The Kindle Swindle

I know that many, many people have observed that all books and articles tend to look the same on the screen of an iPhone or Kindle or on the Kindle app of the iPad, and this strips the reading experience of texture?the array of sensory experiences that have come to be represented as the "book smell." This has become such a cliché by writers nostalgic for the simpler, more book-smell-redolent past that some humorist has even invented a fictitious aerosol spray, "for sale" at smellofbooks.com, that purports to allow readers to "finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much."

In the introduction to the 2006 edition of his prescient 1994 essay collection The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts summed up the deeper concern that those superficial aesthetic concerns stand in for: "The electronic impulse works against the durational reverie of reading. And however much other media take up the slack ... what is lost is the contemplative register. And this, in the chain of consequences, alters subjectivity, dissipates its intensity." In other words, what's at stake when we lose the book-specific experience of reading isn't just the emotional connection to the book or magazine as an object; we've redefined what reading is. The consequences of this redefinition can be positive, negative, or indifferent.  I set out to experience and describe device-reading with this set of concerns in mind, as someone who loves reading on, and writing for, both page and screen, but worries a lot about the growing primacy of the latter. 

The iPad and its brothers will never completely succeed in replicating the experience of reading a book, and that's fine: that's what books are for, and will continue to be for. What we need is?I hesitate to write the word, but there seems to be no substitute for it in this context?"content" that is actually tailored to the medium from which it will be consumed.  And for examples of how a medium can shape media, for better and for worse, we need only look to the Internet.

Looking to the Internet is what I haven't been doing lately. A few months ago?so, very belatedly?I became aware that the kind of mental rhythms that online reading and writing evoke and celebrate were inimical to the kind of work I'm trying to do.  (I'm working on a novel.) This won't be the kind of essay where the author has just discovered that the Internet is bad and that microblogging platforms are designed to be maximally addictive and that the only way to live a good, pure, intellectually whole-wheatish lifestyle is to abstain from rolling around in the Internet's glittering piles of trash and candy. (I have written that essay a weirdly huge number of times, and often in the form of blog posts.) But while I may not have been reading much online lately, like Jaron Lanier, the virtual reality impresario and author of the manifesto You Are Not a Gadget, I acknowledge that the Internet has excellent bright spots, without crediting it for being a semi-magical repository for all the world's knowledge and creativity. Also like Lanier, I think it's too bad that the infrastructure of most blogging and social media platforms devalues authorship and privileges semi-anonymous, consequence-free collaboration. But I also value blog writing on its own terms.

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Linus Torvalds approves Linux 3.0 RC1

Yay! Let the bikeshed painting discussions about version numbering begin (or at least re-start).

I decided to just bite the bullet, and call the next version 3.0. It will get released close enough to the 20-year mark, which is excuse enough for me, although honestly, the real reason is just that I can no longer comfortably count as high as 40.

The whole renumbering was discussed at last years Kernel Summit, and there was a plan to take it up this year too. But let's face it - what's the point of being in charge if you can't pick the bike shed color without holding a referendum on it? So I'm just going all alpha-male, and just renumbering it. You'll like it.

Now, my alpha-maleness sadly does not actually extend to all the scripts and Makefile rules, so the kernel is fighting back, and is calling itself 3.0.0-rc1. We'll have the usual 6-7 weeks to wrestle it into submission, and get scripts etc cleaned up, and the final release should be just "3.0". The -stable team can use the third number for their versioning.

So what are the big changes?

NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Sure, we have the usual two thirds driver changes, and a lot of random fixes, but the point is that 3.0 is *just* about renumbering, we are very much *not* doing a KDE-4 or a Gnome-3 here. No breakage, no special scary new features, nothing at all like that. We've been doing time-based releases for many years now, this is in no way about features. If you want an excuse for the renumbering, you really should look at the time-based one ("20 years") instead.

So no ABI changes, no API changes, no magical new features ? just steady plodding progress. In addition to the driver changes (and the bulk really is driver updates), we've had some nice VFS cleanups, various VM fixes, some nice initial ARM consolidation (yay!) and in general this is supposed to be a fairly normal release cycle. The merge window was a few days shorter than usual, but if that ends up meaning a smaller release and a nice stable 3.0 release, that is all good. There's absolutely no reason to aim for the traditional ".0" problems that so many projects have.

