Best of Today (7/26)
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The Remains of The Daily
With Murdochs in meltdown, why is no one talking about Rupert's iPad baby run by James's best man? By Kat Stoeffel 7/26/11 8:24pm Share this:
Creator of Xbox Blockbuster 'Fable' Blames Success on Baked Beans, Happy Accidents: Peter Molyneux, creator of the popular “Fable” gaming series and head of Microsoft Game Studios in Europe, recalls the highs and lows of a 22-year career in video games –
GUILDFORD, U.K. — April 15, 2011 – Peter Molyneux, one of the video game industry’s most celebrated designers and the creative force behind hits such as “Fable,” “Populous” and “Dungeon Keeper,” credits much of his 22-year career to a happy accident involving baked beans. Peter Molyneux, head of Microsoft Game Studio Europe, in 2007 shortly after receiving the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Knighthood in the Order of Arts and Letters). It happened shortly after he graduated from university.
House Dems want cost estimate for ‘dig once’ broadband - The Hill's Hillicon Valley
Several House Democrats have written to the Government Accountability Office asking for a cost-benefit analysis of a "dig once" policy that would require the installation of fiber optic cables for broadband during highway construction. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) introduced the Broadband Conduit Deployment Act in May, which would require the inclusion of broadband conduit — plastic pipes housing the fiber optic cables — during the construction of federal highways. The bill was originally co-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Edward Markey (Mass.), Henry Waxman (Calif.) and Doris Matsui (Calif.) and has gained 18 other co-sponsors since. According to the letter from Eshoo and the original co-sponsors, the Federal Communications Commission claims that the largest cost of deploying fiber-based broadband networks is not the fiber but the cost of placement, including burying it in the ground.You never read tech news, do you? Good. Somehow, the story of the accidental early release of a Facebook iPad app everyone was expecting is threatening to turn into a week-long saga.
Tech News Is So Phenomenally Boring
Tech news *is* boring
Adrian Chen at Gawker says that tech news is boring. And he proves it with a great example. I was just thinking the same thing.
Amazon Android Tablet Would Be Welcomed by Consumers: Retrevo - Desktops and Notebooks
Consumers are ready for a low-cost tablet alternative to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad and would seriously welcome such a slate from Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), according to Retrevo. The consumer electronics shopping site said that 55 percent of 1,000 consumers surveyed said they would choose an Amazon tablet, which is expected to be based in Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android "Honeycomb" platform. <a href="http://o1.qnsr.com/cgi/r?WT.qs_dlk=UVVd-QrIZ2IAACGFzrsAAAAE;;n=203;c=1359546/1359538/1359528/1359327/581034;s=14821;x=1792;f=2025164664;u=j;z=20130329022518" target="_blank"><img border="0" width="160" height="600" src="http://o1.qnsr.com/cgi/x?;n=203;c=1359546/1359538/1359528/1359327/581034;s=14821;x=1792;f=2025164664;u=j;z=20130329022518" alt="Click here"></a> There's quite a gulf between Amazon and the other tablet choices.
Foley on Microsoft Why Microsoft Won't Dump Bing Many Microsoft shareholders, employees, partners and customers would like Steve Ballmer to resign (or be ousted) as CEO. Almost as many are agitating for Microsoft to push Bing out of the Redmond nest. To all of those folks, I've got bad news: Ballmer is going nowhere soon, and Microsoft isn't decoupling the Online Services Division (OSD) -- the business unit that includes Bing and online advertising -- from the rest of the company. OSD is still losing money, and lots of it.
Why Microsoft Won't Dump Bing
Bitcoin befuddles U.S. customs agents, thwarting Seattle visit by digital currency guru
A developer who specializes in the Bitcoin digital currency says he was sent back to China last week after he arrived at Sea-Tac Airport with only $600 in cash and wasn’t able to convince U.S.
The truth about Apple and the eReader app changes: Customers lose
You may have heard about Apple forcing ebook apps to remove the ability to shop at non-Apple ebookstores from the apps. They were also forced to remove any link to a store on the web, rendering it difficult for Apple's own customers to use the iPhone/iPad to its fullest; at least they can't use it as fully as they did before this week due to the changes. Dan Frommer has a good take on how these changes are bad for Apple's customers as it leaves them with an inadequate user experience. I agree with Frommer for the most part, due to what I have seen in my own household. My wife bought an iPhone 4 as soon as it was available on the Verizon network.
Apple's New Rules Prompt More E-Readers, Including Kobo, to Build HTML5 Apps
"Everybody loses" with the enforcement of Apple's new in-app payment rules, argues The Atlantic Wire's Rebecca Greenfield in a post chronicling how consumers, e-reader companies and perhaps even Apple might suffer. As we wrote about yesterday , Apple made the move over the weekend to enforce e-reader apps' compliance with its new in-app payment rules, prompting Kindle, Nook, Kobo and the like to all remove links to their associated e-bookstores so as to avoid giving Apple a 30% cut of sales.Updated. The tech industry’s movers and shakers have been saying for months now that the HTML5 is very important . New data released Friday indicates that HTML5 is not just going to be big, it’s going to be huge — and it’s coming fast. More than 2.1 billion mobile devices will have HTML5 browsers by 2016, up from just 109 million in 2010, according to a new report by ABI Research . Much of this growth will be thanks to Apple’s massive support for the HTML5 platform, according to the study . And Apple is also likely to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the technology’s wide scale adoption.