Thanks to a partnership between Font Bureau, Carter & Cone, and Monotype Imaging, Georgia and Verdana are now extended families, enabling much more versatile use on screen and paper.
/via @hellosigit
Author: Aulia Masna
Former tech journo, used to write for Macworld, DailySocial, e27. Ex , ran a national startup initiative program in Indonesia. Very much into the news.
Major iOS security bugs fixed in latest update
Not only did the Levi’s update of iOS (I’m gonna call it that since it’s 5.0.1) bring you better battery life, adds multitasking gestures to the first iPads, resolves bugs with Documents in iCloud and improves voice recognition with Australian accents, it also closed the security bug that was publicly exposed by Charlie Miller a few days ago which cost him his Apple developer account.
Other fixes: iPad 2 passcode security lock bypass and removing DataCert as a trusted certificate provider.
Nokia’s in depth documentary on Lumia 800
Yes, it’s the same kind of polished marketing fluff that Apple and a few other companies produce, but that’s the point. It’s polished, and they talk as passionately as engineers, executives, designers, and other nervous non-actors can about loving their work.
via GigaOM
While this is about the Lumia 800, a lot about the hardware could probably be said about the N9 which I really love, after all, the two phones share an identical design with slight tweaks in a few places.
I do hesitate a little about openly recommending the N9 given the limited availability of the applications as well as the unique approach to its use but I can say that I’m enjoying the different ways to use a mobile device. I love it when somebody comes along and offers a fresh take on common activities and the N9 is as fresh as it gets.
I’m genuinely excited about Nokia’s future having seen and now own the N9. This is a fresh start for the company struggling to maintain its position in the rapidly changing world of mobile phones.
Though I’m apprehensive about the deal with Microsoft, having used Windows Phone 7 for about a month earlier this year, I can say that it’s really not a bad piece of software from the consumer point of view. I like how it delivers a truly fresh approach to the user interface, focusing on text and panels rather than icons and heavy graphics. Microsoft’s approach to Metro takes away many of the fluff and shows just the important elements.
Having gone back to the familiar iOS interface, I miss the spartan look of Windows Phone but what can I say, iOS feels a lot like home. It’s what I’ve been used to since 2008 and it’s clearly much more polished and mature.
Today, I use both the N9 as well as an iPhone 3GS. Having owned an iPhone 4 for three months, I never had the intention to upgrade to the 4S. Despite the highly publicized and clearly impressive Siri, it doesn’t fully work outside of the United States and I’d rather wait until the next iteration. Without Siri, the camera is the remaining major upgrade from the 4 and I’m currently quite happy using the cameras on the 3GS as well as the N9.
RIM reaching out to Qt developers?
In a piece about RIM’s upcoming BBX phones, something tells me Sascha Segan and RIM hadn’t really done their homework regarding Qt development roadmap.
Qt was Nokia’s preferred developer framework before the company switched to Windows Phone, and there’s a population of disgruntled Symbian developers with Qt skills watching their potential market decline as Nokia switches over to Windows. RIM isn’t targeting Symbian developers specifically, but the company is reaching into Nokia’s traditional home turf.
Adobe gives up mobile Flash
Adobe today:
We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations
Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Flash, April 2010
New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.
Wired releases photos for public use under Creative Commons license
This is such an awesome news, I’m gonna scour Wired’s Flickr stream as soon as I get to the office. Some conditions of the licensing terms:
Placing our photos under CC BY-NC license means that designated images are free for all to republish, with minor restrictions, as follows:
- Photos must be properly attributed to the photographer and Wired.com, and we ask for a link back to the original story where the photo first appeared.
- We welcome editorial use by bloggers or any other publisher, but we are not authorizing commercial use, like using one of our photos in an advertisement.
- Remixes and mashups are allowed.
You can’t use photos from the printed magazine, only the ones made available on the Flickr stream and make sure the photos you want have the CC mark on them. Yay Wired!
Wired releases photos for public use under Creative Commons license
Nokia’s N9 gets its first update
If you’re one of the early adopters of the Nokia N9, get ready for an update. Nokia has just announced an over the air software update that’s being rolled out within the next few days and should be completed within two weeks.
