Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

CHART OF THE DAY: The Kindle Fire Is The Most Important Android Tablet For App Makers [Business Insider]

2012-01-27T18:30:00.001-05:00

Check the full post for context-setting; tbd why no Nook Color/Tablet share

CHART OF THE DAY: The Kindle Fire Is The Most Important Android Tablet For App Makers

First Look: IBM Docs Takes On Google, Microsoft [CRN]

2012-01-27T06:27:00.001-05:00

Not sure this was a deliberate case study in damning with feint praise

While IBM Docs allows for creation of .ODT-based word documents, as well as presentations and spreadsheets, it shouldn’t be looked at in a vacuum. IBM Docs is latest in a string of launches in the IBM-Lotus portfolio of cloud-based communication and productivity applications. They are all new generations of releases from the same people who gave us the IBM Mashup Center at the beginning of the Web 2.0 era.

First Look: IBM Docs Takes On Google, Microsoft

PC Makers Should Fear Amazon's Android Gains - Businessweek

2012-01-27T06:17:00.001-05:00

A svelte 9” or 10” Kindle Fire would significantly accelerate market dynamics in this context

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said during his company’s recent earnings call that iPad sales haven’t really been affected by the Kindle Fire from Amazon, which is no doubt contributing heavily to the success of Android tablets. It’s also likely that the Nook Color and Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble are included in the Android figures. Instead, Cook admitted, the iPad has had some cannibalization effect on sales of Macs and he predicted that one day, the tablet market will be larger in volume than the PC market.

PC Makers Should Fear Amazon's Android Gains - Businessweek

Report: Apple Takes Bigger Business Slice - Digits - WSJ

2012-01-27T06:06:00.001-05:00

Top-down infiltration

A new report from Forrester has uncovered new numbers on Apple Inc.’s infiltration of business with devices historically marketed to consumers.

According to the report, 21% of the 10,000 information workers surveyed use one or more Apple products at work, with that percentage nearly doubling for those with a title of director or higher. The numbers partly reflect the well documented trend of “bring your own device,” where workers access corporate data via their iPhone or iPad, originally purchased for home use.

Report: Apple Takes Bigger Business Slice - Digits - WSJ

Microsoft's Pays Nokia Millions During Windows Phone Transition - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD

2012-01-27T05:56:00.001-05:00

I suspect Tim Cook finds this amusing

As part of Thursday’s earnings report, Nokia noted it received $250 million from Redmond in the first of many quarterly “platform support payments.” It’s part of what the company says will ultimately be billions of dollars in support of its shift to Windows Phone.

Nokia also notes that it pays Microsoft royalties on each phone and has guaranteed minimum commitments, an amount it also expects to ultimately be measured in the billions of dollars.

Microsoft's Pays Nokia Millions During Windows Phone Transition - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD

Motorola Sells Significantly Fewer Tablets Than Apple - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

2012-01-27T05:54:00.001-05:00

It’s the patents Google has decided to spend $12.5B on; the products are expendable

Some disappointing numbers in Motorola Mobility’s latest earnings report: A loss of $80 million on revenue of $3.4 billion, and mobile device shipments of 10.5 million versus 11.3 million a year ago. Still, few were as grim as these: 200,000 tablets shipped in the fourth quarter and just 1 million shipped for all of 2011. In other words, it took MoMo a full year to ship 1/15th the number of iPads Apple sold in its most recent quarter.

And this is the company that Google has decided to spend $12.5 billion on.

Motorola Sells Significantly Fewer Tablets Than Apple - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

Pac-Man Proved NP-Hard By Computational Complexity Theory - Technology Review

2012-01-27T05:34:00.001-05:00

Sign of the times

The classic '80s arcade game turns out to be equivalent to the travelling salesman problem, according a new analysis of the computational complexity of video games

Pac-Man Proved NP-Hard By Computational Complexity Theory - Technology Review

Analysis: Wall Street puzzles over Google's new direction - Yahoo! News

2012-01-26T07:29:00.001-05:00

Searching for a coherent and compelling Google value proposition

Google does not disclose how much money it has spent on Google+. But analysts believe much of Google's aggressive hiring during the past year -- its headcount swelled to more than 8,000 employees in 2011 alone -- was to feed its social efforts as it seeks to challenge Facebook's 800 million user network.

[…]

Google+, which does not currently feature ads, is still in its infancy and the company has yet to outline its monetization plans for the service. But Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said the benefits of some of Google's other non-search initiatives, such as the vast amount of online video it now streams across the Web on YouTube, are coming into focus.

"The goal at the end of the rainbow is TV advertising," he said. "For years Google has been eating the lunch of print and radio, but TV has held up incredibly well."

Analysis: Wall Street puzzles over Google's new direction - Yahoo! News

Nokia Posts Huge Loss - WSJ.com

2012-01-26T07:19:00.001-05:00

On another Apple value transfusion note…

Finland's Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile-phone maker by volume, Thursday posted its third consecutive quarterly net loss, as handset sales dropped 29% on an annual basis.

The company swung to a crushing €1.07 billion ($1.4 billion) loss for the three months ended Dec. 31, down from a €745 million profit in the same period last year. Group sales dropped 21% to €10 billion from €12.65 billion.

Nokia Posts Huge Loss - WSJ.com

As Streaming Rises, More Americans Cut Cable - TheStreet

2012-01-26T06:49:00.001-05:00

As Hiawatha Bray noted in his related Google+ post, “Bad news for Comcast”

A survey from Deloitte shows just how much this trend has begun to take hold among the American public. The company's latest State of the Media Democracy survey asked nearly 2,000 consumers from every age group about their media consumption habits, and included in the survey were several questions pertaining to Internet streaming. Most notably, 9% of surveyed consumers said they had recently canceled their paid cable service in favor of an Internet streaming service, and another 11% were considering cutting cable for the same reason. Young people in particular are leading the way in this trend, with 19% of the 23-28 age group giving serious thought to cutting the cord.

As Streaming Rises, More Americans Cut Cable - TheStreet

Android Reaches 39% Tablet OS Market Share (Standing On Amazon’s Shoulders) | TechCrunch

2012-01-26T06:45:00.001-05:00

I suspect the non-Kindle Fire/non-Nook part of the Android tablet market share is a rounding error. Also see Ha! Your “Limited Function” Kindle Fire Is No Match for My Magical iPad! (AllThingsD) for related Tim Cook commentary.

Apple’s iPad reigns supreme from whatever angle you choose to look at the tablet market (profits, apps, quality, market share, mindshare, you name it), but research firm Strategy Analytics this morning said Android did manage to capture a record 39 percent tablet OS market share in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Apple maintains the lead with 58 percent market share in Q4 2011.

Android Reaches 39% Tablet OS Market Share (Standing On Amazon’s Shoulders) | TechCrunch

Netflix Surges After Subscriber Rebound: Los Angeles Mover - Businessweek

2012-01-26T06:16:00.001-05:00

Not dead yet

Netflix Inc., the online and mail- order video-rental service, surged after reporting fourth- quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates and forecasting improving margins in its streaming business.

Netflix signed 610,000 U.S. customers in the period to reach 24.4 million, according to a statement yesterday. Shares of the Los Gatos, California-based company rose 16 percent to $110.12 in extended trading.

Tangentially, from “Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem” (Monday Note), a snapshot of U.S. bandwidth consumption

Netflix Surges After Subscriber Rebound: Los Angeles Mover - Businessweek

Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China - NYTimes.com

2012-01-26T05:59:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a stark globalization snapshot

Apple is not the only electronics company doing business within a troubling supply system. Bleak working conditions have been documented at factories manufacturing products for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba and others.

Current and former Apple executives, moreover, say the company has made significant strides in improving factories in recent years. Apple has a supplier code of conduct that details standards on labor issues, safety protections and other topics. The company has mounted a vigorous auditing campaign, and when abuses are discovered, Apple says, corrections are demanded.

Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China - NYTimes.com

Real Bonding With Family Around the TV Via Skype - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

2012-01-26T05:52:00.001-05:00

Check the product Web page and the full Walt Mossberg review for more details

This TV add-on product is a black, horizontal bar less than a foot long and under 3 inches high with a wide-angle lens and multiple built-in microphones. It installs quickly and easily—typically on top of the TV—and is controlled by a remote from across the room that can be used to place and answer calls, and to zoom and pan your image. It can connect to any other Skype-enabled device—including PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets—but some of its advanced features require a telyHD on both sides of the conversation.

