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How did so many get this so wrong? I fear it betrays something ugly about the way tech reporting works–and doesn’t work–these days. Depth, expertise, and reflection are all lacking. So is serious research. If you are going to write about a patent case, it’s a good idea to read the patents in dispute. Reading patents is not a particularly pleasant business. The language is tedious, legalistic, and often deliberately obfuscatory; you want to give the Patent Office the required information while giving away as little as possible to your competitors. But reading the claims, the critical section of the patent, isn’t all that difficult
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➶ Talking of NASA Computer Science…
…the Mars Rover team just patched their craft at 350 million miles.
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➶ They Write the Right Stuff
A fascinating article about the process behind developing software for NASA spacecraft.
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➶ Facebook Plans to Speed Up its iPhone App
If ever a story deserved a single Finally, it’s this. The Facebook app is so slow and buggy as it stands.
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I’ve been a little quiet here recently. Alongside multiple big projects on the boil at work, there’s another big project that Steph and I have been busy wrapping up: our wedding this Friday.
We’ve had a tonne of kind messages sent, so thanks to everyone who’s done so in the run up to the big day.
Photo courtesy of Anna Clarke Photography
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➶ Nike+ Relaunches
The Nike+ site has been Flash-free for Fuelband users for some time, but this week saw the launch of the new Nike+ site for running.
I’ve been beta-testing it for the last month or so and love the Flash-free new site. Some features from the previous site are missing right now (the Friends feature is returning later in the year) but it’s a massive improvement over the 6-year-old Flash version it replaces.
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The plethora of online Photoshop tutorials demonstrate its power and its flexibility, but I believe they also demonstrate its poor design. Think about it like this: what if each time you plunked down in front of World of Warcraft, you had to spend an hour trying to remember, wait, how do I play this?
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➶ New Nike+ Running site
I’ve been testing the new Nike+ Running site over the last couple of weeks. The big news is that the previously Flash-powered site has been totally re-written. The new site goes live in June, but if you’re wanting to see what’s coming this FAQ from Nike has the details.
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➶ Tumblr to launch ads starting May 2
Despite all the protestations about how Tumblr didn’t want to show ads, it seems the 120 million views per day on the Tumblr Dashboard might be just too lucrative.
It’s definitely a shame there’s an about-face with this, however Tumblr is of course a free service backed by VCs who will expect the service to start to produce revenue (and in the longer-term, hopefully profits). For those with Tumblogs (as this one is), these plans doen’t affect the display of Tumblogs themselves as the advertising is launching on the social-hub that each user typically uses to browse blogs they follow and post content via.
[via Mr Hackett]
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It’s a little like asking why Hasbro didn’t do Farmville, or why McDonald’s didn’t start Whole Foods … Cultural patterns are pretty hard to escape once you get sucked into them. For instance, Apple and Google are diametrical opposites in so many ways, have all the skills, but neither of them did Instagram, either.
© Nik Fletcher 2007-2011 ~ Contact
