Shared posts

23 Apr 15:57

Yahoo spends $58 million to fire its chief operating officer

by Dave Mark

Washington Post:

$58 million for 15 months of work.

That’s what Yahoo’s chief operating officer Henrique De Castro got in severance pay when he was sent packing on Jan. 16, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made public on Wednesday.

Ouch.

∞ Read this on The Loop

23 Apr 15:49

Dropbox acquires Loom

by Jim Dalrymple

This makes some of Dropbox’s recent moves make more sense.

∞ Read this on The Loop

17 Apr 16:01

Absolutely fucking priceless, Samsung

by Jim Dalrymple
Chris Eaton

ALOL - this is direct link: http://samsungdesign.tumblr.com/

A Tumblr blog dedicated “original designs by Samsung.” As Gruber said, you can’t make this stuff up.

∞ Read this on The Loop

17 Apr 15:11

Another security flaw in Android

by Jim Dalrymple

FireEye recently spotted an malicious Android application that could modify the icons of other applications so that when they’re launched, they send victims to a phishing website.

Here’s the best way to avoid Android security flaws.

∞ Read this on The Loop

17 Apr 12:33

Where the hell are the Android tablets

by Jim Dalrymple
Chris Eaton

The man has a point

Every day I see iPads, a lot of iPads, out in public. What I rarely ever see are Android tablets.

Apparently they sell pretty well. Where the hell are they? Doorstops? Cutting boards?

∞ Read this on The Loop

17 Apr 12:27

A Nice Day For A Purple Wedding

A Nice Day For A Purple Wedding:

Ernesto:

The latest episode of Game of Thrones has broken the record for the most people sharing a file simultaneously via BitTorrent. More than 193,000 people shared a single copy yesterday evening, and roughly 1.5 million people downloaded the episode during the first day.

These are unprecedented numbers – never before have 193,418 people shared a single file simultaneously. The previous record was set last year, when the season finale of Game of Thrones had 171,572 people sharing on a single tracker.

Just keep leaving that money on the table, HBO.

16 Apr 15:35

Photo



16 Apr 10:34

Yes, Another "3D" Smartphone, This Time From Amazon

Chris Eaton

Half of me thinks "cool" half of me wonders what use it is... UNLESS.. imagine its only partially 3d (i..e not the entire interface), so when you look at a product you can see that in 3d by moving the device around... That would be cool!

Yes, Another "3D" Smartphone, This Time From Amazon:

Zach Epstein apparently has some details (and images) of the forthcoming Amazon smartphone:

The device houses an additional four front-facing cameras that work with other sensors to facilitate the software’s 3D effects. One source tells us these four cameras, which are situated in each of the four corners on the face of the phone, are low-power infrared cameras.

The device’s extra cameras are used to track the position of the user’s face and eyes in relation to the phone’s display. This allows Amazon’s software to make constant adjustments to the positioning of on-screen elements, altering the perspective of visuals on the screen.

The result is a 3D experience without the need for 3D glasses or a parallax barrier in front the LCD panel like the solutions used by the Nintendo 3DS portable video game console and HTC’s EVO 3D smartphone from 2011.

While I’m hesitant to say so definitely before seeing it, this reeks of pure novelty. Just as it was with every other “3D” phone before it

The question you have to ask is: at the end of the day, does such a feature make for a truly better user experience? Or is it just a novelty trying to mask itself as a differentiating feature? Or worse, does it actually make the device harder to use?

Yes, the iPhone has a “parallax” effect with iOS 7. But Apple doesn’t shy away from it being purely ornamental. And, by the way, a lot of people hate that feature.

The Amazon Phone need only be an Amazon Prime Phone, not some weird, novelty-laden thing.

16 Apr 10:16

sambraddock: the-absolute-best-gifs: ordinaryentity: [X] Fa...

16 Apr 10:14

nevver: World’s first emoticon, 1648 Subtle.



nevver:

World’s first emoticon, 1648

Subtle.

