Tandra

In 1985, Bill Gates Pitched Apple To Make The Mac Into Windows

2012-02-27T19:10:00.001-08:00

In 1985, Bill Gates Pitched Apple To Make The Mac Into Windows

via Cult of Mac by John Brownlee on 2/24/12

The fantastic Letters of Note blog has posted an amazing letter that a 30-year old Bill Gates sent to John Sculley and Jean Louis Gassée back in June of 1985.

In the letter, Gates argues that Apple should license their hardware and operating system out to other companies, making Macintosh a “standard.” If that pitch sounds familiar, it should: after being ignored by Apple for six months, Microsoft took the idea and ran with it, bringing Windows to the world.

Letters of Note openly ponders what might have happened if Apple had listened to Bill Gates. “Microsoft’s decision to do exactly as Gates had recommended to Apple resulted in market domination. Had Apple taken Gates’ advice, things could have been so very different.”

Sure, different, but probably not better. It’s not necessarily obvious from the outside, but Apple has always been about the fricttionless fusion of technology and software, hardware and design. That’s not something that is possible when you’re licensing out your operating system to every manufacturer coming along, which is exactly the problem that Microsoft and Google are now having, trying to compete with the Mac on the desktop and iOS in mobile. Apple may not have “market dominance” but they make by orders of magnitude the most profit: who cares about anything else?

Here’s the full letter:

To: John Sculley, Jean Louis Gassée
From: Bill Gates, Jeff Raikes
Date: June 25, 1985
Re: Apple Licensing of Mac Technology

cc: Jon Shirley

Background

Apple’s stated position in personal computers is innovative technology leader. This position implies that Apple must create a standard on new, advanced technology. They must establish a “revolutionary” architecture, which necessarily implies new development incompatible with existing architectures.

Apple must make Macintosh a standard. But no personal computer company, not even IBM, can create a standard without independent support. Even though Apple realized this, they have not been able to gain the independent support required to be perceived as a standard.

The significant investment (especially independent support) in a “standard personal computer” results in an incredible momentum for its architecture. Specifically, the IBM PC architecture continues to receive huge investment and gains additional momentum. (Though clearly the independent investment in the Apple II, and the resulting momentum, is another great example.) The investment in the IBM architecture includes development of differentiated compatibles, software and peripherals; user and sales channel education; and most importantly, attitudes and perceptions that are not easily changed.

Any deficiencies in the IBM architecture are quickly eliminated by independent support. Hardware deficiencies are remedied in two ways:

expansion cards made possible because of access to the bus (e.g. the high resolution Hercules graphics card for monochrome monitors)

manufacture of differentiated compatibles (e.g. the Compaq portable, or the faster DeskPro).

The closed architecture prevents similar independent investment in the Macintosh. The IBM architecture, when compared to the Macintosh, probably has more than 100 times the engineering resources applied to it when investment of compatible manufacturers is included. The ratio becomes even greater when the manufacturers of expansion cards are included.

Conclusion

As the independent investment in a “standard” architecture grows, so does the momentum for that architecture. The industry has reached the point where it is now impossible for Apple to create a standard out of their innovative technology without support from, and the resulting credibility of other personal computer manufacturers. Thus, Apple must open the Macintosh architecture to have the independent support required to gain momentum and establish a standard.

The Mac has not become a standard

The Macintosh has failed to attain the critical mass necessary for the technology to be considered a long term contender:

Since there is no “competition” to Apple from “Mac-compatible” manufacturers, corporations consider it risky to be locked into the Mac, for reasons of price AND choice.

Apple has reinforced the risky perception of the machine by being slow to come out with software and hardware improvements (e.g. hard disk, file server, bigger screen, better keyboard, larger memory, new ROM, operating software with improved performance). Furthermore, killing the Macintosh X/L (Lisa) eliminated the alternative model that many businesses considered necessary.

Recent negative publicity about Apple hinders the credibility of the Macintosh as a long term contender in the personal computer market.

Independent software and hardware manufacturers reinforced the risky perception of the machine by being slow to come out with key software and peripheral products.

Apple’s small corporate account sales force has prevented it from having the presence, training, support, etc. that large companies would recognize and require.

Nationalistic pressures in European countries often force foreign to consumers [sic] choose local manufacturers. Europeans have local suppliers of the IBM architecture, but not Apple. Apple will lose ground in Europe as was recently exhibited in France.

Recommendation

Apple should license Macintosh technology to 3-5 significant manufacturers for the development of “Mac Compatibles”:

United States manufacturers and contacts:

Ideal companies—in addition to credibility, they have large account sales forces that can establish the Mac architecture in larger companies:

AT&T, James Edwards

Wang, An Wang

Digital Equipment Corporation, Ken Olsen

Texas Instruments, Jerry Junkins

Hewlett Packard, John Young

Other companies (but perhaps more realistic candidates):

Xerox, Elliott James or Bob Adams

Motorola, Murray A. Goldman

Harris/Lanier, Wes Cantrell

NBI, Thomas S. Kavanagh

Burroughs, W. Michael Blumenthal and Stephen Weisenfeld

Kodak

3M

CPT

European manufacturers:

Siemens

Bull

Olivetti

Phillips

Apple should license the Macintosh technology to US and European companies in a way that allows them to go to other companies for manufacturing. Sony, Kyocera, and Alps are good candidates for OEM manufacturing of Mac compatibles.

Microsoft is very willing to help Apple implement this strategy. We are familiar with the key manufacturers, their strategies and strengths. We also have a great deal of experience in OEMing system software.

Rationale

The companies that license Mac technology would add credibility to the Macintosh architecture.

These companies would broaden the available product offerings through their “Mac-compatible” product lines:

they would each innovate and add features to the basic system: various memory configurations, video display and keyboard alternatives, etc.

Apple would lever the key partners’ abilities to produce a wide variety of peripherals, much faster than Apple could develop the peripherals themselves.

customers would see competition and would have real price/performance choices.

Apple will benefit from the distribution channels of these companies.

The perception of a significantly increased potential installed base will bring the independent hardware, software, and marketing support that the Macintosh needs.

Apple will gain significant, additional marketing support. Everytime a Mac compatible manufacturer advertises, it is an advertisement for the Apple architecture.

Licensing Mac compatibles will enhance Apple’s image as a technological innovator. Ironically, IBM is viewed as being a technological innovator. This is because compatible manufacturers are afraid to innovate too much and stray from the standard.

More from Cult of Mac:
Bill Gates not impressed with the iPad

Why It Would Have Been Impossible to License the Mac [Sculley Interview]

Steve Jobs Died With A Letter From Bill Gates At His Bedside

Quicken Might Work Under Lion Thanks To Embedded Rosetta Libraries

The Fat Mac Saves the Day [Recollections]

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Steve Jobs videos compiled into ultimate collection

2012-02-18T05:43:00.001-08:00

Steve Jobs videos compiled into ultimate collection

via 9to5Mac by Jordan Kahn on 2/15/12

As pointed out by @nickbilton of The New York Times on Twitter, a pretty extensive collection of Steve Jobs’ interviews, keynotes, product demos, and rare company video was compiled by Scott Hurf on the video sharing website Chill. Head over to the site now to check out the full collection.

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Apple Teaches You How To Make Your First App Store App With New Guide

2012-02-17T21:15:00.001-08:00

Apple Teaches You How To Make Your First App Store App With New Guide

via Cult of Mac by Alex Heath on 2/17/12

Are you interested in making iPhone and iPad apps for the App Store? If you’d like to get your feet wet, or at least see what’s involved, Apple has posted a new walkthrough called “Start Developing iOS Apps Today.”

The simple guide takes you through the initial setup and teaches you about basic tools, frameworks, Apple’s design policies, and more. The goal is that you will be able to create an app from scratch and have it ready to debut in the App Store.

While not the most technical explanation of iOS development, Apple has done a great job of consolidating information into one easy destination for curious eyes. Here’s the official rundown:

Creating iOS apps is fun and rewarding, and if you’re a new developer you might be wondering where to begin. This road map provides the perfect starting point for iOS app development. On your Mac computer, you can create iOS apps that run on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Follow this road map to learn where to get the tools you need, understand the major concepts and best practices, and see where to find more information.

As you proceed through the road map, you will use Xcode and the iOS SDK, Apple’s tools for app development. You will learn the basics of programming with Objective-C, the language that powers all iOS apps and frameworks, and will explore the Cocoa Touch frameworks. You will create a simple iOS app and learn how to test it on a device. Finally, you will learn how to submit an app to the App Store.

The document is broken up into 13 pages. There’s only a couple paragraphs and illustrations per section, but Apple has included helpful links to more detailed resources from the iOS Developer Library, like how to write Objective-C code.

Anyone can access Apple’s new guide from this link. To actually publish an app in the App Store, you must purchase an official developer account from Apple for $99/year.

(via The Next Web)
More from Cult of Mac:
Apple Publishes Six Free Electronic Books for Developers

Develop Apps For Mobile And Desktop Platforms With LiveCode 5 [Review]

Google Releases Data APIs for Cocoa

Adobe Releases Tools To Build iOS Apps In Flash… But Will Apple Even Let Them Through?

Apple ‘Relaxing’ App Store Restrictions, Drops Ban on Third-Party Tools

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Making Hidden Folders In OS X [Video How-To]

2012-01-04T06:13:00.001-08:00

Making Hidden Folders In OS X [Video How-To]

via Cult of Mac by Michael Steeber on 1/3/12

Making hidden folders in Mac OS X isn’t an easily accessible command for the average user. Unlike most parts of Mac OS X, it’s not just one or two clicks away. In this video, I’ll show you how can make hidden folders to keep unwanted visitors out of your files.

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Adam Lashinsky’s look ‘Inside Apple’ will be released on Jan. 25

2012-01-03T07:23:00.001-08:00

Adam Lashinsky’s look ‘Inside Apple’ will be released on Jan. 25

via 9to5Mac by Seth Weintraub on 1/3/12

Fortune Editor-at-Large Adam Lashinsky spent the last few years digging deep inside Apple looking for what makes Apple, Inc., tick. Fortune ran a bit earlier this year in a cover story called How Apple works: Inside the world’s biggest startup, and it holds up as a fascinating read. The full version of the book, Inside Apple, which is tabulated at 240-to-272 pages, hits stores Jan. 25. It is currently priced at $16.92 for the hardcover, or $12.99 for the Kindle version and $17.92 for the Audio version.

INSIDE APPLE reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products.If Apple is Silicon Valley’s answer to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the “DRI” (Apple’s practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).
Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.

While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.

Lashinsky also interviewed Walter Isaacson last week which turned into an interesting conversation. The two authors, who were both deep diving into Apple, shared notes —so to speak. One subject we are looking forward to learning more about is Apple University. Lashinsky originally laid it out like this:

For years Steve Jobs was uninterested in the human resources department at Apple. Then, three years ago, just before his second medical leave, he hired Joel Podolny, dean of the Yale School of Management, to head something called Apple University. Podolny had been a widely quoted management guru. Yet when he joined Apple, typically, he vanished from sight. No one even seemed to notice when he was named vice president of human resources a couple of years later.

It turns out that Podolny has been busy working on a project that speaks directly to the delicate topic of life at Apple after Jobs. At Jobs’ instruction, Podolny hired a team of business professors, including the renowned Harvard veteran and Andy Grove biographer Richard Tedlow. This band of eggheads is writing a series of internal case studies about significant decisions in Apple’s recent history. It’s exactly the sort of thing the major business schools do, except Apple’s case studies are for an Apple-only audience. Top executives, including Tim Cook and Ron Johnson, teach the cases, which have covered subjects including the decision to consolidate iPhone manufacturing around a single factory in China and the establishment of Apple’s stores. The goal is to expose the next layer of management to the executive team’s thought process.

We are looking into getting a sneak peak and will update when we have more information.

Fortune releases ‘All about Steve’ (9to5mac.com)

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Podcast Using Built-In Tools On Your Mac [OS X Tips]

2012-01-02T15:11:00.001-08:00

Podcast Using Built-In Tools On Your Mac [OS X Tips]

via Cult of Mac by Keir Thomas on 1/2/12

Is your New Years’ Resolution to start video or audio podcasting? Mac OS X Lion includes all the tools you need to produce professional results. Here’s how.

Here’s another tip from the new book Mac Kung Fu, which contains over 300 tips, tricks, hints and hacks for OS X. It’s available from Amazon and also as an eBook for all eReaders.

OS X Lion includes Podcast Publisher, a versatile and user-friendly podcasting app that helps you create both video and audio podcasts (all consumer-level Macs over the last five years have included high-quality cameras and microphones, so you already have all the hardware you need).

You’ll find Podcast Publisher in the Utilities folder within the Applications view of Finder, and using it is very simple.

