Jim Dalrymple on Samsung’s ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program:

Samsung wants consumers to buy its Galaxy S III so badly that it’s willing to pay them for their old smartphones.

Priceless.

Literally.

The Curiosity rover touched down on Mars this morning. Today NASA released this image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the spacecraft in descent over the surface of the red planet. That’s damned impressive. The Missile Test wing of Daily Exhaust laments the idea that robots will more than likely be humanity’s emissaries to the stars, but it’s hard to argue with results. Now let’s get some boots and flags up there.

Ars Technica: Is Surface Microsoft’s confession that Windows 8 isn’t really cut out for tablets?

But Windows 8 exposes the great danger of Microsoft’s vision: a software environment that forces you to go “PC” when all you want is the “Plus” bit. If the iPad has taught us anything at all, it’s that there’s a lot of people out there who are happy with pure tablets, and actively desire pure tablets. Windows 8 gets a lot right, but its PC side is still there, and it’s inescapable.

The beauty of the iPad is in all the way it isn’t a PC. No keyboard. No wires. No pesky file directory explorer. When Henry Ford build the Model T, he didn’t market is on how well it aligned with the horse and buggy. He marketed it on how different and better it was than its predecessor.
The more time goes on and the more I really look hard at Microsoft Surface and Windows 8, the more I see a company not ready to cannibalize one area of their business in order for another part to thrive.
And for innovation to happen, you need that cannibalization.

Elevator pitch: What’s the idea for your new series?
Comedians. In cars. Getting coffee.
Simple idea and three things I love. Count me in. (…although this show isn’t as simple as The Nothing Pitch)
Check out this one of Jerry Seinfeld riding with Ricky Gervais. I love when Jerry picks up Ricky in his 1967 Austin Healey 3000 and Gervais has no clue what type of car it is, let alone an English one.
via Laughing Squid

There’s a gold mine of Mad Men-era clip art in the Bart & Co. Flickr account.


via Khoi Vihn

Over at The Verge there’s a post on the nearly 40 iPhone and iPad prototypes revealed in Samsung trial.
MG Siegler responds:

Let me reiterate my stance that I think it’s fascinating that Apple wants to win this lawsuit badly enough that they’re letting all this previously confidential information get out.

I think Apple is super pissed off they have to reveal all these prototypes, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. And it gives their competition no advantage moving forward. This is because all of these prototypes are artifacts of the creative process, not the creative process itself.
It’s same thing as getting access to the sketchbooks of Da Vinci. Yes, you’re looking at the work of genius, but this in no way helps you create a masterpiece. I would even go as far as saying it’s like getting the source code to a program or website—unless you’re smart enough to know how to work with the code, it’s useless. Marco Arment argued this point in Episode 85 of his Build & Analyze podcast (around the 68-minute mark).
So Samsung and everyone else in the world now has access to old Apple hardware prototypes (rejected ones, I might add), but they’re not getting access to Apple’s creative process for innovation.

Batman 2012

Batman 1960s

Electronista: AT&T adopting ‘anything but iPhone’ strategy, sources say

AT&T is deliberately trying to steer retail shoppers away from the iPhone, according to three sources for the Boy Genius Report. Regional sales managers have allegedly been handing instructions to store managers, telling them that people looking for smartphones should be directed towards Android or Windows Phone devices instead. Even if a person comes into a store looking for an iPhone, workers have reportedly been told to show shoppers other options so they can “make an informed decision.”

Funny to hear about a phone carrier trying to divert peoples’ attention from a great product.
If true, it’s clear AT&T is doing this because they don’t want to become too reliant on Apple for success. This will be tough though, as the article says the iPhone represents 72% of all activations on their network.