easyfrag

I doubt it, that's more of a cultural thing instilled by Jobs, it's sort of entrenched as the "Apple way" of doing things. Big Cultural changes in an org typically come about when things are going badly.

The leaking is going to be hard to stop because Apple largely outsources its manufacturing and is now closely watched (compared to pre-ipod and iphone days). It's hard to enforce secrecy along the entire process when the process is run by third parties and spread around the world.

And banks will charge "fees" in lieu of interest to their Islamic customers for products like mortgages

One thing to keep in mind is that there's more to good medical care than a fair price:

Post-op infection rate - do all clinical employees regularly wash their hands before and after each patient encounter?

Re-admission rate - does the institution or surgeon do enough cases of a particular procedure to be proficient?

Error Rate - Are pre-op checklists ALWAYS used?

Post-op care - Are supportive therapies like Physiotherapy available?

It bugs me to see medical interventions treated like a commodity, these "products" don't always follow generally accepted market principles - a price cut in colonoscopies will not significantly increase demand.

Feedbin have been using the money I and others have been paying to enhance their service. http://blog.feedbin.me/

The iPad version of Reeder also doesn't have Feedbin support yet.

One thing I can't figure out about Feedly is if they're using their own sync service yet or if they are still relying on Google's while they work on building their own.

I've switched to feedbin.me ($2 a month), web app is ok, iPhone Reeder (iOS) can sync but not yet iPad version.

Has few bells and whistles (which is a plus in a way - not infected with social disease) but does the basic read and sync quite well.

I recall Watterson also battled with the newspaper industry over how his strips looked, especially with the use of colour in the Sunday strips. I believe he felt somewhat constrained by the format and you can see him stretching the format's boundaries in the Calvin & Hobbes strips, especially the Sunday ones.

I used to wonder why he never moved to doing comic "books" where he had more room to breathe. I've since come to believe that creative work benefits from some kind of constraint - a boundary to push against.

Using the dominant position of Google Search to push other Google properties, isn't this what "Don't be evil" was supposed to be about?

OK the pendulum in the tech world is swinging too far towards the "ruthless focus is the way to success" school of thought. I get where it comes from and there's certainly some truth to it, but at some point regularly creating products that consumers use and then killing those same products a few years later is also going to do some serious damage to a company and its brand.

Oh look, Google has a product called Currents, maybe I should use this infrastructure to build a workflow or even a business on? But wait a minute this is Google, a company who regularly sacrifices products, even ones with millions of users, on the alter of "Focus". Will this Google product be around a few Springs from now? Then why should I even take the risk of learning to use it and maybe depending on it?

One of the biggest impacts are on those of us who use multiple devices to read feeds, Google Reader synchronized the read/unread status of all the elements so if you saw something on your phone you wouldn't see it again on your desktop (unless you starred it which is like +1 but just for yourself).

But is Dell doing this to get away from the financial reporting required of public companies or to get away from the expectations of short-term traders who want growth at all costs?

Question: does Chrome Frame support Windows Integrated Authentication?

I guess it's because theoretically the government is accountable to its citizens whereas Facebook is accountable to its shareholders, the citizen can exert some action against Washington via the democratic process, they have no action to take against Facebook other than not participating at all.

There's also the question of motive, Facebook exists to make money and there's the fear that the profit motive may outweigh its users privacy. The government can and has defended its actions in the context of keeping people safe.

I'm not defending any actions by Facebook or government, just trying to point out the differences.

What I'm more interested in is why the most passionate defenders of the second amendment never seem interested in government power grabs like this. Isn't the reason for the 2nd amendment to keep expansive government in check, at what point does government become a threat?

Measuring outcomes is hard, especially in comparison to outputs which are easier to quantify but are different than outcomes. True measures of outcomes usually can only be tracked over a long period of time, whereas outputs will give instant feedback.

Look at what has been happening in the schools with standardize testing. Proponents think they are measuring outcomes (effectiveness in preparing children to be skilled & productive members of society) with standardized tests. They are actually measuring outputs (test scores) as a proxy for the outcomes.