The update weighs in at 218MB so you would want your N9 to be within range of a fast wifi connection and plugged in to a power source. The process supposedly could take up to 40 minutes in which your phone would not be usable until it’s completed and you’re advised to back it up beforehand.
The current version of MeeGo on the N9 is the PR 1.1 (20.2011.40-2_PR_005), at least on the device I’m holding. The update will be designated 40-4 and is said to bring parity to the N950 developer device.
A number of features are listed on Nokia’s developer blog but it seems rather odd because some of them are already available on my device which I picked up right after Nokia World, namely:
- Music controls on the lock screen
- Multi-language Swype keyboard
- Default swipe down to close an app
- NFC tag reading
- Photo and video shoot with color filter
- Notifications on the standby screen
That’s six of the ten listed new features. What’s left?
- Noise canceling, (can’t say because I don’t use the N9 to make calls)
- More powerful multitasking (it’s kind of slow right now)
- Faster MfE (I have no idea what MfE means)
- Multiple smaller improvements to the OS (can’t tell what these are)
If you’re an N9 owner, have you got those features already or are you looking forward to have them?
Apple’s secret to market power: Lazers pew pew
Bloomberg Businessweek goes behind the scenes to reveal Apple’s secret to dominating the market through extremely tight supply-chain management and operations.
Apple convinced the seller to sign an exclusivity agreement and has since bought hundreds of [laser equipments worth $250 thousand each] to make holes for the green lights that now shine on the company’s MacBook Airs, Trackpads, and wireless keyboards.
The company locks up air freight costs and schedules far ahead the rest of the industry, giving it dominance in worldwide shipping.
Apple realized it could pack so many of the diminutive music players on planes that it became economical to ship them directly from Chinese factories to consumers’ doors. When an HP staffer bought one and received it a few days later, tracking its progress around the world through Apple’s website, “It was an ‘Oh s—’ moment,” recalls Fawkes.
That mentality—spend exorbitantly wherever necessary, and reap the benefits from greater volume in the long run—is institutionalized throughout Apple’s supply chain, and begins at the design stage.
Apple locks up parts and equipments too and as a result competitors must wait for months to manufacture their products
Before the release of the iPhone 4 in June 2010, rivals such as HTC couldn’t buy as many screens as they needed because manufacturers were busy filling Apple orders, according to a former manager at HTC. To manufacture the iPad 2, Apple bought so many high-end drills to make the device’s internal casing that other companies’ wait time for the machines stretched from six weeks to six months, according to a manager at the drillmaker.
At this point, Apple can’t afford to lose Tim Cook. There’s really nobody who could take the helm of Apple from Jobs other than his former COO. Cook is swift, clinical, and ruthless in operations but he also knows his shortcoming, products, which is why that aspect of the company goes to people like Jonathan Ive and Scott Forstall.
This tightly knit team is what makes this piece of news all the more important. Without all hands on deck, Apple would crumble and competitors will eat them. Apple may have lost a crucially important playmaker but as long as the company locks up its other MVPs, the rest of the team will fall in line.
Eric Schmidt: Google is not dominant in search
In answering questions from the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt had this to say about its search business:
I am confident that Google competes vigorously with a broad range of companies that go well beyond just Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo, and that Google has none of the characteristics that I associate with market power.
Losing Faith
MG Siegler on Google’s failed launch of Gmail app for iOS earlier today:
That’s maybe my biggest problem with Google. They release something, and I no longer have any faith that it’s going to be any good. It’s hard to get excited about a company like that. It’s the same reason why it’s hard to get excited when Microsoft and Yahoo release new things. The track record just isn’t there any more. The faith is gone.
I share his sentiment for the most part but I still hold hopes for Microsoft and Yahoo since they seem to be getting back on the right track albeit slowly.
Yahoo!’s releases today at Product Runway point generally to the right direction and Microsoft’s deal with Nokia for Windows Phone is beginning to show some promise even though it’s not as quick as I hoped it would be.
AuliaSays 