Friday, January 27th, 2012


This week’s Rock Show podcast… #

…features The Flare Up, Go Fly Win, The Colorfield Theory, Heath Street, and Scoundrels.

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Thursday, January 26th, 2012


Paul Carr vs The Daily Mail #

As the Daily Mail Online passes the New York Times, Carr points out that not all Daily Mails are equal:

If all of this sounds at odds with your own experiences of the Mail, dear American readers, that’s because you’ve only ever read the Daily Mail online. And the Daily Mail Online and the Daily Mail newspaper are as different as chalk and AIDS.


I’ll be speaking at London Social Media Week’s Ignite #

Social Media Week this year is Feb13-17, and I’ll be involved in one or two of the events in the London wing of the event, specifically speaking at the Ignite event on Feb 15, starting around 7pm:

Ignite started in Seattle about 5 years ago and is the brainchild of Brady Forrest, Technology Evangelist for O’Reilly Media, and Bre Pettis of Makerbot.com. Basically, it’s a presentation style where you are asked to present about something you love for 5 minutes. 20 slides. 15 seconds each. Think Pecha Kucha. That’s all you need to know.

This edition of Ignite is being organised by Ubelly, they’re looking for nominations for other speakers, and of course you can keep an eye out for tickets on their Ignite page as well as the main Social Media Week London page in the near future.

And the topic? It’ll be about a brand new Olympic sport that’s perfectly suited for the British IT industry and world-class BOFH’s…

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012


There’s a Top Cat film coming out? Or will it be “Boss Cat: The Movie”? #

A generation of children in the UK need to know if the continuity announcer will get the name wrong again.

BBC: And now on BBC 1, Boss Cat!
Theme Song: “dah dah, dah dah, dah, Top Cat!”
Children watching: “giggles, they got it wrong… again!”

Hat tip to Digital Spy.


The AP on how to handle a fast moving news story #

 “We both agreed, again like [Saturday] night, with something this high stakes we would rather be behind and be right than be ahead and be wrong,” Anthony said.

In this case it was on the death of Joe Paterno, but can we have more of this, and less of “first!” please?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012


Piracy blog post on “stealing” quotes a scene about “stealing” that in itself is “stolen” #

There is a certain irony when a blog post about piracy and “stealing” quotes from Office Space:

You Don’t Understand. It’s, uh, very complicated. It’s, uh, it’s, it’s aggregate so I’m talking about fractions of a cent that, uh, over time, they add up to a lot.

Surely that scenario for that scene is in fact “stolen” from Superman 3. And yes, it’s “stealing” because in actual fact it’s copying, which is slightly different.


CD’s stand for Cool Delivery or something equally hip #

Rob Manuel, in praise of CDs:

CDs don’t pause between tracks like your iPod/Spotify. This matters on albums that are meant to run together. Say Dark Side of the Moon. These records are broken by this [MP3]  tech. If I was Roger Waters I’d take a shit in Apple’s office and refuse to stop shitting until this was fixed.

There are some more sensible reasons as well, but as a Mike Oldfield fan, I love this one. Of course Oldfield got around this by making Amarok just one track…


Why the 99 cent app is killing traditional app publishing #

Food for thought from David Barnard on App Cubby around the pricing of mobile apps and the race to zero for purchase price on apps, even with the big-ticket apps and games available for the mobile platforms. But Barnard goes beyond the problems for developers, and suggests this is  what Apple intended:

…Apple’s policies and the design of the App Store itself initiated and even accelerated the race to the bottom. It’s clear to me in hindsight that this was either Apple’s intent, or at least something they didn’t actively discourage. To Apple, apps are merely complements to their highly profitable hardware sales.

Where other companies , such as Amazon with the Kindle Fire and console makes like Sony with the soon to arrive PS Vita in Europe and US, rely on additional sales to make up their profit, that’s not the Apple way. The majority of profit is in the handset, and the temptation to buy it is in app ecosystem where you can load up on thirty apps for $20 after your purchase.

Thursday, January 19th, 2012


We don’t know if Instagram is coming to Windows Phone #

…but it makes for great headlines on all the tech sites this morning. My favourite bit of “responsibility chain” is on WP Central:

…FastCompany is citing an unnamed source that Microsoft may have worked out a deal with the developers behind Instagram for an official, certified Windows Phone version.


McQueen, Dunaway, Kiel, in The Terminator #

Loving this one, via the photoshopped Movies from another Dimension

…which reminds me of the Hugo winning short story “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt. If you like the poster, you’ve got some reading to do over a coffee!

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012


Jaiku: 1 Feb 2006 – 17 Jan 2012 #

A little corner of the internet, with its the data, connections, heritage, and history, has died.

Google just switched off the Jaiku server.

Monday, January 16th, 2012


I never saw Jack Dorsey as a Bond villian #

If Willy Wonka built a financial institution, instead of a chocolate factory, it would look something like Square. During an interview at the company’s San Francisco offices with Mr. Dorsey, we sat at a square table, in a square glass conference room — all of which are named after a famous town squares from around the world. Mr. Dorsey was eating nuts out of a square bowl. (Don’t worry, the nuts were still round, I checked.) Employees are even referred to as Squares.

NYT Bits.


The last PSP game I’ll ever buy #

…because any future games will need to work on the PS Vita as well, so it’s a goodbye to UMD as The Playstation Show welcomes 2012 with a bit of Solid Snake action and MGS Peacewalker

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Samsung Windows Phones look too much like Samsung Android Phones #

Got to love the alleged view of the UK mobile networks:

 Citing an “extremely reliable” source, [Professeur Thibault] first goes on to address the absence of a Focus S equivalent in Europe which is apparently due to carriers’ unwillingness to stock a device that looks so similar to the Galaxy S II. If there were ever a good incentive to not be lazy with design for Samsung, that would be it…and it really does look to have gotten to them. The source goes on to say the leading OEM is ready to release new models this year for Europe and that, “they should be beautiful”.

My emphasis, via Windows Phone Daily.

Friday, January 13th, 2012


Catch up on the Windows Phone news with the AAWP Insight Podcast #

It’s been a busy week in the Windows Phone world, what with CES, new models, and some great app announcements. What better way to catch up on all the news and make sense of it with the All About Windows Phone Team and our weekly podcast?

In this episode… we bring you all the Windows Phone related news from CES. There’s discussion of the Microsoft keynote, upcoming Xbox Live titles and the first Windows Phone LTE devices, the HTC TITAN 2 and the Nokia Lumia 900, both of which will be available through US operator AT&T. We finish, as usual, with an app pick from each of the team.

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