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Very nice little kit of cables that comes with a nylon storage case. I bought it to use with my new [Flat Pack](http://www.hardgraft.com/products/flatpack-shore) as a smaller case to carry the cables and added to it just the [dock-to-lightning adapter](http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD823/lightning-to-30-pin-adapter) to complete it. These four items really are all the cables I ever find myself needing during a typical day.

Nice find by Dan Frakes.

Harry McCracken has a two page report on the Microsoft Surface, which I am sure has nothing to do with page views and everything to do with not enough bandwidth to put it all on one page, anyways he has a couple of non-boring sections that I want to point out. The first:

>Surface’s 1366-by-768 resolution sounds skimpy compared to the iPad‘s 2048-by-1536 “Retina” screen. But a Microsoft researcher argued at length that Retina displays aren’t inherently superior. For one thing, he said, aging eyeballs can’t always tell the difference.

Definition of “inherently”:

>existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute: any form of mountaineering has its inherent dangers | the symbolism inherent in all folk tales.
>Law vested in (someone) as a right or privilege: the president’s inherent foreign affairs power.

Well, given that I’d say a Retina display *is* inherently superior, but hey no compromises right?

I would guess that the “aging eyeballs” comment is an indication of the target market, so it only makes sense to poke fun at that market by saying: “old people can’t tell the difference anyways, suckers”.

McCracken on the touch cover keyboard thing (skip to page two):

>Overall, for a keyboard that barely increases the tablet’s thickness and weight, and which can be folded back like a magazine cover, it was remarkably good. But I understand why Microsoft will offer the Type Cover as well.

Interesting, he adds:

>Even Sinofsky thinks that plasticky little keys still have their place: He told the assembled journalists that he uses the Touch Cover most of the time, but sometimes swaps in the Type Cover for keyboard-intensive work.

I don’t see the added benefit of the touch-cover over a touch screen if people still prefer the actual keyboard to either. Why not just have nothing — then again if it’s the same thickness as my smart cover it is kind of a no-brainer. This is the single most interesting aspect of the Surface to me and it’s sounding less and less great the more I read about it.

Nicole Perlroth reporting on voter database vulnerabilities in Washington and Maryland has this gem of idiocy:
>Washington officials also cite their use of “captchas,” which are meant to help weed out humans from computer programs.

That seems like a valid response, until of course you take into account the rest of the story, like this bit:

>It took The New York Times less than three minutes to track down the information online needed to update the registrations of several prominent executives in Washington State.

That’s not a computer sniffing it out, just an untrained reporter, so in response to hearing that, Washington State, my home, said (basically) ‘But we have catpchas’. This actually is hurting my brain to think about.

Think of how much data states hold on every citizen and then think about how horribly that data is protected by them. I worry about what Google does, but at least they give two shits about protecting my data from prying eyes (or at least from eyes that don’t pay them), Washington State just protects my data with a fucking captcha. Granted, modern captchas are nearly impossible to read, so maybe Washington is on to something.

Here’s the app for all of you that miss Google maps, and some of you that just like maps. Really nice take on Google maps, I’ve not played with it much, but it has a couple of great features:

+ Pull to re-route. This was always a huge limitation of Maps before and now if you need to re-route you just pull down. Great feature.
+ The map follows you as you drive/walk along the route so you don’t have to swipe to keep up. Not quite turn by turn, but very nice.

Give it a try.

**Update:** I was mistaken in what was powering the backend. Google Maps is not there, Google Places is.

A neat project that allows you to self-host your own Kickstarter type of project. I like that it is built to use Amazon payments, but can be tweaked to use something better (maybe Stripe). When I first saw this I chuckled and thought: “No way I would trust some random guy to charge me for a project, where’s the safety of Kickstarter?”

And then reality set in and I remembered that Kickstarter offers little to no protection for the backers of projects. Essentially: I don’t see how Selfstarter is any riskier for backers than Kickstarter.

In fact, it would seem, Selfstarter is a better solution because the fees will be less and therefore the threshold for successful funding should be less. I like this idea, let me know if you use it for a project.

Om Malik on the Google FTC investigation:

> In Silicon Valley, we first fall in love with start-ups and their vision. Then a few years later when they are successful, we consider them to be geniuses. And when they become too powerful, they become evil. And after the too-powerful phase comes a swift fall from grace.

Malik says Google is in the third phase, I’d agree and I think this is a great outline. Hard though to apply to Apple. Yes Apple is not a startup, but Malik uses Microsoft as supporting evidence, so I think it is fair game to look at this theory in light of Apple.

Is Apple in phase two, and if so then you think it *will* become evil. However hasn’t Apple been in the second phase for at least a decade now?

Either way I think Malik is right that this is coming at the worst possible time for Google given their rivalry with Apple.

Steve Lohr:

> The government’s escalating pursuit of Google is the most far-reaching antitrust investigation of a corporation since the landmark federal case against Microsoft in the late 1990s. The agency’s central focus is whether Google manipulates search results to favor its own products, and makes it harder for competitors and their products to appear prominently on a results page.

That’s never the comparison you want to have. What’s interesting is that I didn’t think there was any question whether Google chose/chooses to promote its own products first. My question: is that wrong? It’s not fair, but it’s also Google’s service. Should I be required to link to another blogs post when I would normally link to one of my own? It’s not the same, but the principle seems the same.

The more interesting investigation is whether Google actively tried to prevent other search engines from gaining traction, outside of services under Google control. Did they actively seek to shut down others from getting a default spot on, say, Safari? That’s far more damning, I hope that’s what is being investigated not something about ordering search results.