Month: July 2011

What was that about innovation?

July 19, 2011 /

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, on the lawsuits being brought against the company over claims its Android phones infringe on patents, including Apple’s:

The big news in the past year has been the explosion of Google Android handsets and this means our competitors are responding. Because they are not responding with innovation, they’re responding with lawsuits. We have not done anything wrong and these lawsuits are just inspired by our success.

Hmm. If the lawsuits are inspired by Google’s success, I wonder what’s inspiring Google. Here’s what Android phones looked like before the iPhone:

Photo Credit: Gizmodo

Here’s what Android phones looked like after the iPhone:

Photo Credit: Engadget

Now let’s talk about who lacks innovation. (via Andrew Warner.)

Wall Street Journal: Borders to go out of business

July 18, 2011 /

The Wall Street Journal reports that bookseller Borders is giving up on its attempt to restructure under bankruptcy and will liquidate the remainder of its stores, as early as September.

A few years ago I would have thought it would be Barnes & Noble, and not Borders that would be going under. But B&N had the vision (and the willingness to take the risk) to expand into digital and develop the Nook, when much of the industry thought it was too little, too late. It may still be ultimately, but they’ve outlasted a major competitor.

Stagnate and die. Stagnate and die. (via Daring Fireball.)

Comic Life for iPad half price for 48 hours

July 14, 2011 /

From a press release by Plasq:

Our boss is away on vacation — so we’ve decided to go crazy! Starting at 12:00 am on July 15 and lasting until 12:00 am July 17th Comic Life for iPad will only cost USD $3.99! That’s right, for 48 hours you can get 50% off Comic Life for iPad at the iTunes App Store!

The perception of pricing on mobile apps (and iOS apps in particular) continues to fascinate me. At $8, I perceived Comic Life (a very well done program) as too expensive for me. At $4, though, I’ll probably grab it. What I still haven’t figured out why that’s the case. I think it’s less to do with the idea that mobile apps aren’t as sophisticated as desktop apps — there are certainly enough examples to disprove that idea. I think it’s more of a volume thing. I have dozens of apps (maybe) on my Mac; I have hundreds (easily) on my iOS devices.

There’s a lot of very interesting psychology going on here — I hope someone with more time that I have writes a thesis on it one of these days.

Gesture controlled helicopter via Kinect

July 5, 2011 /

This is very cool. A college student’s project involves rigging a Kinect to a radio-controlled helicopter. The result? Controlling the copter by hand movements, which as it turns out, creates something that looks like it came straight out of Harry Potter.

Indistinguishable from magic indeed. (via CrunchGear)