16 Apr 09:50

Samsung Galaxy S5′s fingerprint scanner already hacked and my reaction

by Jim Dalrymple
Chris Eaton

Interesting thing in comments.. Theres a flame war basically and one dude posts a picture of a shop on S5 release day with no customers outside. Interesting really, we actually happened to walk into O2 the day (or day after) it was released and there like yeah we got loads in stock... It was like there was no demand, the shop wasnt even busy! None of the phone shops were lol

The news:

When it comes to Samsung’s fingerprint scanner technology embedded in the home button on the new Galaxy S5, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we have spent plenty of time testing it, and we’ve found that it works very well. The bad news, however, is that it has apparently already been hacked, leaving Galaxy S5 owners’ devices and their PayPal accounts at risk.

My reaction:

∞ Read this on The Loop

16 Apr 09:46

Problem with the latest version of Flash? Read this

by Dave Mark

Overthought.org:

This morning, Adobe kindly alerted me of an update available for Flash to take it to version 13.0.0.182.

The update breaks Flash.

DO NOT run this update, at least until Adobe solves whatever is causing the plugin to fail.

Several readers of Overthought.org have reported that this update completely breaks Flash for Safari on OS X 10.9 Mavericks. I have also personally experienced this issue.

If you run into a problem with your newly updated Flash install, read the rest of the post. Hopefully, it will help. [Via @stumark and @jordanmerrick]

∞ Read this on The Loop

16 Apr 09:46

Macro photos of insects

by Jim Dalrymple

Bobby Solomon freaked me out with these shots, so I thought I’d share.

∞ Read this on The Loop

16 Apr 09:46

Design decisions behind Secret app

by Jim Dalrymple

For Chrys Bader, the co-founder and lead designer of the two-month-old Secret mobile app, his “allergy to complexity” all started when he spent about a year working on Google+. It was during that time, working on one of the most complex social products out there, that he realized that utter simplicity and a singular focus were the keys to building powerful social mobile products.

I love articles like this because you get to see what’s behind the app. Sometimes you can even see where the product doesn’t match the philosophy.

∞ Read this on The Loop

16 Apr 07:51

Dieter Bohn of The Verge Profiles Project Ara, Google’s Modular Phone Project

by John Gruber

I remain highly skeptical that a modular design can compete in a product category where size, weight, and battery life are at such a premium. Even if they can bring something to market, why would any normal person be interested in a phone like this?

16 Apr 07:51

★ The Nocera Chronicles

by John Gruber

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera (of “and I think you’re a slime bucket” Steve Jobs phone call fame) devoted his weekend column to Apple. He describes a company already in decline, several times citing Yukari Iwatani Kane’s widely-panned Haunted Empire:

The only real way to stave off further decline is to come out with a product that establishes a whole new category — the way the iPad did in 2010. But that seems unlikely. “Outside the echo chamber of Apple’s headquarters, the notion of the company’s exceptionalism has been shattered,” Kane writes.

That’s the extent of Nocera’s argument that iPad-like new products from Apple “seem unlikely”: Yukari Kane’s having written so in her book. Really.

As I’ve written repeatedly, these Apple bears who believe Steve Jobs was indispensable may well be right. We don’t know yet. Only time will tell. But (again, as I’ve written repeatedly) the evidence so far doesn’t back that theory up, and the “new category” breakthrough products were in fact few and far between under Steve Jobs, too, and often dismissed by critics upon their unveiling. In between those rare new products, the company’s life blood has always been incremental improvements to existing products.

Nocera:

Which brings me back to the litigation with Samsung — the company that is coming to market with products that are every bit as good as Apple’s, and at a lower price to boot. This never-ending litigation is yet another sign that Apple is becoming a spent force. Suing each other “is not what innovative companies do,” said Robin Feldman, a patent law expert at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

I’d argue with both aspects of the “products that are every bit as good as Apple’s, and at a lower price to boot” clause (unlocked 16 GB Galaxy S5’s cost over $700 on Amazon; unlocked 16 GB iPhone 5S’s cost $649), but let’s leave that aside. The primary thrust of the “Haunted Empire” theory on Apple is that Steve Jobs was indispensable, and that the company entered an inevitable decline as soon as he left. But Steve Jobs is the man who told his own biographer:

Our lawsuit is saying, “Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.” Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google’s products — Android, Google Docs — are shit.

