Based on the O’Reilly book by Clay A. Johnson, The Information Diet, A Case for Conscious Consumption I think it is time to get going on this topic. Buy the book, read the cover, read [...]]]> The talk around the water cooler is The Information Diet as the year begins.

Read.  Not too much.  Mostly Facts.

Based on the O’Reilly book by Clay A. Johnson, The Information Diet, A Case for Conscious Consumption I think it is time to get going on this topic.  Buy the book, read the cover, read the sample chapter on O’Reilly, read the Lifehacker article on the topic, but get going.

The modern human animal spends upwards of 11 hours out of every 24 in a state of constant consumption. Not eating, but gorging on information ceaselessly spewed from the screens and speakers we hold dear. Just as we have grown morbidly obese on sugar, fat, and flour—so, too, have we become gluttons for texts, instant messages, emails, RSS feeds, downloads, videos, status updates, and tweets.

We’re all battling a storm of distractions, buffeted with notifications and tempted by tasty tidbits of information. And just as too much junk food can lead to obesity, too much junk information can lead to cluelessness. The Information Diet shows you how to thrive in this information glut—what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective. In the process, author Clay Johnson explains the role information has played throughout history, and why following his prescribed diet is essential for everyone who strives to be smart, productive, and sane.

In The Information Diet, you will:

• Discover why eminent scholars are worried about our state of attention and general intelligence
• Examine how today’s media—Big Info—give us exactly what we want: content that confirms our beliefs
• Learn to take steps to develop data literacy, attention fitness, and a healthy sense of humor
• Become engaged in the economics of information by learning how to reward good information providers
• Just like a normal, healthy food diet, The Information Diet is not about consuming less—it’s about finding a healthy balance that works for you

OpenYou.org seeks to be a central resource for news about open source development on health hardware. It provides lists of libraries and applications from the open source community, [...]]]> I ran across OpenYou dealing with hacking health hardware.  A subject we are sure to spend more time on over hte next few years.

About OpenYou

OpenYou.org seeks to be a central resource for news about open source development on health hardware. It provides lists of libraries and applications from the open source community, to help developers learn more about the devices that let them learn about themselves.

In addition to pointing to other libraries and projects, the OpenYou team also actively reverse engineers and develops drivers and libraries for whatever health hardware they can find.

Kyle Machulis

Kyle Machulis is an engineer working in such fields as robotics, teledildonics, biometrics, audio research, and whatever else he decides is interesting and/or can do silly things with. With reverse engineering as a hobby, he has been part of multiple health hardware projects, including drivers for the Lightstone, Omron Blood Pressure Monitor, Omron Pedometer, and multiple consumer EEGs.

New studies highlight app gap between Apple, Android: As Google and Apple continue their [...]]]> Yes, I have them both.  Of course both are fine.  I use my Droid because I want to be like my son, or is it that I don’t use an iPhone to not be like my Dad.  From the Mercury News:

New studies highlight app gap between Apple, Android: As Google and Apple continue their battle for mobile dominance through their Android and iOS operating systems, a pair of new studies report some interesting findings.

The first, a report by Xyologic, finds that “iPhone is for games, Android is for apps.” It found that of the top 150 downloads in November from the Apple App Store, 100 were games, and game downloads outnumbered app downloads by nearly a 3-1 margin (71.5 million to 25.6 million). Only one app developer (Instagram maker Burbn) was on the list of top 25 publishers of 2011 — the rest were game-makers.

On the Android side, 85 of November’s top 150 were apps, and those outnumbered game downloads by an almost mirror image 3-1 ratio (91.5 million apps to 33.4 million games). A number of game-makers were among the year’s top 25 publishers, but that list was topped by Google and Facebook, and included app developers such as Adobe, Skype and Yahoo, all of whom were missing from the Apple list.

(Personal note: That sounds about right — I have significantly more games on my iPad than on my Android phone.)

What’s it all mean? That the Apple platform is more friendly to game developers, for one, reports Venture Beat. Xyologic co-founder Matthaus Krzykowski tells them that payment issues have kept developers from the Android market, which tends to monetize more through advertising, while Apple games lean toward the booming free-to-play model where users purchase upgrades within the game. But Dan Rowinski at RedWriteWeb wonders if there’s a more sociological reason — are Apple users more affluent and do they have more free time on their hands?

Apple users certainly spend more money on apps. That was the finding in a second study, by analysis firm Distimo, that compared the top 200 apps in both the Apple and Android markets. Based on those sales, the combined App Store for iPhone and iPad reaped six times the revenue of Google’s Android market despite Android’s wide lead in smartphone market share. Distimo co-founder Remco van den Elzen tells Wired that he attributes the difference to ease of use — “Google Checkout is considered to be more cumbersome than iTunes.” With Apple, “the threshold for purchasing the first application is lower,” he said.

While none of this data is particularly new or groundbreaking, it is interesting to note the differences between the two platforms, and where future opportunities may lie.

Open Book: Managing Your eBook Collection With Calibre// < ![CDATA[ (function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; [...]]]> I am having fun with my Kindle Fire and reading this to make sure I can use Calibre.  Sometimes I have time to learn on my own, sometimes I like to race along.

Open Book: Managing Your eBook Collection With Calibre