iriver Story HD

iriver released the Story HD, the world's first e-reader completely integrated with Google Books.

The iriver Story HD, which retails for $139.99, is slim and lightweight with a high-resolution e-ink screen and a QWERTY keyboard for easy searching. It includes over-the-air access to hundreds of thousands of Google eBooks for sale and more than 3 million for free. With the Story HD you can now browse, buy and read Google eBooks with your e-reader through Wi-Fi, rather than downloading and transferring them from computer to e-reader with a cord as you can already do with more than 80 compatible devices.

Interesting, but in a world full of smartphones and tablets with ebook apps and/or browsers that can already view Google Books, not to mention the already popular Kindle and Nook e-readers, I have difficulty imagining this product taking off.

Update: It would appear that Marco Arment feels the same way.

Google Blog | The first Google eBooks-integrated e-reader: iriver Story HD

'Atlantis' Launch Successful

The final space shuttle mission, ending an amazing era of space exploration. Godspeed, Atlantis crew.

20 Awesome Live Music Performances

If there's one thing I love more than anything, it's music. And one facet of music that I enjoy most is a great live performance, one that blows away the album version or somebody else's rendition of the same song. Since I watch a lot of live music footage online, I thought it would be fun to share a list of my current favorite performances captured on video, counting down from #20 to #1 (jealous much, Casey Kasem?)

For certain videos in the list, I will add a short description of why I like the performance so much if I feel it's necessary, but other videos speak for themselves. Anyway, enjoy!

Click to read more ...

I'm Going to be a Dad!

Yes, you read that correctly, my wife and I are expecting our very first baby!

We've known about this for a little while now, but we wanted to wait until we had the first ultrasound performed before making an announcement, to verify that everything was okay. We also wanted to tell both of our entire families in person first before making it public. The ultrasound you see above* was taken Thursday, June 16, 2011. It was an amazing feeling, seeing our baby and hearing its heart beating for the very first time.

My wife is 13 weeks along now, and the delivery date is expected to happen around the end of December or beginning of January. We are unbelievably excited and can't wait until to find out if it's a boy or a girl (which should be around July/August). And yes, we already have names picked out, but we're keeping tight-lipped about all of that until we know for sure what it is ;)

Now the preparations will begin as we get the nursery ready and stock up on supplies in the coming months. Wish us luck, everyone!

*If you can't tell right away where the baby is in the above ultrasound, it's the small monkey-shaped figure in the upper-middle, facing right, looking almost like they're lounging back to the left. The curved black area on the right side is where their umbilical cord would be.

iOS 5

Well, this has been quite a mindblowing couple of hours. Apple made a series of announcements at today's WWDC 2011 that may potentially have killed off several well-known apps/services, while introducing a slew of new (and long-awaited) features for the upcoming iOS 5 release this fall.

You can check out the full list of new features over at Apple's site, but if you really want the TL;DR version, here are just some of the more amazing announcements:

• Notification Center - A collected dashboard of every notification you haven't responded to yet. Includes new notification system that does away with the old interrupting popups in favor of popups that appear at the top of the screen, and allows you to respond to emails/texts/etc from within any app by tapping those popups. The lockscreen has now become more useful, with all of your notifications appearing there, very much like the jailbreak app LockInfo.
• iMessage - Basically Apple's version of RIM's BBS service for Blackberry, it allows you to send messages/photos/videos/etc to other iOS users for FREE. Conversations also sync between devices (i.e. from iPhone to iPad). As nice as this is, I'll probably still be using Whatsapp to send messages to my friends with Android phones.
• Reminders - Built-in to-do list that can alert you based on your location and can create iCal events based on these items. Very cool.
• Twitter - Twitter is being integrated directly into the OS, and after a single login can be used from many of Apple's own apps, including Mail and Photos.
• Camera - You can now access the camera from your lockscreen by tapping a single button (security freaks need not worry, you can't access the photo library this way), and you can now use the volume-up button on the side of the phone to snap shots.
• Safari - Safari definitely got some of the bigger updates here. On the iPad, Safari now includes tabbed browsing much like its desktop counterpart. For both iPhone and iPad they have included their controversial Reader tool, which cuts out ads/clutter and reformats pages to be easier to read, as well as a 'Reading List' feature that allows you to save pages for reading later (à la Instapaper).
• PC Free and Wifi Sync - These are so cool. They allow you to activate and sync your device over-the-air (OTA) with no need for a computer. Yes, you read that correctly. You can now sync your iOS device without plugging in a USB cable. This also means that your content is being backed up effortlessly. They are also allowing OTA updates to the firmware in the form of delta updates (which are basically only updates of new content as opposed to entire OS downloads).
• iCloud - Not really specific to iOS 5, but it was a huge announcement nonetheless. This is Apple's answer to services like Dropbox and Flickr, in that it allows you to backup your information to the cloud and have it pushed to all your devices (including your Mac) seamlessly.

