xtex.org

My pick as the greatest rock album ever made. Don’t miss: Andy Greene interviews Mick and Keith on the new release. Keith:

Also, it’s the first album with no particular single on it, you know? There was no “Brown Sugar” or whatever. We made it as an album, rather than looking for a hit single.

Wolf Rentzsch:

I hope section 7.3 comes back to bite Apple during their Department of Justice investigation.

New weblog by Theis Søndergaard, featuring scanned pages from old issues of Wired:

This blog is not intended to be just a point-and-laugh central, picking apart the mistakes of the past and ridiculing those who got it wrong. You won’t have to look long for posts that do that, of course… but the main purpose of this blog is to put the past into perspective. In the fast paced world of tech, we often lure ourselves into believing that everything is different now, and old rules don’t apply. Well, quite often they do (if not always) and checking out our collective tech-past can help us get a perspective on the present.

So good.

Andrew Wilkinson:

I don’t understand why companies think that they can get away with doing this. The internet is a surprisingly small place, and we were notified almost immediately. We’ve all had a good chuckle about this, but we’ve contacted Mozilla and demanded that they take the design down.

Really does seem bizarre that anyone thought this wouldn’t be noticed.

New from Cameron Moll: the Roman Coliseum rendered in type.

Hyper-rational take on the situation.

David Worthington:

Technologizer asked some of the industry’s big brains about what Microsoft needs to do to keep its operating system relevant in the years to come. Their advice ranges from merely simplifying the interface to borrowing ideas from other Microsoft products such as the Xbox to giving the OS a complete reboot. Here’s what they (and we) have to say.

Some interesting (and widely varying) answers. I like Scott Rosenberg’s take best:

Microsoft ought to build a new, modern, stripped-down OS and support the legacy stuff in a virtual machine. Call the new environment WIN instead of WINDOWS, suggesting a new stripped-down nimbleness. Make it clear that the old world will be supported for a long time but not forever. Dazzle people with what they can do in a new world.

Or just maintain Windows in parallel. Point is, there’s no reason why Microsoft should have one and only one PC desktop operating system. Why not two: the new cool no-cruft one; and Windows, the established, familiar, chock-full-of-baggage-and-legacy-compatibility one.

Kevin C. Tofel:

Much of this “wait for the price drop” sentiment stems from the original iPhone 4 GB and 8GB models, which debuted in late June of 2007 for $499 and $599, respectively. By September of that same year, the 4 GB model was scrapped and the 8 GB unit dropped $200 to $399. The situation generated an early adapter uproar by many — myself included — and Apple tried to make good with $100 Apple Store credits for those who paid the higher prices.

The entire event tarnished Apple’s luster in the eyes of consumers and this isn’t a company that repeats mistakes often.

Jonathan Schwartz:

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”

Delicious collection of iPad doubters.

Update: Fireballed. Google has it cached, though.

Oh, yes.

Update: Much better version from the official site, including downloadable 1080p QuickTime.

Larry Dignan:

Amazon’s response to Colorado’s state tax issue — Governor Bill Ritter signed a bill that puts new restrictions and taxes on out-of-state retailers like Amazon — has been consistent. When things go against Amazon the retailer cuts its affiliate programs in that state.

Oh, yes.

Yesterday, after linking to “http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/Voodoo-Blog/The-HP-s-Slate-Device-Runs-The-Complete-Internet-Including-Flash/ba-p/53838”, I asked what the deal was with that crazy server name. A DF reader who works at HP emailed:

Internally it’s called something stupid, like a “license plate name” or somesuch. HP IT does that so they can physically locate a server when it goes down.

Externally, you’re seeing how one department’s braindead internal policy designed for their convenience reduces the convenience of the entire rest of the company (and our customers). I’d blame Randy Mott (of WalMart pedigree) who has proven to be quite a Napoleon (or perhaps Brutus is a better example?) when it comes to turf battles, but I think that policy pre-dated him.

Many folks internally in HP hate those license plate external URLs but there’s nothing we can do about it. The policy has been set from on-high.

So because of a dictum from the IT department, HP — one of the biggest, proudest, and most successful companies in the history of the computer business — has URLs that are cryptic, long, and ugly. Whereas anyone with, say, a Tumblr account, can get far nicer URLs for free.

Captivating little HTML5 drawing app by Ricardo Cabello. Works swell on the iPhone too. (Via Federico Viticci.)

Glenn Fleishman, writing for Boing Boing:

RealNetworks just screwed us all by settling lawsuits in which it might have lost — but which might also have given some new life to fair use for digital media. The post-RealDVD world means that unless there’s a major change to the law surrounding copy protection, there will never be a legal way to perform legal acts of copying or shifting protected movies, music, and games.

Mike Taylor:

I want to make things, not just glue things together.

(Via Rands.)

Philip Elmer-DeWitt, quoting from a report from Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner on the behind-the-scenes aspects of Apple’s patent suit against HTC:

Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors.

Our checks also suggest that these warning shots are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers. Rival software and hardware teams are going back to the drawing board to look for work-arounds. Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses. And strategy teams are working to chart OS strategies that are better hedged.

Reiner concludes that the effect is going to be to drive would-be Android handset makers into the arms of Microsoft and Windows Phone 7.

Pedro Bustamante:

Interestingly enough, the Mariposa bot is not the only malware I found on the Vodafone HTC Magic phone. There’s also a Confiker and a Lineage password stealing malware. I wonder who’s doing QA at Vodafone and HTC these days?

In the comments, Bustamante writes:

Regardless, I don’t think this has to do with factory settings, but rather with poor QA process of refurbished phones.

One would hope this isn’t widespread.

Farhad Manjoo’s piece for Slate on Apple’s patent infringement legal action against HTC bears the headline “Apple’s Multitouch Lawsuit Is Both Dumb and Dangerous”, which is slightly odd, insofar as that none of the patents Apple cited are related to multitouch.

Which raises the question: Why not? Multitouch is certainly the aspect of the iPhone user interface that has been most-talked about with regard to patents, ever since it debuted at Macworld Expo in 2007 and Jobs flat-out bragged about how patented it was. Maybe the aspects of multitouch that HTC has added to the Nexus One don’t violate the patents?

Update: Nilay Patel says none of Apple’s granted patents cover pinch-to-zoom, which, as far as I can tell, is the only “multitouch” supported on the Nexus One. Apple has pending patents on pinch-to-zoom and other multi-finger gestures, but who knows if they’ll be granted.