Lytro Camera Review: Shoot Now, Focus Later

Lytro Camera Review: Shoot Now, Focus Later: After two weeks with the Lytro camera, I still can’t decide if it’s a highly refined proof-of-concept or an uneven look at the future of photography. It’s simultaneously addictive and frustrating. It’s also, as advertised, a truly unique photographic experience.

Feb. 29, 45 B.C.: Julius Caesar Takes the Leap

Feb. 29, 45 B.C.: Julius Caesar Takes the Leap: Julius Caesar figures out that those extra hours have added up, and he reforms the Roman calendar by adding an extra day every four years. Enter the leap year.

The Pirate Bay tosses all torrents

The Pirate Bay tosses all torrents: One of the Internet's largest torrent-downloading sites is no longer offering torrents, but that doesn't mean the site is being shuttered. Now users can access files with magnet links.

Marvel-ous: Graphic novels come to iBooks

Marvel-ous: Graphic novels come to iBooks: If iPad owners found their Spidey-senses tingling on Tuesday afternoon, it was for good reason: Marvel announced it was making 80 graphic novels featuring Spider Man, the X-Men, Captain America, and other popular characters available in Apple's iBookstore.

Play as Stan Lee in the "Amazing Spider-Man" Video Game

Play as Stan Lee in the "Amazing Spider-Man" Video Game: According to Stan Lee, he's a playable character in Activision's upcoming "Amazing Spider-Man" video game, coming June 26.

Apple sends out invites for March 7 iPad event

Apple sends out invites for March 7 iPad event: Apple today sent members of the media invites to an event in San Francisco next week, where the company is expected to unveil the next version of the iPad.

Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPad 2 Accidentally Launched, Officially Coming Monday

Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPad 2 Accidentally Launched, Officially Coming Monday: Features listed include:
- Use popular Photoshop features designed for the tablet such as layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters to create mind-blowing images.
- Use your iPad camera to fill an area on a layer with the unique camera fill feature.
- Select part of an image to extract by scribbling with the Scribble Selection tool. With Refine Edge, use your fingertip to capture even hard-to-select image elements, like hair, with ease.
- Search and acquire images with the integrated Google Image Search.
- Share images on Facebook and view comments right within the app.
- Browse an inspirational gallery for the styles and results you'd like to achieve. Then follow step-by-step tutorials to easily learn techniques the pros use for great-looking results.
- Use AirPrint for wireless printing of Photoshop Touch projects.
- Upload projects to Adobe Creative Cloud* and open layered files from Adobe Photoshop Touch in Photoshop CS5.
- Maximum image resolution: 1600 x 1600 pixels

Watch a Live Feed of This Weekend's Spectacular Planetary Alignment

Watch a Live Feed of This Weekend's Spectacular Planetary Alignment: Get ready for some awesome planetary alignment action this weekend. The moon, Venus, and Jupiter - the three brightest objects in the night sky - will be putting on a dazzling celestial show shortly after sunset both Feb. 25 and 26, coming together in a tight triangle. And if you can't see it where you are, watch this live online feed.

Physicists Pinpoint W Boson, Narrow Search for Higgs

Physicists Pinpoint W Boson, Narrow Search for Higgs: Scientists have produced the most precise measurement of a fundamental particle called the W boson. It will help them search for the elusive Higgs boson, the discovery of which would be an epoch-making event.

Romance Novels, The Last Great Bastion Of Underground Writing | The Awl

Romance Novels, The Last Great Bastion Of Underground Writing | The Awl: Men must be transformed by love and enter into the woman's realm in order to emerge as fully-realized human beings: this is the core message of romance fiction, Dixon argues. We need one another; embrace this idea, and everything will magically work out.

So there's no sniffy condescension or po-mo posturing in a romance novel; they're the least stuck-up books in the world. Everybody knows that they are written and read just for kicks, and that gives the author an enviable freedom within which she may permit her imagination to run riot. And does it ever. These writers have no authorial brakes at all, and their irrepressibility is enchanting all by itself. What other kind of author is free to name her hero Sin Watermount or Don Julio Valdares, Tarquin Roscuro or Duc Breul de Polain et Bouvais? There is generally a wild, far-flung and exotic locale: Queensland, the Western Cape of South Africa, the Scottish Highlands. There are impossible situations, natural disasters, a whole pantheon of dei ex machinis, drama galore.

