Linked List: June 19, 2012

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

Shooting ‘2001’ ★

Fantastic behind-the-scenes photos from the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Via who else?)

WWDC 2012 Session Videos ★

Finally.

Update: For context, just three years ago it took five weeks after the close of WWDC for the session videos to appear. Now Apple has it down to four days.

Harry McCracken’s First 23 Questions About Microsoft’s ‘Surface’ Windows 8 Tablet ★

Harry McCracken has a good overview of how much we don’t know about Surface — beyond the obvious questions about pricing and availability:

Surface is going to require some explanation, and it’s probably going to be more impressive if you see it in person. Microsoft’s own chain of Apple Store-like retail establishments will be the only place you’ll be able to try it out; all of a sudden, the notion of Microsoft ramping up the quantity of stores to Apple-like numbers doesn’t sound quite so whacko.

But they don’t have Apple-like numbers of locations. They’ve only got 25 locations, and a bunch of those are “Coming Soon” (and who knows whether those are sooner soons than the “Coming Soon” for the Surface tablets themselves). Limiting them to 20-some retail locations is just bizarre.

Bloomberg: ‘LG to Sideline Tablet Development to Focus on Smaller Devices’ ★

Jun Yang, reporting for Bloomberg:

LG Electronics Inc., the world’s No. 4 mobile-phone maker, will sideline tablet computer development to focus more on smaller devices rather than compete head-on with Apple Inc.’s iPad. “We’ve decided to put all new tablet development on the back burner for the time being in order to focus on smartphones,” Ken Hong, a spokesman for Seoul-based LG, said in an e-mailed response to queries.

LG had tablets on the front burner?

Win a MacBook Pro From Media Temple ★

Last week’s live-audience episode of The Talk Show — including the open bar — was generously sponsored by my friends at Media Temple, and they’re offering a great deal:

To celebrate our partnership with Mule Radio, “The Talk Show’s” new home, Russ is offering you a 25% discount on hosting services and a chance to win a brand new MacBook Pro with retina display!

Play to Win: All you have to do is enter the code “gruber” in the special offer field to receive your discount and you’ll be entered to win one of the coolest laptops on the market. Winners will be chosen on June 27!

Even better: today they updated the contest to make it two retina display 15-inch MacBook Pros they’re giving away. Cool prizes and a great discount offer.

Slinky Levitation ★

I get all my best physics-related links from Kottke.

Goliath Wants David’s Market ★

Justin Watt:

Enterprise employees can be inspiring, but that depends on said enterprise that they work for. A place that fosters creativity, thinking outside the box, and new ideas leads to happy workers who are open to change if it means making their day to day routine more enjoyable. Let’s just say that having 30,000+ workers doesn’t make for an accommodating work environment for new ideas and embracing change. Integrating iOS and thinking of mobile development in parallel with desktop software development for this many users isn’t an easy or quick task and for that reason the Surface may succeed very well in the enterprise. It’s more of the same. Buried underneath that beautiful Metro interface is Windows. Pure Windows able to run that software developed in 1992, not needing Citrix remote desktop apps, and not needing 100’s of new apps bought to open Office documents that don’t format or display properly on iOS.

Makes a lot of sense. He’s arguing that Surface is about cutting off the iPad’s still-small but quickly-growing slice of the enterprise market, not a full-on assault of the iPad in the consumer market.