Category: Technology

Bill Gates on Catalytic Philanthropy

Reads like one of those quotes that you’ll eventually see in the authorized auto/biography of Gates in a couple of decades (if he doesn’t cure death first)…

We work to draw in not just governments but also businesses, because that’s where most innovation comes from. I’ve heard some people describe the economy of the future as “post-corporatist and post-capitalist”—one in which large corporations crumble and all innovation happens from the bottom up. What nonsense. People who say things like that never have a convincing explanation for who will make drugs or low-cost carbon-free energy. Catalytic philanthropy doesn’t replace businesses. It helps more of their innovations benefit the poor.

via Bill Gates: Here’s My Plan to Improve Our World — And How You Can Help | Wired Business | Wired.com.

The iPod is 12

Still amazing to watch all these years later (start at min 24 for a glimpse of pure joy if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing):

I can’t believe the iPod is twice the age of my oldest child, but I’m glad she’s growing up in a world of music sharing and discovery made more possible by that device.

The iPod first went on sale 12 years ago | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Now I need to go dig up my Gen 1 and Gen 2 iPods from whatever drawer they may be haunting…

What’s After Web 2.0?

My pal Wayne Porter and I got into a fun spat almost seven years ago about what web 2.0 meant for marketers. We had a similar “what’s next” private convo on Facebook a couple of nights ago regarding Twitter’s very successful IPO.

Seeing Twitter hit the mainstream over the last few years and now being a big public company has been weird to say the least. Not to compare, but I imagine the apostles felt the same kind of bittersweet “what now?” moment after seeing the early Jesus movement take off under Paul etc (yes, grossly simplified).

But what’s next?

Is there a web 3.0? Wearables like Google Glass?

I don’t know… it’s a strange world and we need new descriptive science fiction to point the way.

Here’s Dave Winer on the topic:

New models for communication can develop, independent of the needs of the companies that run the Web 2.0 servers. I don’t think Web 2.0 will go away, but a new net can take its place beside it. And that’s all that’s needed to boot up a new layer.

via Why the Web 2.0 model is obsolete.

Writing on the Wall

I definitely just ordered Writing on the Wall as it combines two of my favorite things… the social internet and anthropological archaeology…

Papyrus rolls and Twitter have much in common: They were their generation’s signature means of “instant” communication. Indeed, as Tom Standage reveals in his scintillating new book, social media is anything but a new phenomenon. Cicero’s web is just one of many historical antecedents of today’s social media. Other prominent examples include the circulation of letters and other documents in the early Christian church; the torrent of printed tracts which circulated in 16th-century Germany, triggering the Reformation; the passing from hand to hand of gossip-laden poetry in the Tudor and Stuart courts; the duelling political pamphlets with which Royalists and Parliamentarians courted public opinion during the English Civil War; the first scientific journals and correspondence societies, which enabled far-flung scientists to discuss and build upon each other’s work; the handwritten poems and newsletters of pre-Revolutionary France, which spread gossip from Paris throughout the country; and the revolutionary pamphlets and local papers that rallied support for American independence. Such social-media systems arose frequently because, for most of human history, social networks were the dominant means by which information spread, in either spoken or written form.

via Writing on the Wall | tomstandage.com.

Wow.

How To Setup Nexus 5 Stock Notifications

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Yes, it’s all come to this… python scripts (or you can follow @n5stock on Twitter but that’s too easy).

We’re a desperate lot.

Nevertheless, this is pretty awesome if you as excited about the hopefully imminent Nexus 5 launch as I am (my beloved Nexus 4 is long in the tooth and pretty smashed up).

Howto: Setup Nexus 5 Stock Notifications

via Howto: Setup Nexus 5 Stock Notifications : Android.

R.I.P. Lou Reed

“Oh, it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spend it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on”

Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

via Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71 | Rolling Stone.

L.A.’s iPad Conundrum

I just re-checked the Apple site because I’m utterly confused as to why the L.A. school district would be buying $770 iPads when the $499 models are perfectly fine for school use (helped with a few deployments myself over the past few years).

I’m guessing they went with the 64 GB wifi models ($699 retail) for some reason (oh but students will need lots of space because more is better and the cloud is insecure!) instead of the perfectly reasonable and much cheaper 16 GB $499 models?

Weird.

According to the L.A. Times, a new school district budget shows that iPads will cost $770 each. Apple’s discount on the tablets doesn’t kick in until the District buys at least 520,000 of them. That will cost approximately $400 million. In a statement to the Times, officials said that earlier cost estimates, “preceded the actual procurement process.” The District went on to say, “The negotiated discount [i.e. $678] does not go into effect until the district has reached the $400-million spending threshold.”

via L.A. Unified’s iPad Rollout is Way Over Budget | PadGadget.

And who goes ahead with an order this large (and with this much national scrutiny) when you don’t have the final price from Apple nailed down??

New math indeed.

I don’t understand bureaucracies (and evidently they don’t understand technology or bulk purchasing or business economics).