[…]

TelyHD isn’t just a webcam. It’s a small computing device, powered by Google’s Android operating system. It contains software and Internet capabilities most TVs lack, some of which go beyond simple video calls. For instance, when contacting other telyHD units, I was able to send and receive video voice mails. And I was able to plug into the telyHD a flash memory card filled with pictures. I could share the pictures with another telyHD user and vice versa. I could even choose to copy a photo from the other party onto my own memory card. You can do the same thing with a USB drive.

Real Bonding With Family Around the TV Via Skype - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

Textbook publishers prep for the e-future - Business - The Boston Globe

2012-01-26T05:47:00.001-05:00

Another market domain apparently ready to begin a value transfusion to Apple

Between them, Houghton, Pearson, and McGraw-Hill Cos. in New York command 85 percent of the $3.2 billion core K-12 textbook market - serving 50 million students - in the United States, according to the website paidcontent.org, which covers digital media.

Just 46 cents of every $100 spent on overall K-12 education is spent on digital texts, according to a September federal report from the White House. How fast that share will grow is an open question, said Josef Blumenfeld, senior vice president of corporate affairs at Houghton.

Textbook publishers prep for the e-future - Business - The Boston Globe

Apple's soaraway growth is Google's pain - and here's why • The Register

2012-01-26T05:41:00.001-05:00

Steve Jobs would have enjoyed this

Now compare Google's fortunes to Apple's. Apple is today the world's most valuable company, and it hasn't spent one cent on lobbying against intellectual property. Apple makes real money, on real products, which aren't easily replicable. Google, by contrast, is easily substitutable for a Bing or a Baidu. The idea is beginning to circulate that there's no real long-term growth in Google's business.

Apple's soaraway growth is Google's pain - and here's why • The Register

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » Why Apple deserves every bit of its success » Real Dan Lyons Web Site

2012-01-25T11:54:00.001-05:00

Even the former Fake Steve Jobs can’t find much not to like about Apple’s success

Great products. An ecosystem of hardware-software-content. Fantastic customer service. Brilliant marketing. Awesome retail stores. World-beating supply chain and operational expertise. This is a company unlike anything any of us have ever seen. They have earned every bit of their success. And they are only getting stronger. My longer take on today’s phenomenal earnings report is here on the Daily Beast.

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » Why Apple deserves every bit of its success » Real Dan Lyons Web Site

Business & Technology | Google to merge user data across more services | Seattle Times Newspaper

2012-01-25T06:40:00.001-05:00

Meanwhile, via Danny Sullivan (via Facebook…), “Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else”

Google announced a plan Tuesday to link user data across its email, video, social-networking and other services that it says will create a "beautifully simple and intuitive" user experience. But critics raised privacy concerns like those that helped kill the search giant's Buzz social networking service.

The changes, which take effect March 1, will remove some of the legal hurdles Google Inc. faces in trying to link information across services from Gmail to YouTube to the Google Plus social network that replaced Buzz.

Business & Technology | Google to merge user data across more services | Seattle Times Newspaper

Apple’s Profit Doubled on Holiday Customers Snapping Up iPhones - NYTimes.com

2012-01-25T06:19:00.001-05:00

More Apple stats

With the 37 million iPhones that customers snapped up over the holidays, Apple has sold 183 million of the devices since the product went on sale in 2007. Revenue from the iPhone and iPad — neither of which could be bought five years ago — now accounts for 72 percent of Apple’s total revenue, underscoring the transformation of the company.

And although phones based on Google’s Android operating system had been gaining more customers in recent years, Apple has begun to chip away at some of the advantages of these phones, narrowing Android’s lead in the United States over the holidays.

[…]

The rosy results sent Apple shares soaring more than 7 percent in after-hours trading to more than $450 each. The jump increased the total value of Apple’s shares to more than $426 billion, pushing its market value past that of Exxon Mobil and making it the most highly valued company.

Apple’s Profit Doubled on Holiday Customers Snapping Up iPhones - NYTimes.com

Apple Sold More iPads Than HP Sold PCs - John Paczkowski - News - AllThingsD

2012-01-25T06:17:00.001-05:00

Sign of the times

Apple sold 15.4 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs in its first quarter. That’s more than 20 million personal computing devices. HP’s PC sales for the fourth quarter were 14.7 million, according to Gartner. Which means Apple’s iPad sales alone surpassed HP’s PC sales, as Apple Insider first noted.

Apple Sold More iPads Than HP Sold PCs - John Paczkowski - News - AllThingsD

Tim Cook Reports on His First Four Months at Apple - Ina Fried - News - AllThingsD

2012-01-25T06:14:00.001-05:00

Another incredible Apple quarter – per Business Insider, the iPhone was 53% of sales for Apple’s most recent quarter

Apple’s quarterly iPhone sales, at more than 37 million smartphones, were numbers that its rivals would kill to have for a year, let alone a quarter. And recent data for the U.S. shows Apple alone nearly even with the entire Android world in market share.

Cook said he is focused on remaining the lead horse in the race, but said he doesn’t see Android as the only competitor.

“I wouldn’t say it is a two-horse race,” he said. “There’s a horse in Redmond that always suits up and always runs.”

[Chart from Business Insider page linked above]

Tim Cook Reports on His First Four Months at Apple - Ina Fried - News - AllThingsD

Facebook Says It Will Now Push Timeline to All Users - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

2012-01-25T06:09:00.001-05:00

Facebook finally rolling out Timeline “over the next few weeks”

This particular Facebook layout change seems to have been less catastrophic than others, in part because the Timeline rollout was delayed, staggered and included the seven-day preview periods. But complaints seem likely to spike once Timeline is no longer an upgrade option but a requirement for everybody.

Just last week, Facebook unleashed 60 new Timeline apps for food, fashion, fitness and travel. Like those for music and other media, the apps automatically post about user activity.

Facebook Says It Will Now Push Timeline to All Users - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

Subtext iPad App Makes Readers' Thoughts an Open Book - Katherine Boehret - The Digital Solution - AllThingsD

2012-01-25T06:07:00.001-05:00

See the full review for more details about a social reading app for Google Books on the iPad

Like Amazon’s Kindle already does, Subtext gives anyone who reads an e-book the ability to make notes, highlight passages and to keep private or share those notes or highlights with other users. But this app goes much further: It also lets readers post questions, polls, quizzes or even Web links that are noted in the margins of the book. Other users respond to these posts and start mini book discussions that can continue indefinitely. Subtext content can be kept private, made visible to all users or made visible only to a user’s friends. Along with comments from fellow readers, Subtext users can see comments marked in blue that are made by a book’s author or other experts.

Subtext iPad App Makes Readers' Thoughts an Open Book - Katherine Boehret - The Digital Solution - AllThingsD

A Healthy Information Diet: The Case for Conscious Consumption - Maria Popova - Health - The Atlantic

2012-01-24T11:24:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a review of The Information Diet, which remains on my recommended reading list

Johnson -- best known for directing Sunlight Labs at government transparency operation Sunlight Foundation -- draws a parallel between the industrialization of food, which at once allowed for ever-greater efficiency and reined in an obesity epidemic, and the industrialization of information, arguing that blaming the abundance of information itself is as absurd as blaming the abundance of food for obesity. Instead, he proposes a solution that lies in engineering a healthy relationship with information by adopting smarter habits and becoming as selective about the information we consume as we are about the food we eat. In the process, he covers the history of information, the science of attention, the healthy economics of media, and a wealth in between.

A Healthy Information Diet: The Case for Conscious Consumption - Maria Popova - Health - The Atlantic

Google pumps up its lobbying effort - The Washington Post

2012-01-24T07:27:00.001-05:00

Perhaps Google should plan on hiring Newt Gingrich for lobbying work; he should have some spare time soon

Google’s U.S. lobbying bill more than tripled to $3.76 million in the fourth quarter as the Internet search leader fought proposed changes to online piracy laws and sought to influence a wide range of other issues that could affect its fortunes.

The amount is the company’s largest lobbying tab for any quarter since its Washington office opened in 2005. The company spent $1.24 million on lobbying during the final three months of 2010 and $2.38 million in the third quarter of 2011.