And this is only a portion of the great stuff they're releasing.

While I'm extremely excited about this update, what I'm curious to know is what this will mean for services such as Dropbox and Instapaper/Read It Later, as well as lots of camera/to-do apps, RIM's userbase, and the jailbreaking community.

-Update-

Engadget wrote up a nice hands-on for iOS 5, and Marco Arment (developer of Instapaper) has posted his thoughts on Mobile Safari's new 'Reading List' functionality.

This Week: The Mobile Payment Movement

There has been a lot of interesting news in the world of mobile payments this week.

On Monday, Square (owned by Jack Dorsey, who also created Twitter) announced that they were releasing a 'register' of sorts for merchants, which is basically an iPad app that uses analytics to track sales and manage inventory. This will be complemented by a consumer-facing component (in the form of an iPhone app) called Square Card Case, which will make it easier for customers to pay for good/services at any establishments using the Square Register. I've been a fan of Square since I first heard about it, and I can attest that it's a wonderful service. I'll be watching these guys closely to see what they come up with.

Yesterday, Google announced a similar product called Google Wallet that also purports to make payments easier on customers by letting them store credit card information in a "wallet" app, but currently only works with Android phones and only at merchants with NFC technology in place, such as MasterCard PayPass. The possibilities here are pretty exciting too, but I doubt it will truly take off until they expand the number of compatible platforms (the most obvious one being the iPhone) and more merchants come on board with NFC.

Finally, and this is an interesting one, Paypal (who also has an interest in mobile payment) is suing Google and two Google employees who formerly worked at Paypal and are now in charge of the Google Wallet project. They claim that these employees have stolen Paypal's trade secrets, although the lawsuit does not implicitly state the word "wallet" anywhere. This announcement coincides with the release of Google Wallet but apparently the lawsuit has been in the works for quite some time already.

I expect that a lot of news will be forthcoming in the next few years as the idea of mobile payments spreads, along with plenty of startups looking to get in on the action. In the end, the real winner here will probably be the consumer, being faced with so many great choices. I'm thrilled to see that people are tackling such an enormous issue and look forward to seeing what new technologies will be unveiled in this arena.

Evernote Overhauls Chrome Extension

The guys at Evernote tweeted today that they have released an update to their clipper extension for Chrome. This is great news for me, since I converted to Chrome recently and found its version of the Evernote clipper to be a bit lackluster in comparison to what I was used to in Firefox.

This update brings with it a completely different interface than before, and in my opinion looks much nicer and cleaner. Which is great, but I'd have to say that the 'Article Clip' mode is easily the best new feature. While you can still highlight content on a webpage before clicking the Clip button if you have a specific selection in mind, you can also simply click the button without highlighting anything beforehand, and the Article Clip feature will intelligently pick out what it thinks you would want to clip to Evernote (if you're reading a blog or news article, it will generally select the entirety of that post/article).

The New Evernote Google Chrome Extension [Evernote Blog]

Apple Comes to Defense of App Devs Against Lodsys

I haven't brought this subject up on the blog until now, mostly because it involves a lot of legal speculation that I feel unqualified to comment on, but I feel that this latest bit of news deserves a mention.

A little backstory: As some of you may know, a company known as Lodsys has been sending letters directly to small iPhone app developers (instead of Apple) based on a claim of patent infringement due to the way their apps handle in-app purchases/upgrades. Lodsys wants these developers to pay up a small percentage of every single one of their in-app purchase revenues on top of the 30% of each app sale that they're already paying Apple

Needless to say, this raised a few eyebrows in the tech journalism community, with a lot of name-flinging toward Lodsys ("patent troll" being the most prominent) and also a bit of questioning as to why Apple wasn't standing up to defend the developers. After all, they're the ones requiring developers to use in-app purchases in a certain way based on iOS guidelines, and they're the ones licensed to use the Lodsys patents that are apparently being infringed upon.

Well, today Apple has finally come to the developers' defense with a letter to Lodsys:

May 23, 2011

Mark Small
Chief Executive Officer
Lodsys, LLC

Dear Mr. Small:

I write to you on behalf of Apple Inc. (“Apple”) regarding your recent notice letters to application developers (“App Makers”) alleging infringement of certain patents through the App Makers’ use of Apple products and services for the marketing, sale, and delivery of applications (or “Apps”). Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patent and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license. There is no basis for Lodsys’ infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers. Apple intends to share this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to defend Apple’s license rights.

Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple’s license and the way Apple’s products work, I expect that the additional information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outstanding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats to Apple’s customers and partners.

First, Apple is licensed to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio. As Lodsys itself advertises on its website, “Apple is licensed for its nameplate products and services.” See http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html (emphasis in original). Under its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.

