Sunday, February 24, 2013
Twitter kills my favorite Twitter app for AndroidIn August, Twitter turned its back on the sort of independent developers who built their community for them. Now, my favorite Twitter app for Android, Falcon Pro, has hit Twitter’s artificial user limit. They have other apps, (like an incredible …Saturday, February 23, 2013
Facebook is buying your loyalty card historyCotton Delo of Ad Age: The targeting would hypothetically enable Coca-Cola to target to teenagers who’ve bought soda in the last month, or Pampers to show ads to North Carolina residents who’ve recently bought baby products, since Facebook’s own array of …Monday, February 11, 2013
Evernote CEO hints at future task management integrationPhil Libin, CEO of Evernote, talking to Lifehacker: What’s your favorite to-do list manager? You know, I don’t actually have one. I use Evernote, which isn’t particularly great for to-dos yet. Yet. Despite having tried every task management …Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Zombie Law SchoolsGerard Magliocca of Concurring Opinions introduces a fresh take on the legal education topic.Sunday, February 3, 2013
CBS “Streisanding” itself among courts with CNET debacleCBS’s strong-arming of CNET on this front has the exact opposite of the intended effect: now that it is clear how much control CBS has and is willing to exert over CNET content, any reasonable court must consider the possibility …Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Streaming music: good for fans, bad for musiciansThe numbers are pretty stark, and while it doesn’t hurt to be available on streaming services, if for nothing else than the opportunity to be found by new listeners, unknown artists are better off leveraging social media and sites like Bandcamp to …Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Apple store trade dressI wonder if there are any retail stores out there that have looked like Apple stores since before Apple stores, and before this trademark was granted earlier this month. I don’t mean knock-off stores, though. I’m thinking make-up shops, art galleries, and other entities that …Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Antigua responds to US gambling ban with government-backed infringement planThe Carribean nation Antigua and Barbuda and the World Trade Organization say a US ban on online gambling is costing jobs and “billions of dollars.” The WTO has approved a plan to allow infringement of US-based copyright …Wednesday, January 30, 2013
128 GB iPad perfect for pros?I still personally have no interest in a 128 GB iPad, but as John Gruber points out, some professionals prefer the tablet form factor generally, and the iPad specifically, but run out of space for the multimedia they use every day.Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Confessions of a Liberal Gun OwnerNovelist Justin Cronin presents a very well-written and reasonable take on why knee-jerk reactions on either side of the gun debate are misinformed and unrealistic: […] in the weeks since Newtown, I’ve watched my Facebook feed, which is dominated by my coastal …Tuesday, January 29, 2013
At Google, Constitution trumps statuteDavid Kravets quotes a Googler: “Google requires an ECPA search warrant for contents of Gmail and other services based on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents unreasonable search and seizure,” Chris Gaither, a Google spokesman, said. The …Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Veganism as religious beliefI must admit that I never thought about it in that light, but I’d love to read the plaintiff’s essay.Tuesday, January 29, 2013
The 128 GB iPad is official……but I’m not interested. Peter Cohen of The Loop shared this earlier today, but I wonder why he didn’t offer any of his own thoughts on it. Here’s why I’m not interested: Part of the iPad’s appeal to me is that it isn’t another crufty “filing cabinet.” I rather …Wednesday, January 23, 2013
NLRB refines position on employee social media and workplace criticismMy personal policy is to refrain from discussing work on social media. In all my years of Twitter-ing and Facebook-ing, I’ve posted only a very few work-related updates, invariably focused on interpersonal minutiae like elevator …Tuesday, January 22, 2013
‘Escape from Tomorrow’, filmed in Disney World without permission, debuts at SundanceSteven Zeitchik of the LA Times: To make the movie, [Randy] Moore wouldn’t print out script pages or shot sequences for the 25 days he was filming on Disney turf, instead keeping all the info on …Thursday, January 17, 2013