Google pumps up its lobbying effort - The Washington Post

Exclusive: YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views | Reuters

2012-01-24T06:43:00.001-05:00

Something to see

The jump in video views comes as Google pushes YouTube beyond the personal computer, with versions of the site that work on smartphones and televisions, and as the company steps up efforts to offer more professional-grade content on the site.

According to the company, roughly 60 hours of video is now uploaded to YouTube every minute, compared with the 48 hours of video uploaded per minute in May.

Exclusive: YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views | Reuters

Facebook Engineers Built A Way Better Version Of Google [Business Insider]

2012-01-24T06:33:00.001-05:00

Check the project FAQ for more details

Some engineers at Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace think this is unfair to users – and to demonstrate why, they've created a modified version of Google, which you can access on a site called Focusontheuser.org.

The site reads:

"How much better would social search be if Google surfaced results from all across the web? The results speak for themselves. We created a tool that uses Google’s own relevance measure—the ranking of their organic search results—to determine what social content should appear in the areas where Google+ results are currently hardcoded."

Facebook Engineers Built A Way Better Version Of Google

Not Quite Smart Enough - NYTimes.com

2012-01-24T06:24:00.001-05:00

Doesn’t look like a smart investment at this time

The idea is that consumers can control the devices, which can communicate wirelessly, with their smartphones, tablets or televisions. So the owner of a smart refrigerator could check what’s in the refrigerator on a smartphone, and in some instances, send photographs to be displayed on the refrigerator’s LCD screen.

But the smart refrigerators being offered these days aren’t smart enough to keep track of the food inside; consumers still need to do that themselves with a touch screen. And while smart washers allow remote changing of the settings, some question how many consumers would be willing to pay for that perk.

Not Quite Smart Enough - NYTimes.com

Twitter Bots Create Surprising New Social Connections - Technology Review

2012-01-24T06:12:00.001-05:00

On Twitter, nobody knows you’re a bot; also see Twitter Acquires Malware Protection Company

You might have encountered a "Twitter bot" before: an automated program that perhaps retweeted something you wrote because it had particular keywords. Or maybe you received a message from an unfamiliar, seemingly human-controlled account, only to click on an accompanying link and realize you'd been fooled by a spambot.

Now a group of freelance Web researchers has created more sophisticated Twitter bots, dubbed "socialbots," that can not only fool people into thinking they are real people, but also serve as virtual social connectors, speeding up the natural rate of human-to-human communication.

Twitter Bots Create Surprising New Social Connections - Technology Review

Your State of the Union Interview with President Obama | The White House

2012-01-23T12:12:00.001-05:00

Presidential treatment for Google+ Hangouts

The President is committed to creating a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. That’s why President Obama and more than twenty-five members of his administration will be responding to your questions about the speech all week and talking about the issues that matter most to you (check out the full schedule here).

And, in the first completely-virtual interview from the White House, President Obama will answer questions that have been submitted by Americans from across the country via YouTube. The virtual event with the President will happen through Google+ Hangouts, a live multi-person video chat.

Your State of the Union Interview with President Obama | The White House

Apple vs. Android: War Without End? - The Daily Beast

2012-01-23T12:09:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from an Apple IP snapshot by Dan Lyons

“They’re losing momentum. They’re at the point where the walls start to crumble a little bit,” says Kevin Rivette, a patent attorney and managing partner at 3LP Advisors, a consulting firm that specializes in intellectual property. Apple, he says, should be “looking long and hard at how to cut deals.”

Apple’s strong market position means it could still demand favorable terms from Android players—especially after a robust fourth quarter in which iPhone sales blossomed while Android sales wilted. The company could license its patents and collect royalties on every Android handset sold, as Microsoft has done with top Android phone makers. “The problem is, what happens when you start losing in court? It gets a lot harder to do licensing deals,” Rivette says.

Apple vs. Android: War Without End? - The Daily Beast

New E-Books Land in Bargain Bin - WSJ.com

2012-01-23T06:42:00.001-05:00

U.S. residents can sign up to be informed of the Kindle Daily Deal here. There are also lots of short-term no-cost book promotions; see this page for an example of an index.

So far there is no doubt that pricing a book at 99 cents can boost sales. "We had two Kurt Vonnegut novels priced at 99 cents last November in separate Daily Deals—his 'Breakfast of Champions' and 'Mother Night,'" said Arthur Klebanoff, chief executive of RosettaBooks LLC, an e-book publisher. "Each title sold in one day the number of copies comparable to what we might have sold in a year."

The question is whether the increase in volume can offset the lost revenue from the lower price—a risk for both publisher and author.

New E-Books Land in Bargain Bin - WSJ.com

Tablet and E-Reader Sales Soar - NYTimes.com

2012-01-23T06:33:00.001-05:00

This trend, along with the decline of the netbook market, helps to explain why Windows sales were soft in Microsoft’s most recent quarter

There was no must-have toy of Christmas 2011 — for youngsters, anyway.

For adults, tablet computers and e-readers were the gifts of choice, judging by a new report that indicates the number of adults in the United States who own tablets and e-readers nearly doubled from mid-December to early January.

[…]

The increased ownership of tablets was especially pronounced among highly educated people with household incomes of more than $75,000. Almost one-third of people with college degrees now own tablet computers, the report said.

Tablet and E-Reader Sales Soar - NYTimes.com

RIM’s Balsillie and Lazaridis Step Aside - NYTimes.com

2012-01-23T06:24:00.001-05:00

This is likely to please at least RIM’s competitors

But while Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis, who have become the targets of some disgruntled shareholders, are stepping aside, investors and others looking for changes in the company’s strategy may be disappointed.

The company named Thorsten Heins, currently one of RIM’s two chief operating officers, as chief executive. He pledged during an interview on Sunday to follow the strategy Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis set in place.

RIM’s Balsillie and Lazaridis Step Aside - NYTimes.com

Samsung's Smart Window - Technology Review

2012-01-23T06:20:00.001-05:00

See the full article for a video overview and additional details

Samsung’s concept of a smart window is very different: basically, it would turn your window into something a lot more like an iPad. If windows and touchscreens had offspring, Samsung’s product would be it. The inevitable references to Minority Report abound.

The device is really a transparent touchscreen LCD that can be fitted to any window, so long as it’s no longer than some 46 inches. Resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels, reportedly. During the day, illumination is provided from outside. At night, built-in lights kick in.

Samsung's Smart Window - Technology Review

Apple's iBooks Author EULA Restriction is Dumb, Not Evil | TechPinions

2012-01-21T15:57:00.001-05:00

Another iBooks Author license perspective

In fact, that EULA language is merely stupid not evil. Apple is not asserting any sort of control over the contents of your book, just the formatted output of iBooks Author. That output can only be used to create an iBook and iBooks can only be sold through iTunes, so the language doesn’t actually create any restriction that isn’t already inherent in the software. Besides, no one has to use iTunes Author; there are other tools for creating iBooks.

Apple's iBooks Author EULA Restriction is Dumb, Not Evil | TechPinions

Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com

2012-01-21T15:22:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from an extensive manufacturing globalization reality check

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost every electronics designer relies upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com

Should NoSQL startups be afraid of DynamoDB? [GigaOM]

2012-01-21T15:06:00.001-05:00

Back to the differentiation drawing board, for NoSQL start-ups

However, there are plenty of reasons for NoSQL-based startups to fear these new big-name competitors. When competing against Oracle, the challenge will be to convince large enterprises that third-party NoSQL databases are a better fit with existing Oracle ecosystems than is Oracle’s custom-built offering. Nobody ever got fired for buying Oracle, and if it’s offering NoSQL as part of an integrated data environment that also includes a relational database, data warehouse and Hadoop, there might be a natural inclination to just go with Oracle.

With AWS and DynamoDB, however, NoSQL companies find themselves fighting for the websites and other web-based customers that are now their bread and butter. Sid Anand, who helped transition Netflix from Oracle to AWS’s SimpleDB to Cassandra and who now is on the LinkedIn infrastructure team, wrote on his blog earlier this week that “[i]f [your NoSQL database] is not hosted (e.g. by AWS), be prepared to hire a fleet of ops folks to support it yourself. If you don’t have the manpower, I recommend AWS’[s] DynamoDB.”

http://gigaom.com/cloud/should-nosql-startups-be-afraid-of-dynamodb/

Facebook’s new social apps are anti-social | FT Tech Hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

2012-01-21T08:25:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a Facebook timeline app reality check

The apps, plus Facebook’s opening of its platform to any developer that wants to build on it, are clearly aimed at diversifying the experiences people can have on the site – to stem boredom, and to keep people participating. That’s a sensible business move ahead of the company’s IPO, as it keeps engagement rates up, and that keeps marketers optimistic and spending money.