Once the app starts, click the down arrow alongside the New Movie Episode button at the bottom left if you want to create an audio podcast (video is selected by default so you don’t need to make a selection), then:

If creating an audio podcast, say a few words to check the audio level (watch the meter at the bottom of the window). If it’s OK, hit the Record button at the bottom of the window and, after the countdown has completed, speak your podcast! When done, click the Record button again to end the recording.

If creating a video podcast, click the Add a New Episode sticky on the virtual corkboard to start the creative process. Once you’re happy with the video framing and audio levels (watch the audio meter at the bottom of the window), click the Record button to create and once the countdown has completed, begin speaking/performing. Once you’re done, click the Record button again to stop the recording.

To alter the audio levels, open System Preferences (Apple menu -> System Preferences), click the Sound icon, then ensure the Input tab is selected. Click and drag the Input Volume slider.

You can record audio or video podcasts

After making an audio or video podcast, you’ll be invited to trim the recording (in the same way as described in an earlier tip here at Cult of Mac). Trimming can be useful for deleting those few seconds at the beginning and end of the podcast when you’re unprepared and still looking at the screen, for example, rather than the camera. Type a name for the podcast at the top of the program window, overwriting the default name.

Click the Share button to automatically add the podcast to iTunes, save it to your desktop for manual uploading to your server, or attach it to an email. You can also upload the podcast to an OS X Server computer running Podcast Producer or Remote Workflow servers, although this will first need to be set up using the Podcast Capture app (also within the Utilities folder of the Applications list in Finder).
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Make An Apple Keyboard Work Correctly With A Windows PC Using This Free App

2012-01-02T15:10:00.001-08:00

Make An Apple Keyboard Work Correctly With A Windows PC Using This Free App

via Cult of Mac by John Brownlee on 1/2/12

Do you just like using a well-designed Apple keyboard with your work PC? If so, you know that there are inevitably some drawbacks to using Apple’s own QWERTYUIOP bar with Windows, mainly in the fact that many keys — such a print screen, volume control, eject and more — don’t work outside of OS X.

As is often the case, if you want to use your Apple keyboard as Steve intended within the Windows environment, there’s an app for that. It’s called Apple Keyboard Helper, and it’s a free download. Here’s what it does.

Simply download the app from the official website and install it on your Windows machine. Once you have done so, the following keys will work as they are meant to:

F3: Print Screen
F4: Task Manager
F7-F9: iTunes control
F10-F12: System volume Control
Eject button toggles Fkeys/Functions.
Fn + F key triggers function
Fn + Backspace = Delete
Fn+ Eject: Eject CD
And more!

Of course, your other option is to get yourself a Mac and run Boot Camp: the Apple keyboard in Boot Camp works just fine. Still, for those stuck on a Windows PC for whatever reason, this is a fine solution.

[via Lifehacker]
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More Libraries and Museums Set to Become Hands-On Learning Labs

2011-11-24T22:51:00.001-08:00

More Libraries and Museums Set to Become Hands-On Learning Labs

via Hack Education by Audrey Watters on 11/23/11

Earlier this month, we covered the Fayetteville Free Library‘s new Fab Lab, the public library’s plans to build a “makerspace” where library patrons could gain hands-on experience using 3D printers and other tools and could take programming and “shop” classes.

It’s part of a larger movement to rethink and re-imagine what a public library will look like and what functions it will serve. While many people do see libraries solely as book repositories, it’s clear that the library is much more than that. For many, it’s an important community center and a place that offers access to digital tools and media.

A new competition sponsored by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and theJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has just announced 12 winning libraries and museums that will receive $1.2 million in grant money help push the boundaries of what theseinstitutions look like, specifically helping to create facilities that are better “learning labs” for teens.

Read the rest of the story on MindShift

Photo credits: Flickr user tedeytan

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Watch Steve Jobs Brainstorm With His Team At NeXT In This Fascinating Docume...

2011-11-21T19:26:00.001-08:00

Watch Steve Jobs Brainstorm With His Team At NeXT In This Fascinating Documentary [Video]

via Cult of Mac by Killian Bell on 11/21/11

Walter Isaacson’s terrific Steve Jobs biography offers a magnificent insight into how Steve created Apple, and the work he did behind the scenes. However, it doesn’t talk all that much about NeXT — another computer company Steve founded during his spell away from Apple in the mid-eighties.

These fascinating clips from a series called Entrepreneurs do, however. They show Steve as many of us have never seen him before — discussing new ideas with his team, brainstorming on company retreats, and leading NeXT to create something awesome.

Check out more of the documentary after the break.

You may notice that in the first clip above, one of Steve’s staff stands up to him at around the 10:30 mark. This is Joanna Hoffman, according to commenter Sho_hn on Hacker News, who was part of the original Macintosh team and had a reputation for standing up to Steve.

[via The Next Web]
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Steve Jobs' Secret Private Life - ABC News

2011-11-17T13:01:00.001-08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/steve-jobs-secret-private-life/story?id=14678496#.TsV0B4JmI9I

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Steve Jobs Secret Meeting to Explore an iPod Phone is Revealing (Jack Purche...

2011-11-17T12:01:00.001-08:00

Steve Jobs Secret Meeting to Explore an iPod Phone is Revealing (Jack Purcher/Patently Apple)

via Techmeme on 11/16/11

Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Steve Jobs Secret Meeting to Explore an iPod Phone is Revealing — In our special report today we present you with a fascinating account of one of Steve Jobs' secret meeting that involved creating the iPhone and how the iPod Phone almost came to be. It was much closer to reality than any us could have ever imagined at the time.

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The making of the Xbox: How Microsoft unleashed a video game revolution (par...

2011-11-14T20:49:00.001-08:00

The making of the Xbox: How Microsoft unleashed a video game revolution (part 1) (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

via Techmeme on 11/14/11

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
The making of the Xbox: How Microsoft unleashed a video game revolution (part 1) — Editor's note: This story is the first of two articles on the 10th anniversary of the launch of Microsoft's Xbox video game console, which debuted Nov. 15, 2001. The narrative is based on recent interviews …

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Microsoft unveils amazing new vision of the future video

2011-11-14T17:44:00.001-08:00

Microsoft unveils amazing new vision of the future video

via WinRumors by Tom Warren on 10/27/11

Microsoft has created a follow-up to its “Office 2019″ video and the latest concept of the future provides some amazing insights into how technology will impact our lives in the future.

The latest video builds on Microsoft’s previous concepts of touch based computing anywhere and everywhere. The video opens with a business woman visiting Johannesburg and having the audio around her translated in real time thanks to some futuristic glasses. Other scenes in the video feature highly personalised experiences and touch computing on every surface. Microsoft previously created an “Office 2019” video which also features the same opaque smartphones and touch walls.

Microsoft’s future vision is designed to show what the world might look like in the next five to 10 years. GeekWire’s Todd Bishop managed to speak to the videos creators at Microsoft in a recent interview. “We see an expanded definition of productivity where it’s not just about getting things done,” said David Jones, Microsoft’s director of envisioning. “It’s also about doing the right things, and doing them well and enjoying the process with other people in a very natural way.”

Microsoft believes that most of the technology in the video exists in some form or another today. “All of the ideas in the video are based on real technology,” explains Microsoft’s Office chief, Kurt DelBene, in a blog post on Thursday. “Some of the capabilities, such as speech recognition, real time collaboration and data visualization already exist today. Others are not yet available in specific products, but represent active research and development happening at Microsoft and other companies.”

Check out the video below and let us know in the comments what you think the future of computing will be in the next five years.

Microsoft unveils amazing new vision of the future video originally appeared at WinRumors.com.

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Video of 75-Minute 1995 Interview with Steve Jobs [Mac Blog]

2011-11-04T12:27:00.001-07:00

Video of 75-Minute 1995 Interview with Steve Jobs [Mac Blog]

via MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - All Stories by Eric Slivka on 11/2/11

Last month, following the death of Steve Jobs, Computerworld published a transcript of a lengthy 1995 interview with Steve Jobs conducted as part of an oral history program for the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation.
The complete, unabridged video of that 75-minute interview has now been posted, offering an interesting look at Jobs before his return to Apple.

In the interview, Jobs touches on his childhood, education, and the future of the Internet, while also sharing thoughts on his time with Apple, NeXT, and Pixar. The interview also includes an interesting take on death being the "greatest invention of life", a theme Jobs addressed in discussing the nature of start-up companies challenging the status quo to innovate and push technology further.
I've always felt that death is the greatest invention of life. I'm sure that life evolved without death at first and found that without death, life didn't work very well because it didn't make room for the young. It didn't know how the world was fifty years ago. It didn't know how the world was twenty years ago. It saw it as it is today, without any preconceptions, and dreamed how it could be based on that. We're not satisfied based on the accomplishment of the last thirty years. We're dissatisfied because the current state didn't live up to their ideals. Without death there would be very little progress.
Jobs would of course revisit that theme ten years later in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, but that time from a more personal perspective following his cancer diagnosis.

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'Codify' Brings Touch Based Programming to iPad

2011-10-28T19:54:00.001-07:00

'Codify' Brings Touch Based Programming to iPad

via MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - All Stories by Arnold Kim on 10/26/11

iOS developers TwoLivesLeft have just released an interesting new app called Codify, which brings touch based programming to the iPad.
The app allows users to create their own programs using the Lua programming language by typing code directly on your iPad. Also included are various assets and programming examples to be used in your creations:

Apps such as Codify are now possible since Apple relaxed their App Store rules that originally prohibited interpreted code in iOS apps. Apple now does allow for interpreted code to be run in-app, but still prohibits the download of such code. As noted by TouchArcade, this means that anything you create in Codify can't be exported (or imported).
I've heard more than a few developers attempting to create similar tools for the iPad, but all of them have hit various roadblocks in the Apple approval process because they all (in one way or another) allowed you to get code and assets onto the device and execute it. Codify sidesteps this by coming with a wide variety of assets, but unfortunately all of your creations will be trapped on your own device.
The developer has already submitted an update that allows sharing, but the developer isn't certain if Apple will allow it.
Due to the limited nature of the environment, the tool is mostly useful for experimentation and prototyping, as you won't be able to send your creations to anyone else. Still, it's an interesting idea and pushes the iPad into more content creation areas.
Codify is iPad only and is $7.99 in the App Store.

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Steve Jobs vowed to “destroy” Android

2011-10-23T11:13:00.001-07:00

Look who is talking for a company which has not invented anything.

Steve Jobs vowed to “destroy” Android

via GigaOM by Erica Ogg on 10/21/11

Apple has a lot of cash in the bank, and now we know that former CEO Steve Jobs had at least one grand plan for what to do with it: Destroy Android. In his upcoming biography, titled Steve Jobs, to be released on Monday, biographer Walter Isaacson shows that Jobs was apoplectic over Android’s strong resemblance to iOS and was willing to go to great lengths to remedy what he called “grand theft.”

Here’s what Jobs told his biographer, according to an early copy obtained by the Associated Press:

Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.”

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

The excerpts we’ve seen of the biography so far are fascinating for many reasons but especially because they break through the carefully phrased statements Apple tends to use whenever making public pronouncements. Compare Jobs’ candor above with an example from this week’s earnings call. Regarding the ongoing mobile patent disputes, CEO Tim Cook put it this way: “We spend a lot of time and money and resource coming up with incredible innovation, and we don’t like it when someone else takes those. And unfortunately that’s why we’ve been pushed in to the court system to remedy that.”

That’s a bit milder than Jobs’ proposed scorched-earth tactics. It is interesting, though, that Apple never sued Google directly and instead has chosen to target other handset makers that use Android, apparently to chip away at Google’s influence in mobile from the outside.

Looking back, the signs of Jobs’ intent to destroy have been there. Apple has not backed down or granted broad licenses to any of the companies it has sued recently over its mobile patents. Patents blogger Florian Mueller at FOSS Patents reminded us on Friday that earlier this week Apple made it clear in its ongoing and acrimonious court battle with Samsung over the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia that there would be no broad licensing deal offered to settle the dispute once and for all.

In court documents Apple said it could potentially license Samsung “some lower level patents,” but Samsung would still have to “cease copying the features and functionality of Apple Inc’s products, and the iPad in particular.” In other words, Apple’s not giving in to make a couple of bucks, the way Microsoft did, and there will be no tacit approval of the patent infringement in exchange for licensing any of the higher-level patents Apple holds.

And this is Samsung we’re talking about, one of Apple’s most important suppliers for the iPhone and iPad, its two most important products. That’s a pretty good indication of what’s in store for the targets of Apple’s other mobile patent lawsuits, which include HTC, Motorola and others.

As Jobs reportedly told Eric Schmidt at the time: ”I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.”

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We’ve got the internal docs that Apple employees use to explain iCloud and i...