In fact, I think that in addition to the shorter merge window, I'm also considering make this one of my "Linus is being a difficult ^&^hole" releases, where I really want to be pretty strict about what I pull during the stabilization window. Part of that is that I'm going to be traveling next week with a slow atom laptop, so you had better convince me I *really* want to pull from you, because that thing really is not the most impressive piece of hardware ever built. It does the "git" workflow quite well, but let's just say that compiling the kernel is not quite the user experience I've gotten used to.

So be nice to me, and send me only really important fixes. And let's make sure we really make the next release not just an all new shiny number, but a good kernel too.

Ok?

Go forth and test,

Linus

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44005-linus-torvalds-approves-linux-30-rc1.html

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How LinkedIn has started copying Facebook

It?s always funny to see the big social networks copying features from each other and generally imitating the things that they see working elsewhere. Facebook has been especially good at it, copying everything from the @ symbol to jumping on Foursquare?s success with Facebook places.

LinkedIn has largely ignored these trends and chartered its own course? until recently? when it has started jumping on the success of Facebook and trying to copy many of the things that make Facebook the huge success that it is today. It?s smart to evolve and copy what is working elsewhere but also LinkedIn could see Facebook as a competitor one day due to its massive data collection and extent of its platform. Here is just how and why Linkedin is starting to copy Facebook in so many ways?

The Problem For LinkedIn

LinkedIn has an amazing platform but to a large extent people only go there for one of two reasons.

1. To get a new job

2. To look for business leads.

There are of course exceptions but when people mostly use your service for those 2 reasons it leaves them off on other sites most of the time. LinkedIn has been smart enough to realize that it needed to evolve from a static website into an open platform with a large focus on real time data and content. Recent initiatives like LinkedIn Today are helping keep users engaged but it?s from Facebook?s success that LinkedIs in taking most of its recent pointers?

Allowing Brands To Engage With The Platform

Unless you want to pay for standard advertising on LinkedIn the opportunities for brands to engage have been few and far between. It was a great place to recruit but in terms of reaching the 100 million business users on its platform brands had very few options. LinkedIn has however opened up the site in an effort to turn it into more of a platform in the same way that Facebook did. The early signs are good as brands start to develop campaigns around the data that the site can provide. This example from Volkswagen that shows the future of what brands will be doing on LinkedIn.

Focusing On Content Through The Wall

If you are a regular LinkedIn user you will have noticed how the site has changed in recent months. It used to be very static and you would simply head over to LinkedIn to search for people, but the new layout features a ?wall? at the front and center of the site encouraging you to share content. Having an activity stream just like Facebook keeps users more engaged and gives the site a more real time feel. It?s not quite on the Facebook level in terms of engagement but that is where they are hoping to head.

Sharing Buttons Starting To Appear Everywhere

Just like the Like button on Facebook the new share buttons from LinkedIn have started to appear all over the web. Although they are not as popular as the Like button they do provide millions of links back to LinkedIn. The most important thing here is that users choosing to hit the LinkedIn share button are pushing content back into LinkedIn and bringing the site to life by providing relevant information for their own networks.

Giving Companies Their Own Pages

Facebook had huge success introducing pages for companies and LinkedIn has been quick to do the same. Brands and businesses can now allow people to ?follow? them as well as sharing information with their users. The pages don?t have as much flexibility as Facebook pages but it is early days and they will no doubt expand them further soon.

LinkedIn Evolving Nicely

You can see how the LinkedIn site is evolving and clearly taking a lead from the huge success that Facebook has had. It?s all about getting more content into the site, making it more of a platform and hopefully having somewhere that the big brands can come in and target users based on the stunning data that LinkedIn has.

What do you think? IsLinkedIn copycatting Facebook or is this all their own innovation?

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/05/30/how-linkedin-has-started-copying-facebook/

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How I spent the weekend playing with my Boxee [TNW Review]

When I got home last Friday night, I couldn?t wait to get my hands on my Boxee. In case you haven?t heard of Boxee, it?s the easiest way to bring movies, TV shows, photos and music from the web to your TV. I had been using Boxee?s Web TV software for quite some time on my laptop but my MacBook?s circle of death was starting to get annoying. I needed new hardware. The little black and green glowing box sits next to your TV, and using it means you?ll never have to deal with messy HDMI cables and 2nd generation laptops when trying to watch Web TV again. Much like Apple?s TV (or much anticipated HDTV), Google TV or Roku, it is the cable box for the Internet era.

