The Brooks Review

Year: 2012

  • Samsung’s Identity

    Choe Sang-Hun in a long piece for The New York Times about Samsung, perfectly encapsulates what Samsung is, was, and will continue to be:
    >Although the name Samsung is synonymous with sophistication among South Koreans, the company has never created a product so innovative that it has defined an era in consumer culture, like the Sony Walkman or the Apple iPhone.

    Samsung has done an amazing job, as the article points out, at reacting quickly and moving fast when another companies idea catches a spark.

    >“Look what has happened to companies like Nokia, Motorola and BlackBerry, which didn’t do as Samsung did,” Mr. Song added, referring to competitors whose failures to adapt quickly to the smartphone boom driven by iPhones have drastically reduced their market shares. “Samsung may lack in innovation, but right now, no one can beat Samsung in playing catch-up.”

    What Samsung does in consumer electronics it does very well, but what happens to Samsung when they don’t have someone to follow? I’d argue the same thing happens that happened to Microsoft when Apple was faltering and wasn’t innovating OS features — you get Windows XP for a decade. ((Yes, OS X came out alongside XP, but OS X so caught Microsoft off guard that they had to re-tool in order to move to compete.))

  • ‘Rhino Is the First Native iOS Client for App.net to Charge Into the App Store’

    Christine Chan reviews the first App.net client to hit Apple’s App Store:
    >Rhino still has a long way to go before it can replace the beta software that I’ve been using on my iPhone, but I guess it’s a start for ADN users who haven’t gotten into a beta.

    I’d agree with her assessment of the app, it’s a nice app, but it has a long ways to go. There are tons of beta ADN apps floating around and many have many more features than Rhino currently offers. What’s most intriguing to me is that the app is free — why be first if you have no way to make money?

    Regardless, if you use App.net (and you should) and don’t have any beta iOS apps to use — Rhino is leagues better than using web apps.

  • ‘Bluetooth Update’

    [At the beginning of August Fred Wilson posted about the absurd notion that AirPlay is bad in comparison to Bluetooth](https://brooksreview.net/2012/08/bluetooth-v-airplay/). Now he has an update about his Bluetooth stereo setup, in which he says:

    >Bottom line. It’s fucking fantastic.

    He’s elated that he can replicate his car stereo in his home. ((Also he notes “I got some super high end RCA cables”, which actually explains a lot about his illusions of grandeur.)) And then Wilson gets to the negatives:

    >First, it can only pair with one device.

    Yeah, my wife is also dumbfounded why our car can only pair with one cellphone at a time to use the handsfree setup — I bet she’d love it if I brought that “experience” into our home.

    >Also, bluetooth has limited range so the phone has to be in the same room as the Logitech Adapter to play music.

    I mean, if I want to listen to music with a setup that can stream the audio to any room in my house, there’s no way I would want to carry my phone with me to change the song. I mean mix tapes are great, never need to skip a song on them.

    But still, “fucking fantastic”.

    I needed to charge my laptop the other day and out of sheer laziness I didn’t want to move it from my home office to the living room, but still I wanted to AirPlay over a video I was streaming from a website — I mean it still worked just fine in my office — I’m just telling you that I was lazy and didn’t want my computer tethered to one room to make ancient technology work.

    That’s all I’m saying.

  • Reaching a Bit

    PJ on Groklaw:
    >Apple’s lawyers are still clueless that the public is for the most part repulsed by Apple’s IP aggression.

    Really? Where’s the data to back this load of shit up?

    Does the public even know the extent of Apple/Samsung/Motorola/Microsoft/Nokia/HTC’s legal battles?

    I doubt it. Even if they did, I doubt the public would be “repulsed”.

  • The Economist’s Patent Reformer Article

    In an unattributed article posted to the Economist website today, the article goes into patent reform and why the writer thinks it would be “good”, wrapping up with this in the second to last paragraph:
    >The existing criteria for a patent should be applied with greater vigour. Specialised courts for patent disputes should be established, with technically minded judges in charge: the inflated patent-damage awards of recent years are largely the result of jury trials. And if patents are infringed, judges should favour monetary penalties over injunctions that ban the sale of offending products and thereby reduce consumer choice.

    To which I say: close, but not quite.

    There is no doubt that the U.S. and International Patent laws need to be reformed — specifically to deal with software patents. However the Apple v. Samsung spat is much simpler than patents, it is about plagiarism. Apple contends that Samsung blatantly and willfully copied them — the jury agreed.

    To rectify such an outcome you cannot simply award monetary damages unless they are ongoing (for as long as the copying continues) — the injunction is meant to pull the copied product off the market.

    This does reduce choice, there is no doubt about that, but it also stays true to the original goal of the patent system: to encourage innovation, by allowing protection of that innovation for an exclusive period of time — protection from copying.

    It’s actually quite simple, if you are a blogger complaining about the Apple v. Samsung verdict, then I am sure you are fine with me copying your site design to a `t` and simply re-writing everything you post. Right? Oh, you aren’t OK with that? Huh, funny.