2011-10-11T04:51:00.001-07:00

We’ve got the internal docs that Apple employees use to explain iCloud and iOS 5

via 9to5Mac by Seth Weintraub on 10/10/11

Last week, we detailed the internal docs Apple uses to tell its employees how to sell the iPhone 4S, the new iPods and the new Cards app. Today a tipster added to the trove two more internal docs. iCloud and iOS 5 First looks. These are the cheat sheets that Apple employees use to sell customers these products. Both below:

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iFixit Offers Kit To Install 2nd Hard Drive in 2011 Mac Mini

2011-08-21T15:25:00.001-07:00

iFixit Offers Kit To Install 2nd Hard Drive in 2011 Mac Mini

via MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - All Stories by Jordan Golson on 8/12/11

During its teardown of the 2011 Mac Mini's released last month, iFixit discovered plenty of room inside to install a second hard drive. One of our readers discovered the proper process to install a second hard drive in his Mini, but now it's even easier.
iFixit has released the Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit for $69.95 that includes all the necessary components to install a second hard drive in a 2011 Mac Mini.

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Hello from Big Nerd Ranch!

2011-08-19T19:06:00.001-07:00

Hello from Big Nerd Ranch!

via 9to5Mac by 9to5 Staff on 8/19/11

[Editors note: Big Nerd Ranch has sponsored two posts on 9to5mac allowing readers to go to Nerd Camp for free]

Hello, 9to5mac readers.

It is a privilege and honor to be invited to provide a few guest blog postings for 9to5mac.

I imagine the following has been a common experience of many of you: you wake up one day with an idea for an iPhone or iPad app that you would just love to see. Checking the App Store, you realize, to your happy amazement, “Hmmm, there ISN’T an app for that.” And in that thought is born the dream of some how, some place, some time creating iOS apps of your own.

If you’re someone like that, or someone who can imagine having that sort of experience, then my blog entries this week might be of special interest to you. That’s because I will be reporting to you about my experiences at Big Nerd Ranch, one of the premiere facilities for training in iOS application development. Big Nerd Ranch was founded 10 years ago by Aaron Hillegass, who has written or co-written books that are widely considered to be bibles of Mac and iOS programming. “The Ranch” is the sort of place that might one day help your iOS app dream to become a reality.

I’m writing to you this evening from my log cabin at the Ranch, after a coding- filled first day of Big Nerd Ranch’s iOS Bootcamp. I’m particularly fortunate to be able to attend the Bootcamp, as it is part of the benefit of my having been designated the winner of Big Nerd Ranch’s “Mobile for Greater Good” contest, a competition that solicited proposals for an app that benefits some charitable organization. I feel richly blessed to have been chosen for the honor and the opportunity to create a charity-minded app in consultation with the Big Nerd Ranch experts.

The iOS Bootcamp is one of Big Nerd Ranch’s most popular courses. It offers the aspiring iOS programmer a five-day, comprehensive look at every aspect of the iOS app-writing experience.

And I do mean comprehensive. By the end of their week of classes, Bootcampers have knowledge of all the basic tools needed to create just about any iOS app. Amassing that body of information and skills requires each day to be scheduled to the brim with programming sessions: what amounts to a semester course’s worth of info is being packed into five days. Following a hearty breakfast at 8:30 a.m., bootcamp class sessions begin at 9:00 a.m. and extend right up to 6:30 p.m., with breaks only for lunch and a short afternoon nature hike. And then after dinner, many students continue coding and working through programming exercises well into the evening hours.

It’s a testament to the structure of classes and the skill of my iOS Bootcamp’s instructor, Joe Conway, that the day of classes does not feel nearly as long as it may appear. By profession, I’m a philosophy professor, so I can certainly appreciate how difficult it is for students– any students, young or old– to maintain attention and concentration for long periods of time. I’ve found that what’s key to keeping students engaged is making the learning sessions interactive. Big Nerd Ranch’s classes have capitalized marvelously on that lesson. Following short but clear and informative lectures by Joe Conway, we students get the chance to put the information from the lectures to good use in the writing of short apps sharply focused on the new programming techniques. It’s a good thing we have those hands-on experiences– not only do they keep all of us engaged, but they help us better to absorb the tidal wave of great info we’re getting exposed to.

Here’s a photo of the classroom where the coding magic happens!

The well-timed afternoon nature hike is also a welcome respite to recharge the ole programming batteries. And there are few more scenic locales in which to take such a break from coding. Big Nerd Ranch’s US bootcamps are located on the grounds of Historic Banning Mills, a paper-mill-turned-retreat-center about a 50-minute drive southwest of Atlanta, Georgia. The lodge and surrounding cabins are situated on the top of a pine-crested ravine, at the bottom of which is a picturesque creek with small rapids. I’m writing this entry now from the balcony behind my cabin, looking out over the ravine. Here’s a picture of how things look from here:

… and a pic of the historic paper mill:

Such a wooded, remote environment provides an ideal location for a distraction- free learning environment. It also fosters in the Bootcamp attendees a general sense of peace and quiet that keeps all of us here feeling well-rested and energized despite the dense schedule of lessons.

Speaking of dense schedule, I’m afraid this entry is all the time I have for this evening, as I need to look over some course material for tomorrow’s class. Good evening to you all, and more on my Big Nerd Ranch experiences to appear on 9to5mac soon!

Update: August 19th

Hi again, 9to5mac readers.

After giving you a general sense of Big Nerd Ranch’s iOS Bootcamp in my last entry, I’d like to devote this one to a bit narrower topic: who might optimally benefit from the Bootcamp, what sort of preparation you should have before coming, and how– if you have that preparation– you will thrive here. Even in just the two days I’ve been here, I’ve gained a boatload of knowledge that I didn’t previously have. But to be in a position to acquire that know-how from the iOS Bootcamp, I think it’s important that you’ve already had at least some programming experience: preferably, some experience with an object-oriented programming language– most optimally, Objective-C, the object-oriented programming language that is the lingua franca of iOS and Mac software development. Without that prior experience, you’ll likely be hanging on for dear life in navigating the rapids of the Accelerated 5 day iOS Bootcamp. More likely than not, you’ll be washed out to the proverbial programming sea. The Big Nerd Ranch folks do offer a 7 day course for folks who need an Objective-C primer and studying in advance both iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (second edition) and Aaron Hillegass’s upcoming Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (to be released in October) could put you in a better position to handle the exhilarating rigors of iOS Bootcamp.

Having said all that, I want to emphasize that the challenging demands of iOS Bootcamp are in no way due to any defect in the course itself. On the contrary, for those who HAVE had some acquaintance with object-oriented coding (as I myself have had), iOS Bootcamp is programming nirvana. As I mentioned in my last post, the high quality of my experience this week is largely due to the course structure and to the skill of the Bootcamp’s instructor, Joe Conway. In my previous entry, I noted that Big Nerd Ranch’s founder, Aaron Hillegass, has written or co-written some of the most important texts in Mac and iOS programming. Well, Joe Conway is the other half of that writing team, having co- authored with Aaron the extremely popular (and extremely good!) text, iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. That text, in fact, is the underlying course of instruction for the iOS Bootcamp. In the class sessions, Joe adeptly guides us through the text, demonstrating a commitment to the kind of clear and articulate exposition that pervades the book.

Every question put to Joe by the sharp group of programmers here is one that he has been able to answer in a lucid and illuminating way. In fact, having the opportunity to ask questions of an iOS expert like Joe is, I think, one of the most valuable parts of the iOS Bootcamp. Joe has a way with colorful metaphors that effectively shed light on important concepts in iOS software design. As just one example…. memory management in iOS is one area that takes some getting used to for those not familiar with iOS. Joe’s image of a dog being “en-leashed” by multiple “owners” is quite useful in describing the way that programming objects should acquire and give up the ownership of other objects held in an iOS device’s memory.

I would be remiss if I didn’t add that Joe’s general casual affability, his great enthusiasm for his teaching, and his sharp wit make each class session an altogether pleasurable experience. As an instructor myself, I know how those qualities can make or break a course; Joe has a buffer overflow of ‘em (much to our benefit). I also know the amount of time and effort that must go into preparing for teaching. It’s quite obvious from the quality of the class sessions that Joe has invested considerable energy in making sure the classes are optimally tuned for producing good results in his students.

While the week continues to be jam-packed with programming goodness, I imagine I will have the time later this week for at least one more report to you “from the cabin” here at Big Nerd Ranch. Until then, happy computing!

Written by Chad Mohler Aug 18, 2011

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It’s happening: iPad is eating consoles’ lunch

2011-07-28T13:51:00.001-07:00

It’s happening: iPad is eating consoles’ lunch

via 9to5Mac by Christian Zibreg on 7/28/11

We all know iPad is a great gaming device. Apple is bound to grow iPad’s entertainment allure as it puts out newer, faster iPads with juicer graphics and user base expands. But for some high-profile publishers, gaming on iPad is now their focal point as the traditional console business has been in a steady decline. Blame it on high-priced hardware and software in the console world, more attractive touch gaming platforms and consoles’ multi-year upgrade cycles. But we’re not talking any publisher here, this quote comes from the mouth of John Riccitiello, the Electronic Arts CEO, who told IndustryGamers yesterday:

Consoles used to be 80% of the industry as recently as 2000. Consoles today are 40% of the game industry, so what do we really have? I think that the pattern against which Nintendo is no longer resonating is over anyway. We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days. Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago.

Wow, that’s a pretty strong statement. What’s more, coming from the world’s super publisher, it definitely legitimizes Apple as an important player in the gaming space. No wonder Nintendo called Apple “enemy of the future” and slashed the price of the 3DS handheld from $249 to $169 as the iPhone and iPad ate its lunch (and Forbes agrees). On top of that…

…on competing platforms like iOS it only costs $99 to become a developer, low-cost and free games are the norm, and the ease of distribution via the App Store is unmatched in any industry. Google might also enter the market when Google TV receives Android Market access via a Honeycomb updated later this summer, bringing games to the living room. That said, it’s safe to assume Apple might as well update the Apple TV software to allow gaming on the big screen. Mobile entertainment industry was worth a whopping $33 billion last year and there’s an awesome infographic by the Geekaphone blog for that, included right below.

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TWiT starts broadcasting at new studio

2011-07-26T20:29:00.001-07:00

TWiT starts broadcasting at new studio

via GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends by Janko Roettgers on 7/25/11

Leo Laporte’s TWiT Networks officially launched its new studio with a broadcast of its flagship This Week in Tech show on Sunday after dozens of staffers and fans marched from the old TWiT cottage to the new facilities in downtown Petaluma, Calif. For TWiT, the move wasn’t just about having more space but also about positioning itself as a network that focuses on live streaming consumer technology coverage — something the TWiT CEO called “the CNN of Tech” in a recent interview with GigaOM.

The entire procession, as well as Laporte’s ribbon cutting, was streamed live online and has since been documented in a TWiT live special that also offers a behind-the-scenes look at some of the technology used in the new building. Laporte revealed during the following This Week in Tech show that the new studio cost his company a total of $1.2 million. The facilities are equipped with some 40 cameras spread across a number of different sets, which utilize state of the art LED lighting technology.

TWiT began as a technology audio podcast in 2005, but Laporte and his team have since aggressively moved into the video space, launching live streaming and a number of shows on subjects like Android, Apple, security and daily tech news. The entire company has been bootstrapped without any outside investment. Laporte raised some money for the new facilities though selling commemorative bricks and said during the inaugural This Week in Tech broadcast from the new studio yesterday that 1,000 bricks have so far been sold.

Check out this video from a few weeks ago, featuring Laporte and Kentzell showing GigaOM readers the still unfinished studio:

Watch this video for free on GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

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Am I addicted to the internet? Maybe, but so what?

2011-07-26T20:18:00.001-07:00

Am I addicted to the internet? Maybe, but so what?

via GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends by Mathew Ingram on 7/26/11

Every so often, a new study comes out that says people are “addicted” to the internet, or to digital tools, or social media — describing their anguish when cut off from these services in the same way that smokers or alcoholics react when prevented from smoking or drinking. The latest is research from a UK survey company that asked 1,000 respondents to go without internet access for 24 hours, and found that more than half of those surveyed were “upset.”

But is this really that surprising? Surely by now it’s become obvious that internet access and all it brings with it is a core function of modern life, like the telephone or the automobile. Talking about it in terms of “addiction” misses the point.

According to the research from Intersperience, a British agency that specializes in consumer research, 53 percent of those who were surveyed after going without internet access for 24 hours said they felt upset, while 40 percent of those who did so said they felt “lonely” when they couldn’t go online. One respondent described being without net access as a “nightmare,” and another apparently compared it to “having my hand chopped off.” Intersperience says that the younger a user was, the more difficult they found it to be disconnected from the internet.

The chief executive of the agency was quoted as saying:

Online and digital technology is increasingly pervasive. [Our research] shows how dominant a role it now assumes, influencing our friendships, the way we communicate, the fabric of our family life, our work lives, our purchasing habits and our dealings with organisations [sic].

This might have been an interesting insight in 1998, when consumer use of the internet was only just starting to become commonplace, and broadband connections were rare. But is it really news that we are connected more now, and that we use the internet to communicate and research things we want to buy? If that comes as a surprise to you, then you probably need to leave your cave once in a while.

