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Boot up: Google Glass at length, Korea's subsidy madness, worst job titles, and more(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team Goodbye >> Editorially Editorially is closing its doors. The application will remain available until May 30, at which point the site will go offline. We encourage all users to export their data. ICYUI. Ten months through Google Glass: Exploring our wearable future >> Geek.com Russell Holly has been using it pretty much from the start. Besides UI issues and having too many photos and videos in his G+ account, he comments: Google needs to take a huge step forward with their own apps and own this platform, as well as make the tools available for others to do so. I should be able to issue a voice search for my Gmail, or interact in real time with a ToDo list on Google Keep that is synced to my phone. Ultimately it comes down to how well the device syncs with my phone. Google does a great job working through their cloud to make a lot of this work, but since I have a local connection to my phone it just seems to make sense that I'd be able to use it. My phone should be able to push content to Glass, like launching navigation from the Google Maps app. Glass floats in between being an amazing companion device for my phone and existing as its own standalone piece of hardware. Unfortunately as long as it continues to straddle that line I don't think it will truly excel at being either. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.) Google Glass enthusiast: It's not worth the headaches >> CNET News Chris Barrett was an early user but started getting headaches, and found other Explorers were too: Others, Barrett says, acknowledged discomfort when having to look toward the right corner of Glass. One Explorer found that only his left eye experienced difficulties. There are also some Explorers on Twitter who admit to discomfort. Google is confident Glass doesn't carry with it potential health hazards. A company spokesperson told me: "Of course health and safety are extremely important to the Glass team, and we've been working with eye care professionals from the very beginning to ensure that the device is safe for use. In our help center, we do encourage new Explorers to ease into Glass, just as they would a new pair of glasses." Google also suggests that concerned Explorers contact its Glass team to see whether the glasses are fitting correctly. It will be harder, however, for Google to address Barrett's other concern with Glass. Having severely limited his usage, he's finding that he neither misses the device, nor sees a compelling continued use for it. He told me: "I have it on my desk every day, but I just don't have a good enough reason to wear it. It's not worth the headache. I get my e-mails on my laptop or iPhone if I'm on the go." There's also a comment about the US Army's experience with head-up displays in Apache helicopters which casts further light. (Thanks @timacheson for the link.) Dropbox hires Google's Woodside as operating chief >> WSJ.com Mr. Woodside is departing the search giant in the wake of Motorola's sale to Lenovo Group for close to $3bn, less than two years after Google acquired the hardware maker and put the executive in charge of it. Mr. Woodside wasn't able to return Motorola to profitability, even as he slashed prices of phones to better compete for value-conscious buyers. The appointment gives Dropbox a seasoned manager who was previously running Google's advertising sales in the Americas after replacing Tim Armstrong, who became chief executive of AOL. Mr. Woodside, who started at Google in 2003, helped manage the search giant's relationships with partners and advertisers internationally. Smartphone subsidies 'out of hand' >> Korea Herald Despite government efforts to prevent undercutting, local telecom operators have resumed their cutthroat battle to attract new smartphone subscribers with more subsides, even giving phones away practically for free. The latest subsidy war kicked off on Saturday when the companies announced subsidies of up to 1.2 million won ($1,100) for a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. Since the phones cost 954,000 won each, those who bought the S4 made off with a profit of 246,000 won. The "bargain sale" went on for four days, and during that time, up to 112,000 subscribers switched telecom operators to get new smartphones, according to the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association. The situation peaked on Tuesday ? dubbed by Korean media as a day of "smartphone chaos" ? when an online community announced that transferring to SK Telecom would yield discounts on purchases of the iPhone S5 and Galaxy Note 3. Somehow hilarious. (Via @tabdump.) Live Earthquakes Map >> Global Incident map Those who aren't geologists may be surprised to learn that there are lots of little earthquakes all the time. (Is there a time series map pulling this data together by location and size? That would be great.) An update on Android >> Pebble Kean Wong is in charge of the software engineering group at Pebble (the smartwatch people), and is explaining why the iOS version of the 2.0 software is already released, and the Android one isn't: The Pebble Android app uses Bluetooth heavily, includes a Javascript runtime environment, accesses the internet and talks to the Pebble without interrupting the user experience, integrates with the Pebble appstore, works on a myriad of (over 1,000) different Android devices, runs on 27 different versions and flavours of Android 4.x, and must continue to run in the background even if other apps in the system use up all the memory, or the Android device powers down or resets. All of this has to work elegantly and reliably for many thousands of Pebble Android users. The reason why the Android version of the 2.0 Pebble app has lagged the iOS version is fundamentally pretty simple – it has purely been a matter of resources. A thousand devices and 27 different flavours of Android 4.x. The latter reaches the same proportion of Android users as iOS 7 (78%) - which has eight versions at most (iOS 7.0.0 - 7.0.4, phone and tablet) and perhaps 12 devices (iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, iPad 2, 3, 4, Air, mini, retina mini). How to survive the next wave of technology extinction >> NYTimes.com Farhad Manjoo: Today, five behemoths — Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft — plus a dizzying array of start-ups are competing to win every dollar and minute you spend in tech. While each of these companies offers differing sets of technologies sold under widely varying business models, they all share a common feature — trying to hook you deeply into an ecosystem of interconnected technologies. The trouble arises when you are sold on a tech ecosystem that doesn't prosper. It's likely that at least one, if not several, of today's tech behemoths won't be around a decade from now. Thus the pervasive worry of choosing tech in these uncertain days: How do you avoid betting on the wrong horse? He has recommendations. Do they carry any implication about which of those behemoths won't be around in a decade? Microsoft PR chief responded at Business Insider with some zingers (Manjoo didn't recommend using Microsoft stuff). The biggest bullshit job titles in tech >> Gawker Last week, the chilling visage of David Shing was thrust upon the world. Equally horrific was his job title—"Digital Prophet." That's something you can be for a living? Yes, and there are plenty of other make-believe jobs out there, too. The people with these jobs, these exercises in techno-lust imagination, are likely overpaid, doing very little, or both. "Innovation Sherpa"? "Chief Happiness Officer"? How hot are LED light bulbs? >> Inside LIFX Hot! Hot to the touch, but not nearly as hot as Incandescent, Halogen and CFL bulbs are. LED light bulbs are one of the latest and most efficient lighting technologies. High powered lighting LEDs generate light at a much lower running temperatures than the hot filament used in previous generation bulbs. The hottest outside surface of an LED light bulb is often half the temperature of an equivalent brightness Incandescent or Halogen bulb, and around 20% cooler than CFL bulbs. You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service. (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |