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Monthly Archive:: September 2012

Apple v Samsung foreman gets more things wrong

"This is in the believe it or not category, but the foreman in the Apple v Samsung trial is still talking about the verdict and why the jurors did what they did. And the more he talks, the worse it gets for that verdict. Gizmodo asked him to sit today for live questions. And believe it or not, he did it. And when asked if the jury was ever asking whether or not a patent should have issued, he claims that they never did because that wasn't their role and the judge told them to assume the patents issued properly and not to second guess that determination. That is so wrong it's not even just wrong. The verdict form and the jury instructions specifically asked them to address that very question." Together with the earlier reports, it's quite clear by now this jury messed up completely. If a device with a keyboard can be found to infringe iPhone design patents, then everything can. This verdict should be flushed down the crapper.

Facebook in Crisis

Remember the dot com debacle of a decade ago? Well, it's back, this time in the form of Facebook. Since its high-profile public offering last May at over $38/share, FB is now down to about $18/share. Management is finding that running a public company is very different than one privately held, as people variously blame Mark Zuckerberg (or not), CFO David Ebersman, lead IPO underwriter Morgan Stanley, and even the NASDAQ stock exchange. The real problem, of course, is that Facebook went public even as its business model desperately searches for new revenues. Let's just hope they don't pull a Digg and fatally redesign the whole site in response.

AntiSec leaks 1 million iOS UDIDs, device names, and more

This could be big - although just how big remains unclear. "There you have. 1,000,001 Apple Devices UDIDs linking to their users and their APNS tokens. The original file contained around 12,000,000 devices. We decided a million would be enough to release. We trimmed out other personal data as, full names, cell numbers, addresses, zipcodes, etc." How did AntiSec get this data (they claim)? From an FBI laptop. Why an FBI laptop would have a file with personal information on 12 million iOS users, we don't know - especially since 10000 of them are Dutch/Belgian, and last I checked, those do not fall under FBI jurisdiction. Did the FBI obtain it from an application developer, or from Apple itself? Then again - 12 million users? From a single iOS developer? I find that hard to believe.

Samsung abandons blogger in Berlin

Pretty scummy stuff by Samsung, this. The company apologised, but what it shows is just how warped tech reporting and blogging really is. Websites are dependent on review items, early access, and press invites, and we really have no idea just how much this influences reporting. Do you really think that reviewers and bloggers who are too critical will get invited to the next product unveil in Cupertino or will get early access to the next Galaxy device? If so, I have a palace to sell you.

Sony releases binaries for Xperia S

"As many of you already know, Jean-Baptiste Queru, Technical Lead for the Android Open-Source Project at Google, recently started an open source project to build a vanilla Android version for Xperia S (LT26i). From Sony side, we welcome the project and support it with resources and contributions. We always try to promote and support external innovation and the openness that Android brings. We have now published binaries required for the LT26i project to progress." Say what you will about Sony, but this is a fantastic move. Samsung, could you please take a moment from harassing bloggers and do the same for your own devices? Thanks.

Microsoft updates privacy policy to match Google’s

"Microsoft this week updated its services agreement with subtle, yet potentially significant changes to its policy on privacy and dispute settlement. The company notified users of the changes in an e-mail sent Friday, informing them that the new Terms of Service would go into effect on October 19th. Apparently taking its cue from Google, Microsoft's revised policy allows the company to access and display user content across all of its cloud properties." Microsoft said, when Google announced an identical policy change: "Google is in the midst of making some unpopular changes to some of their most popular products. Those changes, cloaked in language like 'transparency', 'simplicity', and 'consistency', are really about one thing: making it easier for Google to connect the dots between everything you search, send, say or stream while using one of their services." Let me guess: no outraged blog posts from the usual suspects this time around.

Windows 8 spurs new touchscreen hybrid PC designs

"Efforts are split between models in which keyboards detach from screens, ones in which the keys remain attached but can be hidden behind displays, and traditional fixed clamshell designs." None of these really float my boat. They work with clunky connectors and weird hinges, while I'd much rather have Surface's nice magnetic connection. On top of that, Surface just looks way better than this stuff. Pretty clear why Microsoft felt the need to make their own hardware.

Open WebOS beta released

The announcement says: "The Beta release is comprised of 54 webOS components available as opensource. This brings over 450,000 lines of code released under the Apache 2.0 license, which is one of the most liberal and accepted in the open source community." Now it's time to get this stuff up and running on modern devices. I suggest the Galaxy SII. Not out of self-interest or anything, by the way.

Windows 8 desktop mode, Office 2013: touch-unfriendly

The Verge published a video demonstrating how desktop mode and Office 2013 - a desktop application - work on Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8. The video showed a desktop mode that clearly didn't work well for touch, and even Office 2013, which has a rudimentary touch mode built-in, didn't work properly either. It looked and felt clunky, often didn't respond properly, and even showed touch lag.