The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • It’s Too Late for Microsoft To Build Its Own Handset

    Kevin C. Tofel:

    Perhaps another opportunity will appear when Microsoft can create its own phone, but even then, the company is at risk. Four of the five handset partners are also companies that build Microsoft Windows computers. If Microsoft cuts them out of the loop in mobiles, it won’t sit well with them from a notebook and desktop standpoint. Granted, I doubt that any of these partners would completely jump ship to Ubuntu, but such a situation would raise tensions between Microsoft and its partners.

    I’m sorry, but no. This is a dumb point, and to be frank most of the post I disagree with. Now is the time for Microsoft to break out with their own device while licensing the OS, they must do it or face dying a slow death.

  • July 30, 1935: Penguins Invade Britain, Readers Rejoice

    John C Abell:

    Retailers like Amazon push for $10 digital bestsellers. Customers don’t see why something which costs “nothing” to produce should cost as much as a printed book. Publishers are afraid of losing their pricing prerogatives. Authors are scared that the already minuscule chance of making a living through their words will shrink along with cover prices.

    Let us try not to forget that without writers there would be nothing to read – and without livable salaries writers won’t be able to write novels.

  • Why Apple Should Buy Infineon: To Own Mobile And Screw Intel

    Sounds pretty compelling to me, but I wonder if Apple won’t just make it’s own chips like it did with the A4 instead.

  • Microsoft should cut out the middlemen, build its own phones

    Peter Bright:

    However, there is still a strong case for further vertical integration. A bunch of hardware companies are on board for the first release of Windows Phone 7, and there will be a range of handsets for sale when it launches. But whether those partners will stick around is less clear. Windows Phone 7 offers much less scope for an OEM to differentiate its products. The custom front-ends that proliferated under Windows Mobile, and are commonplace in the Android world, aren’t an option, and by discarding them, the vendors lose a lot of branding opportunity.

  • More Details on the Android Wallpaper App That Steals User Data

    Lookout:

    While the data this app is accessing is certainly suspicious coming from a wallpaper app, we want to be clear that there is no evidence of malicious behavior. There have been cases in the past where applications are simply a little overzealous in their data gathering practices, but not because of any ill intent.

  • Magic Trackpad or tragic Mac pad? A review

    Jacqui Cheng:

    If you have $70 burning a hole in your pocket, you love Apple’s aesthetic designs, and you can’t live without multitouch gestures on your Mac desktop, however, it could be a nice thing to have—kind of like the treadmill in your living room that is destined for a life as a clothes hanger, or the ivory dog in your foyer.

    Like I told my wife last night, as soon as I can play with one in the Apple store I will decide whether to buy one. The battery charger though, that I will buy.

  • Marco Arment on The Kindle update

    Great post by Marco about the circumstances when you need a Kindle. His post reminded me of my wife and I’s recent backpacking trip.

    We get to camp and are resting, my wife turns to me and says: “Can we play some games on your iPad?” Now perhaps this is a testament to how many places I take my iPad (everywhere) but I decided not to add yet another 1.5lbs to my backpack for the sake of having an iPad. I would have liked for my wife to have brought her Kindle along for us to read, but we both forgot about it.

    If Marco is anything like me, when you backpack with your wife you end up carrying most of the weight – I try to carry as much as I can leaving her with less. It makes the trip easier and more enjoyable for her.

    The interesting part about hiking and technology is that it all comes down to weight – with hiking gear you pay a lot of money for good gear that weighs next to nothing. It makes so much sense to take an Kindle over a book or an iPad.

    On a separate note I feel the pain Marco must in having to not bring the 5D with him. As someone who loves photography it always is a struggle deciding whether to carry the extra weight of a dSLR compared to a well equipped point and shoot such as Marco’s S90 or my G9.

    Marco nails this point though:

    Gizmodo and the like probably don’t care that the Kindle is the perfect device for so many uses like this that people encounter on a regular basis in Real Life. But Kindle owners, and Amazon, don’t need them to.

  • Navigate the American Museum of Natural History with New iPhone and iPad Apps

    Awesome use of mobile technology. Hit. Nail. Head.

  • OMB nominee got $900,000 after Citigroup bailout

    Oh come on, Jim McElhatton:

    President Obama’s choice to be the government’s chief budget officer received a bonus of more than $900,000 from Citigroup Inc. last year — after the Wall Street firm for which he worked received a massive taxpayer bailout.

