Linked List: March 23, 2010

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

The Criterion Collection Yojimbo/Sanjuro Blu-ray Box Set ★

New digital transfers from Criterion of two Kurosawa classics. (Just $49 at Amazon.)

A giant was born 100 years ago today.

Apple’s Share of the PC Industry’s Revenue and Profits ★

Alley Insider:

While Apple has just 7% of the share of revenue, it’s grabbing 35% of the operating profit. Deutsche Bank attributes it to the strength of the Mac/Macbook lineup. Other companies are losing profit margins because they have to pay Microsoft for software.

Tell me again why HP doesn’t have its own PC operating system?

Fifth Avenue Apple Store as Tourist Destination and Landmark ★

Inga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Barely four years after Apple opened the store in the basement of the General Motors tower, Bohlin’s ethereal one-story structure — a glorified vestibule, really — has become a must-see attraction as well as Apple’s highest-grossing location. According to Cornell University scientists who analyzed 35 million Flickr images, the Cube is the fifth-most-photographed building in New York, the 28th worldwide.

Ahead of it on the list: The Empire State Building, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Grand Central Terminal. Good company.

Opera Mini Countup ★

Opera is taking an interesting position with regard to the submission of Opera Mini for iPhone: making the waiting period very public.

(My money, by the way, says Apple will accept the app. I know there’s much speculation that Apple won’t allow an alternative browser that doesn’t use the system version of WebKit, but Opera Mini isn’t doing JavaScript client-side, so it doesn’t break the “no interpreters” rule. Update: And if there’s a problem, I bet it’s the security ramifications of Opera Mini’s design.)

Crowdsourcing Dickens ★

Zeldman:

As an experiment in new new media thinking, I recently crowdsourced a new new literature version of Charles Dickens’s musty old old old lit chestnut, Great Expectations—the familiar tale of Pip, Ms Havisham, the convict Magwitch, et al.

Demo of Opera Mini 5 on the iPhone ★

Just submitted to the App Store this week. Color me skeptical regarding their claims that it’s the “most used browser on mobile devices”, though. Most-installed, maybe, but more used than MobileSafari? (StatCounter’s global stats have Opera listed first, but list “iPhone” and “iPod Touch” separately. Add them together and MobileSafari would be first. Who knows whether StatCounter’s metrics are accurate, though.)

I’ve tried the Android version (which seems extremely similar to the iPhone version) on the Nexus One, and it is indeed fast. But the speed advantage is most noticeable over EDGE; on Wi-Fi, it’s about the same, but the rendering is worse. Definitely interesting, though.

Jason Kottke on the New Rules for Reviewing Media ★

I love Kottke’s take on user reviews (of books, movies, etc.) that focus on the packaging or format:

Newspaper and magazine reviewers pretty much ignore this stuff. There’s little mention of whether a book would be good to read on a Kindle, if you should buy the audiobook version instead of the hardcover because John Hodgman has a delightful voice, if a magazine is good for reading on the toilet, if a movie is watchable on an iPhone or if you need to see it in 1080p on a big TV, if a hardcover is too heavy to read in the bath, whether the trailer is an accurate depiction of what the movie is about, or if the hardcover price is too expensive and you should get the Kindle version or wait for the paperback.

Fireworks Alternatives on Trial: Acorn, DrawIt, and Opacity ★

Jon Hicks’s comprehensive review and comparison of Acorn, DrawIt, and Opacity, in the context of using them as replacements for Fireworks as a tool for creating UI elements.

The Somali Pirates’ Business Model ★

Fascinating. (Via Jason Fried.)

Perseus Signs E-Book Deal With Apple ★

Motoko Rich and Brad Stone:

Perseus Books Group, a large independent publisher that also distributes works from 330 other smaller presses including Grove Atlantic, Harvard Business School Press, Zagat and City Lights Books, signed a deal last week with Apple, following five of the six biggest publishers that have already signed agreements with Apple.

The Times headline states “Perseus Signs an EBooks Deal for the iPad”, which is, I think, shortsighted. The deal is for Apple’s iBooks store, not the iPad. Right now the iPad is the only device Apple has announced for iBooks, but I’ll eat my hat if there isn’t an iBooks app for the iPhone some time later this year.

And I guess these threats from Amazon didn’t go over too well.

Kindle Owners Using Amazon Reviews to Express Displeasure Over Lack of Kindle Editions ★

Paul Carr on the 64 one-star reviews at Amazon for Michael Lewis’s new best-seller, The Big Short:

There’s just one problem with that message: less than half of those one star reviews are actually reviewing the book.

Instead, most of the reviewers’ ire relates to the fact that publishers WW Norton have decided not to release a Kindle version of the book at the same time as its hardback release. Writes one (pretty representative) reviewer by the name of Ben Kaplan:

“I’d like to add my name to the list of people who are very disappointed that this book does not have a Kindle edition. No, I haven’t read the book, but I want to — on my Kindle! If all these one star reviews lead to fewer sales, I think that would be a great result and an excellent lesson for the author/publisher.”

Some publishers are treating Kindle editions like paperbacks — something to release only after the hardcover edition has run its course.

Princeton Researchers Link High-Fructose Corn Syrup to Obesity ★

Princeton:

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.