Linked List: May 11, 2009

Monday, 11 May 2009

Book Bootlegging 

From a NYT story on e-readers like the Kindle leading to an increase in book bootlegging:

For some writers, tracking down illegal e-books is simply not worth it.

“The question is, how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys,” Stephen King wrote in an e-mail message. “And to what end? My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer.”

Christ do I love Stephen King.

Mac Use at UC Davis 

Survey results from students at UC Davis:

Mac ownership has more than tripled, from 7.2 percent in winter 2006 to 23.4 percent in winter 2009.

This is the sort of trend that has Microsoft so freaked out.

Nintendo Reports Record Profits 

BBC:

So far Nintendo has weathered the economic storm better than some of its rivals, mainly due to the success of its Wii console and portable DS device.

“Mainly”?

Sony — maker of PlayStation systems — and Microsoft, which produces the XBox 360 console, have both announced job cuts.

Sounds more like Nintendo is weathering the recession better than all, which is to say both, of its rivals.

NBC Previews ‘The Jay Leno Show’ 

Looks even cornier than his Tonight Show.

Atlantis Lifts Off 

Seven astronauts on a last-chance mission to save (and vastly improve) the Hubble Space Telescope.

Garmin Further Delays Nuvifone 

Amy Gilroy, reporting for Twice:

Garmin will again delay the launch of its nuvifone GPS/smartphones to the second half of the year, it said during a conference call with analysts May 6.

This is the problem with vaporware pre-announcements. If the product is ready, you can just announce it, sans pre- prefix. If the product is not yet ready, it’s not possible to know exactly how long it’s going to take until it will be.

Times Reader 2.0 

Now built using Adobe Air instead of Microsoft Silverlight. They keep going from one cross-platform runtime to another, but I suppose this is a step up. (No idea if it’s any good — I don’t want to install Silverlight or Air on my machine.)

Twitshirt 

My friends at Airbag Industries have made a nice thing. Twitshirt lets you buy t-shirts with your favorite tweets printed on them. $20 per shirt, and $1 goes to the author of the tweet.

Now, the other nice thing is that they initially launched last month with an opt-out policy. I.e. if you didn’t want them to sell shirts with your tweets printed on them, you had to fill out a form. They listened to the criticism, thought about how to address it, and boom, they’re back with a redesigned system that is now opt-in.

Jackass of the Week: Michael Wolff 

Michael Wolff:

Forget about whether Apple buying Twitter is a boneheaded move. Here’s what it is: It isn’t a Steve Jobs move. This is the first sign of the post-Jobs Apple.

So let’s get this straight: something that Apple probably is not actually going to do, at a time when Steve Jobs remains the CEO of the company and active in all major decisions, is the first sign of “the post-Jobs Apple”.