The internet and addiction

But the part of the study that everyone has picked up on, of course, is the references to how users are “addicted to” the internet, and can’t live without it, and feel withdrawal symptoms (or say they do). This part of the study echoes similar research that was done by the University of Maryland last year, which also asked students in a number of programs at the school to go without internet access — including giving up their smartphones and mobile devices — for 24 hours. There too, researchers noted that those surveyed described “symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addiction” when deprived of internet use, and one even used the same analogy to missing a limb.

As I tried to point out at the time, this kind of study says more about our need to prove that new technologies are addicting than it does about our actual behavior — a point that author and technology observer Nicholas Carr (a prominent internet and social-media skeptic) also made when last year’s study was released. And it obscures the real point, which is that the internet has had a huge and fundamental impact on the way we live our lives. Is that good or bad? I’ve argued — in another debate involving Carr, and his book “The Shallows” — that it is both.

Can using the internet, or social-media tools, or a smartphone, become a problem? Sure it can, if it interferes with you living a normal life, interacting with your friends and family, and being a functioning member of society. Does that describe any of the people in this latest survey who described themselves as “addicted?” Unlikely. What they probably meant is that they really missed it, because it allows them to do things that they find important, including connecting with their friends and family, and finding out important information about the world around them.

The “moral panic” that comes with new technology

Were similar studies done about how people were “addicted to” the newspaper, or the radio, or the telephone? I don’t know, but at various times many people would probably have felt “upset” if they were deprived of those, too. As sociologist Genevieve Bell has pointed out, we often demonize new technology and try to describe our fears about it in scientific terms because we are afraid of change, and how it makes us feel — such as the “moral panic” that erupted when electricity started to become commonplace, or trains became mainstream tech.

I’d be the first person to admit that I feel anxious when I am not online — in part because it’s how I do my job, but also because it is an almost endless source of interesting information about the world. I wrote recently about how disconnected and powerless I felt when my iPhone stopped working (I even used the “missing limb” analogy), but that’s because my phone allows me to do useful things, like figuring out where I am, or taking photos and sharing them with people. Does that mean I’m addicted to doing those things? Not really. And even if I am, I don’t mind.

Comparisons to smoking and other kinds of addictive behavior don’t really work, because none of those things have positive aspects to them. Connection to the internet, and all that it allows, has become so important that some countries have actually made it a universal right that every citizen is entitled to. Has any country done that with smoking or drinking? Not that I know of. Talking about how we use technology — rather than allowing it to use us — is a sensible thing to do. But let’s drop the “addiction” talk.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users zackwitnij and Tony Preece

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Six degrees of Larry Ellison

2011-07-26T20:16:00.001-07:00

Six degrees of Larry Ellison

via GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends by Colleen Taylor on 7/26/11

Some people just seem to have “it” — that spark that makes them seem like they have an inside track on everything and everyone worth knowing. There’s no question that, in Silicon Valley, Larry Ellison is one of those people.

Ellison is most famous for co-founding Oracle, the enterprise software giant. But as evidenced by his regular appearances in such places as the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires, he’s just as notable for being an all-around mover-and-shaker in the business world at large. And it turns out, a number of the tech industry’s most accomplished people have been on Ellison’s payroll at some point.

SoftwareAdvice put together this handy infographic of Larry Ellison’s influence (click to enlarge):

Infographic design by Russell Pryor

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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How I Cut My Energy Bill By a Third with Tech and Common Sense [How To]

2011-07-24T20:49:00.001-07:00

How I Cut My Energy Bill By a Third with Tech and Common Sense [How To]

via Lifehacker by Jason Chen on 7/21/11

Last month my electric bill was $300. That was ridiculous. Something had to be done. By using gadgets, common sense, and a constant awareness of power consumption, I've made changes that will cut my power bill by at least a third. And that's not just temporarily—that's forever. And, I'm doing it without really sacrificing anything. More »

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Use Your Browser's Developer Tools to Learn New HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Te...

2011-07-24T20:44:00.001-07:00

Use Your Browser's Developer Tools to Learn New HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Techniques [Teach Yourself]

via Lifehacker by Adam Dachis on 7/22/11

Like we noted in our night school lessons on JavaScript and HTML/CSS, one of the best ways to learn how to code better is by looking at what other people are doing. A new web site called Don't Fear the Internet has a great overview on how you can do that easily. Here are the basic steps: More »

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Five Best Streaming Music Services [Hive Five]

2011-07-24T20:42:00.001-07:00

Five Best Streaming Music Services [Hive Five]

via Lifehacker by Alan Henry on 7/24/11

Whether you prefer free streaming at your computer, paid streaming on the go, or the ability to host your own music in the cloud, there are more streaming music services coming online now than ever before. Here's a look at five of the most popular ones. More »

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Microsoft vs. Apple infographic details rivalry from inception to global domination

2011-06-24T21:06:00.001-07:00

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Microsoft vs. Apple infographic details rivalry from inception to global domination

In the world of computing, no two companies have more history than Microsoft and Apple. In fact, the companys’ history is 10,124 pixels tall. From modest beginnings to IPOs, and later to global domination, Microsoft and Apple are largely responsible for computers as we know them today. Microsoft concentrated on software early and now owns the lion’s share of the global PC market, and more recently, Apple looked to mobile computing to revitalize its business and its market cap. Of course from an investor’s perspective, the stock chart at the bottom says it all, but as is remarkably evident in looking over the meandering paths these two tech titans have taken, no one knows what the future might hold. The full, extremely large infographic can be found after the break.

Read

Raghu Tandra

Sent from Touch

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WWDC 2011: 5 Programming terms explained for non-programmers

2011-06-13T16:52:00.001-07:00

Sent to you via Google Reader

WWDC 2011: 5 Programming terms explained for non-programmers

With WWDC well underway, you might have heard a few programming terms that even Mac experts have trouble understanding, but it happens to the best of us. Once someone mentioned they had a problem with “deprecation,” and I suggested a self-esteem book. Here’s a quick glossary of the terms that gave me the most trouble:

1. Source code. Great movie, eh? But also, when a developer writes software, source code is the actual program as it is being typed into the computer, written in a programming language. Source code is usually kept secret and closely guarded by companies, although “open source” software bares its code to the world.

2. Regression. A programmer friend once mentioned that a bug was “regressed.” I had vivid images of animals regressing to primordial ooze. Software regression is a bug that makes things stop working correctly after an event that changes the operating environment, like a system update. Not to be confused with regression testing, which in the programming sense, generally means making sure updates to software don’t introduce new bugs to existing, working features, and that previously identified bugs have been fixed. So it actually has nothing to do with science fiction.

3. Deprecated. “Cheer up!” might be your first reaction to your friend who tells you a critical programming library he or she relies on has been deprecated. That actually isn’t a bad instinct, because when something is deprecated it means it’s no longer supported by the manufacturer and may disappear in the future. If your program relies on a feature Apple has deprecated, your program could “break” in new OS versions unless you update it to use newer programming libraries. Generally speaking, if something is deprecated, it means it’s still there, but is no longer supported.

4. Release Candidate. No this isn’t about politics. Many readers probably know that a “test” phase of a program is a Beta. At some point, though, a product moves past the Beta phase (and the even earlier Alpha phase) and becomes a Release Candidate, usually designated RC. It might also be referred to as a Final Candidate or FC by some. Marking a build an RC or FC is the developers’ way of saying “we think this is probably good enough to ship.” Apple often releases several Final Candidate builds, the last of which becomes the…

5. GM. No this isn’t the General Manager (my first thought!), but rather the Gold Master. The code is frozen, and the FC designated the final GM is what ships. There should be no code differences between the last FC and the GM. Having the GM installed is pretty much equivalent to having the product. It’s the master version which is turned into the product: shipped on disk, downloaded or

Raghu Tandra

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Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

2011-05-02T21:30:00.001-07:00

http://m.lifehacker.com//5797582/how-to-turn-your-computer-into-the-ultimate-...

Raghu Tandra
Sent from Touch

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The Basics of Video Editing Part I: Getting to Know Your Editing Environment [Video]

2011-03-22T03:09:00.001-07:00

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The Basics of Video Editing Part I: Getting to Know Your Editing Environment [Video]

If you've edited a few videos but have always wanted to step up your game and learn to edit with professional software, now's your chance. We'll be taking a dive into the basics of professional video editing software all week. First up: a look at editing environments, the purpose of everything on your screen, and how to do a few basic operations. More »

Raghu Tandra

Sent from Touch

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8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections

2011-02-21T20:18:00.001-08:00

8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections

via Digital Photography School by Helen Bradley on 2/20/11

Collections in Lightroom are a key tool for organizing images. There are some benefits to working with collections and some things that it helps to know about working with them.

1. Collections: Smart or regular?

There are two types of collections in Lightroom, Smart Collections which are populated according to a filter which you define to identify images that you want included in that collection. For example, a Smart Collection might be defined as 5 star images which have a keywords that include the word Rome.

Smart Collections are dynamic so if an image no longer matches the filter you have defined for that Smart Collection it will be removed automatically from it. Likewise, newly imported or edited images which fulfill the criteria will be added automatically to that Smart Collection.

Regular Collections are collections that you populate with images that you choose to put in them. Images remain in these collections until you chose to remove them.

2. Sorting images in collections

You can sort images in order in a regular collection but you cannot reorder images in a Smart Collection.

3. Target Collection

You can set a regular collection – but not a Smart Collection – to be the Target Collection. There can be only one Target collection and to make a collection a target collection, right click on its name and choose Set as Target Collection.

In future, you can add images to the Target Collection by pressing the letter B. Press the letter B again to remove the image from the Target collection.

You can identify which collection is the target collection by the plus (+) symbol which appears after its name.

If you deselect the current Target Collection by right clicking its name and disabling Set as Target Collection then the Quick Collection, by default, becomes the Target Collection.

4. Gather images without duplication

One of the benefits of using collections to organize images is that the images in a collection can come from any location of your choice. You can create a collection of images from a number of different folders or even drives on your computer. Collections are simply a pointer to the original image, not the original image itself, so they require little additional space on your computer to store them. An image can belong to multiple collections and it will still only exist in one physical location on your computer.

5. Where is that image?

To find where an image in a collection is stored, right click on the image and choose Show Folder in Library to go to the folder in the Lightroom catalog. Alternately, choose Show in Explorer to see it in Windows Explorer (Show in Finder on the Mac).

6. Collections not in the Collections Panel

While most collections are listed in the Collections Panel, there are some collections that are not. In the Catalog panel you will find the All Photographs collection which is a collection of all the images that you have in your Lightroom catalog.

Quick Collection is a temporary collection that you can create as needed.

Previous Import is a collection containing the images in the most recent import – it changes every time you import new images into Lightroom.

Added by Previous Export is a collection of those images that were most recently added to the Lightroom catalog as they were exported from Lightroom. There is an option in the Export dialog that lets you automatically import exported images back into the catalog.

7. Three Handy Collections

There are three handy collections that are automatically created by Lightroom and which appear in your Smart Collections set. The Without Keywords smart collection contains every image in your collection that does not have keywords associated with it. It’s a handy reminder of the keywording work you still have to do.

Recently Modified is a collection containing images that have been modified within the last two days. You can alter the date range by right clicking the collection, choose Edit Smart Collection and change the number of days listed. You’ll see that by default it reads Edit Date… is in the last…. 2….days. You can change Days to Hours, Weeks, Months or Years and change the physical number from 2 to any number of your choice.

The Past Month collection is all the images that you have shot in the last month.

8. Managing temporary collections

If you often make collections that you only want to keep for a day or two to complete a particular job, either create a Collection Set to contain them or add the word “temp” to the collection name. This makes it easy to see collections you can easily delete to remove clutter from your Collections panel.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections

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The Mobile Tsunami Is Near: Blame Netflix & Apple

2011-02-02T20:53:00.001-08:00

The Mobile Tsunami Is Near: Blame Netflix & Apple

via GigaOMTech by Stacey Higginbotham on 1/31/11

Think mobile data demand is big today, with 94 million smartphone shipped this year and 5 billion mobile subscribers? Well, Cisco ( s csco) says it’s going to get a lot bigger by 2015, with worldwide mobile data traffic set to increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month. That’s 75 exabytes annually by 2015 (What is an Exabyte?). Last year, I called it the mobilpocalypse, but this year, I’m going to say it’s a looming tsunami, driven by everyone’s favorite bandwidth hog — web video –and the proliferation of mobile devices. In short, we can blame this wave on Netflix on the iPad.

