The Brooks Review

Year: 2010

  • UC Davis Says Bye Bye to Gmail

    Paul McDougall:

    Many faculty “expressed concerns that our campus’s commitment to protecting the privacy of their communications is not demonstrated by Google and that the appropriate safeguards are neither in place at this time nor planned for in the near future,” the letter said.
    Google officials, for their part, insisted that their privacy controls are adequate. “Obviously there’s lots of opinions and voices on campuses,” said Jeff Keltner, a business development manager in the Google Apps for Education group.

    I think the most noteworthy thing here is that Google “insisted that their privacy controls are adequate” – really? Adequate is the word you want to use here. That is just not good if even your employees think that your privacy is not that great.

  • Envisioning Interactions in the Home of the Future

    Professor Axel Roesler:

    During an intensive five week project, five student teams conducted an iterative user-centered design process to explore future applications for the projection of interfaces on any surface suitable for display and interaction in the home of the future.

    Some pretty neat ideas in here.

  • The iPad is Crushing Netbooks

    Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

    What caught my eye, however, was what her proprietary research shows about the impact of the iPad and other tablets on the broader gadget market, starting with netbooks. As her chart (above) shows, sales growth of these low-cost, low-powered computing devices peaked last summer at an astonishing 641% year-over-year growth rate. It fell off a cliff in January and shrank again in April — collateral damage, according to Huberty, from the January introduction and April launch of the iPad.

    Be sure to take a look at the chart he has, I don’t think the drop off is solely due to the iPad. I think we are looking at two things happening simultaneously here. 1) The iPad is about the same price and a lot better. 2) People are realizing that netbooks are junk and that they should either by a full sized laptop or nothing at all.

  • An Ode to Instapaper

    About a year ago someone mentioned Instapaper on Twitter, curious I decided to check it out. Now a year later I don’t know what I would do without it. For the uninitiated Instapaper is a bookmarking service, kinda. The actual purpose is to give you a place where you can temporarily store links to different articles / blog posts that you want to read later.

    Before Instapaper I had a bookmarks folder on my Mac labeled ‘To Read’ and within that folder I saved all the same things that you would keep in Instapaper. The problem with that system is that I was responsible for removing the bookmarks when I was done reading them – a problem that Instapaper solves. You add items to Instapaper by installing a bookmarklet in your web browser (dead simple), invoking this bookmarklet lets you automatically add the page you are on to Instapaper. Clicking to read something in Instapaper automatically archives that link (there is an option to keep this from happening), thus only showing you the unread items. This would be fairly useful on its own, but it adds to its functionality by storing your old links in an archived section.

    You can even star items that you like, allowing others to add your starred items to their Instapaper for viewing (try it with me my username is Showngo). All you have to do is click to add a new folder and then click the link at the top that says ‘add another users Starred items.” Done.

    One often overlooked feature is the ability to create folders within Instapaper for sorting links, and you can install bookmarklets that add links directly to that folder. Very handy indeed, especially if you keep a folder specifically, for say, posting links to a blog.

    For those that have not used the service this all sounds unmoving I am sure, but have you ever tried reading something with an ad blinking off to the side? If so you know how distracting that can be, Instapaper also solves this by allowing you to read a text-only version of the page with a click of the button.

    This of course is all leading to Instapaper’s killer feature: the iPad / iPhone / Kindle integration that developer Marco Arment has taken the time to create. The iPhone app has always been a great way to read your Instapaper items, but add in Kindle syncing and iPad apps – well you really have something special.

    When you read your Instapaper items on any of these devices they are presented with beautiful typography and no adds blinking and distracting you. This is especially true on the Kindle as there is no color display. The apps still allow the display of images (I forget if this is the case on the Kindle now) that are inline as part of the story. In other words you get everything you need and want, without all the other crap distracting you.

    Instapaper in my opinion is a service worth paying for – yet it is free.

  • So Newsweek Really Is Dead

    Michael Wolff:

    The Washington Post announced yesterday that it was putting Newsweek, in recent memory one of the most important news outlets in the country—which the Post has owned for almost a half-century—up for sale.

    Sad, I was always a big reader of Newsweek and it was the first news publication that I ever got a subscription to.

