Linked List: December 14, 2009

Monday, 14 December 2009

Free Speech 

David Pogue on the remarkable Dragon Dictation app for iPhone, and the brouhaha over its privacy implications:

I mean, if you’re gonna be paranoid, at least be rational about it.

Change Blindness 

Freaky.

Googling for Sociopaths 

Aaron Swartz:

Google gets a lot of criticism (often deserved), but it’s worth taking a moment to think of all the things they haven’t done. If Microsoft had Google’s market share in search, is there any doubt that they’d be systematically demoting or even banning their competitors in the search results? Demoting someone in Google is a virtual death sentence, and yet not only has Google never been accused of using this vast power, the idea itself is almost unimaginable.

Darby Lines on the Tech Media’s Obsession With ‘X Is a Y-Killer’ Storylines 

Darby Lines:

Has anyone ever seriously made a comment such as “The new Vizio HDTV is totally a Panasonic killer”? No, they haven’t and if they did they would be laughed at. But somehow, if a device connects to a computer then we’re living under Highlander rules.

Any story that talks about some new phone being an “iPhone killer” is almost certainly a story you don’t need to read.

Microsoft China Rips Off Plurk 

Looks like they didn’t just copy the design, but even re-used Plurk’s JavaScript code. (According to Plurk, their service is ten times more popular than Twitter in Taiwan.)

Free iTunes LP Holiday Sampler 

Totally free, no strings attached, holiday album in iTunes LP format. Update: U.S.-only, alas.

Engadget Has More Photos of the Nexus One 

Here are my top two questions:

  1. What’s it going to cost?
  2. What does Andy Rubin have to say now regarding his comments just six weeks ago that Google wouldn’t be making its own Android phone?
3G Network Speed Is Not the Issue 

Good point by Pete Mortensen regarding Randall Stross’s AT&T puff piece in the NYT:

What’s most remarkable to me about all of this is how obviously manipulated the statistics are to make AT&T look better than Verizon. In one instance, Paul Carter of Global Wireless Solutions (which works for AT&T) notes that AT&T’s network throughput is “40 to 50 percent higher than the competition, including Verizon.” Sure, but no one denies that the maximum speed of AT&T 3G isn’t faster than CDMA. They complain that AT&T often lacks coverage of any kind, drops calls, and slips into EDGE for no apparent reason.

I missed this, but Mortensen’s exactly right. AT&T 3G is without question faster than Verizon’s — when you get a 3G connection. The problem is that you often don’t get a connection, or you do and then it drops. It’s like bragging about how fast your car is even though it’s often in the repair shop.

Gaming the System 

Rands on how games appeal to the nerd mind.

Grain Edit Interviews ISO50 Designer Scott Hansen 

Scott Hansen:

Balance isn’t a word I’d ever use to describe any aspect of my life. When it comes to work, everything is in extremes for me, it’s all or nothing most of the time.

Love this guy’s work. Love.