO, Will Stay On As Chairman, Tim Cook New CEO:


Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple in a letter to Apple's Board of DirectorsIn his letter, Steve requests to stay on as Chairman and appoints Tim Cook to be the new CEO. The requests must be approved by the board, which is all but assured.





Steve has been on his third medical leave of absence since January of this year.

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:





I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.





I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.





As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.





I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.





I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.





Steve

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Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO, Tim Cook takes over

Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO, Tim Cook takes over: Apple co-founder Steve Jobs announced on Wednesday that he is no longer fit to serve as the company's chief executive officer, officially resigning from the position, which has been be filled by Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi

Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi: In May, the feds simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly. The exercise went largely unnoticed at the time. But after Tuesday's quake, there are new reasons to pay attention. Like the 15 nuclear reactors in the seismic zone.

A Sleep Battle of the Sexes - WSJ.com

A Sleep Battle of the Sexes - WSJ.com: Most people regularly sleep with a partner, and some research has shown that people wake up more and have less deep sleep when they sleep with another person. Still, people generally say they are more satisfied with their sleep when they are with a loved one. "There are objective costs to the physical presence of someone else in the bed," says Wendy M. Troxel, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a leading researcher on relationships and sleep. But "the safety and security we derive from our social relationships trumps the cost," she says.

How To Break Your Daily Caffeine Habit And Use Coffee Strategically | Fast Company

How To Break Your Daily Caffeine Habit And Use Coffee Strategically | Fast Company: Caffeine does its magic not by directly stimulating your cells, but by being extremely similar to adenosine, a cell by-product that your body monitors as a kind of gauge for exhaustion. Caffeine's molecules plug up your receptors for adenosine, so your body stops getting signals that it's tired.

Quake rocks Washington area, felt on East Coast

Quake rocks Washington area, felt on East Coast:

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., shook much of Washington, D.C., and was felt as far north as Rhode Island, New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where President Barack Obama is vacationing.

Sprint to Join AT&T and Verizon in Offering iPhone 5 at 'Mid-October' Launch

Sprint to Join AT&T and Verizon in Offering iPhone 5 at 'Mid-October' Launch: The Wall Street Journal reports that Sprint will offer the iPhone 5 when it launches later this year, becoming the third U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone. According to the report, the iPhone 5 will launch simultaneously on Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T in "mid-October".

n+1: Chathexis

n+1: Chathexis: Talking, of course, is nothing new. But conversation, in the 17th century, was a novel ideal of speech: not utilitarian instructions or religious catechism, but an exchange of ideas, a free play of wit. Thus the hostesses of the Enlightenment received visitors in a new kind of furniture. In 1667, the Gobelins tapestry-weaving workshop became Louis XIV’s official furniture supplier. Previously, fabric—like Madame de Rambouillet’s velvet—had been confined to walls and clothing. The Gobelins were the first to apply it to chairs, which for many long, uncomfortable centuries had been small and hard. Now they were wide and soft—more like beds. The fauteuil confessional, for instance, had wraparound wings against which the listener might rest her cheek, as the priest had done behind his screen. Listening and talking became even easier in the 1680s, with the introduction of the sofa. Seating for two! For the first time in history, people could sit comfortably together indoors for long stretches—thereby making it easier for them to speak comfortably together for long stretches. Thus was conversation enshrined—en-couched—as a vehicle of Enlightenment, fundamental to the self-improvement of civilization.

One good thing about work Gchats: they can’t be videochats. The videochat is too eye-catching, too attention-getting—although the attention it gets would be other people’s, not ours. For even when we maximize the video—when our friend’s face swims into view, as large as our own, eclipsing our MacBook’s starry default desktop—it still seems small and insignificant. Videochat—introduced to Gchat in 2008, and before that one of the major selling points of the popular chat client Skype—is a medium that, except for the way it allows you to display cats and babies to distant friends, is every bit as alienating as technophobes predicted. The built-in camera tends to cast everyone in the same gray pallor. Revealed to us in videochat, our friends are all nostril and no heart. Our interlocutor looks lonely, bored. Tired. We feel the same. Every relationship is reduced by videochat to two
properties: 1) the inability to touch and 2) the lack of desire to.