  • Why Intel Will Be a Mobile Loser

    Om Malik:

    The market has read the tea leaves as well, thus explaining the stock performance of Microsoft. Same goes for Intel. Despite its efforts to launch new chips or dabble in likely-to-fail OS efforts such as its joint venture with Nokia, the Mobilin, Intel resembles an elephant on top of quicksand.

    As I said yesterday:

    Competition is almost always a good thing for consumers. My fear would be that Intel tries to monopolize the market much like they did with the PC industry. It would seem to me that if Android or WebOS ran on any mobile chip, that it would take one step closer to being the Windows of the mobile market.

    That still stands. A lot of people predicted that Microsoft was too late to get into the video game arena with the introduction of the Xbox. What nobody accounted for was Microsoft’s determination, and money. Intel is seemingly in the same boat.

  • FCC Is GungHo About Net Neutrality

    Edward Wyatt:

    On Thursday, Mr. Genachowski is expected to assert that the agency, under its powers to regulate phone service, is permitted to require broadband service providers to follow certain transmission guidelines, including safeguarding privacy, not discriminating against certain types of content providers, offering service to rural customers at the same rate as urban customers and providing access to people with disabilities.

    This is good.

  • Get $2 From AT&T

    Nate Anderson:

    And, if you were an AT&T DSL subscriber, but the company’s records show that nothing improper was done to your line, you can still get money. The proposed settlement says that those who “believe that your DSL Service has not performed at satisfactory speeds” may still be eligible for a “one-time payment of $2.00.” Yes—$2.00.

    As expected AT&T settled with the Ohio class-action suit over limiting its DSL speed. But hey, it is better than nothing.

  • Infographic on How Teens Use Cellphones

    Christina Warren:

    At this point, 75% of teens have cellphones, up from 45% back in 2004. Thirty-three percent of teens send more than 100 texts per day. Teenage boys send an average of 30 text messages per day and girls send an average of 80.

    Be sure to click through and check out the infographic. If I were a mobile tech CEO, this is the kind of data I would use to shape my company for the future. Today’s teens make us look like luddites.

  • Towards Better Ads

    Marco Arment:

    If you currently block ads, is there anything the ads themselves can improve that would make you change your mind? (I’m guessing there isn’t.)

    Even the best ads are still ads, and still aren’t always appropriate or wanted. I don’t think smarter ads are the solution to this problem. I don’t think ads are the solution to this problem. What if more ad-supported sites and services offered paid no-ads subscriptions?

    It is worth clicking through to read his whole post. The gist of which is that no matter what advertisers do you are not going to click on the ad. And no matter what blogs do you probably are not going to pay to support them. I think perhaps the best model is to look at the Daring Fireball’s monetization model. Charging to support the RSS feed, adding in lovely ads and finishing off with T-Shirt sales. Now not every blogger can do this, but it is a great model for John Gruber.

  • A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

    This is the future, this guy has an amazing setup to make a very small apartment very functional. There was a lot of time, thought, money, and technology put into the development of this place.

    (Warning this is a YouTube link, so there be Flash)

  • 10 Reasons To Delete Your Facebook Account

    Dan Yoder:

    While social networking is a fun new application category enjoying remarkable growth, Facebook isn’t the only game in town. I don’t like their application nor how they do business and so I’ve made my choice to use other providers. And so can you.

    I have been toying with the very same idea. I get very little out of Facebook and put a lot of data out there for that privilege.

  • Apple Isn’t the Problem. Wall Street’s Big Banks are the Problem.

    Robert Reich:

    Why is the Federal Trade Commission threatening Apple with a possible lawsuit for abusing its economic power, but not even raising an eyebrow about the huge and growing economic (and political) muscle of JP Morgan Chase or any of the other four remaining giant banks on Wall Street?

    Our future well being depends more on people like Steve Jobs who invent real products that can improve our lives, than it does on people like Jamie Dimon who invent financial products that do little other than threaten our economy.

    Could not agree more. Did not know this though:

    So why is the FTC nosing around Apple and not around Wall Street? Because the Federal Trade Commission Act allows the agency to stop “unfair methods of competition” almost anywhere in the economy except in the financial sector. Banks are explicitly excluded.

    Time to make some changes to those rules I think. Big banks had a chance to prove us wrong and instead they made 10% of Americans unemployed. Ooops indeed.

