Linked List: February 28, 2012

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Peter Weyland at TED 2023 

Brilliant:

A TEDTalk from the future as envisioned by Prometheus director Ridley Scott.

‘Be Fair to the Truth’ 

From NPR’s new Ethics Handbook:

At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly.

Jay Rosen:

With these words, NPR commits itself as an organization to avoid the worst excesses of “he said, she said” journalism. It says to itself that a report characterized by false balance is a false report. It introduces a new and potentially powerful concept of fairness: being “fair to the truth,” which as we know is not always evenly distributed among the sides in a public dispute.

Mike Kruzeniski’s Favorite Metro Apps 

Some good UI design on the Windows Phone side, too.

Android Niceties 

“A collection of screenshots encompassing some of the best looking Android apps, and / or apps with interesting user interfaces, hopefully providing some inspiration or insight into Android UI conventions.”

Top-shelf Android UI design is getting better.

AOL/TechCrunch Traffic Plummets 

You know when you flush the toilet, and for a while the water is circling, spiraling downward, and then there’s that moment of silence right before the flush is completed? That’s where AOL/TechCrunch is.

Lenovo Stops Selling Netbooks Online 

Agam Shah, reporting for Computerworld:

Lenovo has stopped selling netbooks through its website and hasn’t decided if it will start selling them again there in the future, the company said on Friday.

The netbook models that were available have sold out and are “not being replaced in the near future,” Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman said via email. He didn’t say if Lenovo will continue selling netbooks at retail.

Yours truly, three years ago: “Netbooks, Eh?”.

Samsung: ‘We’re Not Doing Very Well in the Tablet Market’ 

Roger Cheng, reporting for CNet from MWC:

Samsung Electronics admitted that its attempt to breach the tablet market has largely been a flop, with one executive offering a sobering summary of its performance. “Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market,” Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung, said today during a media roundtable here.

Refreshing honesty.

Right Versus Pragmatic 

Marco Arment:

The pragmatic approach is to address the demand.

Google Plus Is ‘a Virtual Ghost Town’ 

Amir Efrati, reporting for the WSJ:

It turns out Google+ is a virtual ghost town compared with the site of rival Facebook Inc., which is preparing for a massive initial public offering. New data from research firm comScore Inc. shows that Google+ users are signing up — but then not doing much there.

Visitors using personal computers spent an average of about three minutes a month on Google+ between September and January, versus six to seven hours on Facebook each month over the same period, according to comScore, which didn’t have data on mobile usage.

Ouch.

MG Siegler adds: “The only people I know that use Google+ regularly are people who work at Google (and Robert Scoble).”

The Little Boy Who Cried ‘Don’t Be Evil’ 

Nick Bilton on Google’s stream of privacy incidents:

“The past two months have been unprecedented; there has never been anything like it at the company,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land, who has closely covered Google since the company began. “They are a big company, and any big company is always going to have something happen that they don’t expect. But these things keep happening where you can’t even trust their word.”

When I asked Mr. Sullivan if Google was now too big not to be evil, he said, “I don’t think they were ever not evil.”

Google says nothing has changed.

Exactly.

Apple Announces iPad Event for March 7 in San Francisco 

“We have something you really have to see” — sounds like something Steve Jobs would say.