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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 27 May 2012 01:31:07 +0000

Sony hand-cranked USB charger replenishes energy without an outlet

tags: gadget

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:30:58 +0000

11 “Modern Antiques” Today’s Kids Have Probably Never Seen – Mental Floss

I’ve seen only no 9 (no draft window) thanks to my grandfather’s Fiat. I doubt most of the others were even seen in India.

tags: history design antiques
What Amazon’s ebook strategy means – Charlie’s Diary

Very interesting outlook – the book publishers seem to have painted themselves into a corner here. It’s not very different from what happened between Apple & the music industry.

tags: ebooks amazon monopoly publishing drm future
iTextEditors – iPhone and iPad text/code editors and writing tools compared

That’s a lot of text editors for a platform not conducive to content creation

tags: ipad ios apps writing text

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:31:03 +0000

93-year-old lens hacked onto a Canon 5D Mark II with amazing results | The Verge

93-year-old lens hacked onto a Canon 5D Mark II with amazing results http://t.co/WvljfnTS

tags: twitterfav
Your Old iPad Will Suddenly Feel a Lot Smaller – The Next Web

Suddenly, the storage on your old iPad or iPad 2 is going to feel a lot smaller (@martinsfp /… http://t.co/DMTkwgIJ http://t.co/yhMbydDk

tags: twitterfav

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 01:30:51 +0000

School excursions
Transparency Life Sciences | drug development you control

Interesting idea, but will it fly?
“Transparency Life Sciences is the world’s first drug development company based on open innovation. Our goal is to develop medicines for significant unmet medical needs by acquiring promising drug compounds, designing studies via crowdsourced methods, and conducting those clinical studies with unmatched productivity.”

tags: transparency development medicine opensource
Comparing today’s computers to 1995′s | Relatively Interesting

My first PC was a 286 with 1 MB RAM, a 40 MB HD, 5 1/4″ floppy drive, CGA monitor, no mouse, no sound, no CD-ROM.
Also used a dB Spectrum before that – it used a cassette recorder for storage, had 64K memory, and used a TV as display.

tags: computers history technology
Start 2012 by Taking 2 Minutes to Clean Your Apps Permissions

Handy website that provides you with links to the app settings pages of different online services like facebook, Google etc. Good to visit these pages from time to time & revoke access of any suspicious or unwanted apps.

tags: privacy permission socialmedia apps tool web
Right versus pragmatic – Marco.org

Well summed up:
“Relying solely on yelling about what’s right isn’t a pragmatic approach for the media industry to take. And it’s not working. It’s unrealistic and naïve to expect everyone to do the “right” thing when the alternative is so much easier, faster, cheaper, and better for so many of them.”

tags: copyright Business piracy
The Death Star Is a Surprisingly Cost-Effective Weapons System | Mother Jones

Turns out that it is indeed very cost effective, given the size of the empire. Also, don’t miss out on the comments picked out by the author.

tags: weapons economics starwars

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 01:30:57 +0000

#A VC: The Management Team

Particularly for knowledge centric organizations:
“For every Steve Jobs, there are a thousand leaders who learned to hire smart people and let them build great things in a nurturing environment of empowerment and it was AWESOME. That doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It doesn’t mean letting people do bad work. It means hiring smart people who get things done—and then getting the hell out of the way.”

tags: management startup leadership

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 01:31:19 +0000

8-bit Prince of Persia takes on the real world | The Verge

Prince of Persia in real life… easily the best thing I’ve seen all week. Video: http://t.co/EKsPzMfw

tags: twitterfav
Weekend Diversion: Fighting on the Internet : Starts With A Bang

Quite a lot of interesting graphics, and as Calvin said ”As far as I’m concerned, if something is so complicated that you can’t explain it in 10 seconds, then it’s probably not worth knowing anyway.” – explains trolls pretty well.

tags: internet argument comics
Mobile Sites vs. Apps: The Coming Strategy Shift (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)

Interesting piece on usability & situations in which each is applicable:
“Apps may remain better for tasks that are intensely feature-rich applications, such as photo editing — whereas mobile sites will be better for design problems like e-commerce/m-commerce, corporate websites, news, medical info, social networking, etc. that are rich in content but don’t require intense data manipulation.”

tags: mobile apps html5 design usability ios android
Will Deaths By Social Network Spur Calls To Ban Facebook? – Forbes

Will Deaths By Social Network Spur Calls To Ban Facebook? http://t.co/itSuSL64

tags: twitterfav
Microsoft was running Windows on ARM two years ago | The Verge

Microsoft was running Windows on ARM two years ago http://t.co/EvzAVxAh

tags: twitterfav

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:30:48 +0000

Eric Cantor, Science, And The Central Planning Fallacy – Forbes

Eric Cantor, Science, And The Central Planning Fallacy http://t.co/6i0Qhnak

tags: twitterfav

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:30:51 +0000

The Corner: How Amazon’s KDP Select Saved My Book

An excellent demo of how authors can leverage Amazon to publicize their work. Also highlights the way in which the long tail can go mainstream using the power of free. Chris Anderson would be really proud.

tags: amazon book publishing longtail
How to name a web browser (by those who have) – thebeebs – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