For if, as Necker wrote, “the secret of conversation is continual attention,” the enduring romance and appeal of Gchat can perhaps be explained by the way certain nighttime Gchats so effortlessly hold and reward our attention. Gchat returns philosophy to the bedroom as, late at night, we find ourselves in a state of rapturous focus. Which perhaps is why so many of us feel our best selves in Gchat. Silent, we are unable to talk over our friends, and so we become better and deeper listeners, as well as better speakers—or writers. (To be articulate—but not alone! To be with another person—but not inarticulate! When else does this happen?)

And who do we Gchat with, when it counts? Friends, past boyfriends, future boyfriends, other people’s boyfriends. But rarely our actual boyfriend, who’s next to us in bed, looking for something to watch on Hulu. (Unless he’s out of town, in which case we chat with him, and are reminded why we fell for him in the first place.) Gchat is for friendship, and affairs.

SPIES AND HOLY WARS by Reeva Spector Simon, reviewed by Robert Irwin - TLS

SPIES AND HOLY WARS by Reeva Spector Simon, reviewed by Robert Irwin - TLS: It was a chance journalistic assignment that took Rohmer to Limehouse and Whitechapel and led him to produce The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu (serialized 1912–13), a novel about the Yellow Peril, after which Rohmer found himself reluctantly tied to his fictional creation, in much the same way as Conan Doyle was not allowed by his readership to kill off Sherlock Holmes. Yet Rohmer’s first enthusiasm had been for the Arab world and more specifically for Cairo, where he spent his honeymoon in 1913. Besides setting The Mask of Fu Manchu in the Middle East, he also produced a string of detective stories under the title Tales of Secret Egypt. (Though Simon claims that the mysterious and resourceful Arab detective, Abu Tabah, who features in several of these stories, is a Sufi, I found no direct evidence of this.) Rohmer’s Chinese master villain was memorably evoked in The Insidious Dr Fu Manchu:

"a person, tall, lean and feline, high shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all of the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government – which, however, has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags

United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags: United Airlines today announced that it has gone a step further, committing to a full transition to using iPads as electronic flight bags and rolling out 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots.
Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot.

Apple streams new Red Hot Chili Peppers on iTunes

Apple streams new Red Hot Chili Peppers on iTunes: iTunes users can, for the first time, stream an entire album through the iTunes Store. The stream is a preview of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You, which can only be preordered at the moment with the exception of one single. The complete download will unlock on August 30th....

United Airlines switching to iPads in the cockpit

United Airlines switching to iPads in the cockpit: United Airlines is swapping out paper manuals in its planes with Apple's iPad, which will now serve as a paperless flight manual for pilots.

Apple Releases iTunes 10.4.1 with Assorted Bug Fixes

Apple Releases iTunes 10.4.1 with Assorted Bug Fixes: Apple today released iTunes 10.4.1, bringing a handful of bug fixes to the company's media management and syncing software. The bug fixes target a number of areas, including media keys on third-party keyboards, artwork addition, movie purchasing, responsiveness, and VoiceOver.

And hopefully a fix for the full-screen Coverflow display bug that's been plaguing me.

Apple drops prices on refurbished iPad 1s to as low as $299

Apple drops prices on refurbished iPad 1s to as low as $299: Apple has dropped the prices of refurbished iPad 1s at its online store. A 16GB Wi-Fi model now costs just $299, $30 less than it did in June. Demand appears to be such that the model is already out of stock, although whether this is permanent is unknown. The company may gradually accumulate enough units to justify more refurbished offers....

HP promises webOS still coming to non-mobile, Pre3 is alive

HP promises webOS still coming to non-mobile, Pre3 is alive: HP's recently installed webOS leader Stephen DeWitt on Monday said that the decision to drop webOS mobile devices hadn't affected plans to bring webOS to PCs. In an interview, he insisted that plans were still underway to dual-boot webOS and Windows. He added in the AllThingsD conversation that he saw webOS as a "popular platform" on multiple "connected devices," including printers....

Smartphones on the platform weren't going away quickly, DeWitt went on. Although its future was now shortened, the Pre3 would have a "very selective" release in key areas. It and the Veer would still be on sale and get both support and updates for the future. TouchPads were included in that mix.


Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/08/22/hp.says.webos.still.seeing.pc.plans/#ixzz1VnAIkxOP