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News Corp. Shutters The Daily iPad App - Peter Kafka

News Corp. Shutters The Daily iPad App - Peter Kafka

I know they’re not the same thing, but it’s interesting to watch News Corp. fail with The Daily while Marco Arment’s The Magazine is gaining altitude, despite production by a relative publishing newb and one other staffer.

One thing is clear: digital publishing does not belong exclusively (or even primarily) to the Old Publishing incumbents.

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$85 million round by Evernote

$85 million round by Evernote

It’s one of my favorite services, and the first I decided to pay for on a monthly basis. I think Libin, despite his transparent business style and easy-going manner, is genius of the caliber of any CEO at a company ten times Evernote’s size. He built something awesome, gives most of it away, and amplifies the magic for a small monthly fee.

You don’t get to 45 million users without being awesome.

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NYPD subpoenas call logs of stolen cell phones

NYPD subpoenas call logs of stolen cell phones

Joseph Goldstein, writing for the Times:

Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new phone.

Mr. Sussman is exactly right. I suspect the intent here on the part of NYPD is an admirable one: we have data available that can help us track thieves, so let’s use it.

But it’s not hard to limit the information requested to only the information that could possibly be of use in finding the suspect.

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"Gay conversion" snake-oil salesmen taken to court

“Gay conversion” snake-oil salesmen taken to court

Erik Eckholm, reporting for the New York Times:

Referred to Jonah by a rabbi when he was 18, Mr. Levin began attending weekend retreats at $650 each. For a year and a half, he had weekly private sessions with Mr. Downing as well as weekly group sessions. He quit, he said, after Mr. Downing had him remove his clothes and touch himself, saying it would help him reconnect with his masculinity. Mr. Goldberg has defended Mr. Downing’s methods as sometimes appropriate for men dealing with body image problems.

Golberg and Downing have no license to practice psychology or therapy. They took money from men in exchange for the promise of “curing” their homosexuality. And, as this passage demonstrates, Downing took advantage of at least one young man’s vulnerability.

Deplorable.

Conversion “therapy” is one of religion’s dark arts, with no basis in reality and the primary purpose of enriching cynical snake-oil salesmen by feeding off the self-hatred of confused individuals. No god wants you removing your clothes and touching yourself for a fake “therapist.”

Sadly, the California ban on this absurd abuse of religion only applies to licensed therapists. This would leave “religious counselors” like the scum described in this story able to continue to profit from the desperation of people who can’t live with the thought that their god will hate them if they’re true to who they are.

If you think gay people need to seek healing in the form of getting “un-gayed,” you’ll get no respect from me.

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Apple Maps lead fired

Apple Maps lead fired

Richard Williamson is his name, and shipping a less-than-perfect mapping application on the iPhone 5 was his game, until, as Bloomberg's Adam Satariano reports, Senior Vice President Eddy Cue fired him.

As an aside, I really like that Bloomberg lists both the reporter’s and the editor’s name and email address at the bottom of stories. More publications should do that.

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Philly.com posts NSFW photo, ‘production glitch’ blamed

Philly.com posts NSFW photo, ‘production glitch’ blamed

Someone’s gonna get fired…

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Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Office of Energy Infrastructure Security

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Security

This is an interesting move, basically setting up the lemonade stand while all you have is water: it’s on your parents to give you the rest of the ingredients if they want you to do the work.

Congress would do well to expedite the provision of sugar and lemons (read: broader authority, and some more money) to the new unit so they can start making lemonade before threats to the electrical grid start turning up the heat on the US.

Now I’m thirsty.

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USPTO Director announces January 2013 resignation

USPTO Director announces January 2013 resignation

David Kappos thinks software patents are just fine, but I’m interested in what his as-yet unknown successor will have to say on the matter.

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Grover Norquist on proposed update to Electronic Communications Privacy Act

Grover Norquist on proposed update to Electronic Communications Privacy Act

Twenty-plus years is a long time, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is overdue for an update. A summary of the state of things:

Unfortunately these digital documents lack long-held privacy safeguards. Email saved in web-based email systems like Yahoo for longer than six months can be accessed with an administrative subpoena, which provides less protection than a warrant. Similarly, no matter what privacy setting you use, sensitive and personal information — photos, private journals, Facebook pages, corporate data, draft reports — shared with third parties like Google and Facebook can be accessible by police without a judge’s approval. All the government has to do is swear it’s “relevant” to an investigation.

Here’s to ensuring that the Fourth Amendment isn’t rendered moot by technological advancements.