Cisco anticipates that in 2015, the average mobile user will consume 1,118 megabytes of traffic per month. For perspective, today the average mobile connection generates 65 megabytes of traffic per month, equivalent to about 15 MP3 music files. While the average growth is impressive, those megabytes will be spread across a wider number of devices, from tablets (big bandwidth hogs) to e-readers, which consume much less bandwidth, making it all the more significant. The Cisco study predicts that by 2015, more than 5.6 billion personal devices will be connected to mobile networks, and there will also be 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes — nearly the equivalent of one mobile connection for every person in the world. Cisco doesn’t give the current number of connections, but the GSM Association puts it at about 5 billion.

Cisco anticipates that mobile network-connected tablets will generate 248 petabytes per month in 2015 while machine-to-machine (M2M) traffic will reach 295 petabytes per month in 2015. The numbers are interesting because they are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to data demand and profitability. Consumer video is in high demand thanks to devices such as tablets, but it’s also something operators are watching because they are worried it will clog their networks while not bringing higher margins. Meanwhile, much of the M2M connectivity will be small amounts of traffic, but extremely profitable.

The question operators must answer is how soon these dynamics will reach some sort of equilibrium, or perhaps, if those dynamics will reach an equilibrium. Cisco notes in a presentation that, “in 2010, global mobile data traffic experienced a 2.6 times growth for the third year in a row, despite a slow economic recovery, increased traffic offload, and the advent of tiered pricing.”

Operators are trying to cut back on data use, whether because their networks are overwhelmed or simply because they want to keep their nice margins on wireless data. However, that growth is still coming, and operators are undoubtedly trying to shape their customer base to ensure that a consumer-heavy subscriber portfolio doesn’t drag down their bottom line. So tiered pricing, pricing that ignores the reality of consuming more data at faster speeds, and possibly limits on what one can download in cheaper plans are all likely to make an appearance.

Crazy Stats (and One Chart) to Beef Up Your Mobile Broadband Reports

Mobile video is forecast to represent 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2015, increasing 35-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate of any mobile data application tracked in the Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast.

Mobile traffic originating from tablet devices is expected to grow 205-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate of any device category tracked.

Global mobile data traffic increased 159 percent from calendar year 2009 to calendar year 2010 to 237 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 60 million DVDs.

Global mobile data traffic grew 4.2 times as fast as global fixed broadband data traffic in 2010.

Global mobile data traffic in 2010 was three times the size of all global Internet traffic (fixed and mobile) in the year 2000.

Smart phones, laptops, and other portable devices will drive more than 87 percent of global mobile traffic by 2015.

Related GigaOM Pro content:

Mobile Broadband: Pricing for Profits

Metered Mobile Data Is Coming and Here’s How

Everybody Hertz: The Looming Spectrum Crisis

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Save $400 when you register today. (Standard ticket price is $1195.)

Speakers include Jim Baum, CEO, Netezza (IBM); Dave Hitz, Founder and EVP, NetApp; Ajei Gopal, EVP, Technology and Development, CA Technologies; Scott Yara, Co-founder, Greenplum and VP of Products, EMC Data Computing Products Division, EMC; Michelle Munson, President, CEO and Co-Founder, Aspera and many others. See our speaker lineup.

Topics include:

Hadoop. What is Hadoop; what does it mean for the enterprise; and how does it power so many innovative solutions out there?

Real Time Data. How can you prepare yourself to drink from a fire hose of data?

MapReduce 101. Before you make MapReduce a core part of your data strategy, understand better what it is and what it can do.

Commodity Scaling. Can you scale your storage needs quickly and cheaply?

Security and Integrity. How do you know that petabyte of data you uploaded to the cloud is still there without downloading it again?

Data Consistency. You have data everywhere around the world. How do you make sure it’s always up-to-date and consistent?

In its charter year, we promise another landmark GigaOM conference with speakers representing the major technology companies as well as startups with significant new ideas on big data. Save $400 when you register today.

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How to Charm a VC Into Mentoring You

2011-01-12T18:42:00.001-08:00

How to Charm a VC Into Mentoring You

via GigaOMTech by Larry Chiang on 12/28/10

VCs are good for much more than just their money. I have never gotten VC funding, but I have had many VCs help me.

VCs might get criticized for their lack of domain knowledge, but they have great general business knowledge, and a VC’s BlackBerry can be a distribution channel in itself. The tricky part is charming them into helping you. These steps will help you navigate your way into new worlds and go from outsider to VIP. Think of this as life-hacking and accelerated networking.

1. Set Aside Your Need for Short-Term Investment

You’re not going to get venture money right away, so set aside your short-term cash needs. Clarify this position verbally with the VC. Once you make it clear that you don’t need short-term venture, you then have a shot at getting mentorship because the relationship is mutually beneficial.

The VC benefits because they get to know you without the awkwardness of you selling them on you. Plus, they get to see you outside of your qualifications as a good Computer Science major: Can you execute your way out of a wet paper bag? Can you take mentorship to improve your fledgling startup? You benefit because you are getting free consulting and are building shareholder equity.

Money comes out of a VC when their greed for your startup stock outweighs their fear of investing. Get more of the former and less of the latter by setting aside your need for their cash.

2. Get a Foot in the Door

So how do you get started and wedge your foot in their door for a meeting? I get a foot in the door by not even stepping into their office. My opinion: The cardinal sin of entrepreneurship is asking a VC for coffee. Be a pro and ask for phone time. To you, coffee takes only 20 minutes, but to a VC, it’s different. The VC sees it as over an hour of time. It takes 30+ minutes door-to-door from Sand Hill Road to the University Ave. Peets Coffee in downtown Palo Alto.

3. Follow Up in a Methodical and Diabolical Fashion

VCs ignore you. This isn’t a plot spoiler, because everyone knows it already. They do want to talk to you, but they are going to test you first. I recommend following up in a stalker-ish manner. It’s what they don’t teach you in school. Diabolically set up an email contact schedule after first contact.

For example, you first come into contact with Jim Breyer at the Accel-hosted CEO Summit at Stanford’s Arrillaga Alumni Center. He hands you a card, fully knowing that as the legendary Jim Breyer, you will only have a 15 percent likelihood of contacting him. It’s because people do not follow up. So let’s say that you are part of the 15 percent that do email. Most email once.

VCs like Mr. Breyer need to be put on an email contact schedule. Email him at strategic times:

first thing in the morning at 7:20 a.m.
sometimes on a Saturday
maybe during late evening

It’s an impressive skill to email and re-email in such a way that each email is a stand-alone, first-time communication that is slightly new and different. You never ever refer to the other (unanswered) emails. Each email is a new email.

After about 20 emails, he’ll know that you are serious, and he will answer. But know that those 19 emails leading up to the one that does get answered were not in vain.

4. Google News Alert Them

Googling a VC is par for the course. Google News Alerting them is genius. Nothing gets the attention of a VC faster than an email message alerting them that their name was newly published to the web.

In San Francisco magazine’s Angel Issue, it noted that there is no more self-promotional group of professionals than angel investors. A Google News Alert, of course, is when Google notifies you that your name just appeared somewhere on the web. VCs will have alerts set up for their names.

Post a blog article or public thank-you when a VC helps, mentors or introduces you to someone or something, and the VC will get an email alerting them. VCs might skip your email the first couple of times, but they will read your blog post ASAP if it appears in their Google alert. To quote my fictitious mentor, Ron Burgundy in Anchorman, “85% of the time, it works every time”.

5. How Exactly to Ask for Help and Feedback.

Let’s say you charm a phone conversation and get a meeting. The VC agrees to start mentoring you. Here is the anticlimactic result: A VC will give you seven ideas. Three or four will be total crap.

The mistake entrepreneurs make is to start judging which of the seven you do. Address all seven in a way that you did back when you had your corporate job where every recommendation needs to be addressed and investigated. Address all seven in a way that is similar to when your CS professor redlined your code.

6. Add Fuel to the Mentor Relationship

I use the email update to address the ideas. Every granular recommendation gets its own email subject line, for example: Larry Chaing / demo at FashionWeek / follow-up. I write:

I tried to bark up that tree, but it turns out it’s expensive. I don’t think it’ll work. I like your idea but am back-burnering it for now.

VCs want proof that you can execute. In lieu of real proof, an email update at least documents that you heard the recommendation, wrote it down, took a little action and followed up.

This fuels the mentor relationship because the VC gets satisfaction knowing that even the crappiest of her ideas were heard. You want the VC to say, “Man, I wish the other CEOs in my portfolio companies followed up like Larry Chiang.”

7. Close Them for a Commitment: A Cell Number

I calibrate and litmus test where I stand all the time. One tactical method is to ask for a VCs cell phone number. If they say, “Just email me. That’s the best way to reach me,” then you know where you are: with the herd.

If they say, “Don’t text or call me unless there’s an emergency,” then voila: You are text message friends. Congratulations !

8. Be Copy-and-Paste-able

You want a VC to parrot what you say. There is no bigger compliment than a VC hijacking your “expertise” and copy-and-pasting it as his own thought. Parroting is observed here in my article about the types of VCs you don’t want to meet. Remember it isn’t what you know or who you know. It’s who knows that you’re an expert and is willing to promote you as that expert.

Larry Chiang is CEO of Duck9, a service that helps college students improve their FICO credit score. He has testified at Congress and World Bank on credit. He is the author of the book What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School, the unofficial sequel to Mark McCormack’s What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School. He’s currently working on a sequel, What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School, which will be published in ~~2011~~ 2012.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix)

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The Verizon iPhone: What the Web Is Saying

2011-01-12T18:36:00.001-08:00

The Verizon iPhone: What the Web Is Saying

via GigaOMTech by Mathew Ingram on 1/11/11

The Verizon iPhone has finally arrived, after much hype and years of rumors and speculation; we even included it in our roundup of 10 geek dreams that might never come true last year. So is it everything that iPhone users were hoping for? Not quite. Like anything that gets built up to that extent, there has been some grumbling about the device and its capabilities. In addition to our stories, including an overview of the news from Ryan, some advice from Darrell and a hands-on video from Ryan and Kevin, here’s what others are saying about the phone.

Engadget has a breakdown of the exact differences between the AT&T version of the phone and the new Verizon version, including the plans available from both carriers and what they offer. The gadget blog also notes that eagle-eyed observers will see some differences in the external antenna and casing, as a result of the Verizon phone using a different cellular network. In case you’re wondering, SlashGear says that other changes to button layouts as a result of this mean bumpers for the AT&T phone won’t fit the Verizon version.

Boy Genius Report, meanwhile, has a look at the downsides of the Verizon phone, noting it’s slow compared to phones on other networks — primarily because it uses CDMA instead of the GSM network — and that it doesn’t allow users to talk on the phone and use data at the same time (another consequence of using CDMA, something AT&T mentioned in a response to the launch). Zach Epstein at BGR said that switching from LTE to a CDMA network “would be like switching from broadband to dial-up.”

Fortune says point-blank that the Verizon phone “is not the dream phone” that everyone was hoping for:

Unfortunately, what the mobile carrier revealed was not exactly the dream phone some subscribers had hoped for. Sure, Verizon got the iPhone 4, and no doubt users will benefit from the carrier’s arguably better reception, but there were also some unexpected strings attached.

Even before the launch, many were playing down the Verizon phone, including Sascha Segan at PCMag, who said it “isn’t the mobile Messiah”:

Come on, people. The iPhone is great, to be sure, but there are other great smartphones out there as well. They just don’t have the personalities, the drama, or the cachet. Who can name the CEO of Samsung? At the end of the day, what the iPhone has that other platforms lack is the emotional connection.

So why is there no LTE version? Apple executive Tim Cook said the new chipsets for the LTE network required “some design compromises — some of which we would not make,” which got TechCrunch speculating:

“Design compromises” could mean a lot of things. Part of what he likely means is that LTE chipsets require more battery consumption (something which has been seen in the 4G Android devices). Another part is that an LTE version of the iPhone would likely have to be a bit bigger because radio engineers haven’t yet learned how to squeeze every ounce of real estate into these newer chip designs.

But it’s not all bad. Much of the coverage, including a post at All Things Digital, noted the one bright spot: The new Verizon phone will function as a mobile “hot spot” and allow users to connect up to five devices wirelessly:

The biggest deal so far is that it can act as a mobile hotspot, allowing several PCs or devices to share its wireless connection. It can connect up to five devices. Verizon said it won’t reveal service pricing for the iPhone or how much the hotspot service will add, if indeed there is an additional charge.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg notes that subsidizing the iPhone could cost Verizon between $3 billion and $5 billion in the first year it offers the device, according to an analyst:

John Hodulik, an analyst from UBS, estimates that Verizon could sell up to 13 million iPhones this year, and he believes that the carrier will attach a $400 subsidy to each device. “You basically write customers a $400 check,” said New York-based Hodulik, who rates parent Verizon Communications Inc.’s shares neutral and doesn’t own them. “We expect margins to be down pretty meaningfully in the first quarter and second quarter.”