And there is, always, falling in love. I have often wondered whether romance novels mightn't generally serve the same purpose for women that pornography does for so many men. I do not mean as an aid to autoeroticism, though, so much as the imaginary fulfillment of a profound imperative that is never too far from your mind.

Anyway, pleasurable as all that is, romance fiction's deeper purpose is twofold. First, there is the soothing, gentle balm they apply to the insecure and frightened part of our nature. These are books with the set purpose of providing healing and reassurance to the reader.

Mozilla's 'Persona' Project Wants to Help Manage Your Online Identity

Mozilla's 'Persona' Project Wants to Help Manage Your Online Identity: The Persona project is Mozilla's latest effort to move identity management from the web to the browser. The Firefox of the future may not only remember your passwords, but handle the entire login process for you.

The Great American Novel | The Weekly Standard

The Great American Novel | The Weekly Standard: Television lulled us into acquiescence, the Internet with its vaunted search engines and promise of the world at your fingertips made further inroads in seducing us to reduce wisdom to information: to believe that ready access to information was somehow tantamount to knowledge.

Ten exciting system changes in Mountain Lion | Macworld

Ten exciting system changes in Mountain Lion | Macworld: There are numerous changes to look forward to when Mountain Lion roars onto the scene this summer, along with some major system additions like Notification Center and Gatekeeper. But for those uninterested in flashy features, there are plenty of minor system changes, too. Here’s a quick look at ten that caught my eye.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it: Ancient computers still in use

If it ain't broke, don't fix it: Ancient computers still in use: From 1970s minicomputers used for military programs (including nuclear weapons) to an IBM punch-card system still keeping the books at a Texas filter supplier, these are the computers that time forgot.


Macworld 2/21/12 7:00 AM Benj Edwards

Out-of-staters get Oregon medical marijuana cards

Out-of-staters get Oregon medical marijuana cards:

Hundreds of out-of-staters who each year make an unusual pilgrimage to Oregon — the only state in the country to issue medical marijuana cards to non-residents.

Q&A: Hacker Historian George Dyson Sits Down With Wired's Kevin Kelly | Wired Magazine | Wired.com

Q&A: Hacker Historian George Dyson Sits Down With Wired's Kevin Kelly | Wired Magazine | Wired.com: Dyson: Yes, we had clay tablets, counting pebbles, the abacus, ledgers, and punch cards. Writing and retrieving numbers isn’t new. But the computer accelerated information processing to the speed of light. That velocity fundamentally changed everything.

Wired: So how did this parallel light-speed universe begin?

Physicists Foretell Quantum Computer With Single-Atom Transistor

Physicists Foretell Quantum Computer With Single-Atom Transistor: Physicists at Purdue University and the University of New South Wales have built a transistor from a single atom of phosphorous placed on a bed of silicon, taking another step towards the holy grail of tech research: the quantum computer.

Grand Theft Auto 3 for iPhone and iPad

Grand Theft Auto 3 for iPhone and iPad: This iOS port of the landmark video game isn't perfect. But even with some control shortcomings, it's still a fun ride.

iOS Review: TCM app is more bust than blockbuster

iOS Review: TCM app is more bust than blockbuster: Fans of classic movies should steer clear of these companion apps for the cable channel the same way they'd avoid a cinematic stinker.

Edward Luttwak reviews ‘The Iliad by Homer’ translated by Stephen Mitchell · LRB 23 February 2012

Edward Luttwak reviews ‘The Iliad by Homer’ translated by Stephen Mitchell · LRB 23 February 2012: At the beginning of January, in the bookshop of Terminal 2 at San Francisco airport, I looked for a translation of the Iliad – not that I really expected to find one. But there were ten: one succinct W.H.D. Rouse prose translation and one Robert Graves, in prose and song, both in paperback; two blank verse Robert Fagles in solid covers; one rhythmic Richmond Lattimore with a lengthy new introduction;[*] and three hardback copies of the new Stephen Mitchell translation, with refulgent golden shields on the cover and several endorsements on the back, of which the most arresting is by Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget: ‘The poetry rocks and has a macho cast to it, like rap music.’

EA has high hopes for the Simpsons - The Simpsons: Tapped Out freemium iOS game by EA (images) - CNET News

EA has high hopes for the Simpsons - The Simpsons: Tapped Out freemium iOS game by EA (images) - CNET News: The Simpsons are going mobile in a big way with Tapped Out, a freemium iOS game from EA. The game starts with Homer accidentally creating a nuclear explosion that wipes out Springfield. It's up to the player to rebuild the city.