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UPDATED: Google Acquires Wi-Fi Provider ICOA for $400 Million

UPDATED: Google Acquires Wi-Fi Provider ICOA for $400 Million

Updated: This is not true.

Angela Moscaritolo of PCMag.com reports:

In a statement, Google said it made the acquisition to “further diversify its already impressive portfolio of companies.” The Web giant did not elaborate about its motivation for the deal.

You don’t spent $400 million on something that isn’t strategically important to your business. I predict that Google WiFi will launch in 2013.

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The Release Windows Archaism

The Release Windows Archaism

Frédéric Filloux at Monday Note:

As for the TV shows such as Homeland and others hits, there is not justification whatsoever to preserve this calendar archaism. They should be made universally available from the day when they are aired on TV, period. Or customers will vote with their mouse anyway and find the right file-sharing sites.

I’ve been preaching this line for a while, but Mr. Filloux articulates, by far, the best argument I’ve heard.

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USPTO director defends software patents

USPTO director defends software patents

Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos, quoted by Timothy B. Lee at Ars Technica:

In a system like ours in which innovation is happening faster than people can keep up, it cannot be said that the patent system is broken.

Of course, he’s wrong, but what else would he argue?

"The work my directorate does is under-funded and based upon a flawed patchwork of case and statutory law that frustrates our Constitutional mandate!"

Unlikely.

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How to Opt out of PayPal's "Agreement to Arbitrate"

How to Opt out of PayPal’s “Agreement to Arbitrate”

It’s worth considering if you’re a PayPal user.

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FBI examining HP/Autonomy accounting debacle

FBI examining HP/Autonomy accounting debacle

HP’s got ninety-nine problems, but a recently-acquired pattern recognition company with possibly-dishonest accounting practices ain’t…

…oh, nevermind.

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US accused of launching cyberattack against French government

US accused of launching cyberattack against French government

A spokesperson from the US Embassy in Paris, responding to an article at The Verge about the accusations:
We categorically deny these allegations from unnamed sources, published in L’Express, that the United States government has participated in a cyberattack against France. France is one of our best allies. Our cooperation is remarkable in the areas of intelligence, law enforcement, and cyberdefense. It has never been as strong and essential to our common fight against the threat of extremism.

L’Express is the French publication that first ran the accusations of US involvement in a cyber-espionage attack on the offices of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (while he was still in office). They asked the US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano why the US would do such a thing, and she reiterated her French visit’s mission to strengthen the long-standing alliance between the two nations.

I have no reason to doubt the Embassy’s (or Secretary Napolitano’s) sincerity, but it’s an interesting thought experiment to consider that the US Embassy in France, and even the Secretary of Homeland Security, may not be aware of any covert cyber espionage operations the US carries out in France.

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H.P. Takes Huge Charge on 'Accounting Improprieties' at Autonomy

H.P. Takes Huge Charge on ‘Accounting Improprieties’ at Autonomy

Michael J. de la Merced and Quentin Hardy, for the Times’ DealBook:

The charge essentially wiped out its profit.

The headline should say “outright misrepresentations,” not “accounting improprieties,” because the former is far more serious than the latter, and both are true.

HP hired Deloitte to review Autonomy’s books during the acquisition’s due diligence phase. Then they hired KPMG to audit Deloitte’s audit of Autonomy. Only after a former Autonomy employee tipped them off did they hire PricewaterhouseCoopers, who discovered Autonomy sold hardware at a loss, despite calling itself a successful software-only company.

Whoops. And it gets worse.

Go read it for yourself. I can’t take any more of this crap.

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Thoughts on the new Engadget design

INTRODUCTION

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about design. I’m a user, and design work on websites made for frequent article consumption should be tailored to user experience. I may come off as arrogant, ignorant, or petty. That’s not my intention. I’m being honest about my thoughts.

Engadget has launched a full re-design, something we’ve seen recently with sites like The Next Web and Read Write. Like those, Engadget’s new look focuses on cross-platform responsiveness, with a bias for tablets. I don’t write about every redesign I see, but Engadget was the first blog I read with dedication, so it has a special place in my geek heart.

Engadget’s previous design was, as even Editor-in-Chief Tim Stevens puts it, “heavy.” A better description would be clunky, crufty, and stale. I’m only going to mention a few details that are very important to me, instead of describing to you a website that you can just go see for yourself.