But is seamlessly sharing the most minute details of daily life truly a way to stay connected with people, even within the limited confines of the internet?

Facebook’s new social apps are anti-social | FT Tech Hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

Blogs vs. Term Papers - NYTimes.com

2012-01-21T08:20:00.001-05:00

Not one instance of the word “hypertext” in this article

The debate about academic writing has given rise to new terminology: “old literacy” refers to more traditional forms of discourse and training; “new literacy” stretches from the blog and tweet to multimedia presentation with PowerPoint and audio essay.

“We’re at a crux right now of where we have to figure out as teachers what part of the old literacy is worth preserving,” says Andrea A. Lunsford, a professor of English at Stanford. “We’re trying to figure out how to preserve sustained, logical, carefully articulated arguments while engaging with the most exciting and promising new literacies.”

Blogs vs. Term Papers - NYTimes.com

At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than Greece - Jan. 19, 2012 [CNN]

2012-01-20T06:55:00.001-05:00

Signs of the times

Apple's market cap is higher than the gross domestic product of Greece, Austria, Argentina, or South Africa. (For more comparisons, check out this excellent blog: Things Apple is Worth More Than.)

Despite its size, Apple is still one of the fastest growing technology companies. The company will report its finances for the past quarter next week, and analysts expect Apple to announce that its sales grew by 45% compared to last year, according to a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters.

At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than Greece - Jan. 19, 2012

Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement | ZDNet

2012-01-20T06:52:00.001-05:00

A critical assessment of Apple’s textbook-focused tool license agreement

Dan Wineman calls it “unprecedented audacity” on Apple’s part. For people like me, who write and sell books, access to multiple markets is essential. But that’s prohibited:

Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented.

Exactly: Imagine if Microsoft said you had to pay them 30% of your speaking fees if you used a PowerPoint deck in a speech.

Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement | ZDNet

Microsoft Leads ‘Old Dogs’ in Topping Estimates; Google Dips - Businessweek

2012-01-20T06:39:00.001-05:00

Happier times for IBM and MSFT shareholders

The results were a relief for many investors after Oracle Corp. reported weaker-than-anticipated earnings last month, fueling speculation that businesses were holding off on technology spending, said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland.

“The results of these three companies suggest that was an Oracle-specific event,” Barnicle said.

The positive outlook also contrasted with the earnings of Google Inc., which delivered its report yesterday. The Mountain View, California-based company missed analysts’ sales and profit estimates, dragged down by the European crisis and a push into mobile technology, which yields lower ad revenue. Google shares tumbled as much as 10 percent in late trading and were down as much as 9.1 percent in German trading today.

Microsoft Leads ‘Old Dogs’ in Topping Estimates; Google Dips - Businessweek

Google’s Strong Results Less Than Expected - NYTimes.com

2012-01-20T06:31:00.001-05:00

A bad day for GOOG shareholders

Google’s net revenue and earnings, though strong, failed to meet analysts’ expectations. Financial results were hurt by unfavorable foreign exchange rates, increased spending by Google, changes the company made to ad formats and the sale of more mobile ads, which cost less.

Those factors added to analysts’ longer-term concerns that 2012 could be a difficult year for Google as it navigates antitrust investigations, intellectual property litigation over Android, competition from Facebook and the acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the struggling handset maker.

Google’s Strong Results Less Than Expected - NYTimes.com

Google Mixes Google+ Active User Count Into the Rest of Its Products - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

2012-01-20T06:27:00.001-05:00

Check the full post for additional Google+ subscriber stat scrutiny

As part of its earnings call today, Google announced that it had registered more than 90 million users for its new social network, Google+. But registered user counts are generally a cop-out, since they’re prone to be inflated by abandoned accounts. So Google also took its first crack at giving an active Google+ user count. Kind of.

Google Mixes Google+ Active User Count Into the Rest of Its Products - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now? • The Register

2012-01-20T06:19:00.001-05:00

A failure to constructively communicate

Former Mozilla CEO John Lilly captured this best, arguing, "What’s extremely discouraging to me right now is that I don’t really see how we [the tech world and the US Congress] can have a nuanced, technically-informed, respectful discussion/debate/conversation/working relationship."

Instead all we get is the media industries engaging in back room lobbying to get bad bills passed while the tech world shotguns abuse until Congress capitulates. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship.

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now? • The Register

New Apps Let Facebook Record Your Personal History - Technology Review

2012-01-20T06:13:00.001-05:00

Personal data analysis with Facebook; see this Facebook overview for more details

Facebook won the loyalty of more than 800 million users largely by getting them into the habit of visiting again and again to see the latest updates, comments, and photos posted by friends. Now the site will also let outside apps provide even more content, and it will encourage people to spend time looking back over activity from months or even years ago. New features introduced at an event in San Francisco last night will enable users to automatically record their eating, reading, exercise, and other habits over time, share them with friends, and review their previous actions.

New Apps Let Facebook Record Your Personal History - Technology Review

Amazon Launches New Service To Make Huge Web Sites Faster And Cheaper [Business Insider]

2012-01-19T07:19:00.001-05:00

A major NoSQL milestone

Enter Amazon's new service. It can make NoSQL implementations easier and cheaper for startups and software developers because they won't have to worry about servers and storage needed to run it.

"DynamoDB is the result of 15 years of learning in the areas of large scale non-relational databases and cloud services," writes Amazon CTO Werner Vogels in his All Things Distributed blog. "Today’s web-based applications often encounter database scaling challenges when faced with growth in users, traffic, and data. With Amazon DynamoDB, developers scaling cloud-based applications can start small with just the capacity they need and then increase the request capacity of a given table as their app grows in popularity.

Amazon Launches New Service To Make Huge Web Sites Faster And Cheaper

18 New Senators Oppose PIPA After Yesterday's Protests [Business Insider]

2012-01-19T07:16:00.001-05:00

Stimulus-response

PIPA support is crumbling after yesterday's widespread Internet protests as 26 new senators oppose the bill, seven of which were former co-sponsors, reports Ars Technica.

18 New Senators Oppose PIPA After Yesterday's Protests

SOPA Boycotts and the False Ideals of the Web - NYTimes.com

2012-01-19T06:23:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a Jaron Lanier reality check

The legislation has indeed included draconian remedies in various drafts, so I join my colleagues in criticizing the bills. But our opposition has become so extreme that we are doing more harm than good to our own cause. Those rare tech companies that have come out in support of SOPA are not merely criticized but barred from industry events and subject to boycotts. We, the keepers of the flame of free speech, are banishing people for their speech. The result is a chilling atmosphere, with people afraid to speak their minds.

Our melodrama is driven by a vision of an open Internet that has already been distorted, though not by the old industries that fear piracy.

SOPA Boycotts and the False Ideals of the Web - NYTimes.com

Talk Is Cheap and Reliable on Nokia's $50 Phone - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

2012-01-19T06:12:00.001-05:00

From another Lumia 710 review

After a week of testing the Lumia 710, my verdict is that it’s a good value for the money, and a good choice for people moving up to their first smartphone, or those looking for an alternative to Android and Apple. It has some notable weaknesses and drawbacks, and it doesn’t compare with the iPhone 4S or elite Android models like the Samsung Galaxy S II. But it’s a decent phone that gets the most common smartphone tasks done.

Talk Is Cheap and Reliable on Nokia's $50 Phone - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

Nokia’s cut-rate Windows phone is just right - Business - The Boston Globe

2012-01-19T06:10:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a Windows Phone/Nokia Lumia 710 snapshot

Windows Phone 7 ought to have a better shot. It’s not merely an adequate substitute for Apple’s iPhone software or the industry-leading Android phone software from Google Inc. It is first-rate, a worthy rival to the iPhone and decisively better than Android.

And yet, people refuse to buy it. In the past three months, only 1.4 percent of Americans who bought a smartphone picked one that runs Windows Phone.

Nokia’s cut-rate Windows phone is just right - Business - The Boston Globe

Journalism Warning Labels « Tom Scott

2012-01-18T07:33:00.001-05:00

It’d be nice to see a consistent approach for this type of labeling in comments for digital information items (check the full post for the full warning label set; via The New Yorker)

It seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there's no similar labelling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.

