so it goes, sean hannity points fingers to obama asking, why is Romney taking so much heat for the bullying issue when Obama shoved a girl in grade-school one time. he furthers his argument by positing that Mr. President skipped class, drank beer and did drugs … all of which puts the Romney bullying issue to shame.

Let me repeat that, ‘puts the Romney bullying issue to shame’

not that i remotely care about what conservatives have to say, and it’s not that i’ve ever watched/heard a sean hannity show before, but this is preposterous. however, given the state of fox news i shouldn’t be surprised.  

but this is a flagrant disregard for civil rights. mr. hannity claims that the subjugation and harassment of another human being is not an issue when compared to skipping class, drinking beer and doing drugs.

wait. what? 

so to conservatives, it’s better to harass and demean others than it is to harm your own-self by doing drugs?

what about that phrase, ‘as long as i’m not hurting anyone else’?

that’s the heart of conservatism. self-absorption and self-righteousness. no wonder why the US is going down the shitter

bubble? puh-leaze

Simply put, if you think we’re in a bubble because Instagram was bought for a billion bucks … your understanding of the technology landscape is facile.

Superficially, yes, these companies are not making revenue. And, yes, it’s just a ‘photo-app’, or it’s just a ‘location-sharing’ app.

But the truth of the matter is this, start-ups were never valued in terms of revenue, but rather how many users they had + how fast they were growing. And Instagram is growing.

From the Jan 2012 - March 2012 period, they accumulated an excess of 12 million users. Again, 12 million users in just 3 months. Look at the other start-ups that have grown at that rapid pace; Facebook, ironically, grew at that pace too. And really, it’s telling of them to view Instagram as a major threat, considering they once enjoyed similar rapid growth as well.

Instagram is well on it’s way to breaching the 100 million user mark, what with the release of it on the Android platform. And think about it this way, if you have over a hundred million users, you’re sitting on a goldmine. There are always ways to monetize your user population. It is analogous to sitting on a box of gold and it’s really just a matter of finding ways to open the box.

Why I Hate Android

parislemon:

Why do I hate Android? It’s definitely one of the questions I get asked most often these days. And most of those that don’t ask probably assume it’s because I’m an iPhone guy. People see negative take after negative take about the operating system and label me as “unreasonable” or “biased” or worse.

I should probably explain.

Believe it or not, I actually don’t hate Android. That is to say, I don’t hate the concept of Android — in fact, at one point, I loved it. What I hate is what Android has become. And more specifically, what Google has done with Android.

Read More

Well said MG. Well said.

erm. skiing. holidays. not posting as much. 

still very worried about SOPA, however.

Maybe this is why Apple's new store is in Grand Central terminal? →

Apart from the thousands of passengers that go through everyday, of course …

Microsoft upgrades Xbox Live with 40 entertainment services, live TV, and Kinect voice control →

“A lot of people have said they’re going to reinvent television,” Honey said. “I’m going to say it as well.”

How is Siri going to top voice + gesture control? Combined with the rumor of lip-recognition for Kinect 2, it’s becoming quite apparent that a Siri-focused iTV is beginning to lose its compelling uniqueness.

Again, I’m going to repeat my position; Microsoft is already re-inventing the TV - NOT Apple. The ball is in Apple’s court to come up with something imaginably more unique and compelling in response to this. And with Siri as its only compelling feature, this is going to be hard. So the question is, are iTV-dreamers being either delusional or hopelessly uninformed?

4X Of... "Great"? →

parislemon:

Amazon issued a press release this morning to say that Black Friday was their best ever in terms of Kindle sales. In fact, they were up 4x over last year. Wow, right? But there’s still that one pesky little problem. 

Amazon’s VP of Kindle, Dave Limp:

Even before the busy holiday shopping weekend, we’d already sold millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire was the bestselling product across all of Amazon.com. Black Friday was the best ever for the Kindle family - customers purchased 4X as many Kindle devices as they did last Black Friday - and last year was a great year.

Okay, so Amazon’s stated sales are 4X of “great”. But hey, at least we did get them to say “millions” — that’s progress.

I do not understand why Amazon refuses to release actual numbers when it comes to the Kindle. Actually, I would be fine with it, except for the fact that they issue press releases touting sales numbers… without giving actual sales numbers!

By most estimates, sales of the Kindle — including the new Kindle Fire — are indeed great. I bought a new Kindle Touch, I love it. So why the charade?

I’m assuming they’ll report numbers that includes Cyber Monday sales figures.

Kinect 2: So Accurate It Can Read Lips? →

Voice recognition tech on the Kinect is going to be so accurate with lip-reading tech.

And if this is true, this could really hamper the unique-ness of Siri as a selling factor for the (rumored) iTV.

Drewbot: Device Specs have Become Meaningless →

dbreunig:

We’ve talked before about the diffusion of physical, contained devices across servers and services. The iPhone 4S’s Siri only works with the help of a server farm in North Carolina. The Kindle Fire’s Silk browser derives a speed boost by routing requests and processing through Amazon’s web…

Truth!!!

Google X →

Swiped this from Daring Fireball

Among the items that could be connected: a garden planter (so it could be watered from afar); a coffee pot (so it could be set to brew remotely); or a light bulb (so it could be turned off remotely). Google said in May that by the end of this year another team planned to introduce a Web-connected light bulb that could communicate wirelessly with Android devices.

I’m with Gruber on this. A coffee pot? A light bulb? This is embarrassing. How the fuck did this get on NYT, let alone the front page?