The Brooks Review

Year: 2010

  • Nokia Adds iPad to Its Patent Fight Against Apple

    HELSINKI (Reuters) — Nokia , the world’s top handset maker, broadened its patent battle against Apple on Friday to include the iPad, deepening the legal fight between the two smartphone rivals.

    The firms have turned to the courts in the last year as Nokia battles Apple, which only entered the cellphone business in 2007 but has taken a sizeable share of the fat-margined, fast-growing smartphone market.

    The Finnish firm, on the other hand, has shed market share in smartphones along with margins and stunned investors last month by delaying its new software upgrade for phones, seen as key in its struggle with Apple.

    This in addition to the report that Nokia is branching out to new fields – they are all signs of a company grasping at straws.

  • Wii Sales Slowing

    Very interesting how long video game consoles rest on their laurels. They need to spend more time innovating and releasing more frequently, retaining backwards compatibility a long the way. The industry is ripe for picking.

  • Stock Crash Attributed to Trading Glitch

    NYTimes.com:

    Many firms have computers that are programmed to automatically place buy or sell orders based on a variety of things that happen in the markets. Some of the simplest triggers are set off when a stock drops or rises a certain percent in the trading day, or when an index moves a specific amount.

    But these orders can have a cascading effect. For example, if enough programs place sell orders when the overall market is down, say, 4 percent in a single day, those orders could push the market down even more — and set off programs that do not kick in until the market is down 5 percent, which in turn can have the effect of pushing stocks down even more.

    Very reminiscent of 1987 (though admittedly I was not aware when it happened then, I have studied it since).

  • What iPads Did To My Family

    This is a great look at something I found to be true for myself. The iPad is not a computer, but I much prefer it to a computer.

  • Lazy Programmers, Or Arrogant Apple?

    Ian Bogost:

    The computational ecosystem is burgeoning. We have more platforms today than ever before, from mobile devices to microcomputers to game consoles to specialized embedded systems. Yet, a prevailing attitude about making computational creativity longs for uniformity: game engines that target multiple platforms to produce the same plain-vanilla experience, authoring tools that export to every popular device at the lowest common denominator; and, of course, the tyranny of the web, where everything that once worked well on a particular platform is remade to work poorly everywhere.

    It is a kind of computational extirpation, where everything unique is crippled or cleansed in order to service a perverted belief in universality. I consider it a kind of jingoism, and I hope we can outgrow or destroy it.

    Falling into the lowest common denominator trap would devastate innovation.

  • Aussie Government Takes Matters into Their Own Hands

    Nate Anderson:

    Australia plans to do things… a bit differently. Within the next eight years, the Australian government will spend AUS$43 billion (US$38 billion) to build its own “world-class broadband infrastructure” that will deploy fiber to 93 percent of all Australian homes and bring 12Mbps broadband to everyone else. The network will be wholesale only and will be open access, enabling every ISP to use the fiber to offer services.

    This is great for Australians, it really is. It would not be feasible here in the states given the difference in population densities, size and so forth. It does say something though for living in smaller countries.

  • Borders Late to the Party [updated]

    Jessica Wohl:

    Borders Group Inc said on Friday that it is taking pre-orders for the Kobo eReader, which will arrive in customers’ homes starting on June 17, and plans to launch its eBook store in June.

    I think the clear eBook winner is going to be Amazon (10% chance it is Apple). Amazon has really hedged its bet. They allow you to read your eBook just about anywhere with their Kindle suite of products. Whereas B&N and Apple only allow reading on one device (for right now) Amazon is trying a more universal approach, making them a safer bet for consumers.

    Should be interesting to see if dedicated eBook readers win out or die off in the next few years. My hunch tells me that dedicated readers will become an even more niche product over the next 6 months.

    UPDATE:

    It appears Borders is trying the Amazon approach:

    The Kobo app (without the Borders connection) is actually already available for the iPhone and the iPad, but neither app has garnered very positive reviews. Our own Erica Sadun found some things to like about the iPad app in her preview last March. via TUAW

  • No verizon iPhone in 2010

    I love being right. Matthew Shaer:

    Well, hey – not so fast. According to one Wall Street analyst, Apple has now extended its exclusive partnership with AT&T for at least six more months, meaning that Verizon users probably won’t get their mitts on an iPhone before 2010 is out.