I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers. I've been putting them on copies of the free papers that I find on the London Underground. You might want to as well.

[…]

Journalism Warning Labels « Tom Scott

A GarageBand for ebooks: Simplifying publishing could mean a flood of new content » Nieman Journalism Lab

2012-01-18T07:26:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a thoughtful review of Apple textbook strategy implications

Will there be an iBooks for Android? The Kindle and Nook platforms have the advantage of living on multiple types of devices: both on their own e-ink and tablet devices and on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Apple’s iBooks thus far lives only on iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads. If they’re aiming at widespread adoption in schools, sticking to Apple-only devices could be a hindrance. Apple’s bitten this bullet before, putting out a version of iTunes for Windows when it became clear keeping music purchasing Mac-only was a recipe for irrelevance. An iBooks for Mac seems like an obvious next move, but are sales of non-iOS smartphones and tablets sufficient to also spread the platform in new directions?

A GarageBand for ebooks: Simplifying publishing could mean a flood of new content » Nieman Journalism Lab

Facebook Integration May Be Coming To iOS 5 [Business Insider]

2012-01-18T07:06:00.001-05:00

I’m not expecting to see Google+ support in iOS anytime soon

After finally bringing Twitter to iOS 5, it looks like Apple is considering integrating other social networks as well.

This weekend, iMore discovered references to Facebook integration in the latest developer beta of iOS 5.

Facebook Integration May Be Coming To iOS 5

Web Site Will Shut Down to Protest Antipiracy Bills - NYTimes.com

2012-01-18T04:43:00.001-05:00

Stimulus-response

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, said that the technology industry, which has birthed large businesses like Google, Facebook and eBay, is much more powerful than it used to be.

“This is the first real test of the political strength of the Web, and regardless of how things go, they are no longer a pushover,” said Professor Wu, who is the author of “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.” He added, “The Web taking a stand against one of the most powerful lobbyers and seeming to get somewhere is definitely a first.”

Web Site Will Shut Down to Protest Antipiracy Bills - NYTimes.com

Jerry Yang's Decision to Leave Yahoo Was His Own - Kara Swisher - News - AllThingsD

2012-01-18T04:37:00.001-05:00

A major transition for Yahoo, with more changes expected

With a new CEO in place and the possible chance that its Asian problems were moving in the right direction, it had to have sunk in for Yang that it had finally become time to make peace with the present by abandoning his future at Yahoo.

Thus, he wanted to leave on his own terms, even if — in the end — the man who is most definitely one of the Internet’s most important pioneers did not have much of a choice.

Jerry Yang's Decision to Leave Yahoo Was His Own - Kara Swisher - News - AllThingsD

‘Open Science’ Challenges Journal Tradition With Web Collaboration - NYTimes.com

2012-01-17T06:29:00.001-05:00

More research and education business-as-usual disruption ahead

The system is hidebound, expensive and elitist, they say. Peer review can take months, journal subscriptions can be prohibitively costly, and a handful of gatekeepers limit the flow of information. It is an ideal system for sharing knowledge, said the quantum physicist Michael Nielsen, only “if you’re stuck with 17th-century technology.”

Dr. Nielsen and other advocates for “open science” say science can accomplish much more, much faster, in an environment of friction-free collaboration over the Internet. And despite a host of obstacles, including the skepticism of many established scientists, their ideas are gaining traction.

‘Open Science’ Challenges Journal Tradition With Web Collaboration - NYTimes.com

Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing [ars technica]

2012-01-17T06:10:00.001-05:00

More speculation about Apple’s Thursday event

Don't expect that content to come directly from Apple, however. "Practically speaking, Apple does not want to get into the content publishing business," MacInnis said. Like the music and movie industries, Apple has instead built a distribution platform as well as hardware to consume it—but Apple isn't a record label or production studio.

But what Apple does provide is industry-leading tools for content production, such as Logic or Final Cut Pro, to help create content. The company also produces tools like GarageBand or iMovie that make such production accessible to a much wider audience.

Will Apple launch a sort of GarageBand for e-books? "That's what we believe you're about to see," MacInnis told Ars (and our other sources agree). "Publishing something to ePub is very similar to publishing web content. Remember iWeb? That iWeb code didn't just get flushed down the toilet—I think you'll see some of [that code] repurposed."

Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing

Uh-oh, PC: Half of computing device sales are mobile [GigaOM]

2012-01-17T05:52:00.001-05:00

A timely device dynamics reality check

[…] For some time to come, especially in certain industries or specific use cases, the PC will be important. For most folks, however, the PC is losing relevance as we’re morphing from a local / desktop user base to one of mobile / cloud.

A rather timely graph illustrates this. Horace Dediu, who tracks market data on his Asymco blog, tweeted an image showing a “brief history of personal computing platforms” on Saturday, going back from present day to 1975. Notice anything interesting?

http://gigaom.com/mobile/uh-oh-pc-half-of-computing-device-sales-are-mobile/

Apple to Teach a Few Things About Textbooks - WSJ.com

2012-01-17T05:44:00.001-05:00

Apple is apparently heading back to school

Apple already has made a push into book publishing, launching its iBookstore. And the company has long been active in the education market, with its products used in many classrooms and by offering discounts to teachers and students. It also provides lectures, lessons and other educational content through its iTunes U.

The announcement Thursday could have a broad impact. Dr. Rob Reynolds, director of MBS Direct Digital, estimates only about 6% of education-textbook sales will be digital this year, up from 3% in 2011. But by 2020, digital textbooks and learning content will represent more than 50% of the overall textbook market, he said.

Apple to Teach a Few Things About Textbooks - WSJ.com

Will Microsoft buy RIM or Nokia? | Monday Note

2012-01-16T07:46:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a Jean-Louis Gassée perspective

With RIM’s market share dropping precipitously, and no sign of a rebound with spanking new models until the second half of 2012, who would want to risk billions in a market that’s controlled by competitors who manage to be both huge and fast-growing? Sure, RIM is still in the black, but its cash reserves are dwindling: the Cash and cash equivalents line went from $2.7B last February to $1.1B in November 2011. What’s left will evaporate quickly if revenue and profits keep dropping, as they’re likely to do for the foreseeable future.

Will Microsoft buy RIM or Nokia? | Monday Note

Information Diet | Better Activism Day: January 18

2012-01-16T07:39:00.001-05:00

Check the full post for more details

On January 18th, the plan for some sites is to go dark in protest for SOPA/PIPA. The blackout is important -- it raises awareness and helps people get motivated to act on this bill -- and while it's on its last legs, I think the important thing in the long term isn't the particular defeat of this bill, but rather: how do we make Congress listen to citizens better.

Now part of that is stuff you've heard before: better advocacy, transparency reforms, even campaign finance and money-in-politics solutions. But another part of that isn't so familiar: getting acquainted with how Congress works, and upping our own expertise to become better advocates. So in honor of the blackouts on the 18th, I'm holding a "Better Activism Day" with my friends at O'Reilly and PopVox. -- a livestream of experts, most of the day, who will talk about how to improve your power in Washington from people who've been successful at moving it. It's time we started getting some of the inside-the-beltway expertise outside of Washington.

Information Diet | Better Activism Day: January 18

What I Use: Evernote and Microsoft Word for Writing [Supersite for Windows]

2012-01-16T07:33:00.001-05:00

The prolific Paul Thurrott explains how he writes with Evernote. I’m surprised Evernote hasn’t yet been acquired by Apple or Google.

According to the Evernote web site, I first joined the service in March 2008, almost four years ago. But it wasn't until last month that it finally clicked for me, and I've since begun using Evernote extensively, replacing a surprising number of software programs and services in the process. My use of Evernote is part of a wider strategy to be more efficient and simplify my computing setup, using only the hardware, software, and services that make the most sense for my needs. This change required a serious recalibration, and a deep rethinking, of how I get work done.

What I Use: Evernote and Microsoft Word for Writing

I.B.M. Makes Its Social Computing Strategy Smarter - NYTimes.com

2012-01-16T07:19:00.001-05:00

Not a single instance of “Lotus” to be found in this Lotusphere/Connect 2012 snapshot

I.B.M. is benefiting from its seal-of-approval status as it seeks to build a big business in selling Web-based social networking, collaboration and decision-support software to corporations. The unit selling social business software, Connections, was founded in 2007, and it has tens of thousands of customers, I.B.M. says. About 5,000 people, mostly customers and partners, are expected to attend the company’s Connect 2012 conference in Orlando, Fla., on Monday and Tuesday.

