Great news for those using 2.5″ hard drives, I was worried that after the Thai flooding and rise of flash that the hard drive market had peaked. With a 5400 RPM speed and high density platters, the Samsung Spinpoint M9T does not consume any more power than a standard laptop drive does (on paper). Hopefully this will be available soon to OEMs and consumers in external drives, laptops, iMacs and more.
On Mental Illness
Last week the U.S. government announced new regulations to enable benefit and treatment parity between physical and mental illnesses. Addressing mental health is a deeply personal issue and the effects, like any illness, can be radiated beyond just the individual who is suffering. Below are two articles that give insight into this collateral damage.
From David Sedaris in The New Yorker (via Kottke):
From Larry M. Lake in Slate:
More Than Words
It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. The San Jose Mercury News has a gallery of pictures worth 2.8 million square feet. The gallery shows an intricately detailed model of the new lair headquarters Apple plans to build in Cupertino, California.
The campus was approved this week by the Cupertino City Council, with comments from Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer available via video. In the video Oppenheimer mentions that Apple plans to put the sizable square footage to good use “for decades to come.”
If the plans, renders and model are any indication, this campus going to be an amazing work environment.
That Nokia Article
“The kind of person who wants to use a bad telephone does not exist“
The Helsingin Sanomat probably had its best traffic week ever after the above article made the tech blog rounds. In it, Lauri Malkavaara reprints the letter she wrote to Nokia back in 2008, adding some backstory to what happened after she sent it.
This insight raises a bit of a paradox for me when considering the fate of Nokia as a consumer telephone company. Either they really believed that their products were better than iPhone and would remain dominant as the market grew; or, upon realizing the threat of the iPhone, they were completely unable to mount a timely response. In other words, which is worse: that they never saw the end coming, or that they knew the end was coming and could do nothing to save themselves? I’m not sure.
Based on the article, it would seem Nokia saw themselves as the latter, for what it’s worth. Then again, history will probably be given a few revisions as Nokia and Windows transition custody of the phones their awkward relationship birthed. Give the article a read and decide which side of the paradox you think Nokia falls on.
iOS Store Suggestion
Why is it impossible for the app store (actually all of them) to remember my place? One of the more frustrating quirks of the app store experience.
If I am in a list, say “Top Free Apps” for instance, and I tap an app to get a better look, going back a screen to the list dumps me back to the top, not where I left off. This is opposite of how it should work; it needs to remember my place on the page. By constantly making you start over for app discovery, you are much less likely to continue using the app store app to find apps. I know I only like to go in when I know exactly what I am looking for (and even then it takes far too long).
PC Suggestion
I’ve recently re-discovered the awesome site Ninite. For the uninitiated, Ninite offers an easy way to install dozens of applications, utilities and plug-ins. They also have a paid segment that allows for keeping all these things up to date.
As PC sales continue to tank slump decline, one assumes manufacturers are looking for ways to differentiate. Aside from the Microsoft Signature Series, I’m not aware of a program that allows you to customize the out-of-box experience. Motorola and Amazon use their respective companies’ accounts to provide a personalized experience out of the box, but they don’t allow for customized app payloads.
If a PC maker was to partner with Ninite or offer a copy-cat service, it would be a unique experience for the customer. Having all your apps pre-installed, minus the bloat and unnecessary crap, out of the box with your new PC would be a great experience. Including restore media customized to your machine would complete the package. This would be even better for volume buyers from schools and businesses, saving countless hours of deployment.
iOS Suggestion
Here is a logical failure of iOS that has always bugged me. When exiting an app by pressing the home button, why does it drop you back to an open folder and not the home screen? It seems like there’s potential for a person to be lost when pressing the home button doesn’t take them back home. At best, it’s just annoying.
Institutional Injustice
Remember civil forfeiture? Here’s another story where it appears to have been invoked on questionable grounds. As the case moves forward, it will be interesting to see if there really is anything suspicious or illicit happening at the grocery store.
1PW FT(W)
AgileBits released a major new version of their flagship product, 1Password. The leading cross-platform password manager, the latest version has received positive press from places like 9to5Mac, MacStories, TUAW, The Verge and many more.
Protecting your passwords is just a mandatory responsibility now, like locking your doors or securing your wi-fi network. Not doing so leaves everything you do online open to exploitation (just ask Mat Honan). Whether you use a post-it note on the computer, or the same password for every site, you are asking to have your trust broken and digital identity ruined. 1Password does what it says on the tin, allowing you to remember just one password while providing unique, strong passwords for each website or log in you have.
A great partnership that makes natural sense would be between AgileBits and File Transporter. File Transporter by Connected Data, provides a private, personal version of Drop Box. A seamless experience of 1Password software on top of Transporter hardware would be a natural partnership for personal security.
Not Exactly Crucial
Can we stop pretending that the NFL’s breast cancer awareness campaign, “A Crucial Catch” is substantially helping? The NFL won’t say how much actually goes to cancer research, but suffice to say if it was a number to be proud of, they would disclose it.
Beyond that, making the entire league look terrible by accessorizing with an awful color for a month every year is insulting to fans. If you want to go pink, then go totally pink. Top to bottom. Heck, make the official color of the Superbowl big game pink. In the end the current tactics just betray the indifference the league owners really feel about everything other than profit.
Trapped Speed 