The Tech Bean

Going to try moving over to Tumblr

2011-11-23T10:35:00.002-05:00

I don't post enough to merit a bunch of stand-alone blogs..

kamali.co

More thoughts on the Kindle Fire

2011-11-22T11:11:00.001-05:00

I had posted some initial thoughts the first day: Kindle Fire. Good, bad, evil.

Now that I've played with it for a week, it still largely feels hobbled as a tablet, and not the eReader I'd use. One of these days I'll get a Kindle with the eInk screen-- so much easier on the eyes for "books".

The inability to access the Google app store is a pain, but I've found most of what I've wanted on apktop.com, like Google Maps, YouTube, and the Dolphin browser--since I don't like Amazon being in the middle of all my browsing. Notable exceptions, the apps I'd like, and/or better webapps --

Facebook. Though the mobile webapp works pretty well, except for photos.
Gmail. Again mobile webapp works ok
Twitter. Did download Uber Social though

I actually don't mind the 7" screen now-- it's often handy to cup the whole thing with one hand, which you can't do with a 10" tablet. Watching PPV movies and shows from Amazon works well-- easier than Amazon on the Roku and the web. A nice alternative when our TV is tied up. I think they're onto something with making money from videos on these. Not sure about music; I haven't used it for music at all. The reported Amazon phone seems a better fit for that.

The device survived a dropping onto the pavement, with barely noticeable scratches. Probably lucky how it fell, but a good sign that the screen didn't crack.

A couple nits: The power button on the bottom is awkward-- I'm always turning off the screen by mistake. Second, the screen does not go dim enough for me. Finally, you can not save browser bookmarks to the desktop/homescreen, which really bugs me. E.g. I want to save a bookmark to access mobile.nytimes.com with one click, but can't. Seems like they want to discourage the web in favor of buying/apps and subscriptions.

Despite the shortcomings, it has proved useful/fun. Perhaps I'm more sold now on using a tablet than on this device in particular.

Kindle Fire. Good, bad, evil

2011-11-15T15:40:00.123-05:00

The Good:
* Nice, simple packaging (see photo below)
* Same power plug as the Nexus
* Bright crisp screen
* Borrowing books (Prime Members) is cool, and free Prime videos work well. (Amazon Prime is an unbelievable deal.)
* Scrolling through Recent Apps/Pages on the homescreen is slick, as are the Favorite App shelves
* Of course the price. Nice device for $200.

The Bad:
* No Mic or Camera
* Volume buttons would be handy
* The screen can't be made very dark-- can't imagine reading a book on this.
* 7" feels like an awkward in-between size, at first at least.
* Videos you copy over don't show up under "Videos" on the home screen, only under the Gallery app. (Music you copy does show up under "Music" though)
* Not the standard Gmail Android app.

The Evil:
* Amazon's Silk browser caches/routes everything through their servers for "enhanced performance". (I installed Dolphin to avoid this.)
* Any attempts to access Google's market.android.com open up the Amazon App Store app, which is much more limited. Same thing with installing from AppBrain, GetJar etc.

I understand Amazon's installing only their own app store. And I have no beef with their wanting to sell movies and music via these devices-- Amazon's my media store of choice. But actively hamstringing the device to restrict the apps you can install is evil. It's especially evil to block Google, as they provided Amazon the OS for free.

There are ways around this blockade like "side-loading" via your PC, or you can do direct downloads of APK files from some sites like apktop. (First, change Settings > Device > Allow Installation of Applications to "On".) Of course, installing software from a site you'd never heard of before today may not be the wisest move.. And some APKs--for standard Google apps like Maps, Gmail, YouTube--are hard to come by on these sites.

Hoping Amazon eases up the tight control with time.

