The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • After approving NBC buyout, FCC Commish becomes Comcast lobbyist

    Nate Anderson:
    >Four months after approving the massive transaction, Attwell Baker will take a top DC lobbying job for the new Comcast-NBC entity, according to reports.

    This shows a complete disregard for all Americans.

  • WikiTrust

    Kevin Poulsen on the agreement WikiLeaks makes its employees sign:
    >The confidentiality agreement (.pdf), revealed by the New Statesman, imposes a penalty of 12 million British pounds– nearly $20 million — on anyone responsible for a significant leak of the organization’s unpublished material. The figure is based on a “typical open-market valuation” of WikiLeaks’ collection, the agreement claims.

    Trust, I hear, is hard to come by among thieves. ((Don’t bother emailing me about this. Stealing private information with the hopes of profiting off of it is, right or wrong, stealing. ))

  • Top Grossest Apps

    Neven Mrgan:
    >Then Apple added in-app purchases, and decided to include those when calculating apps’ earnings for the Top Grossing list. The result? The list is completely dominated by fake-money compulsion engines. The very fact that these are the top grossing apps signals just good they are at vacuuming money out of pockets.

    This change really irks me since Top Grossing used to be where one could easily find excellent apps. Now it is just an extension of the Top 25 Free apps category.

  • Googlers and Windows Machines

    MG Siegler:
    >Since the end goal of Chrome OS is clearly to end Windows dominance both in the workplace and the world in general, someone asked what percentage of Google employees still use Windows machines at work?

    Answer (according to Sergey Brin): 20%. That’s staggeringly low.

  • Sprint’s Offensive Ad Pulled

    Ina Fried:
    >The ad, which ran on a number of political Web sites and in various newspapers on Tuesday, depicts a man in a dress similar to that worn by the spokeswoman for T-Mobile. The ad featured the tag line “It makes sense if you don’t think about it”–also a play on T-Mobile’s advertisements. The ads were funded by Sprint and created on behalf of a number of groups opposing the proposed $39 billion deal.

    Be sure to click through to take a look at the ad, great stuff.

  • Facebook Apps May Have Leaked Millions of Users’ Personal Data

    Nathan Olivarez-Giles and Jessica Guynn:
    >Among the information that could have been accessed is data from user profiles, pictures and Facebooks chats between users.
    >”Fortunately, these third parties may not have realized their ability to access this information,” said Nishant Doshi, a Symantec spokesman in a company blog post. “We have reported this issue to Facebook, who has taken corrective action to help eliminate this issue.”

    Well, at least they didn’t know until they posted about it in the Los Angeles Times.

  • Chris Bowler’s Twitter Limits

    Chris Bowler:
    >I recently found that someone I had been connecting with on Twitter for over two years had at some point stop following me. I admit, it stings a little. But I let it go.

  • No iAds for Kids

    Federico Viticci:
    >Mike Zornek, developer of the free Dex app for iPhone and iPod touch (a Pokèmon browser application), relays an email from the iAd Network Support team in which an Apple employee explains how iAds may not be displayed anymore in apps targeted to “young children” because of the advertisers’ preference to not show ads to this particular audience.

    This is a good change in policy for everyone but the developers. Apple benefits because they won’t have to worry about children being targeted with advertising — something lawmakers always have problems with. Advertisers benefit for the same reasons too. Parents and children benefit from seeing less ads.

    The unfortunate part is that lesser advertising systems might begin to be used in place of iAds, which could get ugly for consumers.

  • Your Photos are *Your* Photos

    Jeff Cormier:
    >Twitpic’s recently amended terms coincide with the announcement of a new deal which sees the service partnering with news agency WENN to sell on the media photos posted by celebrities on Twitter. The new licensing deal ensures that users retain the copyright but by uploading photos service, the company is able to exploit the photos for commercial gain.

    and:

    >The only real way to ensure you remain in control of your uploads is to upload images to a private server or use a service such as Mobypicture which says it will not try to profit off the back of your work. But if you’re a user of any of the above apps, or any app for that matter, read the ToS, and if you have any questions, which no doubt many will (including yours truly) contact the creator of application.

