The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • ‘Reasons to work’

    If you are in the U.S. you probably are not working today – that means that you are probably enjoying some family time. Either way you should read this an think about your job, why are you doing your job?

  • Meet Autobot

    From the site:

    AutoBot offers many security features, but doesn’t require you to buy a new car to get them. For example, if you are in an accident and your airbags deploy, AutoBot can automatically send text messages with your GPS location to 911 and family members. Or, what if your car gets stolen? With AutoBot, you can use a computer or smartphone to track the vehicle’s location and notify police.

    Not much information on pricing or how it works, but it looks like you plug it into your OBD-II port on your car and from there I don’t know how it gets to the web. This could be a really big flop or something very cool.

    [via Wired]

  • Adam Savage: TSA saw my junk, missed 12″ razor blades

    So they invade our privacy and our constitutional rights, and still they can’t catch a guy carrying 12″ razor blades through security? TSA should be really proud of strip searching that boy now.

  • Beatles albums sales top 450,000 on iTunes

    James Robinson for The Guardian:

    EMI has sold more than 450,000 Beatles albums via Apple’s iTunes store in the seven days since the band’s entire back catalogue was made available to download digitally.

    The music company said 2 million Beatles singles have also been downloaded. An EMI insider hailed it as “a pretty amazing achievement”.

    That is apparently what happens when Apple plasters your band all over the iTunes store, emails its users and gives you a spotlight on their companies homepage.

  • T.J. Maxx Mystery Solved: A Marketing Strategy

    Called that.

  • Gruber on the Limits of AirPlay

    Interesting why it doesn’t work with your home-shot videos. I don’t have an Apple TV to test this, but I would guess that Gruber is right: this feature was omitted to meet the November release of iOS 4.2.

  • Bear Any Burden … (Don’t Touch My Junk Edition)

    Josh Marshall on the TSA porno-scanners and pat-downs:

    Various constitutional protections dispensed with? No problem. And if you think it’s a problem get in the line marked “Pansy Weak-Kneed Terror Lovers” not the line for “Real Americans”. They’ll process you’re application there.

  • LOL: TSA You Are Funny

    Look at this headline, TSA is so cute with their stubbornness sometimes.

    [via and created by DF]

  • ‘More Than Half Of You Will Be Checking Your Email Over The Holidays’

    I know I will be and I also know that it is futile to ask you not to. Instead let’s all make a pact that while we are sitting down to enjoy our Thanksgiving meals, or anytime we are sitting down to eat that we let our email accumulate unchecked. Deal?

  • Reason and Logic Missing from TSA

    Amazing they also require backscatter machines to get back into the U.S. This needs to stop. Wake up Obama, this is absurd. Luckily this guy kept a cool head. Something of note is that every account of a police officer being involved that I have heard has stated how professional and logical the cops are. Clearly the break down in the system is with the lack of training TSA agents get – this needs to change.

    [via Gruber]

  • A Personal Demo from Steve Jobs to a 9 year-old

    David Sheff for Playboy:

    “But more revealing was the scene after the party. Well after the other guests had gone, Jobs stayed to tutor the boy on the fine points of using the Mac. Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed unrehearsed to me: ‘Older people sit down and ask, “What is it?” but the boy asks, “What can I do with it?”‘”

    I wonder who this man is that got this demo, and if he remembers it.

    [Updated: 12/6/10 at 7:14 AM] Please be aware that a reader has reported this link taking him to Playboy picture spreads instead of the intended article, it appears to be a problem with mobile web browsers, best to visit on your computer then.

  • AirPrint-compatible printers

    I recommend you buy none of these. Honestly you should wait.

  • Ars reviews the Maylong M-150

    I stopped reading when Jacqui Cheng wrote this:

    And good luck with the stylus that came with the tablet, too—if you haven’t already lost it because there’s nowhere to store it, you’ll find that it’s not significantly better than using your finger. You still have to mash it into the screen a bit in order for it to work.

  • How Mobile Phones Jump-Start Developing Economies

    Antonio Regalado for Technology Review:

    Entrepreneurs say mobile wallets are feasible thanks to the rapid expansion of cell-phone use in poorer regions of the world. In the past five years, operators have added more than two billion mobile accounts in developing and poor nations, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union. That compares to 435 million new accounts in wealthy nations (see chart).

    A great story about how companies are setting up business that are profitable while helping out people in developing nations.

  • Holy Crap

    A concept of a Facebook Adidas shoe. Seriously.

  • Gruber on TSA

    John Gruber:

    Here’s the question for Pistole, and anyone else who argues that these new TSA procedures are an appropriate response to that incident: What happens if the next guy hides his bomb up his ass?

    That should prove to be a “fun” experience.

  • MobileMe Gallery joins Find My iPhone as a free service

    Very cool – I encourage people to use both features I use them all the time and they are great.

  • Hearing Loss in the Military

    Joh Pavlus for Technology Review:

    The $450 price tag makes sense when you consider that the EB15 is a state of the art hearing aid and earplug at the same time. “Adaptive attentuation” circuitry detects incoming impulse noise like gunfire and RPG explosions and electronically morphs into a 15-dB earplug before your eardrum takes a beating. It does the same thing if ambient noise rises to a damaging level for a sustained amount of time. Otherwise, the EB15 lets the user hear well enough to detect sounds normally and pinpoint their locations, or even boost the signal for enhanced situational awareness.

    Very cool tech that essentially removes the danger of hearing loss from explosions and gunfire – while still allowing troops to ‘hear’ what they need to hear. I hope the troops actually get these.

  • Today: iOS 4.2 Software Update

    Update available today, most likely at 10a PST. Find my iPhone/iPad is now free to all users – that’s a big shot over Android’s bow.

  • Andy Ihnatko’s Buying advice, from one to a billion dollars

    Andy Ihnatko:

    If you have only a thousand bucks to spend: Buy four or five Airport Extreme base stations and offer free upgrades to all of the coffeshops, libraries, and bagel places that you hang out in.

    That’s actually a great idea.