The NYTimes is reporting Nokia is cutting 10,000 jobs as part of an “emergency overhaul”.
Remember this Fast Company cover from a few years ago:

Remember, the technology world is volatile.
Shit changes quickly.

The people blogging over at the Wall Street Journal appear to be eating retard sandwiches, like Clint Boulton:

But it may also wreak havoc on CIOs’ networks and connectivity budgets — better quality displays require more network bandwidth, which allows users to increase data consumption. Consider that experts told CIO Journal earlier this year that the new iPad, which includes a Retina display of 2048-by-1536 resolution with 3.1 million pixels, would slow enterprise networks to a crawl and increase data costs from carriers. Now imagine how a Macbook with 5.1 million pixels — two million more than the new iPad — will increase data traffic in office networks.

This statement is up there with the shit former Senator Ted Stevens said about the Internet being a series of tubes, although not as entertaining.
I take that back. Mr. Boulton is more dumber.
via The Loop

So one of the many things announced in Apple’s WWDC Keynote was the system-level integration of Facebook with iOS and OS X.
This is interesting because there have been rumors for a while now of Facebook working on their own phone.
If it’s true they’re building a phone, then they don’t want to make their (future) competitor stronger by allowing them to bake in system-level support to their platform. On the flipside, if they don’t allow access, then they risk marginalizing their platform, making it less relevant.
I also like John Gruber’s view that the Facebook integration was a nice “fuck you” to Google:

Starting with the opening gag with Siri doing stand-up comedy and continuing through to Apple’s new maps and Siri’s new features, there was an unmistakeable “Fuck you, Google” undertone to the whole keynote. Apple is forcing Google out of iOS. Even the Facebook integration feels like a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” alliance.

I’m with Om Malik though, I don’t trust Facebook with my info:

I just don’t want Facebook constantly tracking me and I don’t want any information leaking especially on my iPhone. Perturbed, I tried to get more details on the integration from Apple. Here is what I understand about how it works – when using the system-level single sign-on, when you want to share something via Facebook, the system logs you into Facebook, shares whatever you want to share — a link, a video, a photo or whatever — and then logs you out.

While I do use Facebook, I’m not one of these sad people who can’t live without it. When I upgrade to iOS 6 I won’t be using the single sign-on. Hell, I don’t even have the app on my iPhone.

Drove by The Moscone Center yesterday dropping my mother-in-law off at work.
Looks like Apple’s ready.

Suck on it, Michael Dell.
via thisisnthappiness

Ian King over at Bloomberg is reporting HTC is being shut out of Windows 8:

Microsoft locked out HTC from the development of products using the newest version of its operating system on concern that HTC doesn’t sell enough devices or have ample experience making tablets, said the people, who asked not to be named because negotiations between HTC and other companies are private.

See, this is why the forecasting done by analysts is so fucking pointless. Like the shit from IDC saying Windows Phone will surpass iPhone’s marketshare by 2016.
The tech world is so volatile, huge changes can and do happen overnight. This is a digital world people. One second Apple is using Google Maps, the next, boom, they’re (probably going to be) using their own (I’m not saying the development is instant, just the decision and execution).
If you work closely with or in technology, never get comfortable.
Stay on your toes. Stay vigilant.

Kevin Tofel over at GigaOm wonders if it matters that Window Phone has over 100,000 apps.
The answer: It doesn’t.
It might help to think of the smartphone market as a poker game. When the iPhone launched 5 years ago, there was no blind needed to play the game. Apple had created a new game, they were making up the new rules of what a smartphone was and anyone could play. RIM jumped in with the Storm, Palm with the Pre and Google with Android.
Fast forward to 2009. RIM has folded, Palm and Google are still playing but Apple has changed the blind. Now in order to play you need 100,000 applications for your mobile OS. Google and Palm still have a lot of catching up to do, but they’ve both convinced the house to let them continue to play as they hustle to hit the six-figure mark for apps (spoiler: Google doesn’t hit it until 2010).
2010. Microsoft shows up late to the game with Windows Phone. Everyone is expecting them to show up hungover and in last night’s tux, but they’re looking surprisingly crisp. Like Google in 2009, they don’t have the required 100,000 apps, but they have a ton of cash, so they’re allowed to play.
2011. HP (Palm) folds.
Fast forward to now. 2012. Apple still has the biggest pile of chips and a ton of applications (I don’t know who has the most now). Both Google and Microsoft have the money and the apps. But there’s a problem. Now it’s no longer enough to just have a mobile OS, a lot cash and over 100,000 apps. Now the smartphone game is being played on television and the viewing audience gets to vote on who gets to stay, American Idol style.
And no one is voting for Windows Phone.