Brief thoughts: Google Wallet, Amazon's tablet, Google+

2011-09-27T11:50:00.000-04:00

Google Wallet - payments via your smart phone
Other than groceries, still not sure the whole checkout process is that painful now for consumers. Typical big box buys are going to get squeezed out by the likes of Amazon in the long term. Something like Fresh Direct, or even an order online and pick up at the store model, seems like the real solution for groceries. So this feels like a tangential solution to a problem that will largely go away anyway.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/09/26/google-launches-the-ultimate-jobs-killer/

Amazon's Kindle Fire to be presented tomorrow
Amazon forays into the tablet market tomorrow. The reported 7" screen is disappointing-- makes it feel more like a color book reader than a general table. Thought they'd have specs equivalent to the iPad, but at a couple hundred dollars less. Seems like selling a comparable device at a big loss, in order to make profits on the service and/or media, is the proven way to disrupt a hardware market.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/26/amazon-kindle-fire/

More thoughts on Google+
Still feels overly abstracted, a techie reductionist take. Is it a blogging medium? Not really. (Though still doesn't integrate with Blogger.). Is it a social network? Yeah, but you don't have friends-- you follow people and if they follow you back, I guess you're friends. Is it a micro blog medium (ie link sharing a la twitter)? Kinda, but it's not concise like your twitter stream. Are you supposed to follow thought leaders you don't know? I guess, but do you really want posts from your favorite VC blogger mixed in with pictures of your kids' playmates?

I am still really liking it as a photo sharing medium -- the Picasa integration and auto-upload are really nice. And, as a publisher, having a single place to post things to, that I could send out to multiple circles/services/brands is appealing. But as a consumer, I feel a little sad in my sparse stream. I'll keep at it-- at least the sparseness is nice compared to the FB and Twitter overload.

Blockbuster Movie Pass - Yawn

2011-09-23T13:25:00.000-04:00

3,000 movies available for streaming + one boring launch announcement. Would be a double yawn if Netflix/Qwikster didn't go all schizo earlier this week.

Cost? "Value of at least $20 per month at minimum" so price will be at least $20, but $10 for Dish subscribers. So it may be worth it for existing dish customers, and seemingly will get rolled into the top tier dish plan. Not surprising, whole announcement muddled by the old cable/satellite model.

Unfortunately doesn't seem threatening enough for Netflix to rethink this Qwikster idiocy, but now maybe NFLX can bounce a bit?

Predictions: Qwikster winners

2011-09-21T09:50:00.000-04:00

Amazon - where you can stream for free, pay per view, or buy the DVD all from one place.
BitTorrent - fuck it, layperson will think, this actually seems easier than Netflix/Qwiksta now.
People with the courage to buy NFLX when it stops tumbling in a day or two.
Reed Hastings - who'll receive a fat bonus from the board, along with an early retirement.

Yeah, I got it on Qwikster

2011-09-20T10:01:00.001-04:00

In a classic bad-to-even-worse move, Netflix attempted to apologize for the messaging around the price hikes. Instead they further agitated customers with the plan of separating out the DVD-by-mail service completely, intending to leave the streaming service on Netflix.com and to call the DVD service Qwikster.com. (Qwikster? I would have sold them one of my many, slightly less shitty domains for good price.)

Reed Hastings explains the move as necessary due to different cost structures and marketing needs between the two businesses. Because we customers clearly care more about their cost structures and marketing needs than our experience of finding and watching movies.

The DVD rentals are a necessary kludge right now, serving as a back up when something isn't available to stream. As the streaming library is in constant flux, having these services tied together is essential. Plus, the DVD rentals are an important weapon in Netflix's negotiations with Hollywood. For most movies, if Hollywood wants too much for a film, customers are happy to deal with the inconvenience of DVD by mail. It's kinda stupid, but such is the state of digital media licensing-- laws make physical media much more consumer friendly.

Maybe they will supplement the current streaming service with pay-per-view movies, which now makes even more sense. Maybe the DVD rentals wouldn't be useful as a hedge. Maybe the DVDs won't be used much once the pay per view is in place. Maybe there's still some unknown aspect of their plan that will make this split obvious in hindsight. But right now it's a confusing mess.

At Meetup we used to have a saying "What Would Netflix Do?", admiring the clarity and simplicity of their UI. Our saying never seemed to carry over to customer communications for a big release-- we often stressed and angered our community, while Netflix just made people happier and happier with each release. It seems they've taken a page from our book this time.

Amazon vs Netflix

2011-09-13T12:19:00.000-04:00

A lot of attention on Amazon taking on Apple (iPad + iTunes) with a tablet offering, and its focus on digital media in its new design (see right). But a bigger effect may be felt by Netflix.