  • ‘How Two Amateur Sleuths Looked for FinSpy Software’

    Nicol Perlroth reporting on a software tool used by governments called ‘FinSpy’:
    >On Wednesday, the researchers announced one of their biggest discoveries yet. They discovered new mobile versions of the spyware that had been customized for Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, Windows Mobile, Nokia’s Symbian and BlackBerry’s mobile operating systems.

    Basically the software is installed (I have no clue how) and can track the communications of the devices that it is on, and in the case of PC/Macs, much more data. It’s actually pretty scary to think that such software exists, but is also of no surprise that it does exist.

    Reading through this article, some of the stuff in it seems straight out of movies.

  • ‘Who Inherits Your iTunes Library?’

    An interesting story from Quentin Fottrell at MarketWatch, where he discovers that you really can’t pass along all your digital books, movies, and music when you die. This seems pretty logical with iTunes, since the “ownership” is tied to *your* email address, but it also poses a lot of problems.

    For instance, in my home (as I am sure is common in many homes), only one person has a huge music collection (me) and therefore should I pass before the others in my family — what are they to do? Buy all the music again? Keep using my login forever?

    That ties into something else I have long been thinking about: what happens to blogs, like this one, when the proprietor dies? I wish there were someway to cheaply preserve the content and links to the content long-term. There’s no easy solution to the problem, but it is a going to be a massive problem — all of a sudden links are going to break because sites (and all the content for the sites) just vanish.

  • This Week in TSA Bumbling

    TSA news is back, please hold your applause until the end.

    ### Body Scanning

    The TSA’s mother, DHS, has admitted now that their porno-scanners are only good for peep shows, and [have asked DARPA to step in and make more bad-ass scanners for them](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/dhs-darpa-body-scanners/). So TSA got all hot and bothered installing these scanners in 2010, now have more than 700 of them in operation, and just two years later they need new ones?

    That’s what I call effective fiscal spending.

    ### Mom, The Courts are Being Meany-heads

    Back on July 15th, 2011 (that’s last year) the TSA was ordered by the courts to hold a public hearing and comment period on the use of porno-scanners. To date, they still have not done so and say that they expect to do so in February of 2013 (that’s next year) — which would be 19 months after the court order. [As David Kravets reports](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/tsa-no-scanner-stonewalling/):

    >The agency said in a court filing Thursday that there was “no basis whatsoever for its assertion that TSA has delayed implementing this court’s mandate.”

    No basis, none at all. 19 months is *totally* speedy compared to airport security lines.

    ### Angry Birds for Angry Screeners

    The TSA is going to fire 6 screeners for, [well here’s what Katie Johnston reports](http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/08/27/tsa-moves-fire-bag-screeners-suspend-logan/XpOcnodDyWaqYK3ZgPUltN/story.html):

    >The action was triggered by a routine audit that showed some officers were not paying close attention to computer monitors that display the contents of each bag as they are screened by an explosives detection machine, according to the TSA. The screeners were distracted by their cellphones and other electronic devices.

    I bet that’s no big deal though:

    >No dangerous materials got through the detection system as a result of these lapses, the TSA said, noting that bags pass through several more layers of checks after they are screened.

    See, not a big deal… wait. Two thoughts:

    1. Once through the x-ray screener there are no more checks on my bag before I take it to the plane. So this is a load of bullshit.
    2. If the TSA truly knows that nothing bad got through, then doesn’t this kind of prove the point that the TSA really is pointless. I mean if the TSA not doing their job results in the same thing as them doing their job would… that’s probably too rational though, never mind.

  • Quote of the Day: Jim Dalrymple

    “The mainstream press is jumping all over this pile of shit like it’s real news”

  • Sony VAIO Tap 20

    [Shawn and I talked about this on *The B&B Podcast* episode 74](http://5by5.tv/bb/74). Basically this is a 20-inch multi-touch display that houses a “full” computer in the same way that an iMac would. The difference is that this is made to be moved off of a desk and used as a tablet, or whatever. You have to love the way the Sony confusingly describes the product:

    >Portable, battery-powered VAIO™ Tap 20 fits right into any living space – from bedrooms and kids’ play areas to the kitchen or garden. Lay it on a coffee table and let everyone join in games on the large multi-touch screen. Flip out the in-built stand and tilt VAIOTM Tap 20 at a comfortable angle for ‘lean back’ photo/movie editing by touch operation, browsing and entertainment. Or stand it upright and use as a fully-functioning desktop PC: it’s easy to work on documents, surf or check emails with the supplied wireless keyboard and mouse.

    Sounds to me like they are billing it as a replacement, or better option, than:

    – A tablet.
    – A laptop.
    – A desktop.

    Essentially it is all three in one. It has a battery with unknown battery life, it has a stand, a multi-touch display, weighs north of 10 pounds, has an ethernet port, and *so* much more.

