Wednesday, September 26, 2012
USPTO Third Party Prior Art Submissions System - Now Live!This looks, on its face, like a good thing. I wonder (sincerely, not sarcastically) how patent attorneys feel about it.Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Amazon heads off app fragmentation on Kindle Fire, AndroidKevin C. Tofel, writing at GigaOM: This could mean vastly better tablet apps for the higher resolution Kindle Fires similar to the improved iPad apps that iOS developers made instead of scaled-up iPhone software. I think he’s right: …Monday, September 24, 2012
MySpace renovationsDear MySpace: I am happy to see you lean away from Facebook and toward the new Digg and Rdio, with a clean design that prizes whitespace as much as content. Give me something functional and pretty, without the spammy taste of Facebook or the learning curve of Google+. Do this for …Saturday, September 22, 2012
What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own PsychologyAndreesen Horowitz co-founder and career CEO/investor Ben Horowitz offers some great advice in this 2011 post at his personal blog. The best part about it is that, while it’s aimed at aspiring CEOs and entrepreneurs, it really applies …Saturday, September 22, 2012
Planet of the TweetsTwitter’s extensive research identified four ways news outlets can better engage their audiences. Funny how all four look like things Twitter’s early and most “engaged” users have been doing since the service’s inception. The same users Twitter is frequently screwing with …Saturday, September 22, 2012
Gamers confront copyright lawProfessor Greg Lastowka of Rutgers-Camden Law School, in a press release earlier this week about his current research: User-generated content can make a game very valuable, but developers have a legal obligation to look out for copyright infringement. I’m interested to …Friday, September 21, 2012
Welcome to VentureBeat’s reporting-driven FridayGood on ‘em for trying this out.Friday, September 21, 2012
Justice Ginsburg SmileJustice Ginsburg isn’t allowed to say whether or not she would find equal protection arguments against the “Defense of Marriage” Act1 persuasive. But she’s allowed to smile. I, on the other hand, am allowed to tell you that DOMA is reprehensible and shameful, and every …Friday, September 21, 2012
Longread: Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penaltyI usually like to include a quote from the longreads I share, but this story cannot be reduced to a single blockquote. Whether you support or oppose the death penalty, you should read this 2009 article by David Grann at The New Yorker. …Friday, September 21, 2012
Verizon Galaxy Nexus gets Jelly Bean……finally.Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Twitter continues to value advertiser utility above user experienceRomain Dillet at TechCrunch explains it like this: Now when you land on a company profile page, you will see a big brand name with a small @username below, a gigantic header photo, a small logo next to every tweet, photos of new …Wednesday, September 19, 2012
David Hoffman on quotation approvalTwo days ago, I mentioned a piece by David Carr on quotation approval. This morning, I found that Professor David Hoffman, whose corporate law class I took at Temple Law, had posted his own thoughts at Concurring Opinions. Specifically, this part stuck out to me: …Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Virgin Mobile USA’s inadequate response to a good-faith vulnerability disclosureDeveloper Kevin Burke describes in damning detail how easy it is to brute force Virgin Mobile USA account PINs, as well as the company’s incompetent and opaque handling of the situation.Tuesday, September 18, 2012
The New Feedly MobileAnti-disclosure: This post raves about the new Feedly. They didn’t pay me, I don’t know them, and all I get out of writing the below is the satisfaction of pointing fellow Android users to one of the best-designed apps in the Play Store. I love both Pulse and Flipboard and I …Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Mitigating My MitigatingThis post by Michael Schechter at his site A Better Mess hit home for me because I recently migrated this site permanently to Tumblr from a self-hosted Wordpress installation as part of a larger effort to consolidate the things I do in life and on the web. I’m also looking …Monday, September 17, 2012
David Carr on quotation approval Keep in mind that when public figures get in trouble for something they said, it is usually not because they misspoke, but because they accidentally told the truth. News junkies probably know this already, but it’s worth letting the Times's David Carr remind us that …Friday, September 14, 2012
Twitter forced to turn over protester’s deleted tweetsMike Isaac, writing at All Things D: In the end, the New York DA and the judge used a legal maneuver to put pressure on Twitter, threatening to hold the company in contempt of court and levy steep fines if it didn’t hand over the data. …Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Gruber on “Amazon’s Play”John Gruber writes one of the most respected and prolific tech blogs on the web, Daring Fireball. Some people deride him as a blindly-worshipful Apple fanboy who delights in pointing out the failed attempts of other companies to copy Apple’s products and …Wednesday, September 12, 2012
“The Math”Once again, MG Siegler nails it on HBO’s missed opportunity for direct-subscription innovation. Most companies are so desperate to maintain anything close to an upward slant in revenue year-over-year that they never even know opportunities like this one exist. The worst part of …Friday, September 7, 2012
Say Hello to Samsung’s Fanboy Factory - The Mobilers ProgramIndian mobile tech blogger Clinton Jeff of Unleash the Phones, talking to The Next Web's Brad McCarty: We got a call from Samsung India saying ‘You can either be a part of this and wear the uniform, or you’ll have to get your own …Thursday, September 6, 2012
Kindle Fire HD 8.9: how the new Kindle tablet compares with the competitionAmazon increased the power and range of its Kindle offerings and achieved impressively-low pricing across the board. Again. I’m 100% certain someone I know will get one of the newly-announced devices, maybe even before the …Thursday, September 6, 2012
HootSuite Buys SeesmicRobins Wauters interviewed Seesmic founder Loïc Le Meur at The Next Web today on his company’s sale to rival HootSuite. I have always thought Seesmic was the best multi-profile app for Twitter and Facebook on mobile, and I always preferred their web interface to Hootsuite’s. …Tuesday, September 4, 2012
BrevityMG Siegler posted yesterday about his desire to write with more concision. His point is a good one: writing concisely suggests, when you think about it, a far better grasp of a topic than does the need to write 1,000 words about it. It’s a lesson I learned from a couple of professors in law …Friday, August 31, 2012
Being Real Builds TrustSteph Hay, writing at A List Apart: Your mom may not be your target user, but she is a real person who’ll call you on your bullshit. This is great advice.Friday, August 31, 2012
Peeling Back the Hidden Pages of History With Hyperspectral PhotographyJohn R. Quain, writing at American Photo: When the hyperspectral eye was turned on an early draft of the Declaration of Independence written in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, researchers could see that Jefferson had originally written …Thursday, August 30, 2012
I am Barack Obama, President of the United States – AMAHis most vulnerable answer (in my opinion) was with regard to a question about his most difficult decision so far as President: The decision to surge our forces in afghanistan. Any time you send our brave men and women into battle, you …Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Twitter files appeal in major social media caseJeff John Roberts provides an update on Twitter’s latest legal battle over at GigaOM. I think it’s fascinating that Twitter is living two lives: They’re vigorously defending the rights of their users to maintain control over what happens to their tweets …Tuesday, August 28, 2012
NoWait protects restaurants from the wrath of restless customersRebecca Grant, writing at VentureBeat: Restaurants can use this iPad app to keep track of available tables and alert customers with a text message when their table is ready. This sounds like technology with the potential to go far …Monday, August 27, 2012
Neil Armstrong, First Man on Moon, Dies at 82Neil Armstrong on Chuck Yeager’s breaking the sound barrier, quoted by his own biographer: All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one …Monday, August 27, 2012
Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Hits Evolution DeniersBill Nye, as quoted in an article by Kevin Dolak at ABC News: And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but …