Adding unlimited streaming to the Amazon Prime free-shipping plan made little sense before, but with Amazon tablet rumors, it's making a bit more sense. The selection doesn't match Netflix's, but it's sizeable and growing. More importantly, Amazon's selection is supplemented by a huge pay-per-view library.

Given Netflix's decision to charge a load more for DVDs by mail, it seems they're consciously pushing people away from DVDs. While Netflix has seemed adamant about having a single all-you-can-watch price, it's seems like they've got to add premium pay-per-view options to beef up their offerings. Even if they're right and few people drop the DVD option (I just dropped mine, you bastards), pay per view would be convenient to users and add a lot of revenue for Netflix..

They've got their software on so many devices. It's something people would want. And their interface is so much better than Amazon's or iTune's. I hope they're on it.

Some Thoughts on Google+

2011-07-18T23:08:00.002-04:00

The good:

* Circles are a clean way to segment your contacts. Yeah, functionally this can all be done in Facebook, but it doesn't feel as slick or deeply integrated.

* Sharing photos via Picasa is nicely integrated. A couple quirks perhaps (have to go into Picasa to change the album name or to get a link to send to people not in Google+, can't rename a default named-after-the-date folder, etc) but overall smooth. Permissions tied nicely to G+ circles.

* Asymmetric model-- can follow a person (or maybe a business/brand??), be followed a la twitter, or reciprocally add people a la FB friends.

* I probably actually trust Google more than Facebook with my info.

The bad:

* No pulling in your tweets automatically?

* Can't post on someone's wall / stream. Half of what I do on Facebook anymore is wishing people happy frickin' birthday.

* No private messaging. The very abstracted model--everything is just a post you share, and then you decide to whom it should go: the world, a circle, one person--may seem elegant to my techie side. But I think it's overly abstracted.

Sending a private message to a person or two is a very different thing conceptually from sharing something with a circle or the world, and our brains want them separated. Plus, the danger of accidentally posting a private message to the world is kinda scary. At least link me to Gmail or something. (Perhaps sharing with the world vs just a circle are conceptually opposed, too, in which case our brains may want different tools and brands for each, e.g. Twitter and Facebook respectively.)

* "+1"ing is stupid, just call it "liking".

* Similarly, Google+ is a lame name and odd brand extension. And it makes about as much sense as Diet Google. (It seems like you can finally Google "Google+", whereas before the "+" got stripped off making the search results pretty useless.)

The conclusion, for now:

It's a good start, definitely more appealing than Buzz. I'm going to keep using it as long as others are on it, for photos if not more. Not sure any of the features will make it win or lose. It's good enough, so I think it'll mostly come down to whether people want a fresh start or not. I'm liking a clean, new social networking toy.

Briefs: Square payments, Brain drain, Apple, NY Tech

2011-06-08T10:32:00.001-04:00

Square's $50M+ round and $1B+ valuation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/square-raising-new-round-joining-billion-dollar-valuation-club/2011/06/07/AGHEJPLH_story.html
Square's off to a good start with mobile payments reportedly of $3M/d now, aiming to make real-world purchases as easy as iTunes. For what it's worth, I find purchases at the drug store easier than iTunes, whether using cash or especially something like Blink, where you just tap your CC on the payment module and leave. Not sure how clicking around on my mobile will improve this.

Brain drain is beneficial to the areas losing people

http://www.economist.com/node/18741763
Cash flows back, returning talent sets up business infrastructure, overall education improves even for those who don't leave. Guess it's sort of a better-than-the-alternative case.

Apple's plans for a new 12k-person office building
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/07/steve-jobs-cupertino/
Car-lovin' Silicon Valley is still stuck in 1979 office park-hell mentality. Let's get some lunch at Chotchkie's, assholes.

Apple goes from Mac-centric to cloud-centric with iCloud
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/06/icloud-digital-hub/
Maybe it's just me, but this story fell kinda flat compared to the tangible, sleek new pieces of hardware that usually headline. Still, makes a lot of sense, and seems like a wise move even if mostly defensive. Interesting to see how their margins change in a non-Mac world.

