Reuters:

U.S. patent authorities rejected Apple Inc’s key “pinch-to-zoom” patent in an initial ruling, the second setback in less than two months for the iPhone maker in its patent battle with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

This rejection is good for everyone. Apple shouldn’t be the only company able to use pinch-to-zoom on mobile devices. They definitely didn’t invent it (that link is a TED Talk by Jeff Han from 2006, one year before the iPhone debuted.).

Also—it’s not “pinch-to-zoom”. It’s pinch-to-zoom-out and spread-to-zoom-in. That drives me insane.

They show me a picture of the character and then they show me a storyboard which tells what this character is going to do in the cartoons. They said Bugs Bunny was a tough little stinker, so I had to make him tough. I thought, which is the toughest voice? Either Brooklyn or the Bronx. [in the Bugs voice] So I put da two of em tageddah, Doc. Dat’s how I got da voice for Bugs. Heheheh.

—Mel Blanc on how he came up with the voice for Bugs Bunny

My brother shared this great animated GIF he found on Tumblr (I think the original is from this site).

Not only is this a beautiful GIF, but it’s also from one of my favorite Looney Toons Episodes of all time, Rabbit Rampage.

taken from TCC

I miss this commercial:

From MIT Technology Review:

A woman who is completely paralyzed below the neck has regained the ability to reach out and interact with the world around her thanks to the most advanced brain-computer interface for operating a robotic arm so far.

In February, surgeons implanted two four-millimeter-by-four-millimeter electronics chips into the participant’s motor cortex, the region of the brain that initiates movements. Each chip has 96 electrodes and is wired through the skull to a computer that translates her thoughts into signals for the robotic arm. The work, performed by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, is reported in the latest issue of The Lancet.

Controlling artificial limbs with your brain, phones with video chatting. Self-driving cars for Google.

We are officially living in the future.

If you’ve never seen Bad Santa, shame on you.

(warning: strong language)

If you create anything—music, art, design, film, writing—don’t be afraid to repeat yourself throughout your career.

I used to be afraid of reposting content and reiterating ideas on this site for fear of being, well, repetitious. People have already seen this, I’m not going to post it again. Sure, some people will recognize images, videos and ideas I’ve posted before, but guess what? There’s a good chance some, if not more people haven’t seen what I’m reposting. To quote Merlin Mann, Every day someone is born who’s never seen the Flintstones. This is true.

I’m not suggesting becoming a broken record and not trying new things, but if something resonates with you, if you’re obsessed with a certain topic, don’t be afraid to go balls out on it and attack it with all your energy. For me, creating repeated posts on a topic, like ‘innovation’, is my way of chewing on it and truly understanding it beyond a surface, scanning-the-Wikipedia-page level.

Think about the original iMac G3 from 1998. It was a breakthrough computer unlike any other on the market. Except maybe the original Macintosh 128K from 1984. The iMac was an all-in-one computer, like the original Macintosh and even had a handle on the top, like the original Macintosh. Steve Jobs wasn’t afraid of repeating himself with ideas he knew worked.

The longer I keep this site running (six years and counting) the less I give a shit about repeating myself. It drives me a little bit crazy when I see a post on a prominent blog featuring some piece of content I posted months or even a year ago.

When I have an idea for a post, and it feels solid and relevant to me, I publish it.

Dear iTunes—

Mike

Update: Sorry iTunes, it seems with another click of the “Albums” column and I can organize by “Album by Artist” and Album by Artist/Year”.

Sorry about that.

taken from The Combustion Chamber

Pulled from Everything Is a Remix

Realization: After using an iPhone for ~4 years, I find the ability to work, particularly type, in landscape mode more and more insignificant.

Playing games and shooting photos are a different story.

taken from The Combustion Chamber

Jesus Diaz on the new Google Maps app for iOS:

After some intensive testing since its yesternight release, there’s no doubt about it: Google Maps for iOS is, hands down, the best maps application, perhaps on any platform. So good, so fast, and so clean. There’s really no contest. They nailed it, and shamed Apple in the process.

It’s not the snarky tone that bothers be. You can dig up a whole bunch of my pro-Apple snark on this site. What strikes me is the irony of the snark used by Jesus.

Let’s be clear what just happened—Google delivered a best-of-breed maps app for iOS. It features more accurate map data, Street View (oh how I missed you, Street View) and turn-by-turn directions (which I still can’t get on my iPhone 4 running iOS 6). In building their Maps app, Google has improved the overall experience of iOS and made a lot of people happy.

Google has also lit a much-needed fire under Apple’s ass to improve their own Maps app. Forget what Tim Cook says about, “If you think what are customers’ expectations are high, you should see our own internal expectations…” Yes, we know Apple expects the best, but there’s nothing like another car in the race to make things interesting.

So did Google just school Apple? Oh snap, oh no they di-int!!! Did Apple just get directions on where to get its ass handed to them?

Hell yeah they did, and I got a better iPhone for it.