Linked List: July 9, 2012

Monday, 9 July 2012

Six months ago, we didn’t even yet know it existed.

Josh Marshall:

In other words, the estimable businessmen and women at realinsurance.com.au have been paying SEO companies to spam the comment sections of sites around the globe. But now Google’s new search algorithms are making that legacy spam really damaging. So now they’re sending out cease and desist notices to the victims of their earlier spamming demanding that they search their archives and remove their spam.

‘More Akin to Facebook’ ★

Ben Popper, writing for The Verge:

Twitter set off alarm bells across the web in recent weeks when it ended its partnership with LinkedIn and reiterated its warning that it would be cracking down on the terms of its API. The company didn’t offer any explanation for why it removed tweets from LinkedIn, but speaking with sources familiar with the company’s plans, The Verge has learned that major changes are coming in the next few months which will move Twitter from an open platform popular among independent developers towards a walled garden more akin to Facebook.

I can’t think of a more ominous four-word description of Twitter’s future than “More akin to Facebook”. For me, Twitter isn’t just a little bit better because of third-party clients — it’s vastly better because of third-party clients. Whatever it is Twitter is planning, I sure hope it isn’t going to cut third-party clients loose.

Let’s Not Get Nuts ★

Reviews of the Nexus 7 are overwhelmingly positive. David Pogue likes it, Farhad Manjoo likes it, Casey Johnston at Ars likes it.

Ends up Dan Lyons likes it, too. And one thing all these reviews mention is that the smaller form factor is, in numerous ways, more convenient and comfortable than 10-inch-ish tablets like the you-know-what. Fits in more places, easier to hold in your hand for longer stretches of time. The conclusion everyone is drawing: Apple should make something in this size. (Tim Bray was on the record with this advice in December 2010.) So far so good.

But I think Lyons gets a little nutty with his conclusion:

But what is the point of a portable computer with a 3.5-inch (or 4.3-inch, or 4.7-inch) screen? That device is the one that starts looking like a “tweener” — caught between embedded/wearable devices, and tablets.

I can envision a time, maybe not so far from now, when I won’t carry a “phone” at all. If my Nexus 7 could make phone calls, I’d be there today.

The maximum size of an “I’ll just carry one device” device is limited by the size of a pants pocket, no? I know Lyons is proposing using a Bluetooth headset to talk, not holding a 7-inch tablet up against his face, but in his proposal he’d still have to carry the 7-inch tablet around with him everywhere, right?

Microsoft Acquires Multitouch Company Perceptive Pixel ★

Aaron Souppouris, reporting for The Verge:

Steve Ballmer has just announced Microsoft’s acquisition of Perceptive Pixel, a company focused on research, development, and production of multitouch interfaces. The company is perhaps best known for the 82-inch multitouch display that Microsoft demoed at MWC. Jeff Han, Perceptive Pixel founder and new Microsoft employee, says the display is the “world’s largest true multitouch and stylus display,” capable of supporting “hundreds of touch inputs simultaneously.”

That’s the same Jeff Han who had a sensational multitouch demo at TED back in 2006. (There’s got to be a “Han shot first” joke in here, somewhere.)

My Favorite Samsung-Apple Court Ruling Yet ★

Kit Chellel, reporting for Bloomberg:

The design for three Galaxy tablets doesn’t infringe Apple’s registered design, Judge Colin Birss said today in London in a court fight between the world’s two biggest makers of smartphones. Consumers aren’t likely to get the tablet computers mixed up, he said.

The Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,” Birss said. “They are not as cool.”

Apple and Samsung should just shake hands now and agree that the law has spoken.

‘It Never Gets Better’ ★

Matt Buchanan, writing at Buzzfeed

You might buy a new phone that’s missing something, thinking, “It will get better.” No, it won’t. If I were to tell you one thing about buying technology, it is this: Buy something because you like what it is right now, not because you think it’s going to get better, or that one day it’ll be what you really wanted it to be. It’s kind of like marrying somebody and thinking you’ll change them and they’ll get better. They might. But they probably won’t. Over time, you’ll just hate them even more. And yourself, at least a little.

Great piece, but I think the headline throws it off. Sometimes products do get better — hugely better — thanks to a software update. Think about the original iPhone, which, when iOS 2 hit a year later, gained the ability to run third-party apps. Huge update. But the 1.0 iPhone was already an incredible product.

So I’d say it’s not that “it never gets better”, but rather that you should never buy something that isn’t already — right now, today — good enough.

Update: Good Marco Arment piece on this same topic from two years ago.

The Eero Programming Language ★

Interesting new programming language from Andy Arvanitis:

Eero is a fully binary- and header-compatible dialect of Objective-C, implemented with a modified version of the Apple-sponsored LLVM/clang open-source compiler. It features a streamlined syntax, Python-like indentation, and other features that improve readability and code safety. It is inspired by languages such as Smalltalk, Python, and Ruby.

Looks nice, to my eyes.