ZDNet also has a post that engages in some “upgrade calculus” in order to determine whether to upgrade or not (there’s also a Wolfram Alpha widget that will help you calculate whether to cancel your AT&T contract), and the Huffington Post had a collection of Twitter reactions to the news, including one from Andy Tarnoff that said “So far, the Verizon iPhone looks and acts just like AT&T’s. A bit of a letdown, but not a huge surprise,” and another from a developer named Rich Orris who warned Verizon users to be careful what they wish for.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

Mobile 2011: Data Consumption Will Explode

Metered Mobile Data Is Coming and Here’s How

For Operators Who Bet on WiMAX, There’s an LTE Plan B

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Infographic: Get Ready for LTE

2011-01-12T18:21:00.001-08:00

Infographic: Get Ready for LTE

via GigaOMTech by Edit Staff on 1/12/11

The next generation of wireless network is coming, and it will be fast. We’ve been excited about Long Term Evolution networks and their speed gains for years, and they are finally rolling out in the U.S. in a big way this year thanks to Verizon Wireless and AT&T. For more on the technology, what is does and how it will affect you, check out our handy infographic.

Infographic by Column Five Media

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Microsoft reveals new version of Windows compatible with ARM, other SoC arch...

2011-01-10T07:36:00.001-08:00

Microsoft reveals new version of Windows compatible with ARM, other SoC architectures

via BGR | Boy Genius Report by Zach Epstein on 1/5/11

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft demonstrated an upcoming version of its Windows operating system that will extend the OS’ reach to a new breed of tablet computers. The currently unnamed Windows OS, which has been dubbed “Windows 8″ by many, is fully compatible with popular System on a Chip (SoC) architectures that current versions of Microsoft’s flagship OS will not work with. ARM-based tablets will be accessible to the new Windows OS, which is the news many have been waiting to see confirmed, though Microsoft is not expected to release this new version of Windows until next year at the soonest. Hit the break for Microsoft’s full press release.

Microsoft Announces Support of System on a Chip Architectures From Intel, AMD, and ARM for Next Version of Windows

LAS VEGAS — Jan. 5, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. today announced at 2011 International CES that the next version of Windows will support System on a Chip (SoC) architectures, including ARM-based systems from partners NVIDIA Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. On the x86 architecture, Intel Corporation and AMD continue their work on low-power SoC designs that fully support Windows, including support for native x86 applications. SoC architectures will fuel significant innovation across the hardware spectrum when coupled with the depth and breadth of the Windows platform.

At today’s announcement, Microsoft demonstrated the next version of Windows running on new SoC platforms from Intel running on x86 architecture and from NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments on ARM architecture. The technology demonstration included Windows client support across a range of scenarios, such as hardware-accelerated graphics and media playback, hardware-accelerated Web browsing with the latest Microsoft Internet Explorer, USB device support, printing and other features customers have come to expect from their computing experience. Microsoft Office running natively on ARM also was shown as a demonstration of the full depth and breadth of Windows platform capabilities on ARM architecture.

Windows will continue its industry-leading support across the widest possible set of devices, delivering the breadth and choice that customers demand. Intel and AMD continue to evolve and improve the x86 platforms, including new low-power systems, and advance new designs such as the recently announced 2nd Generation Intel^® Core™ processor family and AMD’s Fusion accelerated processing units (APUs). NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments are joining Microsoft to provide ARM-based designs for the first time.

“With today’s announcement, we’re showing the flexibility and resiliency of Windows through the power of software and a commitment to world-class engineering. We continue to evolve Windows to deliver the functionality customers demand across the widest variety of hardware platforms and form factors,” said Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft.

SoC architectures consolidate the major components of a computing device onto a single package of silicon. This consolidation enables smaller, thinner devices while reducing the amount of power required for the device, increasing battery life and making possible always-on and always-connected functionality. With support of SoC in the next version of the Windows client, Microsoft is enabling industry partners to design and deliver the widest range of hardware ever.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Read

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How to Back Up Your Tumblr [Downloads]

2010-12-10T18:53:00.001-08:00

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How to Back Up Your Tumblr [Downloads]

If you're a Tumblr user, you probably noticed the massive outage it endured this weekend, and you're probably having one of those "what if I'd lost everything" moments. Here's how to back up your Tumblr to save yourself from such distress. More »

Raghu Tandra

Sent from Touch

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Most Popular Photography Tips, Tricks, and Hacks of 2010 [Video]

2010-12-10T18:50:00.001-08:00

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Most Popular Photography Tips, Tricks, and Hacks of 2010 [Video]

Whether it's before, during, or after you shoot, we've posted some awesome photography tips, tricks, and hacks this year. Here are the most popular for 2010. More »

Raghu Tandra

Sent from Touch

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Everything You Need to Know About 4G Mobile Broadband [Mobile Broadband]

2010-12-06T20:40:00.001-08:00

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Everything You Need to Know About 4G Mobile Broadband [Mobile Broadband]

Verizon just launched their 4G data network, joining Sprint and T-Mobile at the party. But what is 4G, exactly? Is it worth the money? How fast is it really? We've got you covered with answers to all your 4G mobile broadband questions. More »

Raghu Tandra

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Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Dogs Edition

2010-12-03T20:26:00.001-08:00

Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Dogs Edition

via Mashable! by Brenna Ehrlich on 12/3/10

In the war for Internet fame, cats most certainly have canines beat, sending those poor puppies scampering off with their tails between their legs. That’s why this week, we’ve decided to let the pups have their due with their very own YouTube theme: Dogs.
Now, we must warn you before proceeding: These video may cause cooing, clapping, spontaneous adoptions and frequent to constant bouts of “awwwwwing.” Actually, this roundup borders on disgustingly cute.
So pull up a chair, divest yourself of any lingering traces of cynicism and clear your mind for a bit. And may we suggest sequestering yourself for a spell so as to save yourself the embarrassment of completely regressing to a gurgling child in front of your friends and relations? That might be smart.

Shiba Puppy Boo

Lauren Indvik: Boo doesn’t have to do anything but lick his nose to earn the “cutest puppy in the world” award.

Cute Shiba Inu Baby

Christina Warren: I want Santa to bring me one of these for Christmas!

Dogs Singing Christmas Song

Karen Hartline: Puppies dressed up in holiday gear that look like they’re singing are always cute. Tis the season.

Dancing Merengue Dog

Ada Ospina: I want to meet this dog.

Max Hiking Out of the Gully

Brian Dresher: Our dog, Max, is all over this weekly post! Here’s a one-minute clip of him showing off his climbing skills after not showing off his ability to listen. Plus, he’s a Westie, of Scottish origin, so this may appeal to certain colleagues more than others.

Butterball Downstairs

Radhika Marya: I present the little Corgi that could. My heart melted watching this puppy conquer the stairs.

Pedigree Dogs Ad Shot 1000 FPS Using the Phantom Camera

Amy-Mae Elliott: I’m happy to be advertised to all the live long day if the commercials look this good.

Rusty the Narcoleptic Dog

Radhika Marya: I have to submit this second video, too.

Dog vs. Balloons

Jay Irani: I never thought watching someone pop bubble wrapping would be fun, but it’s kind of cool if a dog does it.

Manny’s First Snowfall

Emily Banks: I can’t resist; here’s a video of my dog, Manny, playing in the snow for the first time. Excuse the poor camera work and sniffles.

Kimiko Still Loves the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam

Meghan Peters: A Shiba Inu watching the Shiba Inu puppy cam. Awwww!

Skateboarding Dog

Blake Robinson: Skateboarding dog!

David Bowie, “Diamond Dogs”

Brenna Ehrlich: Technically, this song isn’t about real dogs, but, then, I don’t like dogs — what with the drooling and the shedding and chewing on stuff. But this is an awesome post-apocalyptic jam, and there’s no better way to close out a week than that, am I right?

Image courtesy of Emily Banks (that’s her dog, Ranger)

More About: dogs, favorite-youtube-videos, music, viral video, youtube

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Follow Mashable Web Video on Twitter
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Will Microsoft’s Living-Room Quest Finally Pay Off?

2010-12-03T19:48:00.001-08:00

Will Microsoft’s Living-Room Quest Finally Pay Off?

via GigaOMtech by Michael Wolf on 12/3/10

Most of the digerati remain skeptical about Microsoft’s long journey to becoming a key player in the digital home. I can’t really blame them, given that the sheer number of swings and misses the company has undergone over the past decade may only be second to that of its hometown baseball team.

But recently the company has been swinging a hot bat, not only with its Xbox 360, which has been picking up momentum, but also with a legitimate holiday hit in the Kinect.

A few months of resurgence doesn’t excuse a decade of lost opportunity. But the Kinect, the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live do illustrate that, while Apple and Google are often seen as much more innovative and nimble when it comes to the digital home, Microsoft actually does offer compelling innovations that, every once in a while, it actually executes on.

And execution, of course, is key when it comes to staying relevant.

Source: GigaOM Pro

The above table shows some of the major Microsoft digital home initiatives over the past 15 years. I ranked each on a scale of one to five (one being lowest, five being highest) for both innovation and market execution. As you can see, by my rankings at least, where Microsoft generally falls down is on the execution front.

Case in point is Windows Media Center. At the time of launch (2002), MCE was a fairly forward-looking product, exemplified by the living-room-centric, 10-foot UI, not to mention the very idea of a centralized media hub. And while the product itself has found a dedicated following, Microsoft was never able to make Media Center a must-use technology. Part of this was due to lack of compelling content and confused OEM strategies, but also because the company could never build messaging around MCE to make it exciting to the mass market.

Finally, it needs to be noted that much of Microsoft’s vision for the past decade was flawed: The OS King clung to the outdated notion that the PC was the hub of the digital home universe, despite the fact midway last decade even Microsoft’s closest partners were looking towards a post-PC world.

But Microsoft — with its vast resources — had a few hedges on the PC-centric vision, one of which was the Xbox 360. And now, even the king of the PC has probably realized that its hedge has become the centerpiece strategy, one that it will need to leverage if it intends to remain relevant in the living room.

Will it be able to do so? Time will tell. The huge lead others have in mobile devices will continue to hurt, given that multi-screen is the new future for video, but a 42 million installed base of Xbox 360s — and a new hit interface in Kinect — could rejuvenate the company’s efforts just in time as the real battle for the digital living is joined.

To see my strategies for Microsoft to best leverage its competitive weapons for the living room, see my weekly update.

Image courtesy of flickr user Jamie3.org.

Related Content From GigaOM Pro (subscription required)

The Connected TV Marketplace

Sony Vs. Microsoft: Whose Mobile Gaming Strategy Will Be Better?

Why Microsoft’s Mobile Gaming Strategy is a Mistake

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The Most Helpful Ways to Use Google Voice that You're Not Using [Video]

2010-12-03T09:30:00.001-08:00

The Most Helpful Ways to Use Google Voice that You're Not Using [Video]

via Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy on 11/23/10

Google Voice is suddenly everywhere—in Gmail, Android devices, and now even on iPhones. Beyond the basic call/text/voicemail services, though, Google Voice can do some pretty incredible things. Here's a look at the more unusual—and unusually helpful—alternate uses. More »

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BGR Breaks It Down: How to use AirPrint with any printer

2010-11-29T17:27:00.001-08:00

BGR Breaks It Down: How to use AirPrint with any printer

via BGR | Boy Genius Report by Zach Epstein on 11/29/10

Apple’s latest iOS update finally adds AirPrint to iOS devices, bringing wireless printing capabilities to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. That’s the good news. The bad news is that in order to use AirPrint, you need a compatible printer. Since very few printers are compatible at this point in time, odds are pretty good that yours isn’t one of them. Don’t worry, though — that’s where hobbyist hackers come in.

If you own a Mac [update for Windows PCs added below] and a printer, you can use AirPrint. In fact, your printer doesn’t even have to be wireless. A simple new hack using an OS X app dubbed AirPrint Hacktivator will enable printing via AirPrint for nearly anyone in a matter of minutes. Hit the jump for a guide that will get you up and running in no time.

1. Download the latest version of AirPrint Hacktivator
2. Unzip the AirPrint Hacktivator to your desktop or Applications folder, then run it
3. Slide the toggle switch in the app to ON, then enter your administrator password when prompted
4. Click OK to confirm
5. Now, go to System Preferences -> Print & Fax
6. Click the minus symbol to remove your printer, then add it back and check the box share it on your network (see video below for instructions)

You’re now ready to use AirPrint from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 4.2 or later. Just remember that your Mac must be on and connected to your network in order for your hacktivated AirPrint to work.

UPDATE: BGR reader Andre just sent us an email to let us know that German blog Macerkopf has an app that will let Windows users hack their PCs to enable AirPrint as well. Check out the translated post for more details and make sure you download the English version of the hack if you want to get in on the action.