Tech made in NYC
http://nytm.org/made/
Don't like Chotchkie's? Maybe one of these companies is for you. The provincialism / local boosterism may seem decidedly second-tier, it's still a cool idea. Every town with any decent tech scene should do something similar to let people easily find its companies.

Angry birds on roku, google unfriendable, map of SV

2011-06-01T11:08:00.000-04:00

Angry Birds coming to new Roku device
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Angry-Birds-game-migrating-to-apf-551682076.html?x=0&.v=2
Media players and game machines continue converging.

Google admits missed whole 'friend thing'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576358343688967086.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs
Probably too late for them to get it. Maybe there's something they can pull off with smart contact management, separate from gmail contacts. But big chicken-and-egg issues there. +1 is on brand and all, but can't see it stirring any real social mass.

Map of Silicon Valley
http://www.siliconvalley.com/opinion/ci_18162978
Necessarily simplistic, and kinda annoying, but paints the picture.

briefs

2011-05-31T10:24:00.001-04:00

AirBnB gets whopping $100M round @ 1B valuation
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/30/airbnb-has-arrived-raising-mega-round-at-a-1-billion-valuation/?STQL5_FtcDBoMjpW5k8nueB_JCFUNcgfEx9ygI=260970
Though a great idea, pretty amazed by the valuation. No one can stop them. Except maybe these guys.

Twitter launching its own photo sharing service.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/30/twitter-is-launching-its-own-photosharing-service/
Makes sense to have it more tightly integrated, and should make for a nice new photo blog platform. Sayonara Twitpic, Yfrog, etc etc

PNC creates check deposit app
http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/news/2011/05/31/pnc-rolls-out-check-deposit-app.html?ana=yfcpc
My bank now lets me remotely deposit a check with an iPhone. Cool, though they apparently missed the memo about Android ruling the smartphone world now.

Some older interesting tidbits I'd neglectd to post:

NY passed MA in VC
http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/new-york-venture-capital-widens-tech-gap-massachusetts-q1-2011

Chrome 11 speech to text
http://mashable.com/2011/03/23/chrome-11-beta/
Kinda cool, though strange that the textarea needs a special tag for it to be usable.

Berlin becoming tech Mecca
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,758097,00.html
Already a techno Mecca (or Medina to Detroit's Mecca), and uber bike-friendly. Berlin is seemingly vying for heaven on earth.

Blogger adds alternate views: postcards, mosaics, etc.
http://www.scrantonite.com/view/mosaic
Yeah, blogger's not as cool as tumblrr, but these new views are neat. (Though the "Timeslide" view makes no sense to me.)

Setting up the Android SDK on Ubuntu 11

2011-05-13T13:27:00.001-04:00

I want to start playing with the Android API. Here are my notes from setting up my dev environment for command line + emacs (or vi or any other basic text editor, ie not eclipse.) First, make sure you have the Java SDK (jdk) installed, plus the compiler ant.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk
sudo apt-get install ant

Download the Android SDK here:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Installation instructions start here. In short:

unpack this directory somewhere, e.g.

cd /usr/local/lib
sudo tar tvzf Desktop/android-sdk_r11-linux_x86.tgz
ln -s android-sdk-linux_x86 android

add the tools and platform-tools to your PATH

emacs -nw .bashrc
## add:
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/lib/android/tools:/usr/local/lib/android/platform-tools
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk
## not nec?
export CLASSPATH=.:/usr/local/lib/android/platforms/android-12/android.jar:/usr/local/lib/android/platform-tools/lib/dx.jar
## exit emacs
source ~/.bashrc

run "android", in the GUI install packages

SDK platform API 12
platform-tools
documentation

Now let's create a "Hello World" sort of project:

make a directory for your project, and set up a new "hello world" project

mkdir ~/android
android create project --target android-12 --name OldDog --path ~/android/olddog --activity NewTricks --package co.example.olddog

update the source and compile

emacs ~/android/olddog/src/co/kamali/olddog/NewTricks.java
add the lines shown here: http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html#ui

import android.widget.TextView;
...
TextView tv = new TextView(this);
tv.setText("Old dog, meet new tricks");
setContentView(tv);

exit and run "ant debug" to build the app

set up a virtual device and install the app

android &
Create an Android Virtual Device (see mine --> )
Start the device (the emulator will pop open a window and eat up your CPU
adb devices ## to see your device running
adb install ~/android/olddog/bin/OldDog-debug.apk

go to the emulator window, click the bottom center to see all apps
you should see the NewTricks app there, click it and it will run.

