The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Phil Schiller on Instagram

    I know, I know, but it’s not the “jumped the shark” bit that is interesting. Take a look at the update on the bottom of this Mashable post because I’ve been hearing it a lot.

    And you know what’s interesting about “signal to noise” comments when talking about Instagram? They’re the same comments that people started to say about Facebook when parents started signing up. Same comments people started making about Twitter a year plus ago.

    It’s the complaint that early adopters make when a product is no longer “theirs”.

    It’s a tough problem: growing and staying clutter free. Very few services succeed at finding a balance. Very few.

  • The B&B Podcast #57: Lottery Ticket Business Model

    This week Shawn talks more about mechanical keyboards, shows us the filthy keyboard he bought on eBay, we talk about Pocket and what some people call “business models”. The episode is cut rather short as I had to jet for a family emergency — all is well now though.

  • Tumblr to Launch Ads Starting May 2

    Sounds like they won’t be placing ads on the sites hosted there, but in the Radar section. Interesting.

    [via 512px]

  • Desktop-Class iOS Apps

    Andy Ihnatko:
    >Today, more and more developers are confident that the iPad is indeed a real computer, and are expressing that confidence by making desktop-class iOS apps – with Apple leading the way, of course. The new iPad edition of iPhoto isn’t just competitive with the desktop version, the tactile nature of the iPad makes it superior to most of the available consumer-grade image editors for Mac OS and Windows.

    He no longer lusts for an 11 MacBook Air, nor do I. With the iPad (3) in tow I don’t see much need for a MacBook Air. I am thinking of switching to two Mac minis: one for home, one for my office.

    [via DF]

  • Fake Instagram App Infects Android Devices With Malware

    Graham Cluley:
    >Tempted to try out the much talked about Instagram app? Well, be careful where you get it from – as malware authors are distributing malware disguised as the popular app.

    As much as people complain about Apple’s control over the App Store, things like this make me glad that Apple does control the App Store (Path address book mishaps notwithstanding).

  • Larry Page on Android

    Reuters reporting on a statement from Google CEO Larry Page:
    >Under questioning from Oracle’s lawyer, Page said Android was very important but disputed the notion that it was critical.

    Android has always been a means to an end: more ad impressions.

    [via The Beard]

  • Portland Man Goes Naked at PDX to Protest TSA Search

    KGW News:
    >”And the machine went off, and I asked what it was and he said ‘nitrates’ which I know from Oklahoma City is one of the explosive ingredients,” Brennan told KGW, “and I was not interested in being hassled so I took off my clothes to show them I was not carrying any explosives.”

    Politicians take note: this guy figured it would be easier to strip naked in the public airport, than to deal with the ridiculous power trip of TSA “officers”.

  • ‘Still Patented’

    Marco Arment responding to Twitter’s “Innovator’s Patent Agreement”:
    >A patented “invention”, even when patented under these terms, *is still patented*. It’s not free for anyone to use, and willfully infringing upon it is still dangerous and unwise.

    Yep. And in case you were curious, here’s Marco’s stance on software patents:

    >I fundamentally disagree that software patents (and many other types of patents) are a net gain for society, and I can’t participate in that system in good conscience.

  • Jamie Moyer

    Thomas Harding for MLB.com on Jamie Moyer’s win last night:
    >At 49 years and 150 days, Moyer surpassed the previous record held by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jack Quinn, who beat the St. Louis Cardinals at Ebbets Field on Sept. 13, 1932, when he was 49 years and 70 days old. Moyer also tied Hall of Famer Jim Palmer for 35th place on the all-time wins list with 268.

    I’ve always been a huge fan of Jamie Moyer and it seems that when you start off your career throwing 82 MPH fastballs, it’s not that hard to sustain that for, oh, 26 years.

  • ‘Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Network Will Be Available to More Than 2/3 of U.S. Population Starting April 19’

    Verizon press release:
    >By the end of 2012, the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network will be available in more than 400 markets, and will be available to more than 260 million people in the United States.

    Excuse me while I pat myself on the back for getting a Verizon iPad.

  • The New Square Icon

    Even if it wasn’t blue, it’d still be hideous.

  • ‘Introducing the Innovator’s Patent Agreement’

    Adam Messinger, VP of Engineering at Twitter:
    >The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission.

    Interesting.

  • Canon 5D Mark II vs. Mark III vs. Nikon D800 High-ISO Video

    The Nikon appears to be much more sensitive to light and have much more noise. Amazing how well the Mark III handles noise at really high ISO. I want that camera, badly.

  • ‘The Challenge of Syncing OmniOutliner’

    The Omni Group just pulled a ‘Cultured Code’ and instead of shipping sync they have decided to explain it. This makes me sad.

  • MacStories Interview with Nate Weiner of Pocket

    Nate Weiner:
    >Absolutely yes — our hope is that Pocket will take ‘save-for-later’ to the mainstream.

    Thinking about this a bit more, I don’t think Pocket will ever be that useful for me. But I do think that it would be for my wife, and mom, and my father. I don’t save all this other crap that most people do, I don’t have a need to watch a ton of web videos — the place where I save all my web videos for later watching? Devour.com — I don’t even need to go anywhere else, everything good is usually there.

    For me I just want to read and that’s Instapaper. But I bet my wife would love Pocket — it would ‘fit’ her better.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: Lighting Science Definity – A19 Omni V2 LED Bulb

    [Marco Arment recently went through his options for LED light bulbs](http://www.marco.org/2012/04/09/led-light-bulbs-reviewed), but I wasn’t happy with his conclusions. I found this bulb and bought a couple for our living room that is illuminated just by two tall lamps with these bulbs. I have to say, I love these bulbs — even my wife noticed the difference when compared to the nasty CFLs that were in there.

    I can’t say how they stack up to all the bulbs Marco tested, but I am buying more of them.

  • Read It Later Reborn as Pocket

    Federico Viticci has a detailed take on the transformation (?) and states:
    >Unlike Weiner’s previous attempt at solving the “save for later” puzzle, Pocket is immediately visual, making it extremely clear that it wants to be a place where you save “stuff”, not just articles.

    I think thats a good description. Pocket feels more like Yojimbo in the cloud to me, than it does a good read-later service. Yojimbo may even be a poor comparison, Flipboard Pro may be a better analogy.

  • Patents and iA Writer

    Oliver Reichenstein in an interview with Dylan Love for Business Insider makes an interesting statement about patents:
    >While feel that Reading Time should be a common standard for everybody (other text editors and Websites started using it now as an indicator of text volume), we have a patent pending for Focus Mode. Some people criticized us for that. But we don’t make the rules of the industry. We follow them. Dealing with copycats is not all sunshine and rainbows. And if even bigger companies start copying us (the latest version MS Word now suddenly has a blue focus optimized cursor, just like Writer), we better have something to prove that this was our idea and not Microsoft’s or Apple’s.

    I had no clue Word adopted the blue cursor, that’s pretty lame.

  • iTunes’ Windows Problem

    Jean-Louis Gassée:
    >Today, the toxic waste of success cripples iTunes. There are times when I feel that iTunes has reached Windows Vista bloatware proportions: Increasingly non-sensical complexity, inconsistencies, layers of patches over layers of patches ending up in a structure so labyrinthine no individual can internalize it any longer. (Just like the Tax Code.)

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and by far iTunes is the one app on my Mac that I do two things with:

    1. Dread using.
    2. Actively block websites from opening.

    Something needs to change.

  • Inside Nathan Myhrvold’s Office

    Geekwire has some photos behind the scenes of a patent troll’s office. I gotta say, the offices are fitting.