Much like how Kane, in her piece back in February for The New Yorker’s website, tried to have it both ways regarding Scott Forstall — arguing that Apple Maps was “a fiasco” in the very next paragraph after arguing that Tim Cook should not have fired Forstall, the executive who was responsible for Apple Maps in iOS 6 — Nocera here has painted Apple into a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t scenario. He spends most of his column arguing that Apple is screwed because they’re lost without Jobs. But now he’s saying they’re screwed because they’re doing exactly what Jobs expressly told his biographer he wanted to do: fight Android handset makers — and by proxy, Google — tooth and nail in court.

Suing each other ‘is not what innovative companies do’”, Nocera quotes a patent law expert. But Apple sued, and threatened to sue, companies all the time while Steve Jobs was CEO. Jobs joked about having patented every aspect of the iPhone on stage during its unveiling. Under Jobs, Apple sued and eventually put out of business an Apple rumor site run by a teenager.

I think there’s nothing Apple could have done in the last three years that would have kept Nocera from writing this column. Likewise with Kane and her book. The company is lost without Steve Jobs and nothing will convince them otherwise.


My gut feeling is that 2014 is going to play out poorly for the “Haunted Empire” crowd. If Tim Cook is willing to tell The Wall Street Journal, “We’re really working on some really great stuff. I think no one reasonable would say they’re not a new category,” I’ll take his word for it.

I have no knowledge regarding what products Cook was referring to. But if history repeats itself, the odds are good that the announcement of these new products — along with annual new versions of iPhones and iPads and MacBooks — will do nothing to quell the doomed-without-Jobs critics.

The iPad was “just a big iPhone” when it was unveiled in 2010; today it’s hailed as Apple’s last great new product. My guess is we’ll see the same reaction to whatever Apple releases this year. It takes years for even the most amazing of new products — the iPhone, for example — to prove themselves on the market. It’s a long game.

Even then — come, say, 2017, when Apple is reaping billions in profits from some product first introduced this year — the doomed-without-Jobs crowd could (and I bet will) just argue that the product succeeded only because it had been conceived while Steve Jobs was alive. It’ll never stop.

16 Apr 07:46

BGR on Amazon’s Upcoming Smartphone

by John Gruber
Chris Eaton

The "this" link omg!!

Zach Epstein:

The most novel aspect of Amazon’s upcoming smartphone is its 3D software interface and the hardware mechanism that enables it.

Our sources state that the new Amazon phone includes a total of six cameras.

Can’t wait to see this 3D stuff. In the meantime, though, I can’t help but think of this.

15 Apr 11:20

Apple earns more than HP, Google, Intel and Cisco combined

by Jim Dalrymple
Chris Eaton

Actually ridiculous

15 Apr 10:27

Backblaze: Backup your data online for $5 a month [Sponsor]

by Jim Dalrymple
Chris Eaton

Hmm, is this too good to be true?

Back up all your data with Backblaze online backup. It’s unlimited, unthrottled, uncomplicated, and unexpensive. At just $5/month for all your data it’s a no-brainer.

Don’t risk losing your music, photos, movies, code, docs and whatever else you’re working on or editing. Backblaze continuously and securely backs up all the data on your computer and external hard drives.

Accessing and restoring files is easy. Quickly download and share files with the iPhone app. Need more of your data back? Use any web browser to download it or have Backblaze FedEx you a flash key or USB hard drive. Whether it’s a broken hard drive, lost external, or a stolen computer, data loss happens all the time. For less than a cup of coffee, just $5/month, Backblaze can back up all the data on your computer. 
It’s easy. Stop putting it off. Start your free trial, and get your backup started today.

∞ Read this on The Loop

15 Apr 08:57

itscolossal: Mobile Lovers / Banksy So good.

Chris Eaton

This is my life :/





itscolossal:

Mobile Lovers / Banksy

So good.

