Linked List: January 7, 2013

Monday, 7 January 2013

I read pretty well in the traditional way of reading: relatively small type laid out in pages. But I’ve long been interested in non-traditional reading apps and layouts, whether for people with low vision or whose brains work differently. There’s nothing “natural” about any sort of reading. ReadQuick offers a reading interface that struck me as crazy when I first heard it pitched, but maybe it’s crazy like a fox. It shows just one word at a time, at whatever speed you find comfortable.

It includes Instapaper account support, so you can think of it as a one-word-at-a-time alternative to the official Instapaper app.

Lenovo’s 27-Inch Tablet ★

Just look at the still frame from the video of the woman lugging it around. This is nuts.

Why Buzzfeed Isn’t Attending CES ★

Matt Buchanan:

By Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s reckoning, there are now four technology companies that truly matter to people: Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. None of them are at CES. Apple’s last appearance was in 1992. Microsoft, which delivered the CES keynote for years, announced — before last year’s keynote, even — that it would not return in 2013. Its keynote spot is being taken over by Qualcomm, which is mostly known for making chips for phones, and its centerpiece booth now hosts Hisense, a state-owned Chinese manufacturer you probably haven’t heard of. There probably isn’t a more precise illustration of what’s happened to CES: The booth of the world’s biggest software company is now occupied by a company mostly noted for its production of cheap HDTVs that line the shelves of Walmarts across the country.

In short, CES does seem to still tell the story of the year in consumer electronics: it’s just that it’s become a very boring story for all but the biggest companies, none of which bother to attend CES.

The Fifth Horseman: Samsung ★

MG Siegler:

We all know the “four horsemen” of tech: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. These are the companies that pretty much everyone agrees will shape the foreseeable future of the tech sector. In some circles, that list makes waves for who is not included: Microsoft. But any rational thinker (meaning those outside of Redmond or anyone who hasn’t made a career as a .Net developer) knows that Microsoft simply no longer belongs on that list.

But that doesn’t mean the list is perfect. In fact, I do think there’s an omission that’s becoming a glaring one: Samsung.

There are only two companies making any profit in the mobile handset industry: Apple and Samsung. Would anyone a few years ago have expected Samsung to hold such a position? In some sense, what Apple has done is easier, or at least easier to understand: they have their own exclusive platform, iOS. Samsung has eked out a strong second place position selling a platform, Android, that was supposed to be a commodity. Why is Apple number one? Because they have a unique and superior exclusive offering. Why is Samsung so far ahead of HTC, Motorola, LG, et al? That’s a lot harder to understand.

Icelandic Air Passenger Taped to His Seat, Gagged After Drunken Rampage Aboard JFK-Bound Flight ★

No word yet if he worked for RIM.

John Paczkowski on Apple’s Vacant SVP of Retail Position ★

Good piece by John Paczkowski:

So who might Apple look to to fill the shoes of Ron Johnson, the chief architect of its retail strategy, who left the company last year to take the CEO job at retailer J.C. Penney? That’s a conundrum difficult enough to perplex the most skilled of recruiters; recall that it took Apple about seven months to sign Browett, and that was with the help of executive search firm Egon Zehnder International.

An easier task is to determine where Apple might look for candidates with the sort of experience needed to drive its retail ops.

The big question: do they go outside again (as they did with Browett), or promote someone from within their existing retail ranks?

The BBC Sport iPhone App ★

The comments are full of the usual petulant whingeing from Android users.

Explaining Windows 8 PC Sales Over the Holidays ★

Paul Thurrott:

It’s not pat to say that the Windows PC market went for volume over quality, because it did: Many of those 20 million Windows 7 licenses each month — too many, I think — went to machines that are basically throwaway, plastic crap. Netbooks didn’t just rejuvenate the market just as Windows 7 appeared, they also destroyed it from within: Now consumers expect to pay next to nothing for a Windows PC. Most of them simply refuse to pay for more expensive Windows PCs.