Month: February 2014

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  • ‘Long-Term Hard Graft 2Unfold Review’

    Thomas Wong: I have a German friend who once said ”Ich hab’ kein Geld für billige Sache“ (I have no money for cheap things), and I think it encapsulates how I feel about having buckled down to make this purchase. As Wong notes, there aren’t many reviews of this particular bag out there — but […]

  • Quote of the Day: Joanna Stern

    “The more useful for work these devices become, the further they get from being really good tablets, which means it might take awhile before that perfect all-in-one device arrives.” — Joanna Stern

  • Quick Review: Tap & Dye Wrist Strap

    I struggled with finding a wrist strap to use for the X-E2, as my old DSPTCH wrist strap was a tiny bit too small for my wrist/hand. I first put on a trusty Domke neck strap, but there are only a handful of times each year where I would actually want a neck strap on […]

  • ‘Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ’

    Spencer Ackerman and James Ball: Rather than collecting webcam chats in their entirety, the program saved one image every five minutes from the users’ feeds, partly to comply with human rights legislation, and also to avoid overloading GCHQ’s servers. The documents describe these users as “unselected” – intelligence agency parlance for bulk rather than targeted […]

  • Boeing’s Black

    Sean Gallagher: The Black (FCC ID H8V-BLK) is an Android phone with a feature for a very specific demographic: it will self-destruct if tampered with. What’s the over/under on this phone from Boeing have a larger market share than Microsoft’s when it is released?

  • ‘Was the iOS SSL Flaw Deliberate?’

    Bruce Schneier: Was this done on purpose? I have no idea. But if I wanted to do something like this on purpose, this is exactly how I would do it. I hope Apple is doing and internal audit on this, and I hope they come out and tell us what really happened. Yes, this is […]

  • ‘A Closer Look At Blackphone, The Android Smartphone That Simplifies Privacy’

    Natasha Lomas: “Imagine you go to an investment bank for a job interview — what will you think if the person who’s interviewing you knows that you also make the same interview at a competitors’ bank a few streets away?” he said. “That’s a bit creepy and with this technology… developed [by Kismet creator Mike […]

  • ‘The Fingerprint Scanner On The Samsung Galaxy S5 Will Be Accessible By Developers’

    Darrell Etherington: It’s not yet clear exactly how Samsung stores and transmits its own fingerprint information to apps and services, but even opening up use of the scanner itself and fingerprint activity to third-party devs already marks a considerable departure from Apple’s approach. Samsung already announced a partnership with PayPal to allow fingerprints to enable […]

  • Jarvis Standing Desk

    I’ve been using a standing desk pretty solidly since 2011 and prior to last month I could have confidently told you that I had only spent 20–30 days sitting at a desk since 2011. Sitting was a very rare thing, because when I work, I stand. That’s just the way it is now for me. […]

  • ‘Opt out of Dropbox’s arbitration clause’

    Tiffany Bridge: No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying. That’s some bullshit. If you can, go for OwnCloud, BitTorrent Sync, or a […]

  • Amtrak’s Writers’ Residencies

    This is a fascinating idea from Chee and Amtrak — using the service as a residence while you write. I love the idea. ((I could see Patrick Rhone sitting there, quietly writing in his journal, with a soft smirk on his chin.))

  • Slack: The Chat App Your Team Will Want to Use

    Good overview of Slack — I’ve been using it since it came out and man is it great.

  • Review: Ona Bowery

    I have a serious addiction to bags, but my recent move to Fujifilm cameras necessitated another bag purchase — this time a camera bag. I never found the need for a small camera bag with the GX1 and the OM-D as they stowed well inside the GR1 Field Pocket (and inside my jacket pockets). I […]

  • ‘Google Lobbying for Legality of Glass Use While Driving’

    Marco Arment: Had Google just produced Glass, and harm resulted from misuse outside of their control, it wouldn’t be reasonable to ascribe much blame to them. But to actively fight against clear, valid safety concerns makes them an accomplice — morally, if not legally. I actually hadn’t thought about what Google was really doing until […]

  • The New Must Have Micro Four Thirds Lens

    The instant-buy micro four thirds lens has long been the excellent (if dodgy AF) Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens. It’s a pancake lens that is very compact, very sharp, and offers a nice compromise in focal length between 35mm and 50mm. It’s a good lens all around and it is a decent price. Once you start […]

  • The Lunar Powerplant

    William Waldon: The construction of the luna ring would more than likely take place in multiple phases, possibly through 2 generations. The first step is to set up an infrastructure to get the materials needed for the project into space which would include a space port that could robotically build ships in low Earth orbit. […]

  • ‘How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations’

    Glenn Greenwald: The broader point is that, far beyond hacktivists, these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats. They […]

  • The New TextSecure: Privacy Beyond SMS

    Since I am posting about a lot of secure messaging systems, TextSecure has a new version out (I’m not sure if it is out for iOS yet), but this feature looks great: The new TextSecure also introduces support for private group chat. Users can now create groups with a title and avatar icon, add their […]

  • Quote of the Day: Matt Mullenweg

    “As an entrepreneur making decisions for your company, always go back to your first principles of what’s important to you and why you started in the first place.” — Matt Mullenweg

  • $200,000 to the hacker who can break Telegram

    I guess Telegram might be more secure than their silly App Store description would lead one to believe.