    I will go out and say it again, I don’t think Verizon will be getting the iPhone anytime soon. Apple simply doesn’t like to make many different versions of their products and Verizon is not an international carrier like AT&T. They have some world phones but they are expensive quad-band phones. AT&T is an international standard complaint carrier (much like T-Mobile).

    Apple does not want to make one phone for the U.S. and one for everyone else. They also don’t want to be forced to make the iPhone more expensive (or reduce their profit margin) by making it a quad band phone.

    Even more telling is the fact that they advertise talking on the phone, while getting data from an App or the web on the phone. Verizon’s network is not capable of doing this. This should slam the door shut in the face of anyone waiting for a Verizon phone.

    Further if you have been waiting 3 years now to get the iPhone because you want it on Verizon – pull your head out of your ass. I don’t mean to go all ‘fanboy’ here, but it is like not wanting to buy a computer until you get one that comes standard with a drink holder. Don’t be silly, make your life easier.

  • Should Apple Apologize to Jason Chen?

    No they shouldn’t. Will they, probably not.

    Brian X. Chen:

    Reasonable people can disagree over whether it was ethical for Gizmodo to purchase the lost iPhone prototype, but the police action — kicking down Jason Chen’s door to seize his computers — was overboard. It was self-evidently a clumsy move: After damaging Chen’s property, the police paused the investigation to study whether the journalists’ Shield Law protected Chen. The proper action would have been to issue a subpoena to get Chen to talk about the device first. Apple, which instigated the police action by filing a stolen property complaint, should publicly apologize to Chen (no relation to the author of this post) and reimburse him for the damages.

    RWow thanks Brian Chen, I guess I will find the person who stole all my shit in college and go apologize to him for filing a police report. Come to think of it we should legalize stealing, I mean I wouldn’t want the police taking someones personal possessions just to try and solve a crime…

  • iAds Could Be Waiting for Anti-Trust Lawsuits

    Eliot Van Buskirk:

    Apple/Quattro has unique access to iTunes store data.

    If a developers choose Apple’s advertising platform over a competing platform, they can more easily track the percentage of impressions led to users clicking through to the iTunes store and purchasing the full version of an app — a statistic commonly referred to as a conversion ratio.

    This has all sorts of stink on it. I think the only way Apple gets in trouble for this is if iAds is a run away hit. Otherwise it is of little consequence.

  • Steven Levy Revisits "Hackers"

    Steven Levy:

    They may have begun as a fringe cohort, but hackers alchemized the hard math of Moore’s law into a relentless series of technological advances that changed the world and touched all of our lives. And most of them did it simply for the joy of pulling off an awesome trick.

    A must read.

  • Google Goggles Now Translates Text in Pictures

    Liz Gannes:

    If you had any doubt that we are living in the future, Google today introduced visual translation tools for use with a camera phone. Specifically, the new version of its Google Goggles app, available for Android phones running version 1.6 of the OS or higher, can recognize pictures of words written in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish and rapidly translate them into other languages.

    Oh I hope this comes to the iPhone. Awesome the future is here.

  • Did Motorola Buy a Mobile Operating System?

    Kevin C. Tofel:

    An early look at Azingo’s mobile platform from the 2009 Mobile World Congress shows a fairly robust set of widgets, a WebKit browser, extensive application suites and even support for Flash Lite. Essentially, Azingo Mobile 2.0 is a full smartphone platform on its own, even without third-party software. There’s also specific mention of an App Store for Azingo apps, so if Motorola did purchase the company, it may have acquired not just a new mobile operating system, but the foundation of a supporting ecosystem as well.

  • AT&T Drops More Calls Than Competitors

    Esther Shein:

    In an all-time worst rating for a carrier ever recorded by ChangeWave, the research firm said AT&T subscribers reported that about 4.5% of their calls were dropped over the previous three months.

    Coming in second for the period was Sprint, whose users reported 2.4% dropped calls and T-Mobile customers, who reported a dropped-call rate of 2.8%, was third. Verizon Wireless customers reported the least amount of dropped calls at 1.5 percent, the lowest ever recorded in the survey.

    I can vouch for that.

