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    Gamers confront copyright law

    Gamers confront copyright law

    Welcome to VentureBeat’s reporting-driven Friday

    Welcome to VentureBeat’s reporting-driven Friday

    Temple Law Profs Feed

    I used Yahoo Pipes to make a feed that unites all posts by Temple profs writing at their various law blogs. The feed still needs some work, specifically to ensure that the author name, and preferably the name of the blog at which they’re writing, is published in every entry. But overall I’m very happy with it.

    I didn’t get permission from them or from their respective blogs, but since the stuff is posted publicly, all the content in my united feed is available freely in each separate feed, and all the entries in my united feed link directly out to the source posts, I don’t see why anyone would object.

    But, of course, if anyone does object, I’ll remove them from the feed immediately. In fact, at any point in time, and without warning, I may need to delete the feed altogether, so consider yourselves warned.

    For now, though, it’s a convenient way to follow what interests Temple Law professors on a day-to-day basis, particularly with regard to current events in their respective areas of expertise.

    So, here’s the feed, and here’s the Yahoo Pipes URL so you can see how I did it.

    Justice Ginsburg Smile

    Justice Ginsburg Smile

    NYT quote approval policy is (only) a good start

    The new quote approval policy at The New York Times, as quoted by Times opinion writer Margaret Sullivan:

    So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.

    I first wrote about the quote approval problem when I linked to David Carr’s piece on it. Then I expressed my agreement with Temple Law professor David Hoffman, who wrote at Concurring Opinions about the frequency with which experts such as himself are misquoted or taken out of context.

    I’m not sure the Times policy does a very good job of distinguishing between approval by PR folks and approval by subject-matter experts. The former try to approve quotes to control messaging, while the latter try to approve quotes to ensure their opinions on a given issue aren’t manipulated to further a skewed narrative.

    I don’t think those two cases can be dealt with in the same policy without explicitly pointing them out and setting up a framework for each one. The Times policy allows for exceptions with senior editorial approval, and that may allow experts like Professor Hoffman to explain that they want to ensure their comments are presented in the manner in which they intend them to be presented. Or, it may not.

    Marco Arment suggested disclosing when quotes have been approved for an article, instead of calling for an unqualified end to the practice. I’m not sure that’s the perfect solution, but I think I prefer Mr. Arment’s policy to the Times policy.

    Disclosure makes sense and would show great respect to readers by allowing them to decide whether the reliability of a particular quote is or is not affected by its pre-approval by the source. Experts could ensure accurate representation of their opinions, and readers could be kept in the loop when a communications department has manufactured the CEO’s statement to the paper.

    In short, the Times quote policy is nothing less than a good start, but it’s also nothing more.

    Longread: Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty

    Longread: Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty

    Verizon Galaxy Nexus gets Jelly Bean...

    David Hoffman on quotation approval

    David Hoffman on quotation approval

    Virgin Mobile USA's inadequate response to a good-faith vulnerability disclosure

    Virgin Mobile USA’s inadequate response to a good-faith vulnerability disclosure

    The New Feedly Mobile

    The New Feedly Mobile

    Mitigating My Mitigating

    Mitigating My Mitigating

    David Carr on quotation approval

    David Carr on quotation approval

    Apathy and ecstasy for the iPhone 5

    Mat Honan, writing at Wired’s Gadget Lab blog:

    It is an amazing triumph of technology that gets better and better, year after year, and yet somehow is every bit as exciting as a 25 mph drive through a sensible neighborhood at a reasonable time of day.

    I am still waiting for Verizon to push Jelly Bean to my Galaxy Nexus. Meanwhile, the damn thing throws a force-close dialogue every couple of hours, stutters whenever I try to switch between apps, and occasionally reboots itself just for fun.

    My fiancée has had an iPhone 4 for a little over a year, so I’ve had a lot of time to sit on the couch late at night and compare the two phones (like the unashamed geek one has to be to do such things…). The verdict is clear, quick, and simple: go Android for customization and Gmail (a far bigger point in Android’s favor than non-Gmail users might imagine…) but go iPhone for stability and app availability.

    That has been the state of things for some time, and it’s no different with the introduction of the iPhone 5, iOS 6, or Android Jelly Bean.

    Maybe it’s because I’m 29 this year, but my desire to customize the hell out of my phone is fading fast, especially at the high cost of stability. I’ll always keep an Android phone or two around for playing with custom ROMs, but I need something more refined for my primary phone.

    Also, I’ve found on other Android devices that the four-inch display is my preference. The older iPhone displays were too small, and the Galaxy Nexus, at 4.6 inches, is a bit too large. Some people are complaining that iPhone 5 looks the same, just as the 4S looked the same. But it doesn’t: it has a bigger display and a thinner depth, without sacrificing anything in the spec department. That’s change enough for me.

    Honan nailed it: iPhone 5 is great and it’s whatever. But it’s stable, app-rich, uniformly-updated whatever. And unless my first experience with it in a store or from a friend’s unit is surprisingly negative, it’s what I’m getting the next time I need a new phone.

    Apple's Comfortable Middle

    Hamish McKenzie, writing at PandoDaily :

    With two product launches in a row that show Apple is merely keeping pace with innovation rather than leading it, the world’s most valuable company will start to seem mortal.

    I disagree.

    For the record, I’m usually on board with Mr. McKenzie’s analyses, and I think he’s right that the iPhone 5 doesn’t restore the staggering lead Apple once had in smartphone innovation. I just don’t agree that there is any probable circumstance in which the iPhone 5 marks the beginning of the end of Apple’s dominance. I want him to be right, but I believe it will take action on the part of Apple’s competitors, rather than mere inaction from Cupertino, to catalyze that descent from the pinnacle.

    I want to see something truly threaten Apple’s dominance: it would be good for consumers and even good for Apple, potentially motivating just the sort of next-generation innovation everyone wishes we saw with the iPhone 5. But Android is peddled in an ever-changing array of hardware of wildly varying quality, its interface often marred by manufacturer “improvements” and carrier-mandated bloatware, with no cohesive or remotely predictable software upgrade schedule.

    Yes, it’s customizable, “open” (depending on how you define the term), and a provider of competitive pressure. In fact, Android, the OS, in its pristine Jelly Bean state on glorious hardware, is functional and gorgeous. But Android, the experience and, for lack of a better word, the brand, is truly a mess.

    Then, there is the iPhone.

    Apple tried for years to make things people loved. They succeeded. Now they are in the business of making improvements on the things they make that people love. And they’re succeeding there, too.

    Whether or not they revolutionize TV next, and whether or not they drastically refresh iOS in the next couple of years, I think they’re still comfortably in the middle of their dominance, and at the top of their game.

    Gruber on "Amazon's Play"

    Gruber on “Amazon’s Play”

    "The Math"

    “The Math”

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