Interesting post on how the browsers have been named – not all are from direct sources though.

tags: web browser naming
Bill Gates: ‘I wrote Steve Jobs a letter as he was dying. He kept it by his bed’ – Telegraph

Bill Gates: ‘I wrote Steve Jobs a letter as he was dying. He kept it by his bed’ (@maryriddell… http://t.co/WOqWTR9k http://t.co/tue24U6A

tags: twitterfav
Bustling Movement of Megacities – My Modern Metropolis

Through long exposures, photographer Martin Roemers captures the hustle and bustle of megacities. http://t.co/iEjxSQB2

tags: twitterfav
How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep: Grooming + Health : Details

For the weekend: Steps on how to get a good night’s #sleep http://t.co/KNks1KOo

tags: sleep twitterfav
Your Own Evil Lair, Available Immediately! : Discovery News

A real steal at $3m – comes with a 20,000 sq foot building, 2 bedroom house, helipad, wells & the ability to withstand a 5-megaton nuclear blast

tags: discovery news facility
- 20,000-square-foot building, basketball court, three-bedroom house, helicopter landing pad, two wells from which to draw water and a barn
- Fiber Optic OC-48 cable
- the facility can withstand a 5-megaton nuclear blast.
- rock bottom price of $2,950,000.

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:31:05 +0000

For $2 a Star, a Retailer Gets 5-Star Reviews – NYTimes.com

This is how you game the review system it seems, till the systems games you.

tags: reviews nytimes ethics amazon
Art masterpieces drawn on an office whiteboard by Bill Taylor – Telegraph

Art masterpieces drawn on an office whiteboard by Bill Taylor http://t.co/AVxGPm5q

tags: twitterfav
The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights in Britain – Telegraph

Pictures: The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights in Britain http://t.co/htVP0Vyx

tags: twitterfav
A Healthy Information Diet: The Case for Conscious Consumption – Maria Popova – Health – The Atlantic

RT @TheAtlanticHLTH The case for conscious information consumption: http://t.co/RCSpBmg7 by @brainpicker

tags: twitterfav
Rare Pictures From the Dawn of NASA Spaceflight

Rare photos from the early days of NASA spaceflight: http://t.co/XQFXNh1a

tags: twitterfav
Retro Future Ads For Facebook, YouTube & Skype

Quite creative for sure

tags: facebook ads twitter retro skype humour youtube
Does Online Piracy Hurt The Economy? A Look At The Numbers – Forbes

Does Online Piracy Hurt The Economy? A Look At The Numbers http://t.co/bBgWNhVD

tags: twitterfav
Amazon setting up first fulfillment center in India| Reuters

Amazon setting up first “fulfillment center” in India (@rtrswalibarr / Reuters) http://t.co/nbqdaAhR http://t.co/MtW4JwxQ

tags: twitterfav

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Interesting links (weekly)

Aditya — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:31:03 +0000

Fantastic Fireballs Frozen in Mid-Air – My Modern Metropolis

Have you ever seen a fireball frozen in mid-air? http://t.co/yJj69oCk

tags: twitterfav
Famous Photogs Pose With Their Most Iconic Images | Raw File | Wired.com

You’ve seen their photos. Now check out this gallery of famous photographers posing with their iconic images http://t.co/Qw3CmS1r

tags: twitterfav
I Won a Samsung Galaxy S II – My Review | cek.log

From a WP7 user’s perspective (also don’t forget that he actually developed the WP7 platform). Not flattering at all.
Summary:
“A typical non-geek consumer would be absolutely-fraking-crazy to pick an Android phone over a Windows Phone. Windows Phone is vastly more refined, cohesive, and easy to use. Period.
People who enjoy “managing” their phone might enjoy “managing” their Android smartphone. Those folks will probably forget how much fun “managing” a smartphone was after they’ve used Windows Phone for a while. Instead they’ll see how much fun it is to “use” a smartphone.”

tags: samsung galaxy review android
Observations on film art : Pandora’s digital box: From the periphery to the center, or the one of many centers

A very interesting look at the way home video technology, particularly the VCD has evolved. A pretty lengthy read.

tags: film art vcd technology evolution
[Updated] The rise and fall of personal computing | asymco

A very pertinent way to look at the shipment of true personal computing devices that includes tablets & smartphones. The traditional PC shipment is stagnating while the portable devices are seeing explosive growth. It is more of a case of market penetration & expansion rather than actual death of the traditional PC.

tags: computing devices market smartphones tablet shipment
Fragmentation Is Not The End of Android | cek.log

As an open source project, Android couldn’t have asked for more success. However, the primary backer – Google – is in a very unenviable position given the kind of returns it is getting for the efforts put in.

tags: android fragmentation
OK, MG, I Take It Back | TechCrunch

Google is really following in Microsoft’s footsteps with their very own version of IE6\WinXP in the form of Android 2.X. Honeycomb was kind of like Vista (lots of hype, with little market impact) while ICS shows signs of being like Win7.
Also, the fact that Amazon has based the Kindle Fire on Android 2.3 is going to guarantee even more headaches for developers (unless Amazon beats other OEMs to the ICS upgrade)

tags: techcrunch android ios development fragmentation

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Filed under: bookmarks