How to set-up: Set up your Boxee via wireless or Ethernet, connect it to your TV and power it on. Initial setup was easy with controls to ensure a proper fit to your screen. If you are living with a few roommates, I recommend setting up individual Boxee accounts that way you can bookmark movies, shows and save your preferences. From there you are taken to the homescreen and presented with the following options: Friends, Watch it Later, Shows, Movies, Apps and Files.

The hardware, which is made by home-networking giant D-Link, is sexy. But take a look inside and you?ll find the real party: TV shows, movies and apps all at your fingertips. To watch a TV show, click on Shows. Then click on a show to see all available episodes.  I?m watching the news again with John Stewart and catching up on TED talks in just three clicks. The Daily Show and many other popular TV shows that you?d find on Hulu like South Park, The Office, The Simpsons, Family Guy and Fringe are free. There?s also a wide assortment of premium TV such as Arrested Development, Gossip Girls and Modern Family for $1.99 per episode, which is a bit steep if you consider the costs of Hulu Plus.

Boxee offers a wide array of movies, which can be purchased for $3.99 HD quality through its newly released Vudu App. It would be rad if Boxee could notify the user that a movie was also available through Netflix for those with accounts, but I don?t see that feature at this time. Users can also choose from a wide arrange of free foreign and indie films.

If you are keen on downloading movies from torrent sites and watching them for free, Boxee is there for you. I added a few movie files from my computer to an SD card (that came with Boxee) and inserted the card ever so gently it into its side slot. Voilà! You can now play those movies easily by accessing Files on the main Boxee menu. And while some movies require different players, making watching them on your laptop a chore, Boxee played every file I slid its way like a true player.

A girl could get lost in Boxee?s apps all night. While the web has unlimited content, Boxee apps tailor web stuff for the TV. Apps include Pandora, Netflix, YouTube Leanback, Vevo, RSS Feeds, Vudu Movies, AccuWeather, Revision3, TechStars.TV, Adult Swim, TED, Khan Academy, Open Courseware, Boing Boing Video, MLB.TV, reddit TV, Vice, Flickr, Wired, The Creator?s Project, The Onion News Network, Vimeo, ?Cooking on Boxee? and The Daily Kitten, which is exactly what it sounds like- pictures of kittens!

Netflix has been a real winner in the apps section since it was announced in February of this year. Connect your accounts for Instant play of Netflix?s streaming collection and enjoy a better viewing experience than Netflix.com. The interface is a thousand times better than Netflix for the Wii, and comparable to that on Xbox and PS3. Boxee is continually adding new apps, (Hulu Plus has been added to the upcoming list), and on a personal note, I highly suggest it add a Shelby.TV app ASAP.

The Boxee browser is accessible through the ?Search URL? box or Boxee?s browser app, which uses Bing search. Boxee is all set up for social use for you to connect with Boxee friends via Google Buzz, Facebook and Twitter. Watching recommended videos and videos saved using Boxee?s ?watch later? bookmarklet will help you cut through the plethora of options. Access the Boxee bookmarklet by logging in here.

The Boxee Box includes an Intel Atom Processor, 1080p resolution, 5.1 surround sound, optical and stereo audio, HDMI video/audio out, wireless N/wired Internet, 2 USB ports, SD card slot, full HTML5 compliant Webkit browser, support for Flash 10.1 and high profile HD streaming. The device comes with a simple RF ?point-anywhere? black remote: one side has play/pause, direction, select and menu buttons; the other side has a full keyboard.

If you happen to lose your remote and don?t want to buy a new one, simply use your iPhone or Android device as a remote with the Boxee Remote App. The app connects to Boxee over WiFi and has two modes: Gesture and Buttons mode. Using Gesture mode, hold your thumb down and drag the Boxee logo around to move up/down/right/left. Drag it to the edge of the screen and hold it there to navigate long lists. The Click on the Boxee logo to perform an action. Use your phone?s keyboard to type in text.