Non-interfering citizens should be able to videotape on-duty policeIf someone is videotaping a police incident, but not interfering therewith, there is no lawful justification for police interference. I’m not always in agreement with the ACLU, but this harassment must end. A nation where state …Thursday, January 17, 2013
Panetta Ties Delay of Aid in Mali to Legal QuestionsAs I learned in that international law class I took last semester (for which, in case you were wondering, I earned a very respectable grade), there are Administration lawyers working feverishly behind every such move to ensure that we’re complying …Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternativesThe Simplenote/nvALT sync issues recently scared me away from Simplenote sync. I use Byword on the Mac and iPad, and Epistle on Android to sync notes with my Dropbox account. PlainText is also very good for this. I haven’t had any problems since going …Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Facebook “Graph Search” mines your network in response to plain-language queries I predict it will be panned because it’s not “sexy” enough for the expectations Facebook raised, but that it will also be widely-used. It looks to me like one of those things people don’t know they want …Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Designer Eats EngineerLaurie Voss: It’s getting easier for designers to become engineers. That’s a good thing, but it should be even easier. Design should be the hard part. This is a great post, and something I think about often. I can read and write a lot of HTML and CSS, and can read some …Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The Verge picks the best reads of 2012This is a great list, and includes only a few that missed, which probably means I read too much about tech. But what I particularly like about it is that most of the stories would appeal in one way or another to even to “normals”who don’t obsessively follow the …Sunday, January 13, 2013
More House of Representatives data available in XMLO’Reilly's Alex Howard reports that both House floor summaries and bulk downloads of all House legislation are now available in XML. It doesn't mean everything Congress does is available yet, but it’s a great progression. I really hope some …Sunday, January 13, 2013
Larry Lessig on the suicide of Aaron SwartzIt’s a tragedy, as suicide always is, but Mr. Lessig asks important questions about one of the undoubtedly myriad experiences that led Mr. Swartz to his final act. The internet can express our condolences, but only Aaron’s family and friends can truly …Friday, January 11, 2013
TechCrunch’s John Biggs on how to cover the Consumer Electronics ShowJohn Biggs, in a great post at TechCrunch about how they approached their CES 2013 coverage: But when you take a step back and look at CES from an innovation standpoint, and with the expectation that the big money here makes …Friday, January 11, 2013
Lions Gate abusing DMCA and ignoring fair use doctrineYou’ve got to click through and read this Techdirt article by Jonathan McIntosh of Rebellious Pixels. Also consider reading my article "The Pinterest (Er, Tumblr) Problem, Fair Use, and a Suggestion for Change". I argue that fair use, which is an …Friday, January 11, 2013
UPenn criminologist Richard Berk’s recidivism-prediction algorithmWired's Kim Zetter: To create the software, researchers assembled a dataset of more than 60,000 crimes, including homicides, then wrote an algorithm to find the people behind the crimes who were more likely to commit murder …Thursday, January 10, 2013
Law and the Multiverse analyzes ‘The Hobbit’ ContractI love several things about this: This is only the first in an ongoing series, with three other parts as of the moment I published this post. You can buy the contract from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Hobbit on Amazon. James …Thursday, January 10, 2013
US suspects Iran behind DDoS attacks on banksThese look a lot like “feeler” operations, meant to gauge the reaction attackers can expect from victim institutions and nations. The United States (read: Congress) must act immediately to ensure that we’re ready when attackers stop slowing down or …Thursday, January 10, 2013
Lawyers on QuoraFormer Facebook CTO and Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo, talking to Om Malik at GigaOM: The real reward is in the response to your answer and the fact that millions can read it. You already see more people giving and sharing knowledge for free. Lawyers and other professionals are …Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Witness intimidation reform on the horizon in PhiladelphiaThe Philadelphia Inquirer’s Craig R. McCoy reports on a recent special commission report on the problem and some suggested solutions. In a city where street wisdom warns that “snitches get stitches,” this is an encouraging development.