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The Beatles show up in iTunes

2010-11-20T15:46:00.001-08:00

The Beatles show up in iTunes

via Engadget by Nilay Patel on 11/16/10

We're still holding out hope for a cloud-based subscription service to make that full-page teaser on Apple.com seem worthwhile, but it looks like today's unforgettable iTunes announcement will indeed just be the arrival of the Beatles to the store -- the Fab Four's page just went live, about 20 minutes before the official announcement. It looks like the entire catalog is available in a $149 box set complete with iTunes LP content, and there's also a few videos for your enjoyment. We're sure some of you are super-stoked about being able to buy this stuff in yet another format -- and we're glad Steve and Yoko worked it out -- but unless something else happens today we're feeling like we just witnessed a lot of empty hype.
Update: Yep, it's official -- the Beatles are on iTunes. No streaming announcement, no subscription service. Apple's given its entire front page over to a full-size shot of the boys, and as a bonus the "Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964" video will stream for free for the rest of the year. Ringo, can you sum this up for us?

"I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes," said Ringo Starr.

You were always our favorite, Rings. PR after the break, along with a screencap of Apple.com for posterity.
Continue reading The Beatles show up in iTunes
The Beatles show up in iTunes originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops grosses record-setting $650 million in five days

2010-11-18T16:17:00.001-08:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops grosses record-setting $650 million in five days

via BGR | Boy Genius Report by Zach Epstein on 11/18/10

Activision announced Thursday that Call of Duty: Black Ops has set a new five-day entertainment industry record, grossing over $650 million globally. Following the first-day record Activision announced last week, the company’s latest smash hit breaks the previous $550 million five-day sales record set last year by Call of Duty title, Modern Warfare 2. “Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment,” said Activision Blizzard CEO, Robert Kotick, in a statement. ”The title’s success illustrates the mass appeal of interactive entertainment as millions of consumers are choosing to play Call of Duty: Black Ops at unprecedented levels rather than engage in other forms of media.” Also somewhat predictable were the two Xbox LIVE records set by Black Ops on launch day — the title was played by more than 2.6 million unique players who logged over 5.9 million multiplayer hours — and the PlayStation 3 launch sales records set at both Amazon.com and GameStop. Hit the break for the full press release, or allow us to summarize it in five words: it was a smash hit.

Call of Duty®: Black Ops Sets New Five Day Entertainment Industry Record Grossing More Than $650 Million Worldwide

Largest Entertainment Launch in History Establishes New Xbox® LIVE™ Record with 2.6 Million Unique Players in One Day
Call of Duty: Black Ops Was Best-Selling Video Game Launch of All Time on Amazon.com and at GameStop

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Nov. 18, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Treyarch’s Call of Duty®: Black Ops has shattered theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sell through in dollars. The game established an all-new five-day worldwide sell-through record of more than $650 million, exceeding Activision’s previous five-day worldwide record of $550 million set by last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 2, according to internal Activision estimates.

“Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment,” said Robert Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard. ”The title’s success illustrates the mass appeal of interactive entertainment as millions of consumers are choosing to play Call of Duty: Black Ops at unprecedented levels rather than engage in other forms of media. The number of people playing online and the number of hours they are playing demonstrates how online gaming has become a mainstream form of entertainment and certainly validates Activision Blizzard’s leadership role in online entertainment.”

“There are many reasons for the success of Black Ops, but first and foremost is the fact that our team at Treyarch delivered a truly awesome game, and in the process have established themselves as one of the most talented developers in the world,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO, Activision Publishing. ”There are millions of people all over the world engaging in this community. It’s our job to keep them coming back for more.”

In addition to beating all previous first-and five-day box office, book and video game sell-through records, Call of Duty: Black Ops set two new records on Xbox® LIVE™.

According to Microsoft:

•More than 5.9 million multiplayer hours were logged playing Call of Duty: Black Ops by end of launch day, November 9.
•More than 2.6 million unique gamers played Call of Duty: Black Ops in one day on November 9.

“With a record breaking performance on Xbox LIVE, home to the world’s largest Call of Duty gaming community, Call of Duty: Black Ops has already carved out its legacy as one of the biggest video games in history,” said Don Mattrick, president of the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. ”We congratulate our partners at Activision and Treyarch and are proud to continue offering the best Call of Duty experience to our 25 million global Xbox LIVE members by launching all Call of Duty map packs first on Xbox 360.”

The game also was a tremendous success on the PlayStation® 3 and the best-selling video game launch of all time on Amazon.com and at GameStop.

“Call of Duty: Black Ops has been an incredible success on PlayStation 3,” said Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA). ”Treyarch’s latest efforts are driving unprecedented traffic to the PlayStation Network with the flagship online experience this holiday season.”

“Call of Duty: Black Ops had the highest number of pre-orders of any video game to date,” said Paul Raines, CEO, GameStop. ”It went on to become our biggest video game launch ever, which bodes well for game sales as we enter the holidays.”

2010-10-12T19:44:00.001-07:00

Introspectr Searches Your Social Streams

via TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld on 10/12/10

We are inundated with so many social streams that it is easy to forget where exactly we read something. For instance, there was a story earlier today on Twitter showing better clickthrough rates than Facebook. I know I saw it somewhere, but was it Twitter, Facebook, or in an email? It’s easy enough to search the open Web, but how do you search all of your personal information streams at once?

Introspectr, a personal search engine still in private beta, is part of a new class of startups trying to tackle this problem. (The first 100 people to click on this link will get an invite). You give Introspectr access to your Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail accounts, and it indexes them for you, along with the content of any email attachments or the underlying pages of any links. Then you can just search for any term and up come all the Tweets, emails, and Facebook messages where that might appear.

Another startup in this class is Greplin, which is a Y Combinator startup we’ve covered before. I’ve tried both. Neither one gets it exactly right, but they both point in the right direction. For instance, Greplin does not index the pages that people you follow are linking to. So unless the keyword you are searching for is in their Tweet, you are out of luck. But if someone Tweets, “Check this out” with a link to an article about clickthrough rates, Introspectr should be able to catch that.

Introspectr, however, doesn’t seem to update its index in realtime. You have to do that manually if you are searching for recent Tweets, or emails. And it doesn’t yet search your Facebook News feed, only your inbox messages. Doing a few random searches of words in my Twitter stream, Introspectr is hit or miss (for some reason Greplin isn’t showing me any Twitter results even though it shows that my Twitter account is supposedly indexed). When it finds the right Tweets or emails, it’s great. But this is really a feature Twitter should have. As part of Twitter search, you should be able to search only your own stream. And Google or Bing should add a similar type of social search functionality to their larger search engines. It’s such an obvious feature. But until they do that (which could be years), startups like Introspectr and Greplin are paving the way.

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Introspectr
Greplin
Information provided by CrunchBase

A new class of personal social search companies aare tackling thsi

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Five Best Disk Image Tools [Hive Five]

2010-10-10T17:41:00.001-07:00

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Five Best Disk Image Tools [Hive Five]

Disk image tools allow you to take physical discs and drives—DVDs, hard drives, and other media—and turn them into virtual images for ease of storage and manipulation. Here's a look at five of the most popular disk image tools. More »

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The Huge Value Sequoia Capital And Other Venture Capitalists Help Create

2010-10-02T18:42:00.001-07:00

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The Huge Value Sequoia Capital And Other Venture Capitalists Help Create

Last week I sat down with Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha to prepare for tomorrow’s Super Angels To Super VCs — The Changing Face Of Venture Capital panel at TechCrunch Disrupt.

As part of that conversation I asked about some of the big exits that Sequoia-backed startups have enjoyed over the last couple of years. After naming a few I became more curious and asked for more data.

Sequoia supplied it, and the dollar amounts are…really large. I looked at the current value of Sequioa-backed companies that IPO’d in the last two years, and the acquisition value of the companies that were acquired. The total? Over $12 billion:

Of course this isn’t the total amount of money Sequoia made from these deals since they only owned a percentage of each one. And when I told Sequoia I wanted to write about this they quite rightly pointed out that it’s the entrepreneurs, not Sequoia, that should get the credit.

But at least some credit goes to Sequoia for at least picking the right entrepreneurs and helping them along the way.

What Sequoia and other venture capital investors are doing to create huge value is clear. We’ll discuss this more on stage tomorrow.

Note: Some of these companies are based in Asia and I had to do some heavy estimating on their market caps, but I went with the lower estimates in each case. If you note any errors please point them out.

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Sequoia Capital

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How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today

2010-10-02T18:33:00.001-07:00

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How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today

Remember three years ago, when Microsoft paid a quarter-billion dollars for 1.6% of Facebook and the exclusive right to run banner ads across Facebook.com? Tell the truth, how many of you thought that was a killer business decision? I can’t say I did at the time. But as that deal is about to expire in 2011, Facebook’s status as a revenue juggernaut is rarely questioned any more.

In fact, I have been mulling over data from both companies, and I’m ready to declare in public my belief that Facebook will be bigger in five years than Google is right now, barring some drastic action or accident. Futhermore, Facebook will grow without needing to cut into Google’s core business of text ads, which are still 99% of Google’s profits. Even if every single Facebook user performs just as many searches with Google as ever—including Google Instant, mobile search, and YouTube—Facebook will inexorably grow as big as Google is today and maybe bigger, because Madison Avenue’s brands are less interested in targeting than they are in broadcasting to vast mother-loving buckets of demographically correct eyeballs, and Facebook has become the perfect platform for that.

What do I mean by bigger? Facebook already has more page views than Google. People already spend more time spent on Facebook than Google. I’m referring to the life blood of any business: revenues.

Google’s 2010 revenues will be $28 billion, give or take a billion. The goal of this writeup is to illustrate the ways that Facebook’s annual revenues could grow from $2 billion to more than $30 billion in five years a diverse set of revenue streams that have one...

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The Best Photography Apps for Your iPhone [IPhone]

2010-09-30T13:36:00.001-07:00

The Best Photography Apps for Your iPhone [IPhone]

via Lifehacker by Adam Dachis on 9/30/10

With the quality of cellphone cameras approximating that of yesterday's point-and-shoots, you can take some amazing photographs on your iPhone. It gets even better with the right apps apps. Here are our favorite photography apps for your iPhone. More »

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The Best Photography Apps for Your iPhone [IPhone]

2010-09-30T13:35:00.001-07:00

The Best Photography Apps for Your iPhone [IPhone]

via Lifehacker by Adam Dachis on 9/30/10

With the quality of cellphone cameras approximating that of yesterday's point-and-shoots, you can take some amazing photographs on your iPhone. It gets even better with the right apps apps. Here are our favorite photography apps for your iPhone. More »

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Five Best Presentation Creation Tools

2010-09-27T10:35:00.001-07:00

http://lifehacker.com/5648191/five-best-presentation-creation-tools?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifehacker%2Ffull+%28Lifehacker%29

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Most Useful Web Design Cheat Sheets

2010-09-26T20:56:00.001-07:00

http://designersdigest.co/archive/most-useful-web-design-cheat-sheets/

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Will All Brick & Mortar Media Sink Like Blockbuster?

2010-09-24T06:48:00.001-07:00

Will All Brick & Mortar Media Sink Like Blockbuster?

via GigaOM by Michael Wolf on 9/23/10

Today’s news that Blockbuster is filing for bankruptcy should surprise no one, both because its financial problems have been common knowledge for a while, and because Blockbuster has been digitally inept for years in what is clearly a digital era.

Its digital stumbles are legend at this point: From the seeming lack of concern among management to too little, too late efforts to go into digital despite a nimble and fast growing competitor in Netflix, there’s no doubt the company, which at one time had a commanding market share and a huge lead in both time and resources, seemed to never get out of digital first-gear despite a long history of false-starts.

But are Blockbuster’s troubles a sign that all large brick and mortar retailers of content — be it music, movies and yes, even books — are eventually doomed? If you look back, signs point to yes. In fact, the death spirals of brick and mortar content retailers have come in waves. First there was music, when Tower Records, which in the ’80s and ’90s had established itself as the leading U.S. music store, shut its doors. Three years later, Virgin Megastores — the biggest music retailer after Tower had left the scene – closed up shop.

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The next wave was video, and in 2010, it seems that having actual physical stores felled businesses hard and fast. First there was Movie Gallery, and now the king of movie rentals is going broke.

Is it just digital? In part, yes, but one certainly can’t discount, well, the discounters. The continued growth of the three-headed monster of Wal-mart, Target and Costco no doubt played a factor, but I’d argue the transition to digital amplified the competitive threat from the discounters. As digital becomes more important, discounters can make music, video and content a bigger loss-leader by adjusting prices as needed, since the bulk of their sales come from clothing, food and pretty much anything else.

If deadly combo of discounters and digital put the big guns of the brick and mortar, music and video retailers into Chapter 11, are all physical media retailers, such as booksellers, next? Maybe, but it’s not exactly a guarantee. The trouble for brick and mortar media retail is determined both by how fast the transition to digital takes, and how proactive the retailer is in establishing a digital beachhead.