  • Researcher Demonstrates ATM ‘Jackpotting’ at Black Hat Conference

    Kim Zetter:

    Scrooge lurks on the ATM quietly in the background until someone wakes it up in person. It can be initiated in two ways — either through a touch-sequence entered on the ATM’s keypad or by inserting a special control card. Both methods activate a hidden menu an attacker can use to make the machine spew out money or print receipts. Scrooge will also capture magstripe data embedded in bank cards other users insert into the ATM.

    They received bonus points for the name ‘scrooge’.

  • Proposals for busy people

    Liz Danzico:

    When you email busy people, you might believe the best option you can give them is to offer a wide set of options (“I’m available any time in fall 2010. Choose a day that works for you!”) You imagine you’re being generous. Accommodating. You’re not imposing on the busy person.

    Yet what you’ve done, in one fell sentence, is impose more busy work on an already busy person.

    True.

  • Android wallpaper app that steals your data was downloaded by millions

    Dean Takahashi:

    The app in question came from Jackeey Wallpaper, and it was uploaded to the Android Market, where users can download it and use it to decorate their phones that run the Google Android operating system. It includes branded wallpapers from My Little Pony and Star Wars, to name just a couple.

    Update: Lookout notes it does not capture browsing history and text messages: It collects your browsing history, text messages, your phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and even your voicemail password, as long as it is programmed automatically into your phone. It sends the data to a web site, www.imnet.us. That site is evidently owned by someone in Shenzhen, China. The app has been downloaded anywhere from 1.1 million to 4.6 million times. The exact number isn’t known because the Android Market doesn’t offer precise data. The search through the data showed that Jackeey Wallpaper and another developer known as iceskysl@1sters! (which could possibly be the same developer, as they use similar code) were collecting personal data. The wallpaper app asks for permission to access your “phone calls,” but that isn’t necessarily a clear warning.

    Not much proof, but interesting.
    [via DF]

  • An Open Letter to Microsoft About Office for Mac 2011, and How to Keep it From Sucking

    Stephen M. Hackett:

    I’m hopeful that Outlook for Mac will finally let Mac users be able to live in Exchange land happily ever after. Entourage never really got that right — which is crazy. Microsoft, you do make both products, right? Mac users and PC users should have the same abilities in an Exchange environment.

  • 100 million Facebook pages leaked on torrent site

    James Nixon:

    The file contains user account names and a URL for each user’s profile page, from which details such as addresses, dates of birth or phone numbers can be accessed. Accessing a user’s page from the list will also enable you to click through to friends’ profiles – even if those friends have made themselves non-searchable.

    Further reinforcing my decision to delete my Facebook account a while back.

  • Seeing Pixels: iPhone 4 FaceTime Screenshots

    Chris Ereneta:

    Apple’s marketing screenshots have typically existed in a space of idealized fantasy, much like the gleaming, immaculately lit aluminum, steel, and glass of the hardware product images, each one resting on an invisible surface whose reflectance seemingly varies in relationship to the available negative space.

    Yet here I was seeing a deliberate choice to suggest a decrease in pixel resolution. On the FaceTime screens only.

    This was clearly done to keep themselves out of trouble for advertising the quality of the screen. Had the antenna issue not popped up my guess would be that people would be bitching about the video quality of FaceTime (which is not perfect – but it is superb in actual usage).

  • Cleaning Dalian harbor – The Big Picture

    This is a terrible mess.

  • It’s a Bit Too Big / a Bit Too Small

    John Biggs:

    It’s a bit too big to be a phone and a bit too small to be a tablet. It is usable for ebook reading and video viewing, but it isn’t ideal for either of those purposes. In fact, I’m loathe to recommend it as an ebook reader simply because the screen is a tad too small.

  • Introducing Campfire for iPhone

    37Signals purchased the Ember app and made it free (changing the name to Campfire) – it was/is the best way to communicate with Campfire while on your iPhone.

  • Facebook Adds Delete Account Option?

    Slashdot had this from roseability:

    “Facebook have quietly added the ability to delete you account. ‘Deactivate Account’, under Account Setting, has become ‘Deactivate or Delete Account’, and when checked it purports to permanently delete your account and all information you have shared. Facebook is actually willing to erase your data permanently? They must be counting on very few people doing so.”

    I have no way of verifying this but if true this is a step in the right direction.

  • Peter Sunde Banned From Operating The Pirate Bay

    TorrentFreak:

    Indeed, all of the three people who are now banned from operating the site no longer live in Sweden. This also complicates the enforcement of the rulings since it is pretty much impossible to check whether or not Peter, Fredrik and Gottfrid are complying with their demands.

    Now kids this is what we call “grasping at straws”.