The result is the system being measured will adapt. Schools "teach to the test" which improves the outputs but we don't know the effect on the desired outcomes. It may result in children being less prepared.

This is a well known effect in companies that measure individual performance in terms of outputs (widgets manufactured, # of upsells, etc). The employees will deliver the required metrics but it often comes at a cost to quality and customer satisfaction which is a negative outcome to the company.

Which is the main lesson in quantifying outcomes: Measuring the wrong thing can be worse than not measuring at all.

I don't know, "We want customers, not users." immediately made sense to me but I think I'm part of the target market which seems to be people who are aware of what "free" services do with your data and have at least some concern about it.

The real question is if the target market is big enough to build a sustainable business.

The difference is that there's no comparable 800 pound gorilla controlling the dominant Non-Apple OS that runs on commodity non-Apple hardware. Well I guess there is but adhering to Google's terms are entirely voluntary (see Amazon). Microsoft was far more controlling which helped DOS/Windows develop into a single ubiquitous ecosystem. Google isn't so Android won't.

More importantly Microsoft just Osborned Nokia's current product line. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Google's main income comes from advertising.

Let's assume Majel equals or surpasses Siri, this would be a clear benefit to users. But how does this benefit Google? Siri can answer questions (using partners) without using a search engine, yes it's a limited use right now but surely that functionality will grow.

The million dollar question is how does Google make money with Majel?

A particular favorite of mine: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ci700332k

"All software installed on Bizztrust-enabled Androids is automatically scanned before the user logs on to their company's network via VPN; if any irregularities are detected, the user will not be able to use compromised apps"

What exactly does that mean? Do they keep a blacklist of apps? Perhaps they only mean the "work apps"?

This us the kind of detail Steve Jobs is being remembered for.

If so, it is an identity service run by an advertising company.

After this article the Nielsen Norman did work with Macromedia on developing Best Practices. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1178941

Jacob Nielsen later added the summary findings: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20021125.html

similar anecdote by Kevin Drum: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/08/dealing-corporate-...

His conclusion: 'The government might sometimes provide poor customer service just because they lack the motivation to do better, but corporate America routinely provides crappy customer service as part of a deliberate and minutely planned strategy.'

I recall an episode where they ridiculed a Prius's fuel efficiency because it didn't out-perform a sports car on their test.

Their test was to loop non-stop around a race track at the Prius' top speed, which is pretty much what the sports car was designed to do.

They neglected to do a round in stop-and-go traffic, which is what the Prius was designed for.

I don't think I've ever read an explanation of why Apple requires this. Is it the 30%? or is it a user experience thing? has Apple written up why this policy exists?

Maybe I'm too cynical but it doesn't feel like this was a cutesy addition by a lone engineer, it rather feels like a marketing ploy to get more people to think about using the calling features.

I think Apple TV is already in the process of disrupting TV, if I recall disruption theory correctly the disruptor is not quite as good as the current status quo.

Let's look at apple tv compared to a traditional cable box: Netflix is pretty good but doesn't have the same level of "appointment" or "water cooler" shows as cable. Cable is far superior with live sports, apple tv just has MLB streaming with probably the NBA and NHL soon to follow.

Already for some audiences that might be enough to kill the cable bill entirely or (more likely) to reduce the package they have. Throw in the fact that it can also play the stuff that's on the your iPhone or iPod, has built in pay per view mechanism, and a prettier interface and I think you might have some freaked out cable/ satellite providers.

Apple TV is definitely not as good as cable but it's getting close to being good enough.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that people aren't used to giving money to Google where they are more likely to have a trusted customer-vendor relationship with Amazon.

That being said Google is a well-known and trusted brand so I think something else might be at play here psychologically. Perhaps the public perception of Google's products as being "free" (to them) somehow increases the barrier to becoming a paid customer.

I have not an ounce of evidence to indicate that but I think it could be an interesting topic with big implications for the startup community.