I.B.M. Makes Its Social Computing Strategy Smarter - NYTimes.com

Obama: Don't Worry Internet, I Got Your Back on That SOPA Thing - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD

2012-01-15T12:40:00.001-05:00

Glad to see this

Today it became clear that SOPA, at least in its current form, will never get that far. Word came from the White House today that the administration, while sympathetic to the cause of curbing online piracy, will support neither the SOPA bill nor its companion bill — known as PIPA — in the Senate.

Responding to a petition, the White House announced in a blog post today that Obama will not “support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

Obama: Don't Worry Internet, I Got Your Back on That SOPA Thing - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD

Google Attempts to Take Down Facebook With ‘Search Plus Your World’ Feature - The Daily Beast

2012-01-13T08:02:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a timely Dan Lyons snapshot

The people running Facebook aren’t as easily gulled as newspaper companies—if only because some of them, such as COO Sheryl Sandberg, were the ones running Google when it ran roughshod over the newspapers.

Sandberg and her colleagues know what Google did to media companies, and they do not intend to suffer the same fate. They’ve told Google: thanks very much, but we’ll keep our precious data to ourselves and do with it as we please.

Who can blame them? Facebook put in years of hard work and spent huge amounts of money building the world’s biggest network of people. Why should Google be allowed to just walk in and start digging through that data?

Google Attempts to Take Down Facebook With ‘Search Plus Your World’ Feature - The Daily Beast

Ringing Finally Ended, but There’s No Button to Stop Shame - NYTimes.com

2012-01-13T07:17:00.001-05:00

Moral of the story: if somebody gives you a new iPhone, check to make sure no alarms have been set

The unmistakably jarring sound of an iPhone marimba ring interrupted the soft and spiritual final measures of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 at the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday night. The conductor, Alan Gilbert, did something almost unheard-of in a concert hall: He stopped the performance. But the ringing kept on going, prompting increasingly angry shouts in the audience directed at the malefactor.

[…]

Before that, the disruption became the marimba ring tone heard round the world, prompting feverish commentary on blogs and comment forums about performance interruptions.

In a Twitter message, the composer Daniel Dorff said, “Changed my ringtone to play #Mahler 9 just in case.” A YouTube poster superimposed a marimba sound over a performance of the piece by Leonard Bernstein.

Ringing Finally Ended, but There’s No Button to Stop Shame - NYTimes.com

Is Too Much Plus is a Minus for Google? « StevenLevy.com

2012-01-13T06:45:00.001-05:00

A timely Google reality check from Steven Levy

Search, in short, should appear to be like Caesar’s wife, above reproach. When using its algorithmic wizardry to deeply integrate social information into its search experience, it behooves Google to avoid even a whiff of bias. With SPYW, though, the odor is unmistakable. No matter how you cut it, the search engine now increases the value of participating in Google+. It may be Google’s right to do this. But it also may turn off a lot of users. And it also provides ammo for Google’s detractors, including those in Washington.

In fact, some people are saying that Google’s move may trigger an antitrust action, and there’s already talk that the FTC is on the case. But you don’t have to get into legal issues to see why Google’s new product as it appears now takes the company into dangerous territory.

Is Too Much Plus is a Minus for Google? « StevenLevy.com

Microsoft execs jab at Google after signing Android patent-licensing deal - San Jose Mercury News

2012-01-13T06:24:00.001-05:00

Interesting times

In a series of tweets after the agreement was announced, some with the hashtag #anotherandroidlicense and making reference to the Occupy movement's catchphrases, Microsoft execs teased Google and chided Apple for its penchant to sue instead of sign licensing agreements.

"Hey Google -- we are the 70%," Frank Shaw, Microsoft's vice president of corporate communications tweeted, referencing Microsoft's assertion that it now has deals on 70 percent or more of the Android smartphones sold. Shaw later posted on Twitter, "Can we just agree to drop the patents-as-weapons meme? When effective licensing enables companies to share IP, the metaphor falls apart."

Microsoft execs jab at Google after signing Android patent-licensing deal - San Jose Mercury News

Steve Ballmer Reboots - Businessweek

2012-01-13T06:17:00.001-05:00

Final paragraphs of an extensive BW cover story article (on the cover: “No More Mr. Monkey Boy”)

History smiles on Jobs because Apple almost went under and came back stronger than before. Ballmer, you could say, never had the advantage of bouncing back from near-obliteration—he’s spent much of his time as CEO trying to expand beyond Gates’s vision. He’s not stuck in the past, he says, but learning new tricks. He’s running an early version of Windows 8 on a tablet and living an old digital dream. “I’ve gone paperless,” he boasts. “Zero! I get pissed when people have paper in meetings now.”

During a reflective moment, Ballmer says that if he had it to do all over again, he would dedicate more time to watching over the development process of products rather than just issuing a vision to his employees. “I’d say probably Bill and I were spending a lot more of our energy on where to go,” he says. “And we should balance our energy better on how to make sure we’re going to get where we want to go.”

Steve Ballmer Reboots - Businessweek

Galaxy Hosts 100 Billion Planets, in New Estimate - WSJ.com

2012-01-13T06:01:00.001-05:00

Looks like there’s room for continued Facebook expansion after all

Astronomers said Wednesday that each of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way probably has at least one companion planet, on average, adding credence to the notion that planets are as common in the cosmos as grains of sand on the beach.

The finding underscores a fundamental shift in scientific understanding of planetary systems in the cosmos. Our own solar system, considered unique not so long ago, turns out to be just one among billions.

Galaxy Hosts 100 Billion Planets, in New Estimate - WSJ.com

HEARD ON THE STREET: Apple Could Rewrite TV Reality - WSJ.com

2012-01-13T05:57:00.001-05:00

More Apple TV analysis and speculation

TV may prove trickier. Yet there are opportunities for Apple to innovate. Besides smart design, a defining feature of Apple's three blockbuster devices is simplicity. With a TV, Apple could streamline complicated on-screen menus and multiple remote-controls.

Apple wouldn't be first to market. About 24% of the 253 million TVs sold in 2011 were Internet-connectable. Yet only a fifth of those buying such sets actually connect them to the Web and keep them so, reckons IHS iSuppli's Tom Morrod. That is perhaps because many don't feature Wi-Fi, which reduces wire clutter. Apple's wireless technology could address this.

HEARD ON THE STREET: Apple Could Rewrite TV Reality - WSJ.com

Facebook Gives Politico Deep Access to Users' Political Sentiments - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

2012-01-13T05:49:00.001-05:00

Probably good news for Stephen Colbert

Most notably, the Facebook-Politico data set will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments. While that may alarm some people, Facebook and Politico say the entire process is automated and no Facebook employees read the posts.

Rather, every post and comment — both public and private — by a U.S. user that mentions a presidential candidate’s name will be fed through a sentiment analysis tool that spits out anonymized measures of the general U.S. Facebook population.

Facebook Gives Politico Deep Access to Users' Political Sentiments - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

Author of Controversial Piracy Bill Now Says ‘More Study’ Needed - Digits - WSJ

2012-01-13T05:45:00.001-05:00

Room to negotiate

The senator who introduced hotly debated legislation intended to shut down pirate websites said Thursday he is backing away from one of the most controversial parts of the bill, amid criticism from Web companies, human rights groups and Internet engineers.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said he would recommend that “more study” be given to a provision in the bill that would give the U.S. attorney general new authority to seek court orders compelling Internet service providers to block the sites’ domain names or Web addresses. A vote to bring the bill to the Senate floor for debate is scheduled for this month.

Author of Controversial Piracy Bill Now Says ‘More Study’ Needed - Digits - WSJ

Does NoSQL Mean No Security? - Dark Reading

2012-01-12T17:10:00.001-05:00

Excerpts from a timely NoSQL reality check

"We think the lack of security around NoSQL is going to take a toll on organizations," says Amichai Shulman, co-founder and CTO of Imperva. "We'll see a lot more organizations starting or going into deployment of NoSQL in the next year and we believe what they are going to find out after they put the data there is that there are some security issues they should have considered."

[…]

But this biggest benefit of NoSQL is also one of the biggest cause of concerns for security experts.

