This was a note at the bottom of the page for this bear vault that I was looking at buying, REI.com:
There is a bear in the Marcy Dam area of the Adirondacks in upstate New York that has learned to open BearVault food containers.
I’m not even mad – just impressed.
David Goldman:
…77% of iPhone owners say they’ll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of smartphone customers who say they’ll buy an Android phone.
Like I tell most people the iPhone is currently king of the hill and once you use it you cannot imagine going back to another phone. (in case you are curious the same holds true for Mac OS X – once you use it you love it)
Christina Warren:
With the new embed, however, it is possible to view video using the HTML5 player, provided you have signed up for the beta version and are in an HTML5-compatible browser. If the embedded video has elements that aren’t compatible with HTML5, the Flash browser will be used instead.
A step in the right direction.
This is really cool – though I suspect that it is not as useful as shown. This is solely based off of my experience with Exposé on the Mac. It is a cool feature that has its moments, but for the most part I never use it.
37Signals:
Basecamp now has a favicon and iPhone icon that you can customize with your own logo.
Finally.
Joshua Topolsky:
Let’s just put this up front: the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We’re talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It’s one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we’ve used on any platform — and that’s saying a lot
I have to admit that I really want to try one of these phones – they look a lot better than Android.
I was pumped when I got my first DODO Case for my iPad – it was awesome, beautiful and looked like my Moleskin notebooks, a perfect case. The other day I saw this post about DODO talking about what a wild success they have been, and it got me to thinking about how much I have grown to hate that case.
The first DODO case I got warped after sitting on my desk for just one weekend. (see picture 1 and picture 2) It took me two and a half weeks to get a new case from DODO (free replacement) and I returned the warped case. I don’t know why the case warped – though I suspect that the wood may have been too ‘green’ (meaning it was not fully dried) and that is what caused the warping. This is most likely do to trying to ship the product as fast as they can and really does not reflect on the quality of the manufacturing.
The second DODO case arrived and I watched it very closely to make sure that it was not warping. To date it has not warped, but last week marked the last week that I would have a DODO case to use for my iPad.
One month ago I dropped my DODO case (with my iPad in it) on to the ground. The case landed on the corner, on office carpet from a distance of about 3 feet. I scrambled to pick it up and checked my iPad out – all was OK and the iPad was sufficiently protected.
Fast-forward about three days and I am starting to notice that the iPad is not fitting as secure in the case as it did when I got it. The same symptoms the case exhibited when it was warped – I checked the case for warping and noted none. I did however see that the wood that holds the iPad in place was cracked in the corner that I dropped it.(picture 1 and picture 2 of cracking)
Some super glue later and the crack was repaired – it wasn’t pretty but the iPad was secure once again. Last week sitting on my couch I noticed a chuck of wood fall from the case. It was a chunk that broke off in a completely different corner, and the glue had broken free. Marking the death of the DODO case for my iPad.
The DODO case is a beautiful case for the $60 that it costs you. I would still be using it today if it could hold up – but in less than a couple of month’s time it has completely fallen apart. This is a shame as the case is really great, perhaps more of a shame is the fact that I don’t even want to bother trying to get a new one from the company – the customer service was poor the last time and I frankly don’t want to use this case any longer.
On to the next one…
Stan Schroeder:
In another attempt to bring a usable computer to the masses at an extremely affordable price point, India has developed a touchscreen computing device which will cost only $35. According to a press release by India’s Press Information Bureau, the price is expected to drop even further, first to $20 and ultimately to a mere $10.
This has been all over the news this morning. But I don’t think it really is that great of a ‘deal’.
The mean household income in the U.S. is $60,528 a year. I could not find similar statistics for India, but from the non-factual sources I could find it was pegged around $1,000-2,000 a year. For the sake of argument let’s go with India at $2,500 mean income per household yearly. Let us also use the iPad as the equivalent Tablet in the U.S. at $499 each.
In the U.S. then the iPad represents 0.82% of the mean annual household income – in India this new $35 tablet represents 1.4% of the mean annual household income. That is a huge difference and in a nation as poor as India it is not really affordable. $35 might sound amazing to everyone in the U.S. – but it is still the equivalent of an $843.61 expense for us in the U.S.. Not so cheap now is it?
MG Siegler:
WebOS is the key to all of this. It’s the software layer that HP’s hardware has been lacking — forcing them to go with Microsoft instead. But the Palm acquisition in April changed all of that. From the moment that happened, HP has made no secret that the reason for the deal was to “double-down” on webOS.
This whole post is spot on.
MG Siegler:
Microsoft easily beat Wall Street estimates that they would see about $15.3 billion in revenues. Microsoft largely credits strong sales within enterprise of Windows 7 and Office 2010. Net income was also strong at $4.52 billion. And earnings per share were at $0.51. Both of those beat Wall Street estimates as well.
This is so very not good.
This is so awesome looking. Best stand yet – which means that I have two available for purchase if you want them let me know.
Apple:
Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 61 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of 3.27 million.
That is a crazy amount of iPads sold.
Very interesting – so much of what is wrong with government is due to officials not caring about their job. They are there for a check and not to help you. Keeping that in mind read this bit from David Streitfeld:
“Remember the Soviet Union?” said Hector Alvarado, who heads a civic advocacy group. “They had a lot of bureaucracy, and they lost. Maywood was like that. Now people know if they don’t work, they will be laid off. Much better this way.”
Loss of your job when you work for local governments is very rare from what I have seen – outsourcing may be controversial, but it can work.
Sounds like a great way to mitigate damage done by exploits people find in Acrobat – next up should be Flash.
Good luck with that. Seems like if they do manage to meet the October date it will be utter crap – they have yet to even pick an OS for the device. They simply do not have enough time to make a well polished device to compete head to head with the iPad if they have not perfected it by today (for a launch in October this year atleast).
Very clever trick.