Feb. 20, 1962: Yank in Orbit

Feb. 20, 1962: Yank in Orbit: John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth. The space program really takes off after this.

Oracle Turbocharges MySQL Database

Oracle Turbocharges MySQL Database: Oracle said it's made MySQL 70 times faster than previous versions. The new MySQL Cluster 7.2 database can now do 1.05 billion reads per minute, according to Oracle's benchmarks.

50 years ago, John Glenn became America's biggest hero

50 years ago, John Glenn became America's biggest hero: Monday is the 50th anniversary of NASA astronaut John Glenn's mission to be the first American to orbit the Earth. On that day, Glenn became one of America's most important heroes.

Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 than all the Macs sold it in 28 years – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 than all the Macs sold it in 28 years – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home: “Tim Cook on the 55 million iPads sold to date: ‘This 55 is something no one would have guessed. Including us. To put it in context, it took us 22 years to sell 55 million Macs. It took us about 5 years to sell 22 million iPods, and it took us about 3 years to sell that many iPhones. And so, this thing is, as you said, it’s on a trajectory that’s off the charts.’” Horace Deidu reports for Asymco.

“That gave me an idea,” Deidu reports. “The iOS platform as a whole reached 316 million cumulative units at the end of last year. The iOS platform overtook the OS X platform in under four years and more iOS devices were sold in 2011 (156 million) than all the Macs ever sold (122 million).”

What's left for Apple's OS X to grab from iOS? | Apple Talk - CNET News

What's left for Apple's OS X to grab from iOS? | Apple Talk - CNET News: Perhaps one of the most glaring omissions in Mountain Lion is iBooks.

Yahoo economists: Obama reelection's in the bag

Yahoo economists: Obama reelection's in the bag: The elections are still nine months away, but a couple of economists say their data already point to an Obama victory.

Hands on with Apple's new OS X: Mountain Lion

Hands on with Apple's new OS X: Mountain Lion: Just a year after it released Mac OS X Lion, Apple plans to roll out a new version of its Mac operation system -- Mountain Lion -- which will once again draw on many iOS features. We've got a preview of what Apple has planned for Mountain Lion, which is slated to launch in the summer.

Apple Releases Public Beta of New Messages App for OS X

Apple Releases Public Beta of New Messages App for OS X: Alongside today's OS X Mountain Lion news, Apple released a public beta version of its new Messages app for OS X for existing users. Set to replace iChat in OS X Mountain Lion, the new Messages app integrates features of iChat and FaceTime and adds compatibility with the iMessages service introduced for iOS last year.

Apple Mac OS X 'Mountain Lion' takes more bites out of iOS | Apple Talk - CNET News

Apple Mac OS X 'Mountain Lion' takes more bites out of iOS | Apple Talk - CNET News: Apple's got a new big cat on the prowl.
It's name is Mountain Lion, and it's the next major release of Mac OS X.
The software is being released as a preview to Apple developers today, with a commercial release to follow sometime this summer through the company's Mac App Store.

Messages, as it's called in Mountain Lion, will replace iChat, the chat software Apple includes out of the box. Users will still get access to IM networks like AIM, Yahoo, and Jabber, though Apple's added compatibility with the same iMessage service that was introduced as part of iOS 5, which Apple says has now served up 26 billion messages since its October launch. Messages can be used to send and receive iMessages with these users for free, and the conversation can be picked up and continued from any device with that same Apple ID and iMessage enabled.

The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education: So I removed the line about there being "no evidence" and provided a full explanation in Wikipedia's behind-the-scenes editing log. Within minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: "You must provide reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines to the article."

That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site's "undue weight" policy, which states that "articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views." He then scolded me. "You should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to replace it with a minority view."

Microsoft sees Skype linking all its products, CFO says

Microsoft sees Skype linking all its products, CFO says: Microsoft will aggressively and broadly integrate Skype across its product portfolio, the company's CFO says.

The American Scholar: Fields Apart - Sam Kean

The American Scholar: Fields Apart - Sam Kean: Most obviously, she notes that string theory, while dazzling, has outrun any conceivable experiment that could verify it—there’s zero proof that it describes how nature works. Yet, like some out- siders, string theorists labor away year after year, happily unencumbered by reality.

