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Four short links: 5 November 2009

By Nat Torkington
November 5, 2009

Heat Maps in R -- We used financial data here because it's easier to access than the airline data, but it's actually a pretty interesting way of looking at a financial time series. Weekend and holiday effects are a bit more obvious, and it's a bit like being able to see the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly closes all...

So Long iPod, Hello E-Reader

By William Stanek
November 4, 2009

William Stanek here, talking about electronic paper displays (EPDs). In my earlier blog entries, I introduced EPDs, discussed how the technology works, and delved briefly into ways they're being used. Now, I'll dig in and take a closer look at...

Four short links: 8 October 2009

By Nat Torkington
October 8, 2009

Linux Baby Rocker -- inventive use of a CD drive and the eject command ... (via Hacker News) I Like Unicorn Because It's Unix -- forceful rant about the need to rediscover Unix systems programming. Reminds me of the Varnish notes where the author explains that it works better because it uses the operating system instead of recreating it...

Four short links: 2 October 2009

By Nat Torkington
October 2, 2009

I'm Tired of Your Analogue Attitude -- hilarious animated clip about social media gurus, made using xtranormal. (via trib on twitter) Three Laws of Open Government Data -- 1. If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist; 2. If it isn’t available in open and machine readable format, it can’t engage; 3. If a legal framework doesn’t...

Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time)

By Mark Sigal
September 23, 2009

The book business is under assault. Book sales have been stagnating for some time, Amazon is the industry's boogeyman, and more terrifying, book publishers have no idea how to market books in a world (largely) devoid of bookstores. Moreover, in the age of the always on, it's fair to ask, do people even still read anymore? Just as it re-envisioned the Media Player, the Mobile Phone and Mobile Computing, Apple is well positioned to reboot the Book with its forthcoming iPad Tablet. Read on...

Four short links: 19 August 2009

By Nat Torkington
August 19, 2009

Business Advice Plagued by Survivor Bias -- "Burying the other evidence: [...] Doesn't most business advice suffer from this fallacy? Harvard Business School's famous case studies include only success stories. To paraphrase Peter, what if twenty other coffee shops had the same ideas, same product, and same dedication as Starbucks, but failed? How does that affect what we can...

Amazon, Zappos and Buying What You Can’t Compete Against

By Joshua-Michele Ross
July 24, 2009

Amazon bought Zappos. At first I was a bit surprised. Like an aging celebrity going to the “big theater in the sky” it is unexpected when you first hear about it - but upon reflection not surprising at all. It smacks of inevitability. Amazon has consistently displayed a genius for pushing the boundaries of their business - for syndicating their...

AmaZappos or ZappoZon? Amazon, Zappos and Buying What You Can’t Compete Against

By Joshua-Michele Ross
July 24, 2009

Four short links: 8 June 2009

By Nat Torkington
June 8, 2009

How to Project on 3D Geometry -- the fine art (and math) of distorting an image so that it looks undistorted when projected onto a non-flat 3D surface. Confused? See the images below. (via straup on Delicious) ZinePal -- Create your own printable magazine from any online content. (via warrenellis on Delicious) What The Government Doesn't Understand About The...

Google's Browser-Based Plan for Ebook Sales

By Mac Slocum
June 1, 2009

BEA '09 may be remembered as the moment when Google formally entered the ebook market. From the New York Times: Mr. [Tom] Turvey [director of strategic partnerships at Google] said...

Thoughts on Amazon's New Whispernet Charge Policy

By Joe Wikert
May 21, 2009

As everyone probably knows by now, Amazon has altered the conversion/delivery fee associated with sending files wirelessly to your Kindle. When I got my Kindle v.1 I was happy to see that I could email PDFs and other documents and...

Built-to-Thrive - The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon

By Mark Sigal
May 18, 2009

When you think of companies that are not only built to last, but rather, built to thrive - in good times and bad - what companies logically sit at the top of the pyramid? Equally important, what should be the criteria for assessing them? Let me propose a straw man for assessing the "Built-to-Thrive" bunch...

Amazon Acquires Lexcycle

By Mac Slocum
April 27, 2009

Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, has just announced it's been acquired by Amazon: We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of...

Four short links: 13 Apr 2009

By Nat Torkington
April 13, 2009

Worms, sorting, languages, and infrastructure: Twitter XSS Attacks (Lynne Pope) -- several incarnations of a worm spread quickly across Twitter this weekend. Twitter profiles are generated by themes, whose parameters users can change. The user-supplied value for the colour was used directly in the CSS color field without filtering, which the original worm strain used to end the CSS and...

The Varieties of Openness Worth Wanting in the Cloud

By George Reese
March 27, 2009

All of the vendors in the cloud space have paid lip service to the idea of Openness in the cloud; and most everyone believes that being "Open" is a "good thing". In an environment in which few people agree on the specifics of defining the term "cloud computing", what exactly does it mean to have an Open Cloud?

Sony-Google Deal Adds 500k Public Domain Books to E-Reader

By Mac Slocum
March 19, 2009

Sony is adding 500,000 public domain EPUB-based titles to its Reader catalog through a partnership with Google. Paul Biba at Teleread examines Sony's rationale: Sony's apparent intent, meanwhile, beyond...

Jakob Nielsen: Kindle Content Must be Kindle-Specific

By Mac Slocum
March 16, 2009

Jakob Nielsen offers an in-depth look at Kindle formatting best practices: For Kindle, it's certainly unacceptable to simply repurpose print content. But you can't repurpose website content, either. For...

