Week of 2010/11/21

[Comment]

I start to believe that one of the foundation of Capitalism is the need for people to rip off other people; to make money of the weak .. Would Darwinism starve Capitalism?

[NyTimes]

• "With Kinect Controller, Hackers Take Liberties" [nytimes]
• "Why Cloud Computing Sells and NoSQL Is Fading" [nytimes]
• "For DecorMyEyes, Bad Publicity Is a Good Thing" [nytimes]
• "A Dim View of Betting on Start-Ups" [nytimes]

[Links]

• LinkedIn Signal [link]
• Video: Obama Replaces Costly High-Speed Rail Plan With High-Speed Bus Plan [link]
• Video: "Point of Control: Finance" with John Doerr and Fred Wilson [link]

Week of 2010/11/14

[Comment]

Managed software delivery .. Apple could soon be knowing everything about the software installed on my computer. Apple already keeps track of all the apps installed and updated on my iPhone and my iPad. They will be able to keep track of the same information on the Mac platform as soon as they get the new app-store up and running .. interesting. Anyway, as long as Apple doesn't misuse the gathered information, and as long as I can keep control of the software deployment process, I guess I can live with it.

[NyTimes]

• "Location Services Have Not Caught On, Report Says" [nytimes]
• "Google TV's Chaotic Interface" [nytimes]
• "Ariba's Business-to-Business Network Gains Traction" [nytimes]

[Links]

• 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web [link]
• Video: A Darwinian theory of beauty [link]
• Video: The Animators of Life [link]

Week of 2010/11/07

[Comment]

A simple, but unexpected approach: Power sockets in China support different types of power plugs. You can either use a US, UK, German, or Swiss power plug, as long as the power supply of your appliance supports 220V. Reminds me of a well designed pluggable component framework. The foundation for flexibility and extensibility .. and world domination.

[NyTimes]

• "Foreclosure Lawyers Put Second Mortgages on Clients' Homes" [nytimes]
• "Facebook Alumni Begin to Scatter to Start-Ups" [nytimes]
• "RockMelt Unveils Web Browser for Facebook Era" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Prezi: The Zooming Presentation Editor [link]
• Foodspotting: Makes finding and sharing food recommendations easier [link]

Week of 2010/10/31

[Comment]

'Dumpster Diving' .. I like to browse thru my old stack of computer related papers and books. It is surprising how applicable those 10 to 20 year old books and papers still are. It feels like computer science hasn't changed at all. Kind of embarrassing? No, not really, it is very similar to physics and its fundamental laws. Those haven't changed at all for centuries. But thanks to ongoing improvements in technology we are able to apply and use those fundamental laws in many different ways. Like flying from San Francisco to Detroit in a few hours, or being able to travel to the moon .. or streaming live pictures to my phone, or finding results in petabytes of data within a few milliseconds .. old stuff rearranged in new fascinating ways.

[NyTimes]

• "Wearable Cameras Move Beyond Sports to the Mainstream" [nytimes]
• "Lessons Learned From GreenBeat: Data Is the New Wave in Cleantech" [nytimes]
• "'Great Migrations' From National Geographic - Review" [nytimes]
• "Politicians Caught in the Web in Past Images" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Hiring Executives: If You’ve Never Done the Job, How Do You Hire Somebody Good? [link]
• A VC: Your Worst Enemy Is Yourself [link]
• Video: LadyJava Music Video for JavaZone [link]

Week of 2010/10/24

[Comment]

I came across following article in the NyTimes this week: "Android Market Is Attracting More App Developers". There was one section that stood out:

"Google is not associated with things you pay for, and Android is an extension of that, said Mr. Hall of Larva Labs. You don’t pay for Google apps, so it bleeds into the expectations for the third-party apps, too.".

Which made me realize how Google-ig the Android phones are. Apps are free, paid by ads, which are distributed, managed, and sold by Google's ad platform .. another good reason for me to stick with paid apps on the iOS platform.