All together now: Montaigne and the art of co-operation | Books | The Guardian

All together now: Montaigne and the art of co-operation | Books | The Guardian: The new forms of capitalism emphasise short-term labour and institutional fragmentation; the effect of this economic system has been that workers cannot sustain supportive social relations with one another. In the west, the distance between the elite and the mass is increasing, as inequality grows more pronounced in neo-liberal regimes such as those of Britain and the US; members of these societies have less and less a fate to share in common. The new capitalism permits power to detach itself from authority, the elite living in global detachment from responsibilities to others on the ground, especially during times of economic crisis.

Objects Come to Life With Photographer's "Bent" Sense of Humor | Raw File | Wired.com

Objects Come to Life With Photographer's "Bent" Sense of Humor | Raw File | Wired.com:

Tim Cook at Goldman Sachs: Worker Safety, iPhone and iPad Growth, and Financial Strategy

Tim Cook at Goldman Sachs: Worker Safety, iPhone and iPad Growth, and Financial Strategy: Apple CEO Tim Cook has just completed a Q&A session with analyst Bill Shope at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. While we liveblogged the event with a rough transcript of Cook's comments, here are a few of the highlights:

New Quantum Record: Physicists Entangle 8 Photons

New Quantum Record: Physicists Entangle 8 Photons: Physicists have created a "Schr?dinger cat" state using pieces of light called photons. The researchers entangled eight photons together in a move that might bring control to quantum physics experiments where only problems existed before.

Happy birthday, Oregon! You don't look a day over 153

Happy birthday, Oregon! You don't look a day over 153:

February 14, 2012 is Oregon's 153rd birthday. To celebrate, we're taking a look at some of Oregon's state symbols, ranging from the well-known to the bizarre.

Does it still make sense to buy CDs? | The Cheapskate - CNET News

Does it still make sense to buy CDs? | The Cheapskate - CNET News: Yesterday, I learned that music-on-demand service Spotify now streams at 320Kbps via its iOS app. That's CD-quality, which got me thinking: do we really need CDs anymore?

Interactive canvas lets viewers stir Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'

Interactive canvas lets viewers stir Van Gogh's 'Starry Night': Greek multimedia artist Petros Vrellis would like you to be able to touch a Van Gogh without getting tackled by a security guard.

The troubling lexicon of texting love

The troubling lexicon of texting love: While some are blaming technology for an increase in one night stands, perhaps it's simply the brevity with which people communicate by phone that suggests swift progress to sexual congress.

Supermassive black hole at Milky Way's core gives up a secret (images)

Supermassive black hole at Milky Way's core gives up a secret (images): For years, scientists puzzled over mysterious X-ray flares given off by Sagittarius A*. Now they've uncovered an explanation.

R.I.P. Western, War & Comedy Comics Icon John Severin

R.I.P. Western, War & Comedy Comics Icon John Severin: Legendary comic book artist John Severin, known for his mastery in a wide variety of genres from War to Western to Comedy, has died at the age of 90.

Solar Dance, by Modris Eksteins - The Globe and Mail

Solar Dance, by Modris Eksteins - The Globe and Mail: This ubiquity has a non-cash price, namely that, precisely because we see the works everywhere, it’s no longer possible for us to see them. The startling vividness of van Gogh’s vision, the madness, the tragic impoverished death at 37 with just one work sold, no longer have the antagonistic power of a century ago.

Philosopher Karl Jaspers: “I could not help feeling that van Gogh was the only truly great and unwillingly ‘insane’ person among so many who pretended to be insane but are really all too normal.” Nowadays, van Gogh is no longer even an authentic madman; he is, instead, a textbook case of cultural over-determination, strangled by his own success.

Brainstorming Doesn’t Really Work : The New Yorker

Brainstorming Doesn’t Really Work : The New Yorker: A new generation of laboratory architecture has tried to make chance encounters more likely to take place, and the trend has spread in the business world, too. One fanatical believer in the power of space to enhance the work of groups was Steve Jobs. Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Jobs records that when Jobs was planning Pixar’s headquarters, in 1999, he had the building arranged around a central atrium, so that Pixar’s diverse staff of artists, writers, and computer scientists would run into each other more often. “We used to joke that the building was Steve’s movie,” Ed Catmull, the president of both Disney Animation and Pixar Animation, says. “He really oversaw everything.”