Screen shots of the emulator:

More docs,including running it on your device..
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/projects/projects-cmdline.html

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/building/building-cmdline.html

Briefs: Comments, timelines, Blade Runner camera

2011-04-14T10:02:00.000-04:00

Facebook Comments on your pages
Been around for some weeks now... Easy as pie to add with really powerful functionality. This takes FB's social plugins up a notch, and pushes the entire interwebs further into the Facebook borg.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/

Pertty Timelines
Discovered Tiki Toki via a friend. Javascript timelines that look really nice. Chronicle a project, world history, whatever.. Integrates with Flickr and Vimeo, and is embeddable.
http://www.tiki-toki.com/

A camera that sees around corners, a la Blade Runner.
A team at MIT has developed a camera that analyses laser pulse reflections to reconstruct objects that would normally be out of view.
http://www.economist.com/node/18304218

iPhone production sickened Chinese workers
The high cost of low price. Workers used n-hexane, a neurotoxin, in production of the screens.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/china_04-13.html

AT&T buying T-mobile
Old news now, but.... Most notable thing missing from all the press is that this would mean only 1 nationwide GSM carrier. If you want a phone that works here and Europe, AT&T will be your only choice. We've been happy with T-mobile after leaving AT&T long ago, kinda bummed by this..

Reprogramming the brain: Cognitive-bias modification

2011-03-22T13:51:00.000-04:00

The Economist earlier this month had an article on a cognitive-bias modification, a technique shown effective for treating certain psych disorders. For people suffering from anxiety, for example, a few 15-minute sessions removed the anxiety in a majority of cases.

It doesn't require a therapist, just sitting in front of a computer and using a program that takes your attention away from, say, angry faces and toward neutral faces, reducing one's attentional bias toward threats, and thus anxiety.

It's not effective for innate cases like arachnophobia, but it's easy to see how this could be used for a lot of psych disorders. Perhaps it could be used on people without disorders, to achieve other desired changes to their psychology. Say I wanted to become more of an alpha douche-bag-- a program could maybe take my attention away from tired, depressed programmers and toward a pile of money and champagne.

http://www.economist.com/node/18276234

Briefs: NYC, Chrome bg apps, download FB data, Priceblink

2011-03-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

New York & Entrepreneurship

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-this-latest-wave-of-new-york-startups-is-just-getting-started-2010-6

This post makes a case for why NYCs current startup boom is just the beginning. NYC is starting to sound like Silicon Valley breathlessly patting itself on the back. Yeah, the startup boom will continue, especially as more of this batch get to cash out and start more new companies, and that's great. But the culture will still be lacking something. Namely the hardcore inventors who work out of a garage or something and live on the extreme cheap. An apartment shared with 3 people each paying $1500 per month doesn't exactly cut it.

One point missing about NYC / east coast tech is how it's surging in local-oriented startups: Foursquare, Meetup, Zip Car, Living Social, Fresh Direct etc. Though there are great ones in the bay area, there's a disproportional amount in the east. Perhaps some of these companies couldn't have started in the land that gave us the saying "there's no 'there' there."

Background Apps in Chrome
http://blog.chromium.org/2011/02/amping-up-chromes-background-feature.html
A big step in the age-old dream of the browser becoming the OS.

Downloading your info from facebook
http://lifehacker.com/#!5657317/how-to-download-your-information-from-facebook
No friends' email addresses in the dump, for privacy we're sure. Not to help preserve facebook's monopoly.

Price comparison browser extension

http://www.priceblink.com/

Like good ol' clickthebutton, but in browser extension form. Sees what you're browsing, and pops up to offer a price comparison when it recognizes a product.

