Peter Bright, writing for Ars Technica on the integration of Flash into Windows 8:

Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 will include a bundled, integrated version of Adobe Flash, and the Metro-style browser will support the use of Flash on a limited number of sites. This news and corroborating screenshots comes from Within Windows and winunleaked.tk.

In Windows 8, Microsoft’s browser will come in two guises. There will be the traditional desktop browser, with its full support of plug-ins and extensions, and there will be the new Metro-style browser that will be plug-in free. But that’s not quite the whole story. The browser will include an integrated and embedded version of Adobe Flash, and because this will be built-in, it won’t be treated as a plug-in.

The result? Even the Metro-style browser will be able to use Flash.

Microsoft has a hard time letting go of the past, don’t they? Even when it’s with a technology they tried replacing with Silverlight.
Years ago, you could argue Microsoft’s legacy support was one of its strengths – even in 2012 you can open a Microsoft Word doc created in 2002, but each year they don’t cut ties with the past is another year they aren’t able to innovate to their full potential.
Just look at Windows 8 – you’re in Metro-mode most of the time, but every now and then classic Windows rears its head.
Apple did this with it’s operating system too, but not only did they do it better by sandboxing it, but they did it 10 years ago.

Microsoft is sharing the bottom of smartphone barrel with RIM, Apple has surpassed it in net worth and now Chrome has taken the top browser spot from Internet Explorer.
Microsoft, what are you going to do?

My Aunt Judy is whipping my ass at Words With Friends time after time and it’s fucking pissing me off.

The problem is, I’m not playing her on the inside as much as I should. When I say ‘inside’ I mean playing tight combos in between existing words, not extending new words out vertically or horizontally into the void. Every time I even come one block short of a double or triple word block, she takes it.

I’m an educated man. College degree. I’ve read John Updike. I can parse XML.

My lexicon can’t be that much smaller than hers, can it? “It’s not the words, Mike, it’s how you use them. I mean, look at Hemingway.” Yeah, yeah. Spare me.

I feel like Fredo in The Godfather II, ‚ÄúIt ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!‚Äù

A few years ago I watched a 60 Minutes episode where they interviewed Tiger Woods. He said no matter the activity, he hates losing.

I know how he feels.

Let’s do this. Enough already.

Sad this is becoming a necessity, but handy.

via The Brooks Review

From Business Insider: The Kindle Fire Is The Fruitcake Of Tablets

The best headline of the year so far.

*If you know who the Jerky Boys are, you understand my title.

Photographer David Friedman put together a short documentary on the ‘father’ of the video game, Ralph Baer. His wife died to in 2006, but he continues to tinker and invent is his home laboratory. “What else am I going to do? I need a challenge.”, he says. I love how he’s an engineer by trade, but sees himself as an artist:

I still get a big charge out of making something work. I write the hardware, I push the button, I download it into the microprocessor… and it works. Ahhh, beautiful!

I’m basically an artist, no different from a painter that sits there and loves what he does.

Would you ask a guy who’s been painting his whole life why you’re still painting, why don’t you retire? Retire to what?! Stop painting? This is insane.

via The Atlantic

Shawn Blanc says his iPad is now is laptop. Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac agrees and even wrote his latest book all on an iPad.
To be clear, Blanc used to be a print designer and now writes full-time on his own site. I understand how it’s possible to be a writer and use just an iPad for work.
For me, I’m a web designer and rely heavily on my laptop to be productive. When I travel, it’s with 3 devices – my iPhone, my iPad and my MacBook Pro. While I am more senior at this point in my career and don’t find myself doing as much heavy lifting in Photoshop and Illustrator, I still need to use them.
I would love to reach a point where I just need to carry my iPad, but I still work on the farm and I need a truck (see also here).

MacNN: Liquidmetal inventor says Apple ‘years’ away from casings

Dr. Ataka Peker, one of the inventors of the new class of metallic alloys known commercially as Liquidmetal and the founder of the company, says he believes Apple would have to spend “three to five years”, and “$300 million to $500 million” to develop the alloys to the point where it could be used on a large scale, such as for an entire computing casing. He believes the company will continue to use Liquidmetal on a smaller scale until a “breakthrough product” comes along.

I wonder if Dr. Peker felt like Dr. Evil after he proclaimed Apple would have to spend, “Five hundred meellion dollars…..”
Apple is only sitting on over $100 billion in the bank now.
And that 3-5 year window for development? Who says they’re not already working on it?

It’s now over 5 years since the introduction of the original iPhone and this is what RIM’s response is?
Multitouch smartphone with on-screen keyboard. An email program that resembles something like those found in iOS and webOS and to round out the ‘sneak peek’ – the ability to stream video content from your phone to your TV. Like Apple TV.
My favorite Darwin quote comes to mind:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
A 5-year response time is not being adaptable enough, RIM.

