Linked List: September 6, 2012

Thursday, 6 September 2012

Microsoft and Flash Player Security Updates 

Ed Bott:

If you use Windows 7 (or earlier) with any modern browser and you’ve enabled automatic updates, you already have the latest Flash security fixes. Ditto if you use a Mac.

But if you’re using Internet Explorer 10 on any version of Windows 8, including the RTM bits available via MSDN or TechNet and the enterprise preview, you are at risk. You cannot manually update the version of Flash baked into IE 10. Only Microsoft can do that. Microsoft made a bold design decision with Internet Explorer in Windows 8, adding Adobe’s Flash Player to the browser as a built-in component instead of a third-party plugin. That design echoes Google’s decision long ago to include Flash Player in every version of Chrome. The advantage of this design for Microsoft is that it enables playback of Flash content in the otherwise-plugin-free Windows 8 browser. The bad news is that it adds a bottleneck between Adobe’s updates and browser users.

The solution is obvious.

Which Kindle? 

Marco Arment:

My recommendation: if you’re itching to preorder one of the new Kindles and absolutely can’t wait until the reviews are out, go with the Paperwhite Wi-Fi with ads.

Hard to argue with his logic. My two-year-old Kindle Keyboard has 3G, but I can’t remember ever needing it.

Some details that appeal to me about the Paperwhite: the higher-resolution screen and the new fonts (including Baskerville and Palatino). Update: But, bizarrely, they include Futura — a typeface I love but which does not make for a good long-form text face.

Or, Maybe They Will 

Roger Cheng and Steven Musil, reporting for CNet six days ago, “Kindle Fire Won’t Go Big to Take on iPad”:

Amazon plans to double down on the 7-inch tablet market with two new Kindle Fire models, CNET has learned.

Despite speculation that Amazon was preparing a larger 8.9 or 10-inch version, the company will only unveil a new 7-inch Kindle Fire and a slightly revamped version of the original tablet in an event scheduled for next week, according to a person who has seen the products.

Amazon, today:

Stunning 8.9" HD display, exclusive Dolby audio, and fastest Wi-Fi

Or, Maybe Not 

Headline from Nilay Patel at The Verge last night: “Exclusive: Amazon Phone Confirmed, Could Be Announced Tomorrow”. It’s the “Exclusive” that, as they say, really ties the room together.

Which iPhones Survive After September 12? 

The More/Real weblog speculates on Apple’s post-iPhone-5 phone lineup:

On the 12th, Apple will presumably start selling an iPhone 5 that would most likely take over the iPhone 4S’ position in the lineup. The 3GS will almost certainly be killed on the 12th. It was introduced in 2009, has been in service for three and a half years and has done its job well.

I wouldn’t count the 3GS out. I presume it will indeed lose its spot as the free-with-contract phone in the lineup, to be replaced by the iPhone 4, and the 4S will take over the $99-with-contract spot. But what about the low-cost prepaid market? If Apple wants to start taking market share in that market, my guess is they’ll do it with the 3GS.

That’s a lower-margin market than what Apple typically targets, but otherwise, they’re ceding it to Android. In the PC market, Apple ceded the low-cost segment to Windows, so perhaps they’re willing to do the same thing with phones. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Bill Clinton’s Speech Last Night at the Democratic National Convention 

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Well-written (by Clinton himself), and just incredibly well-delivered. Remarkably, Clinton ad-libbed significant portions. (And speaking of great public speakers, Steve Jobs’s wife Laurene Powell Jobs was in attendance, sitting with Chelsea Clinton.)

Nokia Faked the Lumia 920 Still Photos Too 

Youssef Sarhan:

It’s impossible for a camera with a fixed aperture of f/2 to generate so many spikes from a light source. These kind of diffractions are typical of a DLSR camera with a smaller aperture like f/22. So, it makes perfect sense that if Nokia were to fake the video, they would also fake the stills; which they almost certainly have.

Shameful.

Fortune: Apple Is the 8th Fastest-Growing Company in the World 

This sort of growth has to end at some point. But when? (Via Cult of Mac.)

Om Malik: ‘Dell and HP Together on a Long Road to Nowhere’ 

Om Malik:

They are tied at the hip with Microsoft and its operating systems and as a result they cannot look beyond Microsoft. The fact is that both Dell and HP have offered consumers pretty much nothing in terms of innovation when it comes to PCs. Compare that with Apple and Samsung and you start to see that these two PC giants have been essentially twiddling their thumbs.

Dell and HP have rendered themselves irrelevant.

Amazon’s Kindle Event 

Now this is how you do a product announcement event: product demos, prices, ship dates. Really impressive stuff at extremely aggressive prices.