Jimmy Wales: Apple is the hare. Google is not really a toroise, but relentless.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/07/jimmy-wales-apple-is-hare-google-is-relentless/?section=magazines_fortune
Good interview with lots to agree with.

Android Photo Apps

2011-03-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

My Favorite Album App: JustPictures!

It's really fast to load and to scroll through pictures. A few releases ago, the standard Android App stopped working at all without network connectivity. Kinda stupid that it can't even view SD-card images. And, a big annoyance if trying to look at photos in a subway or bar with spotty coverage, or if you, ahem, don't care to pay for a data plan.

Only downsides: it jacks the brightness up fully all the time. Kinda annoying and painful when you have turned down. And, it doesn't play videos.

My Favorite Camera App: Camera 360

Camera 360 has some nice built-in effects. The interface is a little odd at first, but you get used to. The free version offers a lot of great features. I like the Lomo vintage camera effect (pictured right), and the 2-stage focus and shoot mode so you can have in focus subjects not in the center of a shot.

FxCamera has a much nicer interface, but is more limited in its effects, and only saves very low-res images. It's fun and easy enough for a young child to play with. Vignette has some nice features, but the free version is really hobbled and also saves only very low-res images.

Any others that the enormous Tech Bean audience likes? Let me know.

Briefs

2011-02-10T12:46:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs on TV in 1978
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzDBiUemCSY
We all worship his Jobsiness, yet he seems almost human at age 23.

Twitter finally has a bookmarklet too, and I finally found it.
http://dev.twitter.com/pages/share_bookmarklet
Thought to look for this after paying attention to how the Twitter buttons all over the web work. Don't know why it took them until Aug 20, 2010 to have this dirt-simple way to share stuff (having their own URL shortener kinda helpful, I guess), but at least it's there now. Got tired of the multi-step process with bit.ly, the not-officially supported tinyurl bookmarklets, and the services like tr.im that drop their bookmarklet service out of the blue. All the bit.ly analytics are nice and all, but I just want a simple way to grab stuff and throw it in my stream. Done.

Landline on the cheap: sipgate + google voice

Skype has been a weak link in my home office telephony for too long. Came across this post from Oct on Gizmodo, which discusses sipgate. Sounds like gizmo5, which I'd been waiting to open back up since Google bought it. sipgate gives you a free telephone number for inbound calls. You can use a softphone like X-Lite on Windows, LinPhone on Linux or Android, or SipDroid on Android. Or, you can connect a SIP router like this to your network, plug in a standard phone, and use the line without a computer.

For 911 service, you have to pay $1.90 a month. Calls received are free, but calling out costs 1.9c per minute. However, if you couple it with Google Voice, you can use the Google Voice webapp to initiate free calls. (It will ring your sipgate line and the other party to connect you.) You can set your callerID on sipgate to your Google Voice number, and then call out whichever way is convenient at the time.

I want a new blogging platform:

with reblog from anywhere
and make it clear I'm reblogging (I find Tumblr and Wordpress both really muddle the lines, making it tough to tell whose words you're actually reading.)
with tagging of course
one main mega blog with all my posts
multiple topical blogs with custom domains, pulling posts from the mega stream by tag
cheap or free (as a service, not an install)
slick templates
other connective stuff: trackbacks. tweet this, FB button, etc.
has a feed that mashes together people I'm following, or whose RSS feeds I'm slurping
micro posts don't look out of place

There's probably something that does all this, let me know?

Tech Briefs: it's like 1999, iPad revs passing Mac, AWS Elastic Beanstalk

2011-01-19T17:12:00.000-05:00

iPad Revs surpass Mobile Macs
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/nobody-predicted-ipad-growth
And closing in on entire Mac unit of Apple. 15M sold in 2010. Astounding how they created such demand for an essentially new computing format/category. (It's neither a phone replacement nor much of a laptop replacement.) Lesson: sleek, delicious design + sub-$500 price = gadget consumer heaven

Amazon announces Elastic Beanstalk
http://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/?ref_=pe_12300_18337730
An auto scaling application container. Currently Java on the Tomcat stack only, but other stacks coming. No charge on top of EC2/S3/etc usage. Just deploy and it load-balances and ramps up as needed. Like other auto-scaling platforms, sounds too good to be true. Curious to hear stories from any big scale projects on it.

