The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Facebook and Your Data

    Glyn Moody reporting on Facebook’s response to turning over data it keeps on users:
    >Claiming that certain aspects of your personal data is “a trade secret or intellectual property of Facebook Ireland Limited or its licensors” seems pretty extraordinary.

    In Europe you can request that any Internet company hands over the data that they have on you, and a group has begun to do so with Facebook. It is very interesting and I have no idea what data Facebook would say is “a trade secret”, but now I really want to know.

  • Sony Confirms Data Breach Involving 93K Online Accounts

    Peter Cohen:
    >Sony has been the target of another hacker attack. This time about 93,000 PlayStation Network (PSN) and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) accounts were compromised, but no one’s credit card information is in danger.

    I’ve lost count…

  • Samsung Ambushes Apple’s iPhone 4S Launch in Sydney with $2 Phones

    Ben Grubb:
    >Some waiting in line had been there since Monday, with the store only letting the first 10 in line each day receive the $2 phone. Those waiting since Monday were those wanting the next day’s batch of phones.

    What a cheap gimmick.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

    What an excellent movie score, reminds me of the 80s — loving it.

  • ‘Six Mostly Irrelevant iOS Changes That Make Me Smile’

    That’s David Sparks on some of the finer, erm, refinements in iOS 5.

  • iPhone 4S Photo Comparisons

    John Gruber has a nice Flickr gallery comparing shots taken with the iPhone 4 to the 4S and his Ricoh GR-D. In general the iPhone 4S looks the best for general snapshots. To my eye the iPhone 4S shots look the sharpest (clarity wise) too.

  • BlackBerry Outages Spread to North America, Third Day of Outages

    When it rains, it pours.

  • Apple Releases Find My Friends

    It’s out and MacStories has the break down. The annoying part is that it works much like the Game Center, where you have to email around “invites” — this is both good and bad.

  • AirPort Utility for iOS 5

    The best part is that you can visually see how your network is setup and which part of it may be having the issue. Then with a couple of taps restart that AirPort router, it would only be better if it could also restart my cable modem.

  • MG Siegler on iPhone 4S

    MG Siegler on Siri:

    >A number of folks have written that while Siri looks good, it seems like a feature that gives good demo but won’t actually get used. I disagree. I think this is a feature that will sell the device. And I think all of Apple’s rivals will have to act quickly to counter it. We’ve all seen the science fiction television shows and films where people talk to their computers like human beings and the computer understands them. That future is now.

    More convinced than ever that Siri is going to be huge, potentially bigger than the iPhone.

  • Jim Dalrymple on iPhone 4S

    Jim Dalrymple on the new antennas:
    >The dual antennas are at work when you’re not on a call too. I have noticed that my signal is stronger in places where it was weak before.

    Nice touch, perhaps this accounts for the 1/3 loss of standby time?

  • A Conversation With Siri on the iPhone 4S

    Add in 3rd party APIs, integration with iPads and Macs and you have the makings of something very big. It seems to already be good enough and it will only get better with time.

  • The Macalope on Siri

    Macalope:
    >But what about Siri? Apple introduced, what appears to be—if it works—some serious Star Trek-level voice technology. And you’re complaining about the shape of the box it came in.

    He was on fire in his column this week. I am incredibly excited to see if Siri can live what to Apple’s expectations. ((I say “Apple’s expectations” because I truly believe they have higher expectations than I do — given my “success” with previous voice systems.))

  • Aaron Sorkin on Steve Jobs

    Aaron Sorkin talking about Steve Jobs:
    >There’s a huge difference between a showman and huckster. A showman’s got the goods.

    I really wanted to quote this after reading it, because I think it speaks very well of Apple in general. They always talk about their products being the best while, we as Apple fans, laugh at other companies that claim the same thing — Sorkin states exactly why that is.

  • Google Is Doping the Horses

    Who exactly is surprised about Google+ getting better search rankings?

    Great quote to start of the article though.

  • Verbs for iPad

    It’s great on the iPhone, better on the iPad.

  • Rumor Accounting

    Stupid Apple Rumors:

    >So, of all rumors that can be confirmed one way or the other, only 22% of them are true while 78% of them are false. Read that again – less than a quarter of the rumors we read are accurate….more than 75% of them are, quite simply, BS….So, what sites are worth your time, effort and eyeballs? That’s what Stupid Apple Rumors is all about….

  • Qwikster, No More

    Netflix CEO Reed Hastings:
    >This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

    Should we assume Hastings is trying to keep everyone else guessing as to his real strategy, or should we assume he is just guessing at his real strategy?

  • Phone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

    Apple via Press Release:

    >Apple® today announced pre-orders of its iPhone® 4S have topped one million in a single day, surpassing the previous single day pre-order record of 600,000 held by iPhone 4.

    The production must be ramped way up on this phone, given the amount of pre-orders and the wide availability coming the 14th.

  • Apollo 11 Customs Declaration

    Good to know for your next trip to the Moon.