  • Twitter Comments

    Justin Blanton on using Twitter as your comment system of sorts:
    >Not only is feedback via Twitter less formal (in my eyes anyway), it’s generally more convenient than email (for both parties), not to mention that tweets are much easier for me to respond to because I’m severely length-constrained and don’t feel guilty for being as concise as possible, or for not exploring every caveat.

    I use a dedicated Twitter account and publish on it as I would an RSS feed. I get a lot of feedback on both the @brooksreview account and my personal Twitter account — I think it’s a great medium for short comments. I am sure it saves me a ton of emails as well.

  • WeatherSnitch is Back

    Justin Blanton:
    >Well, version 1.0.5 was released yesterday, and as I speculated would happen, they’ve added an option to remove the ads. Also, following Fahrenheit’s lead, they now offer the option to display the current temperature as a badge on the icon.

    I’m thrilled they made these changes and it will be a tough call with this app back in the mix.

  • Fair Use Laws

    Craig Grannell:
    >It’s also worth noting that these online services appear in part to be relying on fair-use laws. This is why they are rolling out in the US. In the UK, they’ve a much tougher battle, given that the UK essentially lacks even basic fair-use law. For example, it’s not legal in the UK to copy any media, even for personal use. The only exceptions are time-shifting of television content and backing up software, although more recent legislation demands that the second of those things not circumvent copyright protection.

    That’s pretty interesting. It’s always hard to know where other countries stand on these issues when you live in the U.S. — we are both dense and xenophobic here. I find it hard to believe that such legislation will stand for much longer, then again lots of money is spent on lobbyists.

  • The Health Risks of Sitting All Day

    All in a nice infographic for you.

  • Microsoft Officially Acquires Skype for $8.5 Billion

    If you look on the colophon it will disclose that I am a shareholder in Microsoft. Now that you know this, you should also know that this acquisition makes me completely uncomfortable. I think Ballmer overpaid for something he has no clue what to do with.

  • On Skype’s Price

    Erick Schonfeld:
    >So yes, there is logic to the deal. But $7 billion to $8 billion for a company still hasn’t figured out how to turn 663 million users into a profit machine is a stretch.

    It’s the same problem that Facebook and Twitter face — massive user base with no idea how to profit from it. Five bucks a month for Skype anyone? I’m in.

  • Microsoft to Acquire Skype?

    The phrase: “grasping at straws” comes to mind.

  • Teardown of an FBI GPS Tracker

    iFixit has a nice teardown of what, one model, of an FBI GPS tracker look like. It’s really fascinating and if this is what the FBI typically uses — well it would be a cinch to spot under your car to even an untrained eye. Having said all that I am supremely disappointed with the use of D-Cell batteries, they are basically sticking a [Mag-Lite](http://www.maglite.com/product.asp?psc=6DCELL) under your car — that’s going to effect your fuel mileage.

  • Realism in UI Element Design

    Lukas Mathis:
    >The goal is not to make your user interface as realistic as possible. The goal is to add those details which help users identify what an element is, and how to interact with it, and to add no more than those details.

    Great post by Mathis for the UX Magazine.

  • Justin Williams Reviews the Motorola Xoom

    Justin Williams on the Xoom and Honeycomb:
    >Google’s developer ecosystem lets them down in this aspect. Despite having thousands of apps in the Marketplace, very few of them are good and none of them are great. I have been using Android devices for over a year now the only app I can say I prefer on Android over iOS is Kindle because Amazon is not behest to Apple’s commerce policies.

    This is not your run of the mill review, this is a *real* review and he does a damned good job at touching on everything you need to know about the device and the OS.

  • Defend Behavior

    Adam Hartung:
    >Microsoft spent 8 times as much on R&D in 2009 as Apple – in both dollars and as a percent of revenue – and all investors received were updates to the old operating system and office automation products.  That nearly $9B expense generated almost no incremental demand.  While revenue is stalling, costs are rising.

    and, later:

    >Buying into any of the losers as a “value play” meant you lost money.

    This is a great take on why Microsoft is still on the decline, despite snazzy looking financial statements. See also: [Microsoft Needs to Learn from Apple’s Near Death](https://brooksreview.net/2011/01/ms-apple/).