Second, while we are not privy to all of Lodsys’s infringement contentions because you have chosen to send letters to Apple’s App Makers rather than to Apple itself, our understanding based on the letters we have reviewed is that Lodsys’s infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers rest on Apple products and services covered by the license. These Apple products and services are offered by Apple to the App Makers to enable them to interact with the users of Apple products-such as the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and the Apple iOS operating system-through the use or Apple’s App Store, Apple Software Development Kits, and Apple Application Program Interfaces (“APIs”) and Apple servers and other hardware.

The illustrative infringement theory articulated by Lodsys in the letters we have reviewed under Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 is based on App Makers’ use of such licensed Apple products and services. Claim 1 claims a user interface that allows two-way local interaction with the user and elicits user feedback. Under your reading of the claim as set out in your letters, the allegedly infringing acts require the use of Apple APIs to provide two-way communication, the transmission of an Apple ID and other services to permit access for the user to the App store, and the use of Apple’s hardware, iOS, and servers.

Claim 1 also claims a memory that stores the results of the user interaction and a communication element to carry those results to a central location. Once again, Apple provides, under the infringement theories set out in your letters, the physical memory in which user feedback is stored and, just as importantly, the APIs that allow transmission of that user feedback to and from the App Store, over an Apple server, using Apple hardware and software. Indeed, in the notice letters to App Makers that we have been privy to, Lodsys itself relies on screenshots of the App Store to purportedly meet this claim element.

Finally, claim 1 claims a component that manages the results from different users and collects those results at the central location. As above, in the notice letters we have seen, Lodsys uses screenshots that expressly identify the App Store as the entity that purportedly collects and manages the results of these user interactions at a central location.

Thus, the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple’s App Makers. These licensed products and services enable Apple’s App Makers to communicate with end users through the use of Apple’s own licensed hardware, software, APIs, memory, servers, and interfaces, including Apple’s App Store. Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys.

Through its threatened infringement claims against users of Apple’s licensed technology, Lodsys is invoking patent law to control the post-sale use of these licensed products and methods. Because Lodsys’s threats are based on the purchase or use of Apple products and services licensed under the Agreement, and because those Apple products and services, under the reading articulated in your letters, entirely or substantially embody each of Lodsys’s patents, Lodsys’s threatened claims are barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale. As the Supreme Court has made clear, “[t]he authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder’s rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking patent law to control postsale use of the article.” Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Elecs., Inc., 553 U.S. 617 (2008).

Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.

Very truly yours,

Bruce Sewell
Senior Vice President & General Counsel
Apple Inc.

I am definitely no patent lawyer so I can't even begin to say how this will all turn out, but I know that I'm glad Apple has stepped up in defense of the little guys who could never afford the patent litigation process.

Full text: Apple Legal's letter to Lodsys [Macworld]

How One Blind Man Sees the World

Just read a fascinating piece published in March by Men's Journal. It centers on Daniel Kish, a man blind since infancy, who relies on an unusual method of sensing his surroundings. This allows him to ride his bike around town, hike through the wilderness all alone, and essentially experience the same type of lifestyle that most sighted people take for granted. The method? Echolocation. I'm serious, go read the article and it will explain everything.

One of the things I found most engaging about the guy is how he feels about peoples' misplaced kindness and unnecessary sympathy, when to him, blindness is more of an inconvenience than anything and isn't something people should feel sorry about. In fact, for most of his life he has seen himself as more capable than lots of his peers.

“Most blind kids hear a lot of negative talk. ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t move. No, here, let me help you.’ The message you get, if you’re blind, is you’re intellectually deficient, you’re emotionally deficient, you’re in all ways deficient.”

Reading Daniel's story has inspired me, to say the least. He has easily accomplished so much more in his life than most people can claim (myself included), and we should all take his example that there are no excuses for giving up on the things you want to do. I also found one section of the article particularly moving, involving one of Daniel's students, with whom he has shared his echolocation techniques. Go read the whole thing and you'll see what I'm talking about.

The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See

More on Twitter's OAuth policy

Marco Arment put up a devil's advocate piece about Twitter's decision to implement OAuth instead of xAuth for 3rd-party Twitter clients:

There’s actually a very good, pragmatic, non-evil reason for them to do this: they want to make sure that people know what permissions they’re granting the app before they click that big green OAuth “Allow” button, and the xAuth flows used so far in most clients don’t give Twitter a chance to explain to users what level of access is being granted. In other words, Twitter wants to control the messaging. And that’s understandable, although misguided.

He makes a few solid points, namely the fact that Twitter is a private service that really owes the public nothing, but I still can't help but feel that this whole thing stinks of anti-competitive business practice. As Marco himself puts it, this "is definitely a dick move."