Android Police gives us A Definitive History of Android Version Adoption (via Daring Fireball):

That’s right, it’s not your imagination, Ice Cream Sandwich adoption is going very, very slowly. You’ll notice update percentage gets progressively slower with each new version, but keep in mind the Android ecosystem is also getting progressively larger. Ice Cream Sandwich has to deal with many, many more models than √âclair did.

Updates are getting slower.
Eclair? Ice Cream Sandwich? burp Let’s not forget the other Android versions: Cupcake, Donut, Gingerbread, Honeycomb.
It’s obvious what’s going on here. Android is getting fat.
It’s time Android threw on some Richard Simmons Sweatin’ To The Oldies and burn some calories! Stop inhaling every new phone Samsung and HTC come out with!
Android, you can’t eat away your fragmentation, eating only makes the fragmentation worse.

Technology Review on how Android device makers are ‘mutinying’ and forking the code to their liking:

Google’s Android device makers aren’t happy. They’re tired of making commodity devices that are merely vehicles for Google’s Android OS, each indistinguishable from the other because of Google’s rules about how Android can be implemented on them in order for them to qualify as “compatible.”

These makers have seen the success of devices with custom OSes built on forked versions of the still kind-of open-source Android operating system, primarily Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, and they’re itching to release their own.

Makes sense to me. Why would anyone want to be one of hundreds of different smartphones with the same OS?
The problem is, while device makers are solving the problem of differentiation in the marketplace by forking Android, they’re requiring developers to make the extra effort to customize their applications to run on their custom ‘flavor’ of Android.
This Alan Kay quote keeps making more and more sense each day:
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

Everyone is bugging out about the original ‘Google Phone’ presented in 2006 that have come to light in the current Google-Oracle trial.
Any gadget geek should recall Engadget posted pictures of the actual phone –¬†not the rendering — back in 2007.

As I started reading this Co.Design post on the Nest thermostat, the first paragraph reminded how slippery the area of product attribution is:

When we first sat down with Tony Fadell, the CEO of Nest and the inventor of the Nest Learning Thermostat, we asked him what made Steve Jobs so great. Fadell is, perhaps, one of the best-qualified people on the planet to answer. He’s the one who first pitched the idea of an iTunes/iPod ecosystem. He’s the one who Steve Jobs hired to bring the iPod to life.

Depending on what you’re reading and where, you will hear different named given to an inventor, designer, creator or “father” of a product. With the iPod, sometimes it’s Steve Jobs, other times it’s Jony Ive and in this case it’s Tony Fadell.
It’s important to understand all these answers are correct and all these answers are wrong. Jobs, Ive and Fadell (among others) are all responsible for bringing the iPod to market. The iPod would not be the classic, easy-to-use, iconic, digital music it is if any one of those men were removed from the equation.

It’s time we move beyond technical specifications when deciding on a tablet to buy.
While geeks will nit pick over memory slots, removable batteries, customizable configurations and “openess”, Joe and Jane average could give a rat’s ass. MG Siegler did a great piece on The Death of the Tech Spec back in November of 2011.
The everyday consumer wants to know if it’s enjoyable and easy to use. That’s it. Technical specifications are important, but they shouldn’t lead the conversation. Regular people don’t know the difference between capacitive or resistive touch screens. What’s important is how the screen responses to their touch.
So while product reviews at The Verge are extremely thorough and well presented, they miss the point. Especially their product comparison charts — like the one they did comparing the iPad (3) with the competition.
Now, as I mentioned, there’s valuable information in their comparisons, but it’s no way for the majority of non-geeks to make a buying decision.
It’s about as helpful as having a comparison chart for some of my favorite bands (click to enlarge):

Can you tell from the chart above which band is ‘the best’?
Does how loud a band is in concert help you decide whether to get their newest album?
Does how many chords they use per song tell you anything about great they are at composing music?
Docking points from tablet not having a removable battery is like docking points from a band for only having a drummer and a guitarist (like The White Stripes). Or giving more points to a band because their guitarist uses a bow to play their guitar (actually Page does get extra points for that).
The 1980’s and 1990’s were part of the Windows Era and during the Windows Era consumers did not choose their operating systems for two reasons. First, Microsoft had a monopoly on personal computers. Second, even even when there were options outside of using Windows, IT departments made the buying decisions, and usually choosing Windows made their lives easier even if the other options they had to choose from were designed better (although it’s likely there weren’t any other options to choose from).
Since the iPhone launched in 2007, the flow of influence continues to reverse more and more, putting consumers in control of what gets adopted in the workplace. Tell me many how many high profile executives you can now spot, dicking around on iPads during meetings? I’ve worked with some Fortune 500 companies and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve also seeing a lot of iPads in business class on planes (and just as many in couch, for that matter). It’s awesome because IT can’t tell the CEO of your company his iPad isn’t supported on their network. Fuck you, guy. It is now.
For the first time in their lives, regular people are realizing you can have fun using a personal computer. No Windows Explorer, no force-quits, no CRTL-ALT-DEL, no viruses, no security prompts. Using a computer can be fluid, seamless, fun. An experience.
Like listening to one of your favorite bands.