Promote it like it's 1999
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/amazon-livingsocial-10-discount/
Deal on Living Social: For $10, you get a $20 gift card at Amazon. Living Social is apparently paying $10 to get people to sign up and give them their credit card info. ("Amazon.com is not a sponsor of this promotion.") Sure takes us back... But then we shudder at the thought of another bubble bursting.

Briefs: Jobs sick, top iPhone app, TOS changes, smartphone economics

2011-01-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs out for health leave, again
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/technology/18apple.html
Time for Apple to be open about what's going on, or at the very least to make an open and detailed succession plan for their shareholders. Scared of today's price drop.

14yo's first iPhone app takes top spot from Angry Birds
http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/17/eighth-grader-knocks-free-angry-birds-out-of-the-top-spot-on-the-app-store/
Awesome. What's next? He's apparently found a secret anti-aging formula that makes you look even 30% younger.

How to do TOS changes.
http://policy.heroku.com/20091028-20110113_diff.html
Heroku gives a nice diff to conveniently see what has changed. Don't think this is the first time we've seen this, but this practice should be ubiquitous.

Groupon to IPO with $15B valuation
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/groupon-readies-for-an-i-p-o/?hp
Delicious Grey Poupon we would understand.

Barron's: Verizon paying $5B subsidy for iPhone
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2011/01/12/verizon-5b-subsidy-for-iphone-says-ny-post/?mod=yahoobarrons
Verizon's paying it? Or chumps thinking they're getting a phone for $200 are paying it?

Briefs: Facebook IPO, Tablet-o-rama, flatscreen tv boom ends, mac twitter app

2011-01-07T12:18:00.000-05:00

Facebook prepping for April, 2012 IPO
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730704576066162770600234.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs
Bigger news than anything out of CES. Guesses on their post-IPO valuation? Bet they'll gun for 100B.

Biggest news out of CES: everyone's making tablets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/technology/personaltech/03tablet.html?ref=technology

About as surprising as an RIAA lawsuit, but we're hopeful some good iPad competitors arise. All the 7-inch screens seem like a dubious format choice though. A few more interesting things from CES:

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/category/consumer-electronics/consumer-electronics-show/

Flatscreen TV boom ending
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/technology/06sets.html?ref=technology
Unprecedented era of new tech + digital broadcast switchover comes to an end for manufacturers. 3-D and internet features not helping much, prices to keep plummeting. Hmm, we could use a bigger TV here.

Twitter releases new Mac Desktop App
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375318,00.asp
@kcorwin says, "The new native Twitter desktop app is simple, slick, and awesome." Will all mega web-apps moving this way? Let the fragmentation begin.

Why isn't public wi-fi encrypted?

2011-01-03T17:10:00.000-05:00

BoingBoing just linked to this article on being safe(r) on public wi-fi.
http://arstechnica.com/security/guides/2011/01/stay-safe-at-a-public-wi-fi-hotspot.ars

Which reminded me of the question that has bugged me for a long time: Why isn't public wi-fi encrypted?

If I'm not mistaken, even WPA2 conflates authentication with the encryption. Ie, the password is the encryption key--they should be separate. This could simply be done via something like:

upon initiating a connection, the client could send a public key in the clear
the router could send its own public key back
[ optional: client authenticates with password, which is encrypted ]
then each side could encrypt everything going each way

This would even work for password protected connections with the addition of step (3), and would help make them more secure as well. Still, the ultimate solution may be HTTPS, having more data encrypted content all the way to the server. But this would be a seamless improvement to the user and would prevent the very easiest kinds of snooping.

Don't know much about the IEEE's process for the 802.11 standards, or who/what the WiFi Alliance is that made the WPA standards. But, can't believe how poor the security is on these. What bugs me more than the security issues is the side effect of making open Wi-Fi rarer and rarer.

Mini Review of the Roku XD

2010-12-31T18:49:00.000-05:00

The Roku XD is my favorite hardware toy in a long time. Threw it on my wishlist on a whim, and wasn't really that excited about it, but it's been great.

