British scientists use man-made DNA speck to store 739kB of digital data
Agence France-Presse:
The study reported that the institute’s team had stored all 154 Shakespeare sonnets, a photo, a PDF of a scientific paper, and a 26-second sound clip from US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jnr’s “I Have a Dream” speech in a barely visible bit of DNA in a test tube.
Organizing principles work as calls to action, as frames of reference, of sources of inspiration. The organizing principle of “mobile first, web second” has inspired a wave of mobile applications; but “context first” is the type of organizing principle that will lead to truly disruptive web services. People first. User first. Context first.
Unboxing the Nexus 7 is fun by Jean-Louis Nguyen
For many, the most satisfying part of trying a brand new gadget is unboxing it. The Nexus 7 is no exception: the sturdy box and high-grade tape definitely make it playful - perhaps too challenging! Watching these videos on YouTube made me smile, so I decided to put them together; shake-n-bake included. Hope it makes you smile too. :-) This is all in good humor.
The Mozilla Story
Matt Buchanan on things that should be better, or just exist
These are some of Matt Buchanan’s ideas for some things in apps that should be improved ASAP:
- Foursquare iPad app — my primary use for Foursquare isn’t to see where people are anymore, it’s to see where places to go are. This is something I’d like to do on my iPad. It’s something I’ve tried to do on my iPad, but it always make me sad, like a really insipid macchiato.
- Path iPad app — Path is supposed to feel cozy, and when I am feeling cozy, I prefer my iPad over my phone. Phone = speed and concision and smallness and genereal feelings of AGHGHHGHH. iPad = how’s it going, I’m feeling really great because it’s Sunday and sunny or at least the kind of grey outside that makes me feel very comfortable. Why yes, I would heart hearting your very cute photograph.
- Twitter direct messages — I tried DMing somebody I hadn’t DMed in a while last night and it took me like five minutes to dig up their profile and find the correct button to direct message them, which is the only way I will direct message people because I am so very paranoid about accidentally tweeting pictures of my third nipple to the whole world. It could’ve been one of the many Fabled SMS Killers, but now it’s just another broken messaging service and I feel like I’ve stepped over more of those than piles of dog poop on NYC sidewalks.
- Facebook messaging — It should be the Great AIM Slayer, but it isn’t. Nearly complete ubiquity and penetration (I truthfully know very few people who don’t have a Facebook profile), but it’s still not a very good IM service. I want to say it could be the IM service, but Facebook is so bad at making things sometimes, it is actually impressive in its complete incompetence. I mean, it couldn’t even crush Foursquare in its infancy with Places, when it so very clearly could have, since it was only 400 bajillion times larger. (I am glad it didn’t, though.)
- Pay With Square — I think out of half a dozen or so times using it, it has worked completely correctly just once. It is kind of the ideal payment service, a cyborg payment method, human and machine, but I’m about to give up on it because swiping my card is easier, and I still have to carry a million paper loyalty cards anyway.
- iMessage — Ahahahahahaha.
I agree 100% with him. Do you?
Hardcore techies want every OS to act like good old Linux. The problem? There are 7,000 million people on this planet, and most of them don’t care.
With current release of the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, people have been throwing bad comments all over the web, mostly regarding they want the old desktop back. But this kind of commentary is nothing new. With the recent release of GNOME 3 and Ubuntu’s Unity interface for Linux, hardcore geeks that liked to customize every last bit of the interface and functionality of their OS have been harsh on the backlash they make to the people behind them.
I understand why they do this. They like the customization, and they are hardcore geeks for a reason. But with the release of the iPhone and subsequently the iPad, we have observed a dramatic shift on what people want on their devices and computers. Natural, uncluttered and easy to use interfaces. Technology, as ever changing as it is, aims primarily to make the lives of people easier. People have bought billions of iPads because they are so easy to use, kids and animals can use them. Elderly people love them, disabled people love them, kids love them, medical professionals love them, and I suspect artists will start soon. So why are you so adamant to understand that Windows and Canonical would want a piece of the action as well? Apple has made it clear, people want stuff that works, not to download a bunch of utilities and customizations the moment they buy a new device to that will become less of a hassle.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most fields of technology have seen a slew of drastic changes and revolutionary advancements in the past few years. Change and new features are introduced rapidly. New apps and services pop-up like hot cakes every two minutes. But people seem very adamant about change, and I don’t understand why. It has to become clear that this is how things work nowadays. OSes release a new version every year, some upgrades will be incremental, some will be drastic. Apps will refocus and improve as soon as a new feature is ready for the public. It’s time to get with the program and embrace it. In fact, take joy in it. Maybe spaceships are not too far ahead.
Kind of jealous of Tom Warren.
(via thisistheverge)
No Pulse: How Doctors Reinvented The Human Heart.
For years, doctors attempted to create artificial hearts that mimicked the real heart—using methods that recreate blood pumping. Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier instead developed a continuous-flow device that has worked on calves and some humans, including patient Rahel Elmer Reger:
The little quilted backpack held two lithium-ion batteries and the HeartMate II’s computerized controller, which are connected by cable through a hole in Reger’s side. Needless to say, she has never left her backpack on a bus. “My cousin once disconnected me, though, by mistake,” she said. “I was showing her how to change the battery. She disconnected one, and then—I was distracted for a second—the other. I yelled, ‘You can’t do that!’ and then passed out. The device blares at you. She reconnected it, and I came back. I was probably out for 10 seconds. She was completely freaked out.”
(via thisistheverge)
Another day, another TOS update gone wrong
This time, it’s Tumblr itself. Tumblr is trying to take away your freedom of using XKit, Missing E, Tumblr Savior or any other userscripts or extensions! But you can prevent this from happening!
The Nokia Lumia 900 LTE Windows Phone is official, and exclusive to AT&T.
via The Verge
(via thisistheverge)
Clean up your social media permissions with one handy site | The Verge
Even with the best privacy management systems, it’s easy to forget what apps have access to your account information. Now, there’s a site devoted to making it easier to check in on them. At mypermissions.org, you can find direct links to the permission pages of eight major social networking and sharing sites, including Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
(via thisistheverge)
The best tech writing of 2011 according to The Verge
2011 brought ever more things to skim, sort, filter, and read, so it’s no surprise that our collective Instapaper queues are overflowing. Before you mark everything as read — you’re not really going to get to those 3,219 unread articles no matter how hard you attack your New Year’s resolutions — we’ve got a couple stories that you shouldn’t miss. Here’s a selection of writing about technology that stayed with us, whether it offered a particular insight into a startup, added a fresh take on endless social media pandering, or simply nailed some classic pound-the-pavement, behind-the-scenes reporting.
14 Of The Year’s Best Ideas In Interface Design
(via fastcompany)
Native vs. web
Over the next few weeks I will be trying native applications on Windows and see how they compare to their web based counterparts.
How much is the benefit? Is it really worthy? I often ask myself these questions. By taking a direct approach and experiencing for myself how much will the overall usability and enjoyment of such service and/or product improves, I will get to determining how far and advanced is the web and how much does it still need to catch-up on.
I rooting on the web. Who are you rooting on?
All things technology, computers, mobile, web, and related topics.