At Risk: Universal Online Access to All Knowledge

By Linda Stone
March 11, 2009

"After digesting the proposed Google Book Settlement, it becomes clear that the dizzyingly complex agreement is, in essence, an elaborate scheme for the exploitation of orphan works… The upshot, if the Settlement is approved, would be legal protection for Google, and only for Google, to scan and provide digital access to the orphan works."

Blame the Credit Card Franchise: Criminals on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute) Cloud

By Nitesh Dhanjani
March 11, 2009

Amazon EC2 is an extraordinarily powerful infrastructure available to anyone with a stolen credit card. Even if someone is able to use the EC2 platform for a few hours with a stolen credit card, he or she will be able to initiate a vicious cycle that may become impossible to halt.

Kindle Comes to the iPhone

By Mac Slocum
March 4, 2009

Users of the iPhone and iPod Touch can now tap into Amazon's Kindle store with the free Kindle for iPhone application. From The New York Times: The move comes a...

Consistent With Their "Web 2.0" Philisopical History, Amazon Opens Up Kindle To iPhone; More To Follow

By M. David Peterson
March 4, 2009

In a seemingly bold move by Amazon, on Wednesday support for the Kindle e-book format will become available to iPhone owners via a freely downloadable application. But this shouldn't really come as any shock: Amazon is simply doing what they've always done: Looked to the bigger picture as their guiding light.

Four short links: 26 Feb 2009

By Nat Torkington
February 26, 2009

Three stories about old-media in new-media age, and some patent goblins to leave a bad taste in your mouth: The Kindle Swindle -- the Authors Guild president argues that the robot voice of the Kindle does away with audiobook royalty streams, lucrative for some titles. Doesn't mention the vast majority of books for which there is no audiobook. Creators have...

Unboxing the Kindle 2

By Kevin Hemenway
February 26, 2009

This is the first of a number of entries planned regarding Amazon's new Kindle 2 and, as such, will serve both as an introduction to the series and as the requisite dump of unboxing and first-use photos. The Kindle 2...

Four short links: 25 Feb 2009

By Nat Torkington
February 25, 2009

Amazon, Apple, Science, and Databases: Amazon's Wheel of Growth -- a fascinating diagram in the middle, the flywheel of customer experience driving sales driving sellers driving selection which drives experience again, and all the while lower costs allows Amazon to deliver lower prices and thus lower selection. iPhone Sketch -- stencils to use when sketching your iPhone app's screens. The...

Kindle 2.0: Publishing's Killer? Publishing's Savior?

By Kurt Cagle
February 17, 2009

The new Kindle 2.0 is a cool enough-looking gadget - its hyper-svelt profile (just over a third of an inch) is thinner than most of the books it holds, at ten ounces it's also lighter, and the silvery/white casing (among others) manages to take scuffs and dirt better than its predecessor. The e-ink paper, sporting sixteen shades of gray, is also a compelling testament to what looks like the next major display technology - e-ink retains its state after it's configured, which means that you only have to refresh the page when you move beyond the buffered page content ... which in turn means that you can run the Kindle for days without recharging.

Amazon Announces Kindle 2

By Mac Slocum
February 9, 2009

I've got just enough time between TOC tutorial sessions for a quick Kindle 2 post. As anticipated, Amazon unveiled Kindle 2 this morning. The $359 update is thinner (0.36...

Amazon Dropping Non-Amazon Ebook Formats (Sort of)

By Andrew Savikas
January 27, 2009

Via Publishers Weekly, Amazon announced Monday it will stop offering ebooks in formats other than Kindle and Mobipocket: In the future, the online retailer says it plans to offer...

"Amazon Tax" Moves Forward in New York

By Mac Slocum
January 14, 2009

A judge has dismissed lawsuits from Amazon and Overstock.com challenging New York's "Amazon tax," which was enacted last year. From the Associated Press: The law applies to companies that don't...

Google, WalMart, and MyBarackObama.com: The Power of the Real Time Enterprise

By Tim O'Reilly
December 27, 2008

What do Google, WalMart, and MyBarackObama.com have in common, besides their extraordinary success? They are organizations that are infused with IT in such a way that it leads to a qualitative change in their entire business. I get frustrated when I see people highlighting use of social media--blogging, wikis, twitter, customer feedback systems like Dell IdeaStorm or MyStarbucksIdea--as if they...

Amazon iPhone App Uses Crowdsourcing for Product IDs

By Mac Slocum
December 3, 2008

Amazon's new iPhone application has an experimental feature, dubbed Amazon Remembers, that blends product discovery and crowdsourcing. From the New York Times Bits blog: The tool lets users take a...

Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing

By Tim O'Reilly
October 26, 2008

A couple of months ago, Hugh Macleod created a bit of buzz with his blog post The Cloud's Best Kept Secret. Hugh's argument: that cloud computing will lead to a huge monopoly. Of course, a couple of weeks ago, Larry Ellison made the opposite point, arguing that salesforce.com is "barely profitable", and that no one will make much money...

Amazon's new EC2 SLA

By Jesse Robbins
October 24, 2008

Amazon announced a new SLA for EC2, similar to the one for S3. This is a notable step for Amazon and cloud computing as a whole, as it establishes a new bar for utility computing services. Amazon is committing to 99.95% availability for the EC2 service on a yearly basis, which corresponds to approximately four hours and twenty three minutes...