  • iPhone, Gizmodo, and moral clarity about crime

    Stuart Green on the “lost” 4G iPhone:

    Finally, there’s the misguided idea, long espoused by many in the tech community, that “information wants to be free.” But whether it’s in the form of proprietary trade secrets embodied by Apple’s latest iPhone or intellectual property subject to seemingly endless illegal downloading and file sharing every second of every day, information is not free.

    It takes a lot of time and energy and money to write books, compose music, create movies, and design and market electronic devices like iPhones. Such information deserves legal protection, even when it’s been lost in a bar.

    This is probably the most clear headed take on the matter, from a law professor no less.

  • Microsoft Kin One and Two review

    Katherine Boehret for WSJ:

    Though Microsoft’s Kin One has some polishing to do on its camera and on its social-networking tools, it’s a uniquely attractive device that’s a pleasure to use. I only wish all mobile devices had worry-free backup websites like the Kin Studio.

    Compared to Joshua Topolsky for Engadget.com:

    It’s clear to us from conversations we’ve had with Microsoft that there are people at the company with good ideas about what phones should and shouldn’t do, but we don’t feel the Kin is representative of those ideas. The execution (or lack thereof) on these products makes us legitimately concerned about what the company will do with Windows Phone 7. We can only hope that the similarities between those devices and the Kin handsets don’t stretch much further than the “Windows Phone” label, because in our estimation, Kin is one side of the family that needs to be disowned… quickly.

    Well those are polar opposite opinions.

  • Google Readies Its E-Book Plan, Bringing in a New Sales Approach

    WSJ:

    Google says users will be able to buy digital copies of books directly from its site. It will also allow book retailers—even independent shops—to partner with Google Editions on their own sites, sharing the revenue.

    and

    While Mr. Palma didn’t go into details, users of Google Editions would be able to read books from a web browser— meaning that the type of e-reader device wouldn’t matter. The company also could build software for certain devices like an iPhone or iPad.

    The first quote is killer, if Google say let people self publish ebooks, sell them through Google and got 60% of the revenue – this is how Apple got the App Store so damn popular. They made it easy for creators to sell to consumers.

    The second part though – well no one wants to read an ebook on their computer, let alone in a web browser. The typography would be terrible, Google needs to integrate this with Android and Chrome OS to win some market share.

  • Exploring iWork for iPad

    Robert Mohns:

    We’re not fans of the huge, side-scrolling “My Documents” view. It’s a gratuitous waste of screen real estate, and doesn’t scale well past a handful of documents. What happens when a user has created twenty or thirty documents? Or a hundred? It’s not far fetched, yet Apple doesn’t seem to have considered that obvious scenario.

    That never once crossed my mind as a problem, but I can see it happening very quickly.

    The final factor is this: If you want to author documents, spreadsheets and presentations on iPad, quickly and easily, and today, Apple’s iWork trio is the only game in town.

    That is the same conclusion a lot of people are coming to. There will be updates that will make these apps shine, and there will be more third party offerings. But neither are here right now.

  • HP refreshes PC lines, tries to copy Apple

    Gabriel Madway:

    HP launched new notebooks for its high-end Envy brand, with slot-load optical drives and back-lit keyboards, and cut the entry-level price to $999 from $1,299.

    Sounds like they are taking some of the nicer features from Apple’s notebooks. Can’t blame them there.

  • Intel Throws its hat into the ring, again

    Tarmo Virki:

    Intel said it has been able to cut the amount of power the chip uses on standby, between tasks, by more than 50 times and Chandrasekher told Reuters last year the power consumption is “very close” and almost matching that of rivals.

    Competition is almost always a good thing for consumers. My fear would be that Intel tries to monopolize the market much like they did with the PC industry. It would seem to me that if Android or WebOS ran on any mobile chip, that it would take one step closer to being the Windows of the mobile market.

  • TED's OpenTV Project Announced

    Emily McManus:

    The TED Open TV Project has already signed up dozens of broadcasters around the world, whose collective audience numbers in the hundreds of millions. Built in response to strong demand from TV station managers around the world, TED’s Open TV Project allows broadcasters to air TEDTalks for free, and encourages them to create custom programs for their communities.

    TED Talks are great, I love watching these videos, so naturally I think this is a great move. TED has some of the most thought provoking and inspirational videos on the web.