14 Apr 14:32

Alpine to sell stand-alone CarPlay consoles

by Dave Mark
Chris Eaton

There you go darren, you wont need a new car after all!

Nikkei.com:

While a slew of carmakers will soon start offering vehicles that come standard with a CarPlay interface built in, the Japanese company’s device is to be the first aftermarket product compatible with the system. It will first be available in the U.S. and Europe and likely cost around $500 to $700.

The device will connect to an iPhone 5 or later by wire. Drivers will be able to view maps on its screen, likely 7 inches, and use voice commands to access messages, make calls and play music. The system will be able to read messages and directions aloud.

This looks pretty cool. A real boost for CarPlay.

∞ Read this on The Loop

14 Apr 14:15

Lying Google bastards

by Jim Dalrymple

Remember last week when Android engineering VP, Hiroshi Lockheimer, testified in the Apple vs. Samsung trial and lied his ass off saying, “Google did not look to copy the iPhone when it designed Android.” Lies.

Android.before.iPhone

∞ Read this on The Loop

14 Apr 14:04

Today’s winner in Secret.



Today’s winner in Secret.

14 Apr 14:03

"Maybe it’s an effect of living your life online — that you also want these physical things."

Chris Eaton

I want less physical things, but I want them to be better quality. Id be very happy with almost no actual items, but having them be incredible!

“Maybe it’s an effect of living your life online — that you also want these physical things.”

-

Tom Nissley, who used to work for Amazon and now owns a small bookstore in Seattle. He’s a part of the movement of small, local shops gaining ground once again even in the face of Amazon.

It’s a slightly better sentiment than “books as art”.

14 Apr 14:03

Classic album covers in Google Street View. So amazing.

14 Apr 11:24

iCloudy with a 100% chance of stupidity

by Shawn King
Chris Eaton

lols at the title

. The Robservatory:

I use a lot of cloud services for file storage, primarily Dropbox, but also Box and (begrudgingly, for certain shared projects) Google Drive. I also use iCloud, but not in any way that would be considered a true cloud file storage service. I use it strictly as a sync service for contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, Safari; I also use Back to My Mac. But that’s it; I don’t use iCloud for cloud-based file management at all. Why not? Because iCloud in its current implementation is chock full of the stupid, at least for those of us who still use and rely on OS X.

When people say, “Apple doesn’t get Web Services”, this is a prime example of it.

∞ Read this on The Loop

14 Apr 11:07

Millions of Android devices vulnerable to Heartbleed

by Jim Dalrymple

Be well Android people and make your way to an Apple store.

∞ Read this on The Loop

14 Apr 11:07

Amazon’s smartphone

by Jim Dalrymple

The company has recently been demonstrating versions of the handset to developers in San Francisco and Seattle. It intends to announce the device in June and ship to stores around the end of September, the newspaper cited the unidentified sources as saying.

This will throw a wrench into the smartphone market. There’s a lot of things we don’t know, like the hardware and which version of Android (I assume) it will use. I have a feeling it will be a low-priced phone, which will put more pressure on other Android handset makers than it will Apple.

∞ Read this on The Loop

14 Apr 09:53

A big pile of Google bullshit

by Jim Dalrymple

A top Android executive testified on Friday that Google did not look to copy the iPhone when it designed Android.

“We like to have our own identity,” Android engineering VP Hiroshi Lockheimer said, testifying in an Apple-Samsung lawsuit currently before a jury in San Jose, Calif.

So before the iPhone, Android looked like the BlackBerry. After the iPhone, Android looked like iOS. Total fucking accident.

∞ Read this on The Loop

14 Apr 07:53

‘Brightest Flashlight’ Android App Disclosed Location of 50 Million People, but FTC Imposes No Fine

by John Gruber

Jeff John Roberts, writing for GigaOm:

Even judging by the low standards of creepy data-mining apps, “Brightest Flashlight” did something pretty egregious. The free app, which was installed by at least 50 million Android users, transmitted users’ real-time locations to ad networks and other third parties. It was, in other words, a stalking device disguised as a flashlight.