    All I can think is: my god this is a bad idea.

    I am usually pretty good at figuring out scenarios where a device or gadget would fill a need, and perhaps even fill the need better than other devices for a certain niche of people, but with the VAIO Tap 20 I was at a loss. It’s not going to be a better desktop computer than a true desktop, it’s going to make for an even worse laptop, and an still even worse tablet.

    I’ve been wracking my brain on this one since talking to Shawn about it and I think I have it: it’s the ultimate board game.

    No really, think about it. The biggest pain in the ass factor with board games is setting them up, with the VAIO Tap 20, you just launch the game you want to play, it deals out the (whatever for the game) and then you play — hell you could even save the game and resume later (handy for playing me in Monopoly).

    So there you have it: Sony has made the ultimate board game computer system.

  • ‘Rexpedit’

    A clever hack to an Ikea shelving unit which turns it into a decent looking desk. I have two of these shelving units, but know that they make larger ones, so I am betting you could make a pretty sweet standing desk using this technique — if you have, let me know.

    Personally I was in Ikea over the weekend and [saw these wall mounted desk/tables](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80217524/). I really liked them and am thinking about building a similar desk.

    My idea would be to have a permanent lower desk that was sitting height, it would have a 24″ or so leaf that drops back towards the wall. Then above it I would have a wall mounted desk that opens up at standing height. The lower desk would be out of the way for my legs, but still be able to hold hard drives and such on the back.

    I would like to design it so that the top of the standing desk would make a nice clean backdrop for the sitting desk. Anyways, just my thoughts for now as I am thinking through several desk designs that I want to build.

  • Retina Display Support Coming to Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4 in ‘Coming Months’ [Updated]

  • IFTTT Adds App.net Support

    What I love about IFTTT is that, as a service, they seem to get “it”. They advertise that premium accounts are on the way, which is great because it is a service that truly makes the web better. I don’t have many “recipes” but the ones that I do have would be very hard to replicate without IFTTT. Actually I don’t know if I have the skills to replicate any of the things that IFTTT does.

    So this post is half about telling you that IFTTT now works with App.net and half to tell you that I really love IFTTT. *Carry on.*

  • The B&B Podcast #74: The Worst, Worst, Worst Case Scenario

    >After a 2-week hiatus, Ben and Shawn are back to talk about touchscreen desktop computers, Twitter, App.net, and Glassboard, and the kitchen sink.

  • Next-Generation iPhone to Use A6 System-on-a-Chip?

  • Quote of the Day: John Moltz

    “It’s nice to have choices, but it’s not nice to have confusion.”

  • A Ridiculous Survey

    Dan Nosowitz reporting the results of a survey about cloud computing:
    >54 percent of respondents claim to never use the cloud. 95 percent of those people actually are.

    All of the results seem pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I have two main take aways from this:

    1. This is what happens when business speak and marketing degrees start to take over, you get a convoluted mess of words that don’t mean anything. Cloud computing is different than servers and clients how? Different than networking how? Cloud computing is a bad term meant to dumb down and oversell a complex system to “normal” users. See also: [Twitter’s writing](http://www.marco.org/2012/08/29/twitter-open-to-businesses).
    2. I think the above quote is actually a *good* thing, not a bad thing. If “cloud” services are done right, the user should really never need to know that they are using a cloud based service. Does it really matter if Dropbox is cloud based or not — or is what really matters that such a service works consistently and works well? I think the implementation, not the name is what matters.

    [via NextDraft]

  • Quote of the Day: Dave Pell

    “Email has always been a great medium. It’s the content of most emails that’s problematic.”

  • Pinch-to-Zoom and Rounded Rectangles: What the Jury Didn’t Say

  • Archiving the Digital Bits

    Jonathan Poritsky has a really interesting thought about Netflix, their original content, and the archival-less nature of streaming-only services:
    >But what happens when I fall out of love, or when they hike prices again? What happens when the company starts developing films and keeps them exclusive to streaming as well? And what if they fail and fall into obscurity? If released on disc, they could at the very least be preserved by fans and collectors.

    I’d argue that so long as services like The Pirate Bay exists, we won’t need to worry about not being able to archive streaming-only content. That said, this is a really good question.

    Without original content, Netflix is just a distributor to production companies. With original content Netflix now has a role in creating works of art (if you believe films and TV shows are works of art, I do). This is an interesting problem for Netflix and film buffs alike as more and more companies like Netflix spring up to make works of art.

    Likewise too with Instagram — how many historic photos may be in the grips of Instagram that will be lost when/if the service dies?

    Ditto Mixel — what if there were truly great works of art on the service, never again to see the light of day.

    With streaming, with cloud hosted, with digital itself — we have such a huge risk to lose really important stuff. Important, historically and more.

    Same with this blog. If I stop paying the hosting bill, it all goes away. Not that there is anything that important, but there are websites that *are* that important.