Blockbuster fumbled and fumbled, and ultimately, it was too far behind, as the adoption of video-on-demand and Netflix proved to happen too fast. Barnes & Noble appears to be trying to forge a digital strategy much faster (and more cohesively) than Blockbuster did, and while e-reader sales have hit the hockey stick in a big way, some would argue print books aren’t going the way of the dodo bird nearly as fast as the physical media did in video.

Still, I expect Barnes & Noble to see significant challenges in coming years, particularly since Amazon will likely dominate e-book sales, at least in the near term. As with Blockbuster, the combination of a nimble digital rival and costly brick and mortar real-estate weighing down the actual product ties a retailer down. And we all know that what happens when you when you tie a brick to something: it sinks.

Related GigaOM Pro Content (sub req’d):

Evolution of Over-The-Top Video

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Were You Born To Be An Entrepreneur?

2010-09-22T06:53:00.001-07:00

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Were You Born To Be An Entrepreneur?

Becoming an entrepreneur was not a choice. There was always something nagging at me, pushing me to do my own thing. Even when I worked in the corporate world, I always felt like I was just learning the ropes, understanding the system, and building my skill set so that one day I could ultimately start my own business.

After spending the last few years on this exciting entrepreneurial journey, I realize that there are specific attributes that entrepreneurs share. We are united by certain quirks

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Oracle Growth Plans Worry Rivals and Customers

2010-09-22T06:34:00.001-07:00

Oracle Growth Plans Worry Rivals and Customers

via NYT > Technology by By ASHLEE VANCE on 9/21/10

A string of acquisitions peaking with the purchase of Sun Microsystems puts Oracle in a position to control more of businesses’ technology purchases.

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10 Free Wireframing Tools for Designers

2010-09-15T19:02:00.001-07:00

http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/wireframing-tools/

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Belkin Mini Surge Protector with USB Charger, Only $11 at Amazon [Dealhacker]

2010-09-15T18:39:00.001-07:00

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Belkin Mini Surge Protector with USB Charger, Only $11 at Amazon [Dealhacker]

For creating charging stations in any room, or getting in on the last plug in the coffee shop through sharing, it's hard to beat Belkin's small surge protector and USB charger. Right now it's just $11 at Amazon (technically listed at $25 through Belkin), and totally worth the price. We've previously featured it as stuff we like, it made an appearance in Adam's laptop bag show-and-tell, and I'm now too a proud owner. It's a little bigger than you might think, but worth the space to leave your cellphone chargers at home and never have to play musical plugs again. Plus, it now seems to come with a mini-USB cord included—always a nice bonus. [Amazon] More »

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Insync Keeps Your Files and Google Docs Synced and Backed Up [Downloads]

2010-09-15T18:35:00.001-07:00

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Insync Keeps Your Files and Google Docs Synced and Backed Up [Downloads]

Windows and Mac OS X: Insync is a new syncing and backup service similar to Dropbox (a Lifehacker favorite), but comes with a bunch of great additional features, like syncing your Google Docs and Gmail contacts. More »

Raghu Tandra

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Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month

2010-09-13T14:09:00.001-07:00

Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month

via Engadget by Darren Murph on 9/13/10

It pales in comparison to Sigbritt Löthberg's home internet connection, but it sure makes Comcast's Extreme 105Mbps broadband package look downright sluggish. EPB Fiber Optics (Chattanooga's municipally-owned fiber-to-the-premises network) and Alcatel-Lucent have teamed up to offer America's "fastest" home broadband service -- a service that brings 1Gbps (or 1000Mbps, if that strikes you better) directly to your PC. Best of all, the service is actually on sale starting today, and every single home and business within EPB's 600 square-mile, nine-county service area will be able to access the network. Oh, and in case you're wondering, this actually isn't affiliated in any way with Google's own proposed 1Gbps service, which likely means that this record will only sit in southeast Tennessee for a few months. Still, we hear this place is some kind of beautiful in the fall, but make sure you're cool with a $350 monthly charge before pulling the trigger on a relocation.
Update: Tipster Jens notes that he can get a 1Gbps connection for 900 SEK per month in Stockholm, or around $126. Baby steps, we Americans are taking.
Continue reading Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month
Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How to Make an Inexpensive Wi-Fi Radio With an Asus Router and USB Sound Card [DIY]

2010-09-07T20:35:00.001-07:00

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How to Make an Inexpensive Wi-Fi Radio With an Asus Router and USB Sound Card [DIY]

Want a Wi-Fi radio that can play just about any audio source and you can control from your smartphone? Video blogger Tinkernut details how to make one. More »

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Amino launches Freedom over-the-top video set-top box, challenges Google TV ...

2010-09-07T05:12:00.001-07:00

Amino launches Freedom over-the-top video set-top box, challenges Google TV to arm wrestle

via Engadget by Ben Bowers on 9/7/10

If the AppleTV announcement didn't satiate your need for a Google TV set-top box battle royal, then new details about Amino's Freedom box might do the trick. Yes it still packs the same hardware announced back in 2009 such as an Intel CE4100m Atom Processor, 500 GB of internal storage, SD card support, Bluetooth, WiFi 802.11n and 1 GB of RAM. We've now discovered however that it'll also run its own Amino branded version of Nokia's MeeGo OS, adding apps and gaming support to its list of capabilities that already included 1080p playback, VOD streaming, and DVR recording. In other words there's going to be a new Google TV competitor on the block sometime before the end of this year looking for a fight. Whether it'll provide a Lincoln Hawk-worthy performance though is something we'll let the bookies squabble over until we can go hands on with both.

[Thanks, Hary]

Amino launches Freedom over-the-top video set-top box, challenges Google TV to arm wrestle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple TV vs. the competition -- how does it stack up?

2010-09-06T20:09:00.001-07:00

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Apple TV vs. the competition -- how does it stack up?

Although it's only just been revealed and won't actually go on sale for four long weeks, Apple's new hockey puck is far from the only media streamer on the market -- and with Sony's Netbox and the Boxee Box on the way, the sub-$200 set-top box market is exploding with options. So let's line up the revised Apple TV against the (post-price cut) Roku HD-XR, Popbox, and even an LG Blu-ray player in the same price range and see what you're actually getting -- and more importantly, getting access to -- on each device. Oh, and there's some choice words from Roku after the break.

Update: You asked for them, so we added the PS3, Xbox 360 & WDTV Live as well, after the break.

Device:	AppleTV	Roku XR	Pop Box	LG BD550

Price:	$99	$99

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IBM claims world's fastest processor with 5.2GHz z196

2010-09-06T20:04:00.001-07:00

Remember when a 1.4GHz processor was deemed the world's fastest? Man, that was ages ago. Recently, IBM has laid claim to that very record, with its 5.2GHz z196 processor being the focal point. Of course, we've seen a number of consumer chips hum along at speeds well beyond that (thanks to sophisticated cooling systems, of course), but this here enterprise chip does it without any liquid nitrogen-based assistance. It's a four-core slab that was manufactured using the outfit's 45 nanometer technology, boasting 1.4 billion transistors and the ability to handle more than 50 billion instructions per second. Interestingly, Fujitsu's Venus CPU is said to handle a staggering 128 billion calculations per second, so we're guessing that IBM won't be snagging this crown without any debate from the competition. At any rate, there's a very convincing video waiting for you after the break, and no, you won't find this thing in your next Alienware anytime soon.

Continue reading IBM claims world's fastest processor with 5.2GHz z196

IBM claims world's fastest processor with 5.2GHz z196 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How to Wirelessly and Automatically Back Up Your iPhone Photos [Backup]

2010-09-06T17:14:00.001-07:00

How to Wirelessly and Automatically Back Up Your iPhone Photos [Backup]

via Lifehacker by Scott Enriquez on 8/31/10

Syncing your iPhone doesn't backup your photos, and if you're not in constant sync you could easily lose them in a crash. Here's how to jailbreak your iPhone and set up an automatic photo-syncing process. More »

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Sign Up to Test Full Google Service Integration with Google Apps [Google Apps]

2010-09-06T17:08:00.001-07:00

Sign Up to Test Full Google Service Integration with Google Apps [Google Apps]

via Lifehacker by Adam Pash on 9/2/10

In May Google announced that Apps users will get all Google Services; this week, certain Google Apps users (including some of us at Lifehacker) have been receiving invitations to test full-featured Google services with their Google Apps account. Want to take the plunge? You can find the signup form here. [Wired] More »

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JayCut Is a Great Web-Based Video Editor [Video Editing]

2010-09-06T16:58:00.001-07:00

JayCut Is a Great Web-Based Video Editor [Video Editing]

via Lifehacker by Whitson Gordon on 9/3/10

If you need to edit some video away from your home, free web-based video editor JayCut will likely get your project going, whether you need simple cutting and pasting or text, transitions, and impromptu audio recording. More »

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Top 10 Fitness Tips and Tools [Lifehacker Top 10]

2010-09-06T16:56:00.001-07:00

Top 10 Fitness Tips and Tools [Lifehacker Top 10]

via Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy on 9/4/10

You can do a lot with your mind and a computer, but a healthy and honed body will get you even more out of life (if only more of it). Here are our favorite tips and tools for staying in shape. More »

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Facebook Adds Remote Logout Feature [Facebook Tip]

2010-09-06T16:55:00.003-07:00

Facebook Adds Remote Logout Feature [Facebook Tip]

via Lifehacker by Whitson Gordon on 9/4/10

Facebook isn't without its share of problems, but this weekend they added a helpful feature to avoid more privacy fiascos: now, you can logout of active Facebook sessions from any computer. More »

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ComicRack Is a Feature Packed eComic Reader for Windows [Downloads]

2010-09-06T16:55:00.001-07:00

ComicRack Is a Feature Packed eComic Reader for Windows [Downloads]

via Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick on 9/4/10

Windows: If you've been looking for a comic book reader and organizer, ComicRack offers extensive features for reading, managing, and organizing your virtual comic collection. More »

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How to Change Color in a Photo [Image Manipulation]

2010-09-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

How to Change Color in a Photo [Image Manipulation]

via Lifehacker by Adam Dachis on 9/6/10

We've talked a lot about getting great color our of your photos, but if you don't like the color you have you're not necessarily stuck with it. Here are two ways to change the color of anything in your photo. More »

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Changing Times

2010-09-05T11:52:00.001-07:00

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Tandra

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Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

The Basics of Video Editing Part I: Getting to Know Your Editing Environment [Video]

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8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections

8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections via Digital Photography School by Helen Bradley on 2/20/11 Collections in Lightroom are a key tool for organizing images. There are some benefits to working with collections and some things that it helps to know about working with them.

1. Collections: Smart or regular?

2. Sorting images in collections

3. Target Collection

4. Gather images without duplication

5. Where is that image?

6. Collections not in the Collections Panel

7. Three Handy Collections

8. Managing temporary collections

The Mobile Tsunami Is Near: Blame Netflix & Apple

IPv4 Internet addresses: 251 blocks down, 5 to go

IPv4 Internet addresses: 251 blocks down, 5 to go via CNET News.com on 2/1/11 A total of 33.6 million addresses are on their way to their ultimate users on the Net--meaning the last blocks of IPv4 addresses will be allocated soon. IPv6, hurry up, would ya?

WinX Blu-ray DVD iPhone Ripper Rips Blu-Rays to Any Device in One Click, Free Until January 10th [Dealhacker]

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Weather.com SMS Alerts Give You the Jump on Snow or Rain [Alerts]

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Weather.com SMS Alerts Give You the Jump on Snow or Rain [Alerts]

Security Cam Turns Your iPhone's Camera into a Security Camera and Monitor [Downloads]

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Windows Explorer Replacement Xplorer2 Half Price for the Rest of Today [Dealhacker]

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Top 10 Places to Discover Good Software [Lifehacker Top 10]

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Join GigaOM at Big Data on March 23 in New York City

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How to Charm a VC Into Mentoring You

1. Set Aside Your Need for Short-Term Investment

2. Get a Foot in the Door

3. Follow Up in a Methodical and Diabolical Fashion

4. Google News Alert Them

5. How Exactly to Ask for Help and Feedback.

6. Add Fuel to the Mentor Relationship

7. Close Them for a Commitment: A Cell Number

8. Be Copy-and-Paste-able

The Verizon iPhone: What the Web Is Saying

Infographic: Get Ready for LTE

Microsoft reveals new version of Windows compatible with ARM, other SoC arch...

How to Back Up Your Tumblr [Downloads]

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Most Popular Photography Tips, Tricks, and Hacks of 2010 [Video]

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Everything You Need to Know About 4G Mobile Broadband [Mobile Broadband]

8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections

via Digital Photography School by Helen Bradley on 2/20/11

Collections in Lightroom are a key tool for organizing images. There are some benefits to working with collections and some things that it helps to know about working with them.

IPv4 Internet addresses: 251 blocks down, 5 to go

via CNET News.com on 2/1/11

A total of 33.6 million addresses are on their way to their ultimate users on the Net--meaning the last blocks of IPv4 addresses will be allocated soon. IPv6, hurry up, would ya?