05.22.10
Nice Little Touches
This is a nice touch from the Kindle app for the iPad… depending on the time of day that you’re using the app, the background changes to have a dusk or night sky…
03.03.10
Plate Tectonics
An interesting view of what the tectonic plates look like. The Nazca plate is the one that caused all the trouble in Chile…
(click to zoom in)
From DRB. Also on DRB’s page is what things should look like in 50, 150, and 250 million more years after expected tectonic movement.
02.23.10
Flight Aware
File this in the category, “stuff I’d like to find later”…
The FlightAware.com web site provides free flight tracking of private and commercial flights as well as airport activity, flight and airport maps with weather, and aviation statistics for airports in the United States.
Users can also search by airline flight number or the aircraft’s registration if it is a non-commercial flight, or select a flight from an airport’s status page. Information provided includes:
- Proposed departure and arrival times
- Actual departure and arrival times
- Proposed and actual altitude
- Proposed and actual airspeed
- Four month history of that flight or aircraft
- Time elapsed and time remaining
- Filed Route
Details from the Wikipedia entry.
01.30.10
Information Wants to Be Free
Stewart Brand was the person who originally coined the phrase “information wants to be free”, but apparently, his original quote was actually about the paradox of the value of information…
On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.
As told in Chris Anderson’s book Free.
01.27.10
My Take on the iPad
From Daring Fireball 4 weeks ago…
Like all Apple products, The Tablet will do less than we expect but the things it does do, it will do insanely well. It will offer a fraction of the functionality of a MacBook — but that fraction will be way more fun. The same myopic feature-checklist-obsessed critics who dismissed the iPhone will focus on all that The Tablet doesn’t do and declare that this time, Apple really has fucked up but good. The rest of us will get in line to buy one.
Sounds like he had a frickin crystal ball.
As for the name… yes, it sucks. But all new names suck when they’re first announced. The name iPod was derided when it was first launched. Those of us who were at Accenture when it was renamed thought the name was horrible… But those feelings change, and the awkward, nonsensical names — we get used to them, and then over time they are unique trademarks that it is hard to remember our original derision.
If you really want need multitasking, or a camera… go get a netbook instead. This iPad thing isn’t for everyone, and we should all just get comfortable with that. Innovation is rarely without critics. Oddly, I’ve never heard someone complain about how a Kindle doesn’t allow multi-tasking…
I have to admit the actual iPad feature set underwhelms compared to many of the wacky rumors that were swirling before launch (where’s the unicorn menu item?)… but it’s still the product I’ve been waiting years for. The only real technology that is really new in the iPad is the Apple A4 processor. So, if there’s nothing new, why haven’t we seen this stuff packaged together in a product before? Why aren’t there other tablets already available to choose from?
My biggest gripe about the iPhone is the requirement of an AT&T 2 year contract (even if you pay an unsubsidized price). With the iPad you have more options — no contract, or skip on the cell connectivity completely. Sure AT&T still sucks, but now I am not forced into a 2 year contract, even if I want to use the AT&T data plan. The addition of no-contract cell data plans may end up being the biggest innovation of the iPad.
Another plus — this is the first “computer” I would recommend to my grandmother. It’s the right device for someone who “doesn’t get computers” or for someone who doesn’t need anything beyond email, facebook, and a browser. You might want multi-tasking to run Pandora and AIM in the background, but a lot of people wouldn’t even notice that was “missing”. (Sidebar: the iPhone does support multi-tasking, just not for the apps you want. The phone and iPod apps can run in the background while you run other apps.)
Could the iPad be better as a product? Of course. But I, for one, am excited.
01.26.10
Mosspuppet
A puppet version of Walt Mossberg reviews the new Apple iSlate…
“There’s even an option in one of the menus, when you push it a unicorn comes to your door carrying your favorite pizza.”
12.23.09
iPhone in iPhone
How incredibly meta… (video 1:11)
The scoop… A promotional augmented reality app by Ogmento. Developed to promote the iPhone launch by Orange Telecom Israel. Point your iphone to an Orange logo and watch a virtual iPhone appears hovering over the logo. Use finger gestures to turn the iphone around, zoom in or out…
Via 9to5Mac.