Linked List: May 14, 2012

Monday, 14 May 2012

From the DF Archive: Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso’s Response to Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’ 

Keep in mind while re-reading this piece from 2007 that this clown — who in response to Steve Jobs’s seminal (and in hindsight, remarkably prescient) “Thoughts on Music” argued that Jobs was wrong and that the answer was more DRM — is the new chairman of the board at Yahoo.

‘Reblog’ Regurgitation Dirtbaggery From The Next Web 

Joshua Gross:

Not only did they not credit my content in the original post, but the second sentence of the first paragraph is taken nearly word-for-word, as is most of the second paragraph.

(Gross’s story that The Next Web ripped off, “The $144,146,165 Button”, is worth a read. Small details can make a big difference.)

The Discrepancy in Android Web Browser Usage Numbers 

Peter Bright at Ars Technica, on mobile web browser market share across the whole web (as reported by Net Market Share):

In mobile, iOS users continue to outnumber Android users, with the surprising implication that Android users don’t actually use the Web very much on their smartphones.

Net Market Share’s current numbers for mobile (including tablets): 63 percent for iOS, 19 percent for Android. But, looking at Ars Technica’s own traffic, Android comes out ahead of Mobile Safari, 37 to 32 percent. (Although I wonder how much of their “Mozilla compatible” mobile traffic originates from iOS.)

This nicely illustrates the dichotomy between Android usage in the nerd world vs. the world at large.

Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner Cable: ‘I’m Not Sure I Know What AirPlay Is’ 

Brian X. Chen, writing for the NYT Bits blog:

AirPlay, a software tool included with Apple’s iPads and iPhones, is widely viewed as being potentially disruptive to the cable industry, because it makes it easy for people to view a broad variety of Internet content on a television. Time Warner Cable’s leader, however, hasn’t heard of it.

Zero surprise.

Update: Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking? Glenn Britt, next CEO of Yahoo.

Anatomy of an iTV Rumor 

Philip Elmer-DeWitt debunks the latest round of “confirmation” of an Apple-branded TV set:

What none of these reporters mentioned (or apparently bothered to consider) is that Gou — whose factories assemble 40% of the world’s electronic devices — is one of the industry’s most secretive executives. He is privy to the future product plans of the most valuable electronics brands — not just Apple, but also Sony, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and the rest. He is trusted by his business partners because he never leaks their secrets.

Given how jealously Apple guards its own secrets, and how relentlessly it pursues those who spill them, what are the chances that Gou would say anything — ever — about an unannounced Apple product, real or imagined?

I’d say, nil.

Exactly. Too many people don’t even think before regurgitating this stuff.

HP Restarts Tablet Manufacturing 

Suchit Leesa-nguansuk, reporting for The Bangkok Post:

Hewlett-Packard has announced it will resume production of consumer tablets but says it will run them on Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system. The world’s largest technology firm suspended its TouchPad WebOS tablet production line last year on poor sales.

Restarting production is a strategic move aimed at capitalising on the extraordinary growth in tablet sales, chief executive Meg Whitman said yesterday at the Global Influencer Summit 2012.

Extraordinary growth in tablet sales, or extraordinary growth in iPad sales?

Gina Trapani on ‘Brogrammer’ Culture 

Gina Trapani:

That’s one small way brogrammer culture is actually useful. It’s a red flag for women engineers, product developers, designers, project managers, marketers, business development and PR specialists. It says: This is a company that you’d want to avoid.

Agree completely, but I’d go further and say it’s a red flag for anyone, regardless of their gender or job.

Drawing Bad Conclusions 

Peter Kafka, reporting on some video-watching numbers from Freewheel, an online video ad company:

More evidence that Microsoft is increasing its lead in the digital living room race: Data that shows its Xbox gaming console is the most popular non-PC device to watch Web video. That is, more people are watching Web stuff on Microsoft’s machine than on the iPad, iPhone or any Android machine, anywhere. And when it comes to home viewing, competitors like Apple TV, Google TV and Roku are so far behind they’re not even competitors.

That Xbox is proving to be a popular — and growing — platform for video is interesting. But there’s no use comparing it to Apple TV based on Freewheel’s data, because, as Kafka himself points out in his next paragraph:

Now the asterisks: Freewheel is only measuring “professional content” that runs with ads, because that’s how it makes its living. So that means it’s counting stuff from companies like NBC, CBS, ESPN and Vevo, but not YouTube cat videos. It’s also not measuring Netflix usage. On the other hand, this isn’t a poll or sample, but data compiled by the company’s own ad servers.

So the reason Apple TV doesn’t show up in Freewheel’s data is because it doesn’t show any ad-backed video. Freewheel’s data isn’t about online video watching — it’s specifically about ad-backed online video watching. It may well be that Xbox is used for more aggregate video watching than Apple TV, but you can’t make such a comparison using Freewheel’s data.

And it shows you how much ground Google will need to make up as it gets ready to relaunch its Google TV. Ditto for Apple, if and when it ever gets serious about transforming Apple TV into something other than a “hobby.”

Again, Apple TV is irrelevant to any discussion based on Freewheel’s data. And as for making up ground, iOS devices account for 57 percent of Freewheel’s reported usage — double Xbox’s share.

Assuming Freewheel’s data is both accurate and relevant, the conclusion we should draw from it is that iPhone/iPad/iPod iOS devices dominate post-PC ad-based video watching, Xbox is second with half iOS’s share, and Android is a distant third with half-again Xbox’s share. Kafka somehow draws the conclusion that Xbox is winning and Apple TV is way out in crickets-chirping territory.

They Did Say It Was a ‘Dude’ Who Was Getting a Dell 

Christiane Vejlø, on a Dell-hosted conference in Denmark:

Dell’s moderator continues talking about his two Rolex watches and he then presents the next speaker from Intel. After the break Mads Christensen shares with us his whole “show” about the bitchy women who want to steal the power in politics, boards and the home. “Science” he calls it and mentions that all the great inventions come from men. “We can thank women for the rolling pin,” he adds. And then the moderator of the day finishes of by asking all (men) in the room to promise him that they will go home and say, “shut up bitch!”.

Update: Faruk Ates tweets, summarizing this comment thread on Boing Boing:

Nutshell: some say Mads Christensen is like Stephen Colbert, and that the joke is lost on non-Danish people. But, I don’t buy it.

Why I don’t buy it: Christensen has a history of making extremely tasteless, offensive remarks that go far beyond Colbert-style humor.

I guess that’s the question. Is this Christensen a Colbert-style parodist (which may well translate poorly internationally), or a Rush Limbaugh-style shit-stirrer?

Businessweek on Apple’s Dominance in Hollywood Product Placement 

You can’t fake cool.

Update: I’m not sure what Businessweek’s headline means, though: “Apple, the Other Cult in Hollywood”. I think they’re comparing Apple to Scientology, but who the hell knows.

Adobe Will Release Security Patches for CS 5 Apps 

They caused a bit of an uproar when they initially decided not to patch these apps, but they’ve changed their mind.

Facebook, Another Service Helping to Kill Text Messaging 

It’s hard to think of a technology that more deserves to die than SMS.

Nokia’s Last Stand 

Peter Kirwan profiles Nokia’s executive leadership for Wired. The bottom line seems simple and obvious: Nokia’s fate is tied to that of Windows Phone.