Jobs soon realized that it wasn’t enough simply to create an airy atrium; he needed to force people to go there. He began with the mailboxes, which he shifted to the lobby. Then he moved the meeting rooms to the center of the building, followed by the cafeteria, the coffee bar, and the gift shop. Finally, he decided that the atrium should contain the only set of bathrooms in the entire building. (He was later forced to compromise and install a second pair of bathrooms.) “At first, I thought this was the most ridiculous idea,” Darla Anderson, a producer on several Pixar films, told me. “I didn’t want to have to walk all the way to the atrium every time I needed to do something. That’s just a waste of time. But Steve said, ‘Everybody has to run into each other.’ He really believed that the best meetings happened by accident, in the hallway or parking lot. And you know what? He was right. I get more done having a cup of coffee and striking up a conversation or walking to the bathroom and running into unexpected people than I do sitting at my desk.” Brad Bird, the director of “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” says that Jobs “made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.”

Feb. 14, 1929: Al Capone's .45 Caliber Valentine

Feb. 14, 1929: Al Capone's .45 Caliber Valentine: "Bugs" Moran tries to muscle in on Al Capone, and seven of his boys pay the ultimate price in the most spectacular rub-out in mob history -- brought to you courtesy of the Thompson submachine gun.

Hide and unhide Mac App Store purchases

Hide and unhide Mac App Store purchases: If your Purchases list is getting unwieldy in the Mac App Store, here's a way to purge (and unpurge, if necessary) items on that list.

Luv coffee? Get a free one Tuesday with canned food donation

Luv coffee? Get a free one Tuesday with canned food donation:

The 'Dutch Luv Cans for Coffee' event will give people a free 16 ounce drink of their choice with the donation of at least three canned food items.

VLC Media Player 2.0.0-rc1 - Popular multimedia player.. (Free)

VLC Media Player 2.0.0-rc1 - Popular multimedia player.. (Free): VLC Media Player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

Apple takes 1 in every 5 dollars spent on U.S. consumer electronics

Apple takes 1 in every 5 dollars spent on U.S. consumer electronics: Apple was the only company to experience a sales increase, posting a 36 percent rise over 2010...

Facebook Reveals Most Popular Songs for New Loves and Breakups

Facebook Reveals Most Popular Songs for New Loves and Breakups: The Facebook data team has tracked which songs people in new relationships are most likely to play, as well as the songs they cue up following a breakup.

Apple's Mac App Store Sandboxing Requirement Gaining Renewed Scrutiny as Deadline Approaches

Apple's Mac App Store Sandboxing Requirement Gaining Renewed Scrutiny as Deadline Approaches: Last November, we reported on Apple's plan to require all Mac App Store apps to be sandboxed, a move that would increase security by preventing apps from overstepping their bounds should they be affected by malware but which could hamper the functionality of certain apps. The requirement had been scheduled to go into effect in November but was pushed back to a March 1 implementation date as apparently sought to give developers more time to digest and prepare for the change.

Apple shares hit new all-time intraday, closing highs

Apple shares hit new all-time intraday, closing highs: Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares today gained $16.49 to set a new all-time closing high...

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy - Magazine - The Atlantic

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy - Magazine - The Atlantic: The parasite, which is excreted by cats in their feces, is called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) and is the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis—the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.

But if Flegr is right, the “latent” parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents. And that’s not all. He also believes that the organism contributes to car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. When you add up all the different ways it can harm us, says Flegr, “Toxoplasma might even kill as many people as malaria, or at least a million people a year.”

FBI’s Steve Jobs file: He will ‘distort reality ... to achieve his goals’ - The Washington Post

FBI’s Steve Jobs file: He will ‘distort reality ... to achieve his goals’ - The Washington Post: Steve Jobs, being considered in 1991 for an appointment under President George H.W. Bush, underwent a thorough background investigation by the FBI, according to newly released files from the agency.

“Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs’s honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,” according to the FBI file.

Despite interviewees saying that they did not personally like Jobs, many said that they would recommend him for a position in government.

One section said, “It was [redacted] opinion that honesty and integrity are not required qualities to hold such a position.”

The Wilson Quarterly: Man as Machine by Max Byrd

The Wilson Quarterly: Man as Machine by Max Byrd: Once or twice a year France's National Museum of Technology, on the nondescript rue Vaucanson in Paris, announces a special demonstration. On the second floor, at the end of a corridor of antique steam engines and jacquard looms, the museum’s Theater of Automates swings open its doors. At the bottom of a small, dark auditorium, the Keeper of Automates takes a few of his oldest, most fragile exhibits from their locked glass cases.