Boxee?s software is frequently updated. The latest update included bookmarks and history in the browser, better file playback, movie trailers, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr in the share menu, more than 10 new languages and better audio control. The only annoying thing about this is that every time it updates, you have to reset your screen format.

So how does it stack up? In comparison to Apple?s TV, Boxee has nearly double the resolution and plays almost any file format while Apple TV is great for iTunes and stuff you can play on your iPod. Google TV is pretty amazing but Boxee is trying to replicate the TV watching experience with a remote as opposed to having to use a keyboard in your living room. Roku currently pushes all its content through 100 apps, while Boxee is adding over 400 apps from its library plus over 40,000 TV episodes and thousands of movies so no contest here. In comparison to Apple?s much anticipated HDTV? We?ll just have to wait and see.

Overall, I?ve really enjoyed using Boxee as both a dependable Web TV device and a discovery tool for great content through Boxee?s apps. The Boxee iPad app will be coming soon, so stay tuned for our next full TNW Boxee review.

Don?t want to keep powering up your old MacBook to watch the Web on your TV? Buy the Boxee Box by D-Link here. ($200)

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2011/05/30/how-i-spent-the-weekend-playing-with-my-boxee-tnw-review/

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On Our Desk - Mionix Propus 380

As you can imagine, we get lots of natty little bits and pieces sent into the bit-tech offices. Annoyingly, though, much of it is just a little too small or a little too silly to write about in a full page review. As a result, I?m trying to resurrect the On Our Desk series of articles that we used to cover all these little bits of gadgetry.

So without further ado I?ll tell you about the Mionix Propus 380 mouse mat, on which my CM Storm Inferno has been happily sitting for the last few days.

The first feature that grabbed me about the Propus 380 is that it looks good. It was actually its unusual shape and sleek, unfussy design that prompted me to pick it out from the pile of gaming mouse mats we?ve got sitting in the labs in the first place; it certainly looks like it means business.

On Our Desk - Mionix Propus 380

Once out of the packaging, I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality on show. The edges of the Propus 380 are very precisely cut, with no rough edges in sight. The upper tracking surface is also very firmly bonded to the rubber base of the mat; it certainly doesn't feel like the Propus 380 would suffer from the kind of delaminating or edge-peeling you may have seen on older mouse mats.

The surface of the mat is made from extremely fine-grained plastic, results in some very quick mouse movements. In fact, I was actually able to move my mouse almost too quickly compared to the cloth covered mat that the Propus 380 replaced, with very little drag or friction between the mouse and mat. Once I was used to it, though, the lack of friction meant that my mouse movement felt very precise, and that fatigue was less of a problem during long gaming sessions.

Measuring 380 x 260mm, the mat is wider than it is tall, but this means there?s plenty of room for large sweeping movements if you run your mouse with low sensitivity. If you don?t need all that width, though, then you can rotate the mat through 90 degrees. What's more, in this orientation, the indents in the upper and lower edge of the mat help it to butt up nearly with your keyboard.

On Our Desk - Mionix Propus 380

If you?re into your LAN gaming, then the fact that the Propus 380 doesn?t roll up could be an issue. It does have a degree of bend in it, but it'll crease if you push it too far. For most people, though, this is unlikely to be a problem, and it also means the edges of the mat won?t curl with time.

Of course, a gaming orientated mouse mat is a luxury; most decent mice these days will track quite happily without any mouse mat at all. The Propus 380 is a great piece of kit, though. It feels well made, and has a surface that provides very smooth and quick tracking for a laser mouse. At £17 it couldn?t be called cheap, but at least you feel like you?re getting £17 worth of kit; it?ll definitely be staying on my desk for the foreseeable future.

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The Kindle Swindle

I know that many, many people have observed that all books and articles tend to look the same on the screen of an iPhone or Kindle or on the Kindle app of the iPad, and this strips the reading experience of texture?the array of sensory experiences that have come to be represented as the "book smell." This has become such a cliché by writers nostalgic for the simpler, more book-smell-redolent past that some humorist has even invented a fictitious aerosol spray, "for sale" at smellofbooks.com, that purports to allow readers to "finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much."