It has a much better Netflix interface than Windows Media Center or the Wii, easy to browse and watch streaming videos. Not as functionally rich as using a browser on the computer to search/browse for movies and manage your queue, but better than trying to use a browser on the TV from the couch. Can rate movies too, and remove them from your queue.

The Pandora interface is really nice too (and no ads...yet?). Similarly to Netflix, seems you can't do all you can in a browser, like "add variety" to stations, changing station names etc. Can do the essentials though: give thumbs up/down, add stations, skip tracks.

Amazon video on demand works well, I like it better than the somewhat confusing Amazon desktop software (and tons better than iTunes. If you happen to like iTunes the Apple TV may still be a better choice than a Roku.)

Haven't tried Hulu Plus app yet, or the many other apps that are available. And I can't speak to the 1080p quality-- my TV is a small and lesser hi-def screen, and I don't really care about super hi-def for most of the shit I watch..

In short, there are still some configurations and account set-up you'd want to do on the computer occasionally, but makes the whole Internet TV/radio media consumption a lot of fun. My only complaint with it is that it somehow compelled me to watch Zardoz.

D'oh! How not to rally an engineering culture

2010-12-17T10:29:00.001-05:00

Marginalize the engineering institutions you do have!
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/to-attract-the-next-google-the-city-seeks-a-new-college/?ref=technology

Of course, there's no MIT, CMU, or Stanford in NYC. Though ranking schools is fraught with idiocy, schools like these are in a class by themselves. But, it's a little bizarre to ignore the 5 top ~30 graduate programs that are in the metro area (Princeton, Columbia, Yale, NYU, Rutgers) plus great undergrad programs like Cooper Union. Yeah, maybe not world class, but worth working with.

(Note that Stanford and Berkeley aren't in San Francisco, and a majority of the startup activity in the Bay Area is outside the city. So, in a comparison with Silicon Valley, a regional focus is appropriate.)

If the city were able to magically move the entirety of MIT to NYC, it would be great for city startups and for the other science and engineering schools nearby. But that's quite impossible, and cultivating a new MIT would take more time and cost and effort than is realistic. A satellite campus offering video courses from MIT isn't going to do much either.

Yes, welcome a new engineering school if someone's willing to set up shop. But it's still starting largely from scratch, and will have to climb from rank N+1 to the top 5. Perhaps it'd be better to work with the existing regional institutions to help them climb up a few notches. Or to look beyond academia and improve regional transportation infrastructure, business climate for startups, housing and office costs, etc. It's a two way street: a strong startup culture and the ensuing wealth will also in turn help the local institutions.

News Roundup

2010-12-06T09:48:00.000-05:00

Paypal Cuts off WikiLeaks Donations
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/world/05paypal.html?ref=technology
Much like Amazon's move claiming WikiLeaks didn't have rights to the documents it was disseminating (seems like BS, journalistic fair use), Paypal boots WikiLeaks claiming it engages in "illegal" activity, though is vague about what laws were broken by the organization.

The Bean is about ready to boycott Amazon, Paypal, and Ebay (Paypal's parent company), in a futile effort to fight this slide into technolofascism, when we're all Lieberman's biatches.

Limewire to Close
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/limewire-after-lengthy-battle-to-shutdown-dec-31/?ref=technology
Some may be surprised they were still kicking, but they were, until about now.

Google buying DRM tech used by Netflix
http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/04/why-google-needs-the-video-digital-rights-technology-behind-netflix/
Interesting speculation about warming up media companies and broadcasters, for some sort of "YouTube Pro".

First Chrome OS devices in limited release Dec 7
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/03/sources-google-branded-chromebook-to-launch-on-december-7th/
The confusingly named OS is coming out of the cave. More OS competition definitely welcome. But, as Android creeps up into more computer-like devices, wondering if the marketing for this OS will be a confused mess. Interesting that it's coming out on a netbook, the computing format which Jobs has declared dead.

Groupon turns down reported $6B buyout from Google
http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/03/groupon-rejects-googles-offer/
Supposedly making $2B in revenue per quarter, half going to the retailers, half kept by it. Really? Staggering numbers, if true.

Facebook's new profile pages. Yawn