Linked List: June 23, 2011

Thursday, 23 June 2011

‘You Have Nothing That I Need or Want. You Are a Computer Salesman — I Am Fucking James Bond!’ ★

Thanks to the confluence of my interests and the fact that it’s funny as hell, I’ve been inundated with email regarding Scoopertino’s fake 1998 letter from Sean Connery to Steve Jobs. Here’s the thing, though — it’s the image of the letter that’s circulating like wildfire, not the link to Scoopertino, so the fact that it’s a spoof is lost on many.

It’s so good we all want it to be true.

‘Hard Stop’ ★

Episode 48 of The Talk Show, America’s favorite podcast:

Amazon Tablets, the next iPhone, the Nokia N9, Stanley Kubrick’s letter to projectionists, the FBI seizure of web servers, and the Dropbox security issue.

Brought to you by OmniFocus and Worthwhile.

Neven Mrgan on Pixel Art ★

Neven Mrgan:

I can’t comment with any credibility on the legal issues involved in Andy Baio’s problems with the Kind of Bloop album cover, but I must address one assumption I’m seeing in comments on the story:

That cover is NOT the original photo, down-sampled. It’s a hand-crafted, precisely drawn interpretation of the source. Anyone who’s ever seriously put pixels to screen will tell you that this is an actual artistic method, one with its own challenges, tricks, and yes, an aesthetic.

The Verizon iPhone’s Effect on U.S. Market Share ★

MG Siegler:

In April, when NPD data had the iPhone market share push a bit forward while Android saw a small decline, it was perhaps a bit too early to read into it. But a month later, Nielsen data suggested that Android share was indeed flattening, and most credited the 2.2 million iPhones Verizon sold in the two months of its existence on the carrier as the reason.

A few days ago, a report by Needham using IDC data suggested that Android’s market share peaked in March, and was now on the decline as Apple’s share was rising again. This was the first quarterly share decline that Android had ever seen.

Why? It seems obvious, doesn’t it?

Joe Stump’s Pitch to Be the Next CEO of Yahoo ★

Not entirely serious, obviously — particularly his suggestion at the end regarding yours truly — but some of his ideas are undeniably on a solid foundation. How did Instagram eat Flickr’s lunch, for example?

The bigger question it raises: What exactly has Carol Bartz even tried to do while CEO of Yahoo? It’s not that she’s tried things that have failed — I just can’t think of any major new initiative Yahoo has tried, period, under her leadership. Selling Delicious and slapping an ugly “Yahoo” logo on Flickr do not a turnaround make.

The WWDC 2011 Videos Are Out ★

Start your downloading.

T-Mobile Claims More Than 1 Million iPhones on Its U.S. Network ★

Seth Weintraub:

In a meeting with T-Mobile spokespeople today ahead of the NYC Pepcom event, I received word that there are actively over a million Apple iPhones currently on T-Mobile’s network.

That’s out of 200 million total iOS devices, but still — a million iPhone users all on EDGE.

The FBI Confiscated an Instapaper Server in an Unrelated Raid ★

Marco Arment apparently had a server confiscated in the same FBI raid that toppled Pinboard:

So the FBI now has illegal possession of nearly all of Instapaper’s data and a moderate portion of its codebase, and as far as I know, this is completely out of my control.

Due to the police culture in the United States, especially at the federal level, I don’t expect to ever get an explanation for this, have the server or its data returned, or be reimbursed for the damage they have illegally caused.

Update, 27 Jun 2011: Looks like they took the server, but not the hard drives:

DigitalOne’s CEO, Sergei Arsentiev, informed me in an email last night that the FBI agents only took one enclosure containing 16 HP C7000 blade servers (including the one I was leasing), but that my server’s two hard drives were in a separate HP MDS600 enclosure that was not taken, and the drives were never removed from it.

Anticipating Apple’s Response to the Final Cut Pro X Release ★

Winston Hearn:

In every situation where Apple comes under fire, Apple takes their time to respond. But when they finally respond, they show that they understand the issue, and they do what it takes to address the full problem. With Final Cut Pro X, I imagine they are reading every review and every blog post and seeking to understand the root of the problem. And once they fully grasp the issue, they will figure out what is necessary to address it.

Pogue on Final Cut Pro X ★

David Pogue:

Apple’s Final Cut Pro is the leading video-editing program. It’s a $1,000 professional app. It was used to make “The Social Network,” “True Grit,” “Eat Pray Love” and thousands of student movies, independent films and TV shows. According to the research firm SCRI, it has 54 percent of the video-editing market, far more than its rivals from Adobe and Avid.

Did I use the present tense? Sorry about that. Final Cut was the industry leader. It did cost $1,000. But that’s all over now.

This shows the risk of Apple’s having hit the reset button on Final Cut Pro. They were the market leader with the old version.

Help Andy Baio Recoup His Settlement Fee by Buying ‘Kind of Bloop’ ★

$5 for a really fun album.

ComScore Claims the iPad Accounts for 97 Percent of US Tablet Traffic ★

Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land:

According to comScore, the iPad represents “89 percent of tablet traffic across all markets.” In the US the figure is 97 percent. Apple has sold roughly 25 million iPads to date globally, while competitors have seen disappointing sales so far.

Also interesting: the smartphone numbers. Android beats the iPhone in the U.S., 35.6 to 23.5 percent, but the iPod Touch accounts for another 7.8 percent. In most other countries, though, they’re either tied or the iPhone wins handily.

Coffee: The Greatest Addiction Ever ★

Great little movie on coffee by C.G.P. Grey. (Via Joel Faloncer.)

Update: More, on Grey’s weblog.

Patents Don’t Equal Products ★

Shawn King:

If you’ve been following Apple for any length of time or even follow a web site like Patently Apple, you’ll notice the volume of patents Apple applies for. You’ll also notice how many of those patents have not yet made it into your Mac or iOS device. That doesn’t mean they won’t, but having a patent doesn’t guarantee they will, either.

Exactly. This is why I don’t follow Apple patent filings. Apple, like any mega-sized tech corporation, encourages engineers to file for patents on anything that might be patentable. That’s how the game works.

Like I Said, What a Dick ★

Jay Maisel, the photographer who squeezed a $32,500 settlement out of universally heralded good-guy Andy Baio, owns a 72-room mansion in lower Manhattan worth “tens of millions of dollars”.

Kind of Screwed ★

Andy Baio:

In February 2010, I was contacted by attorneys representing famed New York photographer Jay Maisel, the photographer who shot the original photo of Miles Davis used for the cover of Kind of Blue.

In their demand letter, they alleged that I was infringing on Maisel’s copyright by using the illustration on the album and elsewhere, as well as using the original cover in a “thank you” video I made for the album’s release. In compensation, they were seeking “either statutory damages up to $150,000 for each infringement at the jury’s discretion and reasonable attorneys fees or actual damages and all profits attributed to the unlicensed use of his photograph, and $25,000 for Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations.”

Baio settled for $32,500, even though he believes his pixelated rendition of the album cover falls squarely under fair use. He simply couldn’t afford the legal fight. Andy’s post is a terrific overview of fair use.

What a dick this Maisel guy is.