May 2010
18 posts
“Google, with a market cap of $151.43 billion, also appeared to leap ahead of Apple in a new potentially important area, Internet-connected televisions.”
—As an aside from the main story: I think we’ll be laughing at that sentence in about a year. New King of Technology - Apple Overtakes Microsoft - NYTimes.com
“Although it’s technically legal to put your music online for your own use, it has never been especially easy to do so. You can bet that both Apple and Google will add measures to restrict mass sharing of online music—one reasonable restriction would be to let you stream your music to only a single device at a time—but the technology will still change how we think about our songs. Cloud-based music will represent the ultimate psychological break with the idea that entertainment is somehow physical. In the future, not only will you not get a CD when you buy an album, you won’t even get a digital file. All you’ll have is an access flag tied to your account in a database in a server farm in some far-off land.”
—How Google’s music-streaming venture will change the gadget and entertainment worlds forever. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine
“[Facebook Questions] may end up taking off among Facebook’s more intellectual users whose utility of the service is slightly beyond operating a virtual farm and tagging party photos.”
—“More intellectual users”? Good grief! An Inside Look At Facebook Questions, The Next “Killer App” Of Facebook
“The big loser this week, though, was Microsoft. They’re simply not even part of the game. RIM looms large, as BlackBerrys continue to reign as the best-selling smartphones in the U.S. But Microsoft? They’ve got nothing. No interesting devices, weak sales, and a shrinking user base. Microsoft’s irrelevance is taken for granted.”
—Daring Fireball: Post-I/O Thoughts
“In a ruling this week, the Copyright Tribunal of Australia ruled that music is essential to fitness classes, and artists should be paid accordingly. The tribunal raised tariffs for playing original artists’ recordings to roughly 85 cents (A$1) per class participant—capped at about $13 per class—boosting the annual tab for the typical Australian fitness center from around $1,300 to more than $19,000.”
—In Aussie Gyms, It’s the Same Old Song, Kind Of - WSJ.com
“For those keeping score, there have been seven special elections for U.S. House seats since the president’s inauguration 16 months ago: NY20, IL5, CA32, CA10, NY23, FL19, and PA12. Democrats have won all seven.”
—The Washington Monthly
HP Plans to Use Palm's webOS in Printers | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD →
digitaldaily.allthingsd.com
IT SEZ: “…just how it might be leveraged in printers is an interesting question”. Yeah, interesting.
“Zuckerberg is clearly the worst thing that’s happened to our industry since, well, spam.”
—The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand « The Jason Calacanis Weblog
“Go read the requirements for a Wii developer then come back and tell the Macalope again how Apple’s the “evil” one.”
—The Macalope Weekly: Mass hysteria! | Tablets | MacUser | Macworld
“Every asshole who ever chanted ‘Drill baby drill’ should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty”
—Bill Maher (billmaher) on Twitter
Waiting for iTunes.com? Don’t Hold Your Breath | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD →
mediamemo.allthingsd.com
No time like soon according to Kafka.