White gloved, wearing a lab technician’s spotless coat, he places the items gently on a table. A capacity crowd of perhaps 80 people, nine-tenths of them (it seems) screaming children, leans forward as he spreads out his gaily painted mechanical toys—automates—and under a single focused light winds them up, one by one.

The climax of the demonstrations is always the same. After the clown who tips his hat and rolls a ball, after the tin rooster that hops and crows, after a half-dozen such wood and metal creatures strut across the table and perform their stunts, the Keeper’s ghostly hands reverently lift into the light a doll seated before a miniature dulcimer.

Its time for a unified ebook format and the end of DRM

It's time for a unified ebook format and the end of DRM: Imagine buying a car that locks you into one brand of fuel. A new BMW, for example, that only runs on BMW gas. There are plenty of BMW gas stations around, even a few in your neighborhood, so convenience isn't an issue. But if one of those other gas stations offers a discount, a membership program, or some other attractive marketing campaign, you can't participate. You're locked in with the BMW gas stations.

This could never happen, right? Consumers are too smart to buy into something like this. Or are they? After all, isn't that exactly what's happening in the ebook world? You buy a dedicated ebook reader like a Kindle or a NOOK and you're locked in to that company's content. Part of this problem has to do with ebook formats (e.g., EPUB or Mobipocket) while another part of it stems from publisher insistence on the use of digital rights management (DRM). Let's look at these issues individually.

End of an era: Kodak discontinues camera business

End of an era: Kodak discontinues camera business: The photography pioneer says that its digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and digital picture frames will be phased out entirely in the first half of 2012.

Opinion: OnLive is a train wreck

Opinion: OnLive is a train wreck: The OnLive Desktop service shows just how wrong desktop virtualization can be.



With OnLive Desktop, you get a pure Windows 7 and Office 2010 environment that can’t interact with the device you’re using it on or the content available to that device; that is scaled inappropriately for the iPad’s screen resolution; and that is available only when you have a broadband Internet connection.

OnLive Desktop is available for free, which is no bargain given its overall uselessness.

Unfortunately, despite the concept’s clear appeal, OnLive Desktop’s Windows-via-the-cloud offering is too awful in its current state, and it’s a great example of why you can’t stick one operating system onto another without any integration.

Tinderbox 5.10.1 - Store and organize your notes, ideas, and plans.. (Demo)

Tinderbox 5.10.1 - Store and organize your notes, ideas, and plans.. (Demo):

Tinderbox is a personal content management assistant. It stores your notes, ideas, and plans. It can help you organize and understand them. And Tinderbox helps you share ideas through Web journals and web logs.

Tinderbox's agents automatically scan your notes, looking for patterns and building relationships. Agents help discover relationships and help make sure important things don't get lost. Agents are easy to make and easy to modify. They're flexible and powerful.

Tinderbox can even gather and update changing information and breaking news from the internet.

When it's time to share your notes, Tinderbox can assemble multiple notes into one page. Updates are a breeze -- even if you update several times a day. Private notes, timestamps, permanent links, archives: everything you want, just the way you want it.

Version 5.10.1: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

Mac OS X 10.4 or later

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New iTunes U app delivers online courses to mobile devices.

New iTunes U app delivers online courses to mobile devices.:

The new iTunes U app allows educators at universities, colleges, and K-12 schools to design and deliver full courses directly to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Free to everyone, the courses cover everything from astronomy to business skills to the knife skills of a professional chef and more. In addition to access to the more than 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources already available via iTunes U in the iTunes Store, the iTunes U app supports new features that let you view the course assignment list, track your progress, make notes as you go, see notes and highlights from linked materials, and see the complete list of materials the instructor is using or recommends. For good examples of courses that include support for these enhanced features, get a free subscription to American Revolution from Yale, iPad and iPhone App Development (Fall 2011) from Stanford, Open University's Communicating Through Music, or Core Concepts in Chemistry from Duke.

The iTunes U app keeps a library of the courses you subscribe to just as iBooks keeps a library of the books you buy. To navigate between the catalog and your courses, use the buttons on the top left on iPad and the top right on iPhone and iPod touch. In your course library the covers for courses that support the new features display a spiral binding on the left. Use the tabs on the right on iPad or the buttons across the bottom on iPhone and iPod touch to explore the assignments (Posts) and the note taking capability and materials lists.