From MG Siegler:

Google will announce the next version of their OS before 10% of their users are on the last version. Think about how insane that is for a second.

Hmmm. Thought about it.
Pretty insane.

Last month Time Warner’s CEO admitted he didn’t know what Airplay was.
Now this month, DirecTV chairman Michael White says Apple TV won’t obsolete their technology.
I wouldn’t bet against Apple, just saying.

While I’m still in my honeymoon phase with Reggie Watts, Gizmodo just posted a great piece on the gadgets he uses.
Reggie says:

I like simple, well-made, well-designed things. That’s the thing that makes me happiest. Then the thing that makes me least happy is something that is not designed well. It could be anything, like a parking garage or a really small drinking fountain, because it’s like why go through the effort and not do it right? It’s really annoying.

And this nugget stood out for me:

While Reggie is very clearly a gadget guy, his music is about the music, not the gadgets. “I’ve just always been fascinated by using technology as a tool to enhance creativity,” he says, “Not to replace it, but to enhance it.” You can hear it when he plays. The musical worlds he creates aren’t about how fast he can push a toggle or twist a dial; if it doesn’t serve to make it better, more beautiful, funnier, or more powerful, he doesn’t use it. He keeps his music as tight as he keeps his kit.

Sounds like Reggie believes computers are like a bicycle for our minds.

John Gruber pulled, “We’re going to double down on secrecy on products.” as one of the key quotes from Tim Cook’s appearance at the D10 Conference.

I picked a different one.

When pressed about Apple TV, Cook responds: “We’re not a hobby kind of company, as you know.” Boom.

Apple ain’t going to mess around with Apple TV (in it’s current black box incarnation) unless they can ‘make a dent’ in the television universe.

We’ve all had a gut feeling about Apple TV, whether you read Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs where Jobs claims he’s finally cracked it (‘it’ being television) or you’re just connecting the dots from the iPod to iTunes to iPhone to the expansion of iTunes to movies, rentals and shows to iTV to iPad to Apple TV …

It only makes sense.

I’m linking to the LA Times article about the NY Times article on the rumors Facebook is working on it’s own smartphone (I’m not doing this because I moved to LA, I reached my 10-article limit at nytimes.com):

Now, it seems Facebook is dedicating more resources to its phone project. The New York Times reports that the company has hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers and is actively recruiting others.

Ok, despite the title of this post, yes, you can buy talent, but you can’t guarantee it’ll stay around and it won’t guarantee you a hit product.
I would never buy a Facebook smartphone. I don’t want one company managing my relationships and monetizing them with contextual ads.
Apple manages my credit card with which I can purchase music, movies, applications and games. I am Apple’s customer. With a Facebook smartphone, I am not Facebook’s customer, the advertisers are. So like Google, Facebook’s goal is to please advertisers, not me.
No thanks.

Randy Murray gives some sound advice on backing up your digital stuff:

Last year I needed to use a play that I wrote nearly thirty years ago. It was originally in a digital form, but that format, a Lanier word processor on huge floppy disks, was long inaccessible. But because I had it on paper, it was no problem to read and use. I’ve updated it to a new digital edition (I retyped it and rewrote it), but I’m keeping copies of each edition on paper. I also keep really important digital files in as raw a format as possible. For example, save as text, not a proprietary word processor.

I don’t do enough of this and I should. And you should too.

Citing a report by DigitTimes, I4U News says Google will launch a low-cost, 7-inch tablet in July.
Well, if this is true, I hope the media scrutinizes their supply chain as much as they did Apple’s because it’s important to know how they’re able to make them so cheaply.
It’s only fair.
via PSFK