"One of the things about NoSQL is that the data model is pretty much dynamic," Shulman says. "I can add attributes to records as we go along. So the security model for this kind of architecture must have some notion of forward-looking security. So, understanding what happens with the new attributes that I introduce to the database and what the privileges that are granted into the new attributes that are added to the database. This is a concept that is non-existent and, quite frankly, no one has given thought to it so far."

Does NoSQL Mean No Security? - Dark Reading

CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Will Have One Billion Users By September [Business Insider]

2012-01-12T17:02:00.001-05:00

Check the iCrossing post for more details

Building a chart based on previous user number announcements, iCrossings says Facebook will probably reach 1 billion users sometime in August 2012.

In the past, "active" has meant that these people log in once a month. What's truly stunning is that Facebook says more than 50% of its users log in every day.

CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Will Have One Billion Users By September

Computer History Museum | Exhibits | This Day in History: January 12

2012-01-12T06:16:00.001-05:00

Siri: what went wrong with AI?…

January 12, 1997

The Fictional HAL 9000 Computer Becomes Operational

The fictional HAL 9000 computer becomes operational, according to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the 1968 movie adaptation, the computer's statement -- I am a HAL 9000 computer, Production Number 3. I became operational at the HAL Plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997 -- put his birthdate in 1992. Both dates have now passed with no super-intelligent, human-like HAL computer in sight.

Computer History Museum | Exhibits | This Day in History: January 12

Google social search: The tech giant’s disastrous decision to muck up its search results. - Slate Magazine

2012-01-12T05:57:00.001-05:00

More antisocial Google feedback

How does new-and-not-improved Google work? I just searched for “Mitt Romney New Hampshire,” and among my results were a handful of posts and images that my friends and colleagues shared via Google+. Regular readers know that I consider Google+ a wasteland and that I’ve left it for dead. On the other hand, I’m constantly on Twitter and Facebook—but my search for Romney turned up nothing that had been shared by people on those sites. Meanwhile, as Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan points out, if you search for “Facebook,” Google now suggests that you follow Mark Zuckerberg’s fallow Google+ page. Zuckerberg’s most active online outpost is on Facebook. If Google doesn’t tell you about the Facebook CEO’s Facebook page, it’s broken.

Google social search: The tech giant’s disastrous decision to muck up its search results. - Slate Magazine

Google And The Monopoly Paradox | TechCrunch

2012-01-12T05:54:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from some interesting Google speculation

My colleague Eric had a very interesting theory earlier. Maybe Google’s real motive is to get the government to also look into Facebook’s often-unfair practices with regard to their network ahead of their IPO. If social and not search is indeed the future, call this pre-subversion. And if there’s any shred of truth to this theory, more power to Google — it’s rather genius (though still extremely risky).

But the more likely answer as to why Google is doing Search+ is much simpler. At a high level, they believe social elements are going to be an extremely important part of search going forward. Given that the two biggest players in social, Facebook and Twitter, don’t give them full access to their data (Twitter used to but the relationship ended, Facebook never did), Google is doing the only thing they can in their minds to still get the data they need: bolster Google+.

Google And The Monopoly Paradox | TechCrunch

Working In Word, Excel, PowerPoint On an iPad - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

2012-01-12T05:19:00.001-05:00

OnLive Desktop scores a Walt Mossberg review, but with mixed results

Overall, I found OnLive Desktop to be a notable technical achievement, but it has so many caveats that it’s best for folks who absolutely, positively need to use the full, genuine versions of the three big Office productivity programs on their iPads. For everyone else, the locally installed Office clones are probably good enough, and simpler to use.

Working In Word, Excel, PowerPoint On an iPad - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

Oracle's Big Data Appliance brings focus to bundled approach - Computerworld

2012-01-11T07:19:00.001-05:00

Oracle ships its Big Data Appliance

Oracle's Big Data Appliance product, which began shipping Tuesday, gives enterprises another option for deploying projects based on Apache Hadoop open source technology.

Oracle's tightly bundled hardware and software system is based on Sun server hardware and incorporates a Hadoop distribution from Cloudera, a new Oracle NoSQL database, and an open source distribution of R statistical software.

Oracle's Big Data Appliance brings focus to bundled approach - Computerworld

Windows Phone 7, Windows 8: How Microsoft can reclaim its throne in 2012 - Slate Magazine

2012-01-11T07:02:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from an accentuate-the-positive Microsoft reality check

If Microsoft fails now, it’ll be because of two other shortcomings. First, it relies on third-party hardware makers to get its software to the masses. And second, it still derives most of its money from desktop PCs. When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in the 1990s, he had nothing to lose. He could scrap Apple’s OS and replace it with something new, push the firm into mobile devices, and open physical and digital stores. Sure, some of this seemed crazy, but what was the harm in trying—Apple was nearly bankrupt anyway. And then, when he decided what he wanted to do, Jobs could control the experience entirely. He didn’t have to wait around for Dell or HP to make great laptops worthy of his new OS. He could do it himself.

Steve Ballmer, meanwhile, does have a lot to lose.

Windows Phone 7, Windows 8: How Microsoft can reclaim its throne in 2012 - Slate Magazine

Music Lessons on Webcams Grow in Popularity - NYTimes.com

2012-01-11T06:41:00.001-05:00

Sign of the Skype times

However, many parents remain wary of laptop lessons. Their chief reservation is that teachers can’t manipulate a student’s fingers to fine-tune the subtleties of playing a string instrument. “A lot of people don’t trust that the experience is the same,” said Mr. Antonaccio, who’s offered online lessons in violin, piano, and guitar since 2004. Even so, he said, “We have had kids that have grown up and learned to play entirely on camera.”

Lessons over the home computer can create headaches of their own, though. Joey Potuzak, 17, a guitarist in Mountlake Terrace, Wash., occasionally yelled at his family because the webcam connection required so much bandwidth. “I’d tell everyone in my house, ‘I’m having a guitar lesson. Everyone off the computers!’ ” Mr. Potuzak said. “They were annoyed.” His family has since upgraded the Internet connection in their home.

Music Lessons on Webcams Grow in Popularity - NYTimes.com

Will Robert Kyncl and YouTube Revolutionize Television? : The New Yorker

2012-01-11T06:33:00.001-05:00

From an extensive New Yorker YouTube profile

For the past sixty years, TV executives have been making the decisions about what we watch in our living rooms. Kyncl would like to change that. Therefore YouTube, the home of grainy cell-phone videos and skateboarding dogs, is going pro. Kyncl has recruited producers, publishers, programmers, and performers from traditional media to create more than a hundred channels, most of which will début in the next six months—a sort of YouTV. Streaming video, delivered over the Internet, is about to engage traditional TV in a skirmish in the looming war for screen time.

Will Robert Kyncl and YouTube Revolutionize Television? : The New Yorker

Twitter Dumps on Google for Pushing Google+ in Search - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

2012-01-11T06:29:00.001-05:00

Potentially a bad day for Twitter and Facebook; tbd re the Internet

“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results,” the company said.

Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray, among other thought leaders who criticized Google’s Google-centric approach, had already personally called today’s launch a “bad day for the Internet.”

Twitter Dumps on Google for Pushing Google+ in Search - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

Google Hopes to Make Friends with a More Social Search - Technology Review

2012-01-11T06:17:00.001-05:00

Another unsubtle incentive to use Google+

Appearing atop Google's search results used to be the exclusive right of Web celebrities and Fortune 500 companies. Starting this week, your mom is just as likely to show up at the top of those results—providing she uses Google's still fledgling social network, Google+.

The change represents a fundamental shift, as Google's algorithm-driven search is going through a social overhaul as it attempts to head off the threat of disruption from socially focused companies, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The new Google service, called "Search, plus Your World," is part of that effort.

Google Hopes to Make Friends with a More Social Search - Technology Review

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » Enough with the Samsung bashing

2012-01-10T07:05:00.001-05:00

From a timely Samsung reality check

Apple has been making essentially the same phone, with the same 3.5-inch screen size, since 2007. It’s a great phone. But Samsung is making dozens of phones and experimenting with different form factors. They must find it rich to have Apple, with its one design, accusing Samsung of lacking fresh ideas. Samsung must also love it when Apple, which can’t manufacture its own chips, or any components for that matter, has the chutzpah to slag off the engineering prowess of the company it relies upon for microprocessors. Samsung’s flagship devices — GSII, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note — bear no resemblance to Apple’s iPhone. No one would ever confuse one for the other. Inside the case they’re even more different. Dismissing Samsung as a bunch of thieving cloners is ridiculous and stupid, and only proves one thing: Steve is gone, but the reality distortion field lives on.

Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » Enough with the Samsung bashing

Nook From Barnes & Noble Gains More E-Book Readers - NYTimes.com

2012-01-10T07:01:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from an e-reader market snapshot

In 2011, manufacturers shipped about 30 million e-book readers over all, up 108 percent from 2010, Ms. Jakhanwal said. She estimates that this will grow to 38 million devices in 2012 and 43 million by 2014.

Then in 2015, the reader market will shrink to 38 million, presumably because consumers will be attracted to tablets.

Sales of touch-screen tablets have continued to be strong. Apple’s iPad shipped upward of 40 million units in 2011 alone, according to estimates by Forrester, a research firm.

Nook From Barnes & Noble Gains More E-Book Readers - NYTimes.com

Facebook's newest frontier: inside the car | Reuters

2012-01-10T06:46:00.001-05:00

Friends in cars

"Now that cars have screens that are intelligent, you would expect that more and more car manufacturers will want to make those screens capable of allowing people to connect with their friends and take advantage of the social context that comes along with that," Rose said in an interview.

"One of the core things that people do on their screens in the car is GPS navigation and the ability to see which of your friends are nearby is something we think will be really interesting for people."

Facebook's newest frontier: inside the car | Reuters

Microsoft Leaves C.E.S. on a Quiet Note - NYTimes.com

2012-01-10T06:01:00.001-05:00

See this page for more on Kinect for Windows

In what has become a familiar pattern for Microsoft in recent years at C.E.S., it announced little news during Mr. Ballmer’s keynote presentation. Instead the company mostly recapped its progress over the last six months or so with various company initiatives, including Windows Phones, Windows 8 and Xbox.

One exception: the company gave the latest sales tallies in its video game business, saying that it sold 66 million Xbox 360s and 18 million Kinect sensors and that is has about 40 million subscribers to Xbox Live, its online gaming service. The company also said it would begin selling a version of Kinect for Windows PC on Feb. 1.

Microsoft Leaves C.E.S. on a Quiet Note - NYTimes.com

Cars’ Internet connections may change driving life - Business - The Boston Globe

2012-01-10T05:46:00.001-05:00

… and are constantly monitored from afar

About 40 percent of the cars sold in the United States last year can already connect to wireless data networks, allowing drivers to listen to Internet radio stations or get traffic reports; the next step will be cars that constantly monitor online data.

Cars’ Internet connections may change driving life - Business - The Boston Globe

Toshiba excites with thinnest tablet | FT Tech Hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

2012-01-09T07:10:00.001-05:00

Check the full post for a demo video suggesting the new Toshiba tablet is, among other things, a TV remote++

Toshiba showed off its new Excite X10 tablet at CES on Sunday evening, coupling it in demonstrations with its latest lineup of Smart TVs.

The Excite is a 10.1in tablet, which Toshiba claims is the world’s thinnest and lightest at that size – 0.3in thin to be specific and weighing 1.2lbs.

Toshiba excites with thinnest tablet | FT Tech Hub | FTtechhub - Industry analysis – FT.com

OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet [Gizmodo]

2012-01-09T07:03:00.001-05:00

Final paragraph from a OLPC tablet overview (apparently it’s time for OLPC to rename/rebrand itself)

But ultimately, those are complaints that can either be addressed over time or brushed aside with the reminder that this isn't an iPad or a Fire or a Tab. Remember, OLPC's laptop project of several years ago is the progenitor of the netbook as we know it. The XO 3.0 seems inclined to play the same role for tablets. It's a product that recognizes that a healthy degree of compromise is more than worth getting technology in the hands of people who need it most and can afford it least. It's a promise, fulfilled.

OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet

Lenovo launches first Ice Cream Sandwich TV [GigaOM]

2012-01-09T06:57:00.001-05:00

Perhaps there is an existential crisis looming for TV-connected game consoles

Here’s what the TV will offer aside form the latest version of Android:

The K91 is powered by Qualcomm’s 8060 Snapdragon processor, which clocks 1.5 Ghz.

It will have 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage and 2 GB SD card.

There will be two models, one with a 42” and one with a 50” 3-D LED screen.

It will have an integrated 5 MP webcam, which will be used for facial recognition. Why would you need that? Parental control, of course.

There will be a 3-axis gyro gamepad, but the regular remote control sounds pretty cool, too: It will have a touchpad as well as an integrated microphone, and voice recognition will make it possible to control the devices without pressing any buttons at all.

http://gigaom.com/video/lenovo-android-tv-k91/

A Smart Phone that Knows You're Angry - Technology Review

2012-01-09T06:41:00.001-05:00

tbd how much advertisers will pay you and/or your phone service provider to gain access to information about your emotional state

For example, it monitors certain inputs, such as the speed at which a user types, how often the "backspace" or "special symbol" buttons are pressed, and how much the device shakes. These measures let the phone postulate whether the user is happy, sad, surprised, fearful, angry, or disgusted, says Hosub Lee, a researcher with Samsung Electronics and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology's Intelligence Group, in South Korea. Lee led the work on the new system. He says that such inputs may seem to have little to do with emotions, but there are subtle correlations between these behaviors and one's mental state, which the software's machine-learning algorithms can detect with an accuracy of 67.5 percent.

A Smart Phone that Knows You're Angry - Technology Review

Like Yahoo Founder, Like New Yahoo CEO: Data Is Now King? - Kara Swisher - Media - AllThingsD

2012-01-09T06:15:00.001-05:00

Data is at the center of the latest Yahoo recalc

And, from my liveblogging, here’s Thompson last week on his aspirations, which were much less focused on Yahoo’s longtime — and, ahem, bill-paying — advertising business (which the new leader keeps saying he knows nothing about) than on exploiting its consumer data businesses (which he certainly does know about from running the online payments giant).

The data these Internet businesses create, the ability to use analytical technology to build a better businesses for your customers. … I feel certain that wealth of data is going to be exploitable for next generation products, next generation experiences. … My instinct says down in that data we’re going to be able to find ways to compete and innovate that the world hasn’t seen yet.

Like Yahoo Founder, Like New Yahoo CEO: Data Is Now King? - Kara Swisher - Media - AllThingsD

Samsung vs. Google | Monday Note

2012-01-08T17:00:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from a Jean-Louis Gassée Samsung snapshot

But even if we “de-propagandize” the numbers, Samsung is clearly the number one Android handset maker, and, just as clearly, it’s taking large chunks of market share from the other two leading players: Motorola and HTC both announced lower than expected Q4CY11 numbers. HTC’s unit volume was 10 million units, down from 13.2 million in Q3; Motorola got 10.5 million units in Q4, down from 11.6 million in Q3.

This leaves us with the potential for an interesting face-off. Not Samsung vs Motorola/HTC, but…Samsung vs. Google. As Erik Sherman observes in his CBS MoneyWatch post, since Samsung ships close to 55% of all Android phones, the company could be in a position to twist Google’s arm. If last quarter’s trend continues — if Motorola and HTC lose even more ground — Samsung’s bargaining position will become even stronger.

Samsung vs. Google | Monday Note

FaceTime for Apes: Orangutans Use iPads to Video Chat With Friends In Other Zoos | Popular Science

2012-01-08T07:31:00.001-05:00

Sign of the times

Orangutan iPad An orangutan named Mahal plays with an iPad at the Milwaukee Zoo.Orangutan Outreach

Orangutans living in captivity will soon start using iPads for primate play-dates, using Skype or FaceTime to interact with their brethren in other zoos, according to zookeepers. The great apes have been playing with iPads for about six months at the Milwaukee County Zoo, and they’ve been such a hit that other zoos plan to introduce them, too.

The “Apps for Apes” program started after a zookeeper commented online about getting some iPads for her gorilla charges. Someone donated a used iPad, and it turned out the gorillas didn’t care for it. But the orangutans loved it, as the LA Times says.

FaceTime for Apes: Orangutans Use iPads to Video Chat With Friends In Other Zoos | Popular Science

Did Google Buy A Lemon? Motorola Mobility Whiffs Q4 - Forbes

2012-01-08T07:25:00.001-05:00