TYPOGRAPHY

The new Engadget uses the free Google Web Font Oswald for headlines. It feels too narrow, but Engadget is prone to information-rich headlines, so I can understand why they chose it. Full-width article images get a headline overlay on top of the image. Opacity of the overlay increases to 1 when you hover your cursor over the headline text. I wish it went to 1 on hover over the image itself, making it easier to get that readable opaque background behind the article title.

The body font is Georgia (same as this blog you’re reading now). It seems almost too pedestrian for a blog of Engadget’s means, as does the Google Web Font. After all, Engadget has a budget and a design staff. I find it hard to believe that the best they could do font-wise was a free Google font and Georgia.

Then again, The Verge uses Helvetica or Arial, and Read Write uses mere “sans serif.” These blogs often cater to dedicated fan bases, so page loading speed is important: many readers click between multiple articles in one sitting.

I wish font was larger in articles themselves. Yes, it’s easy to increase the size of the page with a quick CMD + (or CTRL + on Windows), but I definitely consider most of the web just a little small as far as font size. People should be able to sit back and read comfortably.

Maybe it’s just me (although I’m told my reading vision is fine), but if I have to lean forward to read a website, I’m having a bad reading experience. This is why I’m a frequent Daring Fireball reader but I can’t remember the last time I visited the website itself.

MENUS AND UI

I like the topics bar at the top of the site and the placement of the search field immediately beneath it. Expand the “Topics” item on the far right of the top bar to reveal more specific categories. The spacing is touch target friendly, and I appreciate the lack of some fancy separator character.

I like the banner at the top of the site. I like the loading bar that shows the time-to-change from one featured story to the next. I like the persistent table of contents on longer articles, like the redesign announcement.

Share buttons are well-placed on both the front page and article pages. Pinterest is an interesting addition to sharing options and one that I don’t see very often on sites of Engadget’s type. I occasionally dive into Pinterest myself to pepper my friends with gadget posts. Maybe Engadget can read my mind…

Probably not, though, otherwise the “Via” and “Source” links would be internalized instead of placed in article footers. I don’t go to Engadget because I think they break every tech news story ever, I go because their opinions on the news interest me. Thus, in-line source linking wouldn’t risk losing me to the source. I’m not sure if I’m the exception or the rule, but something about placing source links in the footer has always bugged me.

I don’t like the sidebar with the headline-over-dimmed-image motif. It works in the main body of the site, but in the sidebar it’s cluttered and incredibly difficult to scan. I want to see “Recent Reviews” and other site content placed above links to the podcasts and other supplementary media. The “Quoted” section includes recent tweets from Engadget authors, but I think this space would be better used for pull-quotes from high-traffic or recent articles.

CONCLUSION

Engadget’s new design is an improvement over the old one, and they plan still more changes as they settle into the new look. Generally, I think their design direction and that of the big-name tech blogs as a whole is great. Tablet-optimized design built for fingertips instead of cursors leads to less clutter and more negative space. In case you haven’t noticed, that aesthetic tracks well with my own preferences, so it’s encouraging to me and hope it continues. I know these websites are businesses, but at the end of the day the reading experience is absolutely everything, and if things continue down this path, I expect to see even more improvements in the future.

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MG Siegler finally gets a Surface, despite Microsoft's best efforts

MG Siegler finally gets a Surface, despite Microsoft’s best efforts

In hindsight, I now see why Microsoft did not want me to review the Surface. That was probably the right call from a PR perspective. It’s simply not a good product.

Mr. Siegler found the Surface very wanting, but this bit from his intro is the most damning part of his review.

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Professor David Post on the Republican Study Committee's prematurely-released-then-removed copyright critique

Professor David Post on the Republican Study Committee’s prematurely-released-then-removed copyright critique

David Post, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy:

The Report proposes a series of rather radical — in the Jeffersonian sense — reforms, from dramatically shortening the copyright term (a no-brainer, actually) to expanding fair use and limiting the damages from infringement claims.

The report’s recommendations don’t go quite as far as my suggestion that fair use should be assumed rather than merely an affirmative defense, but Professor Post is right to highlight the opportunity for the GOP to differentiate on this issue.

In fact, I’m not sure there is much in there with which I would disagree, excepting the over-the-top (and even italicized) final sentence of the report’s conclusion:

Current copyright law does not merely distort some markets – rather it destroys entire markets.

That’s wrong. The current US copyright regime limits access, hinders creativity, and dampens innovation, thereby frustrating copyright’s Constitutional purpose. That fact, and I do consider it a fact, must be the foundation of the copyright reform we need in this country.