Case of Royally Screwing up

Apple is screwed, royally that is. For years they fooled you and me. And now an antenna design change has shaken them up. And what do they do. They come clean on a dirty secret I believe they knew all along. Guess that’s what people call being Evil.

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4

At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

Evil Triumphs But Never Conquers

In Apple World, Black Triumphs over White. But then Evil Triumphs But Never Conquers. White will be back. Until second half of July.

Statement by Apple on White iPhone 4

White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.

Back Breaker - Youtube wins against Viacom

Back Breaker - Google Wins. Viacom Loses. And the World is still the same.

YouTube wins case against Viacom

Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.

This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other. We’re excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world.

Telecommuting can hurt your career

I agree. Telecommuting over a longer period of time can hurt career growth.

Study: Telecommuting can hurt your career

In the first-ever academic study of “passive” face time — when workers are seen in the office without any interaction — UC Davis professors Kimberly Elsbach and Jeffrey Sherman found that bosses think more favorably of employees who are present.

“Merely being seen — often from a distance and without any interaction or real understanding of what a person is doing — that in itself has value,” Elsbach says. “People notice.”

Google Command Line Tool

Now this is <<expletive>> cool. Google knows how to get the props from the Geeks and Semi-Geeks (like me).

Introducing the Google Command Line Tool

Ever wanted to upload a folder full of photos to Picasa from a command prompt? We did, a lot, last summer. It made us want to say:

$ google picasa create --title "My album" ~/Photos/vacation/*.jpg

So we wrote a program to do that, and a whole lot more.

GoogleCL is a command-line utility that provides access to various Google services. It streamlines tasks such as posting to a Blogger blog, adding events to Calendar, or editing documents on Google Docs.

For example:

$ google blogger post --blog "My blog" --tags "python, googlecl, development" my_post.html
$ google calendar add "Lunch with Jason tomorrow at noon"
$ google docs edit --title "Shopping list" --editor vim

GoogleCL is a pure Python application that uses the Python gdata libraries to make Google Data API calls from the command line.

Glossy iPhone's are different than Nike Shoes

Glossy iPhone’s are different than Nike Shoes. Why do we treat one entity different than other when the underlying issue is same. Remember, Nike and China Shoe Factories. Time to Think…

Revealed: Inside the Chinese suicide sweatshop where workers toil in 34-hour shifts to make your iPod

When Apple boss Steve Jobs unveiled his latest creation this week, the event was given quasi-religious significance. At a ceremony in San Francisco, more than 5,000 supplicants paid homage to a man hailed by some as a visionary.

Tickets to the event cost £1,000 - and guests watched in awe as Jobs, in his trademark black turtleneck jumper and blue jeans (he wears the same outfit seven days a week), held up the new Apple iPhone in front of a giant computer-generated image of himself.

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Yet, amid all the fanfare and celebrations this week, there was one sour, niggling note: reports of a spate of suicides at a secretive Chinese complex where Jobs's iPhone, iPod and iPad - Apple's new state-of-the-art slimline computer - are built and assembled.

With 11 workers taking their lives in sinister circumstances, Jobs acted swiftly to quell a potential public relations disaster.

Stressing that he found the deaths 'troubling' and that he was 'all over it', the billionaire brushed aside suggestions that the factory was a sweatshop.

'You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools,' he said. 'For a factory, it's pretty nice.'

His definition of 'nice' is questionable and likely to have his American workers in uproar if such conditions were imposed upon them.

If you build it, they will come...

People like smart alternatives, and Bing is proving to be just that, a SMART alternative to Google.

Amazon Wants To Become The Primary Shopping Option On Bing

Amazon wants to own the shopping results that are served up from Microsoft's Bing search engine, we've heard from an industry source close to both companies.

After Microsoft announced it would shut down its Bing Cashback program, Amazon decided to aggressively pursue talks with Bing about taking over the shopping experience on Bing.

Talk of Write-Offs

Wow, now this is called Write-Off rather in junk Car terms, this should be labeled as “Totaled”

AOL To Sell Bebo For Around $10 Million

AOL is close to selling Bebo to an investor group, we’ve confirmed from a source close to the company. The price? $10 million or less. Rumors of the acquisition first surfaced this morning, and the buyer may be Criterion Capital Partners.

That’s just a bit less than the $850 million AOL paid for the social network in 2008. And as decimated as Bebo is, it’s almost certainly worth more than $10 million.

Social Media Clauses in Employment Contracts now

What? Now we will start seeing Social Media related clauses in our Employment Contracts. Just thinking what will they read like?

LinkedIn communications at center of unprecedented lawsuit

In a first-of-its kind lawsuit, an IT staffing firm has accused one of its former employees of violating the terms of her non-compete agreements through her conduct on LinkedIn.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Minnesota by TEKsystems Inc., charges former employee Brelyn Hammernik of soliciting TEKSystems' employees and clients using LinkedIn.

The lawsuit alleges that after Hammernik left TEKsystems in Nov. 2009, she "communicated" with at least 20 TEKSystems contract employees and "connected" with about 16 of them using the LinkedIn professional network.

TEKsystems contends that Hammernik's actions were on behalf of her new employer and constituted a violation of the non-compete and non-solicitation contracts that she signed when joining TEKsystems as a recruiter in Jan. 2007.

More Coffee with Free WiFi

Would you drink more coffee with Free Wifi? And what if free content is thrown in your Cappuccinos from the likes of NYT, WSJ etc. My View – I love the move. But then it depends on what you drink J

http://starbucks.tekgroup.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=397

On July 1, Starbucks will turn on one-click, free Wi-Fi through AT&T in all U.S. company operated stores.

Building on the Wi-Fi update, Schultz also revealed plans for a new online customer experience called the Starbucks Digital Network, in partnership with Yahoo!, which will debut later this fall.  This online experience – available only in U.S. company operated Starbucks stores – will be unique in its content offerings, allowing customers free unrestricted access to various paid sites and services such as wsj.com, exclusive content and previews, free downloads, local community news and activities, on their laptops, tablets or smart phones. 

Driven by Digital Ventures, a new business unit within Starbucks led by CIO and General Manager, Digital Ventures, Stephen Gillett, the Starbucks Digital Network in partnership with Yahoo! opens up a uniquely valuable customer experience, while at the same time appeals to leading online content providers and provides a new channel for customer engagement.  Launch content providers will include, among others, iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! and ZAGAT.