In the introduction to the 2006 edition of his prescient 1994 essay collection The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts summed up the deeper concern that those superficial aesthetic concerns stand in for: "The electronic impulse works against the durational reverie of reading. And however much other media take up the slack ... what is lost is the contemplative register. And this, in the chain of consequences, alters subjectivity, dissipates its intensity." In other words, what's at stake when we lose the book-specific experience of reading isn't just the emotional connection to the book or magazine as an object; we've redefined what reading is. The consequences of this redefinition can be positive, negative, or indifferent.  I set out to experience and describe device-reading with this set of concerns in mind, as someone who loves reading on, and writing for, both page and screen, but worries a lot about the growing primacy of the latter. 

The iPad and its brothers will never completely succeed in replicating the experience of reading a book, and that's fine: that's what books are for, and will continue to be for. What we need is?I hesitate to write the word, but there seems to be no substitute for it in this context?"content" that is actually tailored to the medium from which it will be consumed.  And for examples of how a medium can shape media, for better and for worse, we need only look to the Internet.

Looking to the Internet is what I haven't been doing lately. A few months ago?so, very belatedly?I became aware that the kind of mental rhythms that online reading and writing evoke and celebrate were inimical to the kind of work I'm trying to do.  (I'm working on a novel.) This won't be the kind of essay where the author has just discovered that the Internet is bad and that microblogging platforms are designed to be maximally addictive and that the only way to live a good, pure, intellectually whole-wheatish lifestyle is to abstain from rolling around in the Internet's glittering piles of trash and candy. (I have written that essay a weirdly huge number of times, and often in the form of blog posts.) But while I may not have been reading much online lately, like Jaron Lanier, the virtual reality impresario and author of the manifesto You Are Not a Gadget, I acknowledge that the Internet has excellent bright spots, without crediting it for being a semi-magical repository for all the world's knowledge and creativity. Also like Lanier, I think it's too bad that the infrastructure of most blogging and social media platforms devalues authorship and privileges semi-anonymous, consequence-free collaboration. But I also value blog writing on its own terms.

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Weekend tech reading: RadioShack calls for DIY community's input

Speak your mind and help RadioShack suck less We can all agree that RadioShack isn?t exactly the DIY mecca it once was. What used to be a haven for amateur radio operators, tinkerers, and builders alike has devolved into a stripmall mainstay full of cell phones and overpriced junk. RadioShack knows that they have fallen out of your good graces, and since you are the demographic that put them on the map, they are appealing to the DIY community for input. Hack a Day

Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone A rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft. Microsoft has admitted selling 2 million Windows Phone licenses (though not devices.) Estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone, that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million. Asymco

Computer de-evolution: Features that lost the evolutionary war Today's computers offer processing power, speed, storage, Internet connectivity, display size and quality, and other capabilities that few even dreamed of ten or more years ago, certainly not at prices affordable for any developer or even consumer. But there are some things they don't do that the old, slow, often command-line-intead-of-GUI-oriented applications did. ITworld

Make your mark by stopping hackers In reality, hacking is easy once you know what you're doing. Defending is hard. If you want to truly impress the world, develop systems and applications that will be used by a lot of people while being resistant to easy hacking. Anyone can knock down a garage. But build one that can't be taken down by a blockhead swinging a heavy sledgehammer, and you've done something. PCWorld

CEO Ballmer has support of Bill Gates, Microsoft board Microsoft?s Steve Ballmer appears to have the support of the company?s board of directors, despite the call from one major investor that the CEO should be fired. Greenlight Capital Inc. President David Einhorn causes a major stir by calling for Ballmer?s replacement, saying he is dragging down the company?s performance. TechFlash

Sony won't make massive investment in PS4 Sony's PS3 was pretty slow out of the gate with its $599 price tag, but Sony had little choice in terms of pricing due to the heavy costs surrounding Blu-ray and the Cell processor. The R&D and manufacturing took its toll on the company's bottom line and only now is the PlayStation division finally reaping some profits. IndustryGamers

Inner Moon as wet as Earth Contrary to popular belief, the early moon could have been as wet as Earth's mantle, new analysis from an Apollo lunar sample shows. The discovery stems from sophisticated analysis of tiny bits of ancient magma sealed inside solid crystals. The so-called "melt inclusions" are no bigger than the width of a human hair. Discovery

