Monthly Archive:: June 2012

"Back in March, we began work on a Metro-style enabled desktop browser, a version of Chrome that will run in both the Metro and desktop environments of Windows 8 on x86. (Chrome won't run in WinRT, i.e. Windows 8 on ARM processors, as Microsoft is not allowing browsers other than Internet Explorer on the platform). If you're running the Release Preview of Windows 8, you'll be able to try Chrome in Metro mode in the next Chrome Dev channel release by setting it as your default browser." Metro-Chrome is just plain Chrome running in Metro, without a proper Metro UI at this point. They're working on that though, so this is really very early game. Good to know they're on it, though - I love me some WebKit.

LinuxQuestions.org has an in-depth interview with Patrick Volkerding. "The goal back when the project was started was to make it easy, and to keep things simple. But to paraphrase Einstein, you want to make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. There's a point of diminishing return when adding additional layers and interfaces, especially when it comes to system configuration. I've seen automated configuration do things like strip out all the comments in a config file, or worse just completely rewrite the thing because you had the nerve to try editing it outside of the approved system. And I do feel like Slackware has been shafted in some of the reviews over the years, largely because there's a tendency to review only the installer and not the system itself. There is certainly a learning curve, but that's true for all versions of Linux. We've never tried to make things hard, but perhaps we also haven't tried to prevent people from shooting themselves in the foot. Things like aliasing rm to 'rm -i' don't help the user learn to be careful." Patrick gets it.

So, the next venue of patent trolling has just been opened. Apple has patented - quite specifically - the wedge shape of the MacBook Air. Not the general design or impression, no - just the wedge shape. This is interesting, because that wedge shape? Hit prior art in 3.2 seconds: the Vaio x505 from 2004. A wedge-shaped, superthin (for its day) laptop - exactly what Apple's design patent claims the company has invented.

Exactly six months ago, Eric Schmidt made a remark that in the near future, developers might want to focus on Android first, instead of iOS. While developers haven't moved to Android-first, iOS-later en masse, there's no denying that we're seeing more and more former iOS exclusives move towards Android.

Bloomberg: "Microsoft, which has tightly controlled the number of ARM-based devices it is supporting at first to ensure quality, opted not to work with HTC after initial discussions with the company, said two people familiar with the matter. The world's largest software maker decided HTC didn't have the sales volume needed and had less tablet experience than some of the other vendors it could choose to work with for the first round of devices, the people said." HTC was the first company to build a Microsoft-powered smartphone. Now, they're not allowed to build Windows 8 tablets.

Five US carriers, nearly identical devices, millions and millions of pre-orders, virtually simultaneous launch - and that's just the US. The Galaxy SIII might be hideous, Samsung is still doing something right here. No surprise, then, that Apple has, once again, decided to compete in the court room instead of on the shelves: they're asking for a US import ban on the SIII .

Google held its curious little Maps event today (and WWDC is right around the corner, surely a coincidence, is it not?), showing off some new stuff in maps. While digital maps are one big snore to me (old maps fascinate me to no end, though), they did have one cool thing to show off: full 3D mapping, which they're adding to Google Earth, also for mobile devices. It'll arrive over the coming weeks. The race is on: will Apple's 3D map thing arrive before, or after "the coming weeks"?

One tiny thing I wanted to mention about Windows 8: ever noticed how context menus in Metro appear above the mouse cursor instead of underneath? I'm assuming this is done because of finger input (by opening above, your finger and hand doesn't cover the menu), but with a mouse, it's just plain weird. Fun little detail though - shows you how much thought has gone into the touch aspect of Windows 8.

"We're happy to announce that we have acquired Quickoffice, a leader in office productivity solutions. Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we'll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite." Excellent acquisition - Quickoffice has always been a fine product, and this gives Google instant access to a wide array of native mobile office applications. Crazy nobody else ever picked these guys and girls up. Also, if Google makes Quickoffice available for free, we can enjoy yet another "Google is competing unfairly by not charging customers money for products"-whine-a-thon. That alone is worth it.

"More than 100,000 applications have now been published in the Windows Phone Marketplace and new content is currently being added at the rate of 313 applications per day. At the time of writing, 100,145 applications have been published. Of these, 26,493 were added in the last three months and 9,391 were added in the last month. These applications come from just over 23,825 different publishers." Is there anybody out there who still places any value on these numbers, whether they be for Android, iOS, or WP7? Considering virtually all Android, iOS, and WP7 applications are useless, ugly, buggy crap (with only a few being somewhat tolerable - never actually good, because good software doesn't exist), I honestly don't really care. But hey, another check mark on the list of PR talking points.

The E3 is supposed to be all about gaming, but since you can only go so far with realistic renderings of bullets entering and exiting various body parts, Microsoft's keynote was more about expanding the Xbox ecosystem - with, among other things, Internet Explorer and SmartGlass. The latter is a service which allows you to use additional devices - tablets, smrtphones, PCs - as remote controls for your Xbox. IT goes much further than that though, while watching a TV show or a game, SmartGlass can show additional content (i.e., a map of Westeros while watching Game of Thrones), or pick up content where you left off. Pretty cool - and coming to iOS and Android as well, including the game integration. Yup, expect Office for iOS and Android to land soon.

"The Oracle v. Google patent and copyright trial is over, resulting in definitive wins for Google on both fronts. Ars interviewed two Google attorneys - general counsel Kent Walker, and litigation counsel Renny Hwang - asking for their sense of what the case could mean beyond its effects on the companies themselves." Would love to get Oracle's input on the matter (insert schadenfreude-tastic snicker).

Computex is going on right now, and as was to be expected, we're seeing a whole boatload ot Windows 8 tablets... But also a few crazy contraptions that have 'want' written all over them. My personal favourite? The Asus Taichi: a laptop with two screens (both on the inside and the outside of the lid) so you have a laptop as well as a tablet. I love crazy experimentation like this - sure, it may not always work or pan out, but this is how mankind progresses. What I'll most likely be buying later this this year: this thing (although I prefer a smaller version). I love my ZenBook, so a relatively conventional Asus Windows 8 tablet is perfect for me.

So, after Instagram and Flipboard, Instapaper is now available as an Android application ($2,99). It lacks several key features of the iOS version, like fullscreen reading and pagination, and sadly, while it does have some Holo elements, it still looks very non-native (miles better than that horrid copy/paste job Instagram did, though). It's yet another prime iOS exclusive moving to Android, but I'm honestly wondering how many people care at this point, considering there've been enough excellent alternatives on Android for a while now. Let's just say that I don't think sales will make Marco Arment change his mind about there not being any serious money in Android application sales, but whether or not that would be Android's fault in this particular case, I don't know.