Delayed post – the boys over at Analogue launched this site a few months ago for the artist Ben Wisch.
Simple, elegant and immersive.
As usual.
Nice work guys.

From a few months ago (but the price is still the same), Palm Pixi one step closer to free, now $25 on Amazon.
Let me first say that I don’t know what profit agreement Palm and Sprint have for Pre and Pixi sales, but offering the Pixi for this low a price just smells like the Motorola RAZR all over again.
What I mean by this is when the RAZR rose to become the most popular clamshell phone of all time, Motorola continued to slash prices until they, as the Pixi now, started to approach zero. They had sold over 50 million RAZRs by 18 July 2006.
From Forbes, 20 February 2007:

Because Motorola has not recently had products that cellphone companies wanted to offer, it has sold tens of millions of Razrs and their offshoots by slashing prices. Margins have collapsed in the process.

I agree with John Gruber, the future of Palm depends on a genuine hit to keep the company alive, and I don’t see how slashing prices on their new models is going to help their business.

Nokia’s new mobile chief, Rick Simonson, on his predictions for mobile growth (via mocoNews):

I can even make a prediction for 2010: In Latin America, we will grow faster than (RIM). By 2011, our efforts will start producing results, as we will be at par with Apple and RIM in smartphones. Not only we draw level with them, we will also win the war because, in addition to email, we will be adding content, chat, music, entertainment and several other features, which will soon become very critical for success of any company in this space.

There’s 2 reasons I think this quote is awesome.
One, the fact that one of the global leaders in mobile phones is predicting when it will be ‘on par’ with an entrant (Apple) who’s only been in the game a little over 2 years.
And two, they’re making predictions, which is always dangerous – especially in an area like consumer electronics and entertainment. All the points Simonson notes – content, chat, music and entertainment – Apple is leading the way with thanks to iTunes, the iPod Touch and the iPhone. As Om Malik has pointed out, it’s the iPod Touch, running the iPhone OS, that is Apple’s “ace up it’s sleeve“. Nokia has no such ace. Maybe they’ll get one?
It took them 2 years to launch the Ovi Store and that didn’t fair too well.
It’s certainly possible for Nokia to take over Apple’s incumbency in mobile music and entertainment, I just don’t think they can do it.

The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway… I’ve started to make a tape… in my head… for Laura. Full of stuff she likes. Full of stuff that make her happy. For the first time I can sort of see how that is done.

• High Fidelity, 2000
  I made a mix MP3 CD for my little sis for Christmas, and it makes these rules for a compilation tape exponentially harder given that it can hold hundreds of tracks. I decided not to fill up the CD, but go for impact.

Beautiful set of long exposure experiments from Missiletest.

Allison Mossart from The Kills and the The Dead Weather

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

• Albert Einstein

From the Basement is a beautifully minimal site with amazing performance videos.
I’m a sucker for the chick rockers (and any Jack White project for that matter), and this video of The Dead Weather is awesome.
via Design You Trust

I’m looking forward to the grand opening of the first Microsoft Store opening in Scottsdale, Arizona.
If their launch party videos are any indication, we’re in for a real treat.

This is interesting.
While Apple continues its upward trajectory with iPhone sales and profits, it seems AT&T needs 17 months to break even on the iPhone. Once the iPhone (and Palm Pre, and Android phones) break free from its carrier exclusively, the powershift from carrier to phone manufacturer will be even more apparent.
We’re seeing a similar change happening in the music world. PBS MediaShift is reporting Record Labels Are Losing Power to Fans, Artists.
I say these are shifts for the better.

Talk about simplicity with a grid. The website for A24 is absolutely beautiful.
found via Navistd

It seems like every successful person I learn about now fits into the pattern that Malcolm Gladwell highlights in his book, Outliers, which is:
timing + talent + insane amounts of practice = rich & successful
It’s like when you buy a car, and then you see that model everywhere you go. I see the outliers pattern everywhere since reading that book.
And so it is after having just watched It Might Get Loud down at the Sunshine Theatre on Houston Street. I know Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White are extremely talented musicians, what I didn’t realize (but should have guessed) is that they also all practiced their asses off for years before making it big.
Like the examples Gladwell gives in Outliers, Page, The Edge and White were lucky enough to have gotten an early start to playing guitar. Gladwell talks about the magical 10,000 hours of practice one needs to get order to get to that ‘next level’ of success in a particular field/trade.
I haven’t done the math, but I’d be willing to put money down that these 3 musicians all hit that number early one in their lives.
Practice and book references aside, It Might Get Loud was awesome. I was fairly confident it was going to be. I couldn’t picture these 3 giants (ok, Jack White isn’t a giant yet, give him a little time) letting me down.
My favorite part in the film was when Jimmy Page starts playing the guitar on Whole Lotta Love (I think?) and the camera turns to White and Edge who both look like little kids seeing their favorite superhero in real life – eyes as big as their head with smiles from ear to ear.
Gave me chills and I wasn’t even there.

Remember, it’s all software, it just depends on when you crystallize it …People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

• Alan Kay, Creative Think (computer industry seminar), 1982
  My coworker Victor was telling me about some of his great touch tablet biz dev ideas (top secret) yesterday and it got us into a discussion all about software as service, apps and everything in between.
  One of the things I mentioned was how I’ve been observing the iPhone drying up software-as-service on custom devices. Case in point: TomTom has realized (a little late, but not too late) that it doesn’t make sense to create hardware units for their GPS software when the iPhone now has GPS built-in.
  Sirius Satellite Radio is another one who’s realized they’re not competing with FM radio anymore, so much as they’re competing with iTunes libraries, last.fm, Pandora and the like. I would say there’s still a market for their satellite offering, but it’s definitely been cannibalized by internet radio services.
  So where is the world’s largest software company in this mobile application explosion? Not surprisingly, their strategy is fragmented all over the place. It’s interesting that Microsoft has historically been the company to boast their attention to developers, developers, developers, yet Apple has created the #1 mobile computing platform of choice for many developers. Remember, Apple makes their money on their hardware sales – anything software or media they sell is to move people onto their hardware devices.
  This fact makes vain attempts like Samsung’s all the more humorous.