Contrast ratio (or how every TV manufacturer lies to you) Contrast ratio is the most important aspect of a TV's performance. More than any other single metric, a set's contrast ratio will be the most noticeable difference between two TVs. That is, if you could juxtapose them. Which you can't. Or if you could compare their claimed specs. Which you can't. CNET

Depixelizing pixel art We describe a novel algorithm for extracting a resolution-independent vector representation from pixel art images, which enables magnifying the results by an arbitrary amount without image degradation. Imgur

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/43991-weekend-tech-reading-radioshack-calls-for-diy-communitys-input.html

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The Kindle Swindle

I know that many, many people have observed that all books and articles tend to look the same on the screen of an iPhone or Kindle or on the Kindle app of the iPad, and this strips the reading experience of texture?the array of sensory experiences that have come to be represented as the "book smell." This has become such a cliché by writers nostalgic for the simpler, more book-smell-redolent past that some humorist has even invented a fictitious aerosol spray, "for sale" at smellofbooks.com, that purports to allow readers to "finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much."

In the introduction to the 2006 edition of his prescient 1994 essay collection The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts summed up the deeper concern that those superficial aesthetic concerns stand in for: "The electronic impulse works against the durational reverie of reading. And however much other media take up the slack ... what is lost is the contemplative register. And this, in the chain of consequences, alters subjectivity, dissipates its intensity." In other words, what's at stake when we lose the book-specific experience of reading isn't just the emotional connection to the book or magazine as an object; we've redefined what reading is. The consequences of this redefinition can be positive, negative, or indifferent.  I set out to experience and describe device-reading with this set of concerns in mind, as someone who loves reading on, and writing for, both page and screen, but worries a lot about the growing primacy of the latter. 

The iPad and its brothers will never completely succeed in replicating the experience of reading a book, and that's fine: that's what books are for, and will continue to be for. What we need is?I hesitate to write the word, but there seems to be no substitute for it in this context?"content" that is actually tailored to the medium from which it will be consumed.  And for examples of how a medium can shape media, for better and for worse, we need only look to the Internet.

Looking to the Internet is what I haven't been doing lately. A few months ago?so, very belatedly?I became aware that the kind of mental rhythms that online reading and writing evoke and celebrate were inimical to the kind of work I'm trying to do.  (I'm working on a novel.) This won't be the kind of essay where the author has just discovered that the Internet is bad and that microblogging platforms are designed to be maximally addictive and that the only way to live a good, pure, intellectually whole-wheatish lifestyle is to abstain from rolling around in the Internet's glittering piles of trash and candy. (I have written that essay a weirdly huge number of times, and often in the form of blog posts.) But while I may not have been reading much online lately, like Jaron Lanier, the virtual reality impresario and author of the manifesto You Are Not a Gadget, I acknowledge that the Internet has excellent bright spots, without crediting it for being a semi-magical repository for all the world's knowledge and creativity. Also like Lanier, I think it's too bad that the infrastructure of most blogging and social media platforms devalues authorship and privileges semi-anonymous, consequence-free collaboration. But I also value blog writing on its own terms.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=3c9611208157abd65569a378e16c1e84

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The Kindle Swindle

I know that many, many people have observed that all books and articles tend to look the same on the screen of an iPhone or Kindle or on the Kindle app of the iPad, and this strips the reading experience of texture?the array of sensory experiences that have come to be represented as the "book smell." This has become such a cliché by writers nostalgic for the simpler, more book-smell-redolent past that some humorist has even invented a fictitious aerosol spray, "for sale" at smellofbooks.com, that purports to allow readers to "finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much."

In the introduction to the 2006 edition of his prescient 1994 essay collection The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts summed up the deeper concern that those superficial aesthetic concerns stand in for: "The electronic impulse works against the durational reverie of reading. And however much other media take up the slack ... what is lost is the contemplative register. And this, in the chain of consequences, alters subjectivity, dissipates its intensity." In other words, what's at stake when we lose the book-specific experience of reading isn't just the emotional connection to the book or magazine as an object; we've redefined what reading is. The consequences of this redefinition can be positive, negative, or indifferent.  I set out to experience and describe device-reading with this set of concerns in mind, as someone who loves reading on, and writing for, both page and screen, but worries a lot about the growing primacy of the latter. 