[NyTimes]

• "Mount Everest Cell Towers Installed" [nytimes]
• "Soaring Above India’s Poverty, a 27-Story Home" [nytimes]
• "Microsoft Buying Canesta to Bolster Gesture Technology" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Firesheep In Wolves' Clothing: Extension Lets You Hack Into Twitter, Facebook Accounts Easily [link]
• Mint Data [link]
• Attention and Information [link]

Week of 2010/10/17

[Comment]

It was just a matter of time until some company figured out how to link ad-world with real-world. While web-browsing, while checking Facebook or LinkedIn we get marked with different "unique-user-id"s. Those id's by themselves are pretty harmless, they don't contain any "personal information". But if you are able to link those together and enrich them with personal information from Facebook or LinkedIn, they suddenly become extremely valuable, especially for the advertisement industry .. and it sounds like that is happening .. ka-boom.

[NyTimes]

• "The Mundane Credit Card Gets a Modern Makeover" [nytimes]
• "E-Readers Collective" [nytimes]
• "Big Networks Block Web Shows From Google TV" [nytimes]
• "Who Lives There: A Home in the Pyramid Atop Seattle's Smith Tower" [nytimes]
• "iPhones for Toddlers" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Rapleaf's Web: Much Wider Than You Think [link]
• There is No New Media: It’s All New Consumption [link]
• How augmented reality apps can catch on [link]

Week of 2010/10/10

[Comment]

The Reality show concept came to the movies. My oldest daughter pointed out that the movie "The Social Network" feels like Reality television. The movie is built on the same ingredients that help to make those TV shows popular. I have to agree, but I still liked the movie, and at least the actors were real actors.

[NyTimes]

• "A Cob Oven and the 36-Hour Dinner Party" [nytimes]
• "How the 'Kitchen Incubator' Really Works" [nytimes]
• "Celebrating Boomboxes, the 'Instant Parties' of the '80s" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Video: Coachelletta [link]
• Video: Ze Frank's web playroom [link]
• Aston Martin "Cygnet" concept city car to go into production [link]

Week of 2010/10/03

[Comment]

It was a great week for Science. "Physicists win Nobel using sticky tape and pencil" and the completion of the "Census of Marine Life".

[NyTimes]

• "Flawed Bank Paperwork Aggravates a Foreclosure Crisis" [nytimes]
• "Zuckerberg’s Legal Options Are Slender" [nytimes]
• "Geolocation Services Can Help Build Your Business" [nytimes]
• "Companies Need 4 Leadership Types, Says VMware’s Chief" [nytimes]

[Links]

• The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe [link]
• 360 degree cockpit views [link]
• Video: The Rise of the Angels by Naval Ravikant [link]
• Book: Business Model Generation [link]

Week of 2010/09/26

[Comment]

David against Goliath .. Content against Service .. AOL against Google .. Project Devil against Watch This Space - "Better Content - Better Ad" against "Display ads are big - They're gonna be huge" .. and I'm not even liking the ad market. I still struggle with the fact that content on the web gets measured indirectly via ads placed with that content .. a weird but obviously profitable system .. AOL at least tries to make it look better .. the content and the bundled ad.

[NyTimes]

• "Netflix Faces New Competition in Streaming" [nytimes]
• "A Simple Swipe on the iPhone, and You’re Paid" [nytimes]
• "Shapeways and Its 3-D Printing Comes To New York" [nytimes]
• "The Claim: Gargling With Salt Water Can Ease Cold Symptoms" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Video: Journalism in the Age of Data [link]
• Video: Multi-Tasking is Bad For Your Brain. Here’s How To Fix It. [link]
• Video: Giggling Politician .. Buendnerfleisch [link] [link]

Week of 2010/09/19

[Comment]

20 years ago my Macintosh got infected by a computer virus spread via an infected floppy. Today USB and memory sticks became the perfect medium to distribute viruses and malware. It is pretty easy to understand why. Most everyone would be tempted to check out the content stored on a USB-stick, especially if the stick was lying on the ground in front of a company building.

[NyTimes]

• "Malware Hits Computerized Industrial Equipment" [nytimes]
• "Code Known as Flash Cookies Raises Privacy Concerns" [nytimes]
• "A Loophole Big Enough for a Cookie to Fit Through" [nytimes]
• "Insect Dinners: Waiter, There’s Soup in My Bug" [nytimes]
• "Doctor’s Orders: Eat Well to Be Well" [nytimes]
• "In Worries About Sweeteners, Think of All Sugars" [nytimes]

[Links]

• Buildings of Detroit [link]
• Video: Desktop Manufacturing [link]
• Video: BYUN [link]