  • The First Laser

    New Scientist:

    Because the beam was powerful enough to drill holes in razor blades, physicists measured its power in gillettes, or the number of blades penetrated.

    1) I had no clue that a lasers power was measured in Gillettes, and 2) I would not have guessed the reason why.

  • Spelling Matters, Just Ask the Dow

    CNBC:

    According to multiple sources, a trader entered a “b” for billion instead of an “m” for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble …, a component in the Dow.

    Wow.

  • Facebook Glitch Brings New Privacy Worries

    Jenna Wortham:

    On Wednesday, users discovered a glitch that gave them access to supposedly private information in the accounts of their Facebook friends, like chat conversations.

    Not long before, Facebook had introduced changes that essentially forced users to choose between making information about their interests available to anyone or removing it altogether.

    Although Facebook quickly moved to close the security hole on Wednesday, the breach heightened a feeling among many users that it was becoming hard to trust the service to protect their personal information.

    and:

    “I’m not going to quit Facebook, because it’s so ingrained in the culture,” said Ryan Scannell, a 26-year-old food scientist in Chicago. “Facebook is not a private place, I don’t expect it to be. But at the same time, I’d like to control what’s accessible to strangers and what’s accessible to family and friends.”

    This hot on the heels of the reasons posted to quite Facebook yesterday. I have all but removed everything I can from Facebook, as I have grown to despise it. The last quote is the real issue though, everyone expects you to be on it. Living without having Facebook is almost like not having an email account.

    I started to grow apart from Facebook when they changed their ToS to allow them the right to use your pictures for whatever, which is a bullshit rule for any site to have. Add to it them giving away your personal info to whoever wants to pay for it, and you have a very dangerous system.

  • Nokia Moving Towards Services

    Tarmo Virki:

    “We support management in this,” Jorma Ollila said in a speech to shareholders on Thursday.

    Nokia has started to build a new business by offering Internet services ranging from music downloads to e-mail, but these have gained little traction so far.

    Wait so the #1 cellphone company is moving from making cellphones to offering Internet, Music and Email. So let me rephrase this.

    Nokia is struggling to compete with Apple on the smartphone market, instead they will start selling music downloads. This will put them in competition with Apple. Wait.

    Nokia is struggling to sell phones, so they will now try to sell Internet. Do they even have an infrastructure to do this?

    Nokia is struggling to sell cellphones, especially now the Google and Apple are competing with them. Instead they will try selling email services, putting them in competition with Googles little known email service: Gmail.

    Idiots.

  • At Hotels, Making Wi-Fi as Standard as a Bed

    Joe Sharkey:

    Still, in recent years, most hotels have heeded the message that business travelers require Wi-Fi access — no excuses accepted. While many convention and luxury hotels still impose a daily charge for access, most midlevel hotels and even many budget-price hotels now provide it free. And corporate travel managers are pushing hard for all hotels to provide free access, pointing out that customers, especially younger ones, live in a world where free Wi-Fi is expected.

    It is surprising how well the hotel industry is modeling the coffee shop industry when it comes to WiFi. For a long time the “premium” coffee shops such as Starbucks charged for internet access (they still kind of do) while the local one off coffee shops gave it away for free. For the most part everyone started to realize that at the very least they needed someway of getting their customers online, for free, if even on for two hours (damn you Starbucks).

    Not too long ago you really had to double check that there was WiFi at a hotel you may be traveling to, now days it is expected (and usually there). I have paid $10 a day for access (though it always pisses me off) and I have gotten free access. The one thing I have never gotten, whether paid or free, was fast and reliable. The last hotel I stayed at had a wireless router built into the landline phone, this was a terrible speed connection with about a 10ft range.

    Hotels are improving their WiFi rapidly, but if you want to go somewhere reliable to get it be sure to check out my post from Monday.

  • Teenage Insults, Scrawled on Web, Not on Walls

    Tamar Lewin:

    Formspring is one of many question-and-answer Internet sites that are widely used to find, say, the calorie count of avocados. But Formspring spread like wildfire among young people, who used it to for more intimate topics — or flat-out cyberbullying.

    Many schools say they have seen students crushed by criticism of their breasts, their body odor or their behavior at the last party.

    I guess I was clueless that kids were using it for this. I have an account and so far no one has even asked me a thing (guess you have to be somewhat famous or a teenager).