Linked List: November 17, 2010

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

David Pogue:

This much is clear: Google TV may be interesting to technophiles, but it’s not for average people. On the great timeline of television history, Google TV takes an enormous step in the wrong direction: toward complexity.

TSA Checkpoint Sign ★

Would make a great sticker.

How iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry Users See Each Other ★

Pretty much spot-on. (Via Scott Beale.)

TikTok and LunaTik ★

Speaking of iPod Nano-wristwatch conversions, here’s a new Kickstarter project to create two very impressive-looking designs. Count me in for a TikTok.

Ben Kuchera’s Review of the Kinect ★

Far less effusive than, say, Pogue’s review. But I get the feeling the Kinect and its initial game titles were purposefully designed more for casual gamers than serious ones. It’s more like the Wii with better graphics than Xbox with motion control; about appealing to (and creating) new Xbox users, not existing ones. See, for example, today’s entry from Penny Arcade’s Tycho, and the accompanying comic.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen on Flash’s Effect on MacBook Air Battery Life ★

Sean Hollister, for Engadget:

Getting a little more oomph out of your MacBook Air after giving Flash the boot? Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen stopped just short of saying that’s Apple’s fault for not handing Adobe a device ahead of time. We asked the CEO what the greater battery life sans flash in Apple’s new laptop meant for the platform vis-a-vis HTML5 at the Web 2.0 Summit just a few minutes ago. He said it’s really all about optimizing for silicon: “When we have access to hardware acceleration, we’ve proven that Flash has equal or better performance on every platform.”

But it’s not like the MacBook Air is the only Mac that gets vastly superior battery life without Flash. That’s true for all MacBooks.

Photographs of Destroyed Apple Products ★

Photo credit: Steve Ballmer.

Kottke Calls for Kindle and Kinect Christmas ★

Kottke thinks Amazon’s Kindle and Microsoft’s Kinect are going to be big holiday sellers. I agree. The Kindle because (a) it’s gotten so cheap; (b) it gets great word-of-mouth recommendations; and (c) Amazon has a strong consistent marketing campaign behind it. The Kinect because Microsoft has already sold a million of them, in the first 10 days. When people are lined up to buy something new on the day it’s released, you’re doing something right.

Apple Has Exclusive Digital Download Rights to The Beatles Until 2011 ★

Jim Dalrymple:

“The Beatles will be available for digital downloads exclusively on iTunes, with the exclusive expiring in 2011,” an Apple spokesperson told The Loop. Apple declined to comment on exactly when the exclusivity with iTunes would end, only saying 2011.

Pretty Good for Government Work ★

Warren Buffett, well-known foe of capitalism, thanks the U.S. government for its efforts to prevent an economic collapse two years ago.

Update on the Glif ★

Nice report by Glenn Fleishman on the status of the Glif, the upcoming Kickstarter-funded iPhone 4 tripod adapter from Dan Provost and Thomas Gerhardt.

Griffin Technology’s Slap ★

Wear your iPod Nano as a wristwatch.

NMA World Edition Reports on TSA’s Enhanced Security Procedures ★

Nailed it, as usual.

Watts Martin on the App Console Model of Computing ★

Watts Martin:

The model we’re moving toward, though, is premised on the idea that computers shouldn’t require routine tech support. Again, look back at game consoles: an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 is a fully programmable computer with networking capability, offline storage, removable media, the whole shebang, yet all of that is invisible to the user. What file system does a Playstation use and what directories does it put your downloaded games in? The correct answer is: “Who gives a shit?”

And if what you do with a computer is spreadsheets and flow charts and word processing documents and slide presentations, web browsing and media watching and game playing, even recording music and editing photographs and writing text adventures, there’s an excellent case to be made that you should not have to give a shit about any of that, either. But right now — no matter what platform you’re using — you kinda do.

Via Marco Arment, who adds:

Think of how many people are so afraid of their PCs that they only do the bare minimum with them and never venture into unknown territory because they’re afraid of “breaking” their computers. How many of them recently bought iPads and have become much more confident and adventurous with usage and applications, since Apple tricked them into thinking that the iPad isn’t a computer?

Isaac Z. Schlueter’s TSA Success Story ★

This might be my favorite TSA-related story of the week. Nothing sensational about it. Just a story about using and sharing information, and having the fortitude to act on your beliefs.

‘You Can’t Do That Stuff in a Browser’ ★

Michael Tsai’s 2007 juxtaposition of Steve Jobs’s comments to Walt Mossberg at D5, hailing the advantages of Apple’s native CocoaTouch iPhone apps, and his announcement on stage at WWDC two weeks later, that Apple’s “very sweet solution” for third-party developers who wanted to write iPhone apps was to write web apps.

RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie’s ‘Sweet Solution’ ★

Claudine Beaumont, reporting for The Telegraph, on Jim Balsillie’s appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco yesterday:

He also criticised Apple’s ecosystem of applications for its iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, and said that users “don’t need an app for the web”. […]

“We believe that you can bring the mobile to the web,” he said. “You don’t need to go through some kind of software development kit. That’s the core part of our message. You can use your existing development environment.

Everyone remembers that this was Apple’s story for third-party iPhone development back in 2007, right? And that the announcement was met with dead silence — no applause whatsoever — during the WWDC keynote? And that Cocoa developers were so itching to write truly native iPhone apps that they started doing so on their own, via jailbreaking, with no help, tools, or documentation from Apple? And that when Apple was ready to release a native SDK in early 2008, that response — from both developers and consumers — was overwhelming?

My guess is that Balsillie knows this, but he’s spinning it this way because RIM is going to release the PlayBook long before its native SDK is going to be ready. And so what else is he going to say?

‘Not a Good Dancer’ ★

Todd Richmond, reporting for the AP:

Prosecutors say a rural Wisconsin man blasted his TV with a shotgun after watching Bristol Palin’s “Dancing With the Stars” routine, sparking an all-night standoff with a SWAT team.

According to court documents, 67-year-old Steven Cowan became enraged while watching Palin dance on Monday evening. He felt Palin was not a good dancer.

The Old Fashioned ★

At the other (non-poisonous) end of the drinking spectrum, here’s Buzz Andersen on the classic cocktail.

‘It Tastes Like Regret’ ★

Paul Kafasis drinks a can of Four Loko:

In the end, I bought a can each of Blue Raspberry and Watermelon because that’s what the liquor store had. While ringing up the purchase, the store owner glanced at the cans of Four Loko before stating “that’s the closest I come to selling real poison”. I couldn’t make that up.