Microsoft removes start button in Windows 8

Microsoft removes start button in Windows 8: Leaked screenshots of the latest Windows 8 build show that Microsoft has jettisoned the traditional Windows 8 Start button but tweaked the Charms Bar and other settings.

Leonard Cohen, With a New Album, ‘Old Ideas,’ Was Never Popular But Always Profound – Tablet Magazine

Leonard Cohen, With a New Album, ‘Old Ideas,’ Was Never Popular But Always Profound – Tablet Magazine: Leonard Cohen releases his 12th studio album, the profoundly moving Old Ideas, today. None of his records has ever cracked the top 50, and his last album, 2004’s Dear Heather, peaked at No. 131 on the Billboard charts. Those few of his songs that are well-known—particularly the ubiquitous “Hallelujah”—are well-known for being covered by other musicians. He is 77 years old, and his peers are either nostalgia acts or four decades dead, icons of a church that’s fallen into sad disrepair.

His peers all insisted that salvation was at hand. To go to a Doors concert was to stare at the lithe messiah undressing on stage and believe that it was entirely possible to break on through to the other side. To see Cohen play was to gawk at an aging Jew telling you that life was hard and laced with sorrow but that if we love each other and fuck one another and have the mad courage to laugh even when the sun is clearly setting, we’ll be just all right. To borrow a metaphor from a field never too far from Cohen’s heart, theology, Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, and the rest were all good Christians, and they set themselves up as the redeemers who had to die for the sins of their fans. Cohen was a Jew, and like Jews he believed that salvation was nothing more than a lot of hard work and a small but sustainable reward.

Snow Leopard update breaks Rosetta, third party offers fix

Snow Leopard update breaks Rosetta, third party offers fix: Security Update 2012-001 for Mac OS X 10.6.8 can cause crashes, printing problems, and other issues with Rosetta applications; you can attempt to restore support with a patch created by a group of sysadmins at a Nebraska high school.

Snow Leopard Security Update Kills PowerPC Apps Using Rosetta

Snow Leopard Security Update Kills PowerPC Apps Using Rosetta: While the odd "CUI Error" experienced by some users after upgrading to OS X 10.7.3 earlier this week has garnered a fair amount of attention, it appears that a security update released for Mac OS X Snow Leopard at the same time is also causing major issues for users who rely on older PowerPC applications that run under Apple's Rosetta framework.

iBooks Author Publishing Software Review | Macworld

iBooks Author Publishing Software Review | Macworld: Apple’s new desktop app, iBook Author, is designed to build beautifully crafted multimedia books solely for the company’s iBookstore and iPad tablet. Conceived as a tool for creating Multi-Touch textbooks featuring visually stimulating elements such as photo galleries, video, interactive diagrams, and 3D objects, iBooks Author can be used to construct an ebook in any genre. There’s no support for the iPhone, the iPod touch, or any other ebook platform.

Avid Studio offers video editing on the iPad

Avid Studio offers video editing on the iPad: Avid, the Massachusetts-based creator of pro-level hardware and software for multimedia production, has unveiled Avid Studio for iPad, a precision video editor.

Russian Drill Nears 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake

Russian Drill Nears 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake: After 20 years of drilling, a team of Russian researchers is close to breaching the prehistoric Lake Vostok, which has been trapped deep beneath Antarctica for the last 14 million years.

Apple Poised to Benefit from U.S. Government's Five-Year Push for Digital Textbooks

Apple Poised to Benefit from U.S. Government's Five-Year Push for Digital Textbooks: The Associated Press reports on a new initiative from the U.S. government to help push schools and textbook companies make the transition to digital textbooks over the next five years. With Apple pushing itself to the forefront of the digital textbook discussion with its iBooks Textbooks launch just two weeks ago, the company stands to significantly benefit if its iPad hardware becomes a primary tool in the move to digital textbooks.

Organize files in the Finder with Arrange By

Organize files in the Finder with Arrange By: The Arrange By menu in the Finder is a great tool for organizing, managing, and navigating through your files and folders. Here's how it works and how to make the most of it.

Wunderkit offers collaborative project management on Mac, iOS

Wunderkit offers collaborative project management on Mac, iOS: Wunderkit, a collaborative getting-things-done web-based application for Mac and iOS, has emerged from beta testing and is available to the public.