The iPad and its brothers will never completely succeed in replicating the experience of reading a book, and that's fine: that's what books are for, and will continue to be for. What we need is?I hesitate to write the word, but there seems to be no substitute for it in this context?"content" that is actually tailored to the medium from which it will be consumed.  And for examples of how a medium can shape media, for better and for worse, we need only look to the Internet.

Looking to the Internet is what I haven't been doing lately. A few months ago?so, very belatedly?I became aware that the kind of mental rhythms that online reading and writing evoke and celebrate were inimical to the kind of work I'm trying to do.  (I'm working on a novel.) This won't be the kind of essay where the author has just discovered that the Internet is bad and that microblogging platforms are designed to be maximally addictive and that the only way to live a good, pure, intellectually whole-wheatish lifestyle is to abstain from rolling around in the Internet's glittering piles of trash and candy. (I have written that essay a weirdly huge number of times, and often in the form of blog posts.) But while I may not have been reading much online lately, like Jaron Lanier, the virtual reality impresario and author of the manifesto You Are Not a Gadget, I acknowledge that the Internet has excellent bright spots, without crediting it for being a semi-magical repository for all the world's knowledge and creativity. Also like Lanier, I think it's too bad that the infrastructure of most blogging and social media platforms devalues authorship and privileges semi-anonymous, consequence-free collaboration. But I also value blog writing on its own terms.

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Weekend tech reading: RadioShack calls for DIY community's input

Speak your mind and help RadioShack suck less We can all agree that RadioShack isn?t exactly the DIY mecca it once was. What used to be a haven for amateur radio operators, tinkerers, and builders alike has devolved into a stripmall mainstay full of cell phones and overpriced junk. RadioShack knows that they have fallen out of your good graces, and since you are the demographic that put them on the map, they are appealing to the DIY community for input. Hack a Day

Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone A rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft. Microsoft has admitted selling 2 million Windows Phone licenses (though not devices.) Estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone, that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million. Asymco

Computer de-evolution: Features that lost the evolutionary war Today's computers offer processing power, speed, storage, Internet connectivity, display size and quality, and other capabilities that few even dreamed of ten or more years ago, certainly not at prices affordable for any developer or even consumer. But there are some things they don't do that the old, slow, often command-line-intead-of-GUI-oriented applications did. ITworld

Make your mark by stopping hackers In reality, hacking is easy once you know what you're doing. Defending is hard. If you want to truly impress the world, develop systems and applications that will be used by a lot of people while being resistant to easy hacking. Anyone can knock down a garage. But build one that can't be taken down by a blockhead swinging a heavy sledgehammer, and you've done something. PCWorld

CEO Ballmer has support of Bill Gates, Microsoft board Microsoft?s Steve Ballmer appears to have the support of the company?s board of directors, despite the call from one major investor that the CEO should be fired. Greenlight Capital Inc. President David Einhorn causes a major stir by calling for Ballmer?s replacement, saying he is dragging down the company?s performance. TechFlash

Sony won't make massive investment in PS4 Sony's PS3 was pretty slow out of the gate with its $599 price tag, but Sony had little choice in terms of pricing due to the heavy costs surrounding Blu-ray and the Cell processor. The R&D and manufacturing took its toll on the company's bottom line and only now is the PlayStation division finally reaping some profits. IndustryGamers

Inner Moon as wet as Earth Contrary to popular belief, the early moon could have been as wet as Earth's mantle, new analysis from an Apollo lunar sample shows. The discovery stems from sophisticated analysis of tiny bits of ancient magma sealed inside solid crystals. The so-called "melt inclusions" are no bigger than the width of a human hair. Discovery

Contrast ratio (or how every TV manufacturer lies to you) Contrast ratio is the most important aspect of a TV's performance. More than any other single metric, a set's contrast ratio will be the most noticeable difference between two TVs. That is, if you could juxtapose them. Which you can't. Or if you could compare their claimed specs. Which you can't. CNET

Depixelizing pixel art We describe a novel algorithm for extracting a resolution-independent vector representation from pixel art images, which enables magnifying the results by an arbitrary amount without image degradation. Imgur

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