Sen Franken Questions iPhone 5s and 5th Amendment Implications

Another reason I’m passing on the latest iPhone is because of the 5th Amendment and the fine legal line between something you “know” and something you have or are. Or to put it simply, is a password more secure because you “know” it and the government would have to compel you to give up that knowledge rather than something that is tangible in the sense of a fingerprint or other biometric data that you “have” or “are”? It will be an interesting court case for sure.

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) has posted a series of thoughtful questions for Apple (and consumers) to ponder with this latest iteration of technology…

(10) Under American intelligence law, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can seek an order requiring the production of “any tangible thing[] (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)” if they are deemed relevant to certain foreign intelligence investigations. See 50 U.S.C. § 1861. 

Does Apple consider fingerprint data to be “tangible things” as defined in the USA PATRIOT Act?

via Sen. Franken Questions Apple on Privacy Implications of New iPhone Fingerprint Technology | Al Franken | Senator for Minnesota.

To use the cliche, it’s not that I have anything to hide but I would like to keep as many constitutional aspects of my US citizenship (especially in 2013) instead of trading them off for quicker access to iTunes purchasing.

How Google Solved Android’s Fragmentation Problem

With an app, of course.

Fascinating to ponder that Google is trying to basically blow up the PC industry with Chrome (the Win 8 Chrome app runs exactly like my Chromebook and I’m betting they take that over to OSX as well) and is doing a similar thing with this decentralized Android strategy to iOS.

Rather than having the big updates come to a device via an operating system update (“yay iOS 7 is coming out with all of these great new features!” etc), with Google Play Services the table has been turned and allows for Android to stay up to date despite the actual version number that a manufacturer might ship with the hardware.

Oh my this is interesting…

This is how you beat software fragmentation. When you can update just about anything without having to push out a new Android version, you have fewer and fewer reasons to bother calling up Samsung and begging them to work on a new update. When the new version of Android brings nothing other than low-level future-proofing, users stop caring about the update.This gets even more interesting when you consider the implications for future versions of Android. What will the next version of Android have? Well, what is left for it to have? Android is now on more of a steady, continual improvement track than an all-at-once opening of the floodgates like we last saw with Android 4.1. It seems like Google has been slowly moving down this path for some time; the last three releases have all kept the name “Jelly Bean.” Huge, monolithic Android OS updates are probably over—”extinct” may be a more appropriate term.

via Balky carriers and slow OEMs step aside: Google is defragging Android | Ars Technica.

Nexus 5 with LTE?

My Nexus 4 is the best phone I’ve ever owned (having owned every previous iPhone up to the 5 and a couple of other Android phones like the Galaxy S3). Being a relatively recent convert to the Android world, the ecosystem is such a better fit for me than iOS (though I still respect that platform, of course). And if the next Nexus phone is anything like the new Nexus 7 tablet, I’ll love it even more. Seriously, the new Nexus 7 tablet is just phenomenal.

That said, I’m excited about the potential Nexus 5. I’ve been pondering the Moto X since I do have an upgrade available on Verizon, but I’m going to hold out for an upgrade to my beloved Nexus 4 on its $30 a month T-Mobile plan with no commitments or contracts…

As is often the case with smartphone leaks, the first one opens the floodgates to a wave of others. It looks like Googles next Nexus device, which most are calling the Nexus 5, will be no different. As discovered by S4gru, a smartphone manufactured by LG has appeared on the FCCs site with enough detail to associate it with the device that Google itself leaked in a KitKat promo video earlier in the week.

via The LG Nexus 5 with LTE may have appeared at the FCC | The Verge.

New Mac Pro Alternative

Fun read of an insanely expensive yet pretty awesome setup…

So it was decided. New Mac Pro. Will buy.Or so I thought. A couple of months ago a change in circumstances meant my girlfriend’s need for my 11” Air went from “After you buy a new Mac Pro” to “Yesterday”. Since the Mac Pro was still months away I had to make a decision.

via I couldnt wait for the new Mac Pro – Hopefully Useful.</p

Chromecast Love

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I’m watching a great BBC production on YouTube about the Syrian conflict while getting some Labor Day work done (and while Willie chews a bone) via Chromecast.

I didn’t immediately understand what Chromecast meant for my media consumption but it really is revolutionary in bridging the gap between web content and my ‘tv’ which has basically become a dumb screen for content via Roku and Chromecast now.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Why I Hate Twitter Six Years Later @jangro

My how time flies…

To my friends: The next time youre about to submit a message to twitter, please think to yourself. “Is this something that all 73 of my friends need to see?” And does what youre writing actually answer the question, “what are you doing?”

via Why I Hate Twitter.

Ran across this tonight while cleaning up the blog. Fun memories.

Press, Fever, and Freedom

I’m so excited that my RSS reader of choice on Android (for my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7) has rolled out support for Fever…

What’s New

1.4

– Fever support

via Press – Google Play.

Fever is a fantastic piece of software that does all the duties of something like Feedly or Google Reader (RIP) or FeedWrangler, but on your server.

That does demand that you have some familiarity with what having a server means and how to install PHP programs. It’s not complicated but it is a hurdle that 99% of the “market” isn’t willing to jump.

However, to have an RSS reader that streams me the news on my own terms whether I’m in a browser or on my mobiles gives me satisfaction.

If only more people decided that freedom on the web trumps four minutes of convenience…