DOSBox ported to PlayBook, allows it to run Windows 3.1 →

This should finally enable the PlayBook to handle e-mail. And Windows 3.1, you know, is totally enterprise ready. BlackBerry users should be happy. Finally…

crazydopeshit:

Erik Spiekermann’s (@espiekermann) amazing double story bookcase at his home in Berlin. To reach the top, a climbers harness and electronic winch are needed.

Wow, if I was a visitor, I’d probably stay put in the harness for two or three days. From what I see at the bottom, there must be some pearls in this bookcase.

All numbers lead to one →

Love these number games. Wouldn’t be surprised if one can find this rule applied somewhere in nature…

Music Typewriter | The Ministry of Type →

This is way too cool… Wish, I had that six grand…

The old XML vs. JSON debate — this time the other way around

History repeats itself, sometimes with a little twist. Just like some people tried to shoehorn XML to do stuff it was never intended to be used for and which drove solutions like JSON, now others try to showhorn JSON to do stuff, XML was actually designed for. Here the part of the O’Reilly article that triggered my anger:

XML is a very future-proof method for ensuring long-term protection of content. It is the format chosen by many digital archives and national libraries. True, JSON has become very popular of late, but it is mainly used today for API development, financial transactions, and messaging — and by web developers. I think JSON has a long way to go before it supplants XML — as we know and use it today — as a structured content format for use in publishing.

Why? Why? Why? Why should JSON ever supplant XML? As he himself says: XML shines for structured content today. JSON is near perfect for API communication, transactions and messaging. If you want something simpler than XML use HTML[enter favorite version >=5]. XML is a chore to use in APIs, transactions etc. JSON will suck for structured content. If we add stuff to make it suck less for structured content, it will very likely become a less optimal solution for what we use it today. Next step would probably be JSON light or something.

Stop asking this question. If you are asked this question, stop answering. Stop looking for the silver bullet. For the less technically inclined: just because you can create tables in Powerpoint, you shouldn’t use it as an Excel replacement. The opposite is true as well. This debate is just plain stupid.

Why people care about Steve Jobs

To be honest, I was hesitant to write about Steve Jobs death at all. So many good things have been written. But some people don’t understand, what the fuss is about. Some say, now that they read so much about him, they can partially understand. Still many were annoyed by the reactions on various feeds and ask:

Why do people get so emotional about his death?

Well, for some of us geeks and nerds, he was like a father figure. Someone to look up to. In every field of expertise you’ll find those stars and heroes that many within that field know, adore, despise or look up to. But because Steve Jobs was gifted in so many areas, Engineering, Design, Marketing and more, the number of followers was huge. Granted, if you are not in one of those fields, you will have a hard time understanding the current reactions.

And he was a great leader, who inspired beyond Apple. Is that new? No. Go back a few years and you’ll find people like Heinz or Bosch (and many others already mentioned elsewhere). Also admired by many and mourned by more when they died.

Many say, that he had too many flaws to be admired that way. Again, look at other founders that we deem great ones today. No single one was without flaws. I’ll bring up Heinz and Bosch again, because I learned about their lives most recently. Great company leaders who had ideas that put every labor union to shame. Yet both had flaws. Are they to blame? No, because at the end of the day they’re human. We should celebrate the good things they did and try to not make their mistakes.

Go ahead, read some of the links to his quotes or articles about him and probably you’ll understand why people think he’s great, just like Kristina Halvorson or a friend of mine did.

Before I give you Steve’s success secret, here a video that left no eye dry. I loved the Think Different campaign since it was launched and still think it’s miles ahead anything else we have seen since then. This one is narrated by Steve himself and never aired. I could watch it a thousand times. But I’d run out of tissue soon.

Many books and articles have been written about Steve Jobs’ successes. All cover his drive for perfection, his relentless work ethic and stuff like that. It might be true, but at the core of it all, there must have been something that or rather someone who gave him the strength and energy to do it all. There was — and he gave us a hint right after his last keynote:

Unfortunately, I have no idea who shot the original picture

shumbodynamedharry:

This.

thedailywhat:

[tombrazelton via d|a / original artwork by: adri t.]

Weekly Links #2011.39

In the tradition of great weekly outlets, here is a bit follow up on last week: the epic battle between Yahoo! and HP for having the worst board ever is going into another round, this time All Things D reports Explanation Spam from board and CEO to employees. Oh my! Well this could all have a happy(?) ending if reports by WSJ and others are true and chinese Alibaba is interested in buying Yahoo! — we will see.

The dominating story this week of course was Amazon with their new Kindle line up. I’ve written dedicated articles about interesting parts of the discussion. If you don’t know what source to go to for information, use one of the previously mentioned or John Gruber’s post about the Kindle line up. The best stuff however, happened in the wake of the announcement:

• Predictably the press went nuts about whether the Kindle Fire would kill the iPad, the Andoid tablet market, both, neither or just anger some birds (It already does). Only few realized that here can be and now are two markets that overlap only partially: low-cost, smaller media consumption devices and higher priced, bigger, more serious tablets like the iPad.
• I can agree with the notion that the Kindle Fire and the iPad together can hurt other tablet makers, if they are stupid and try to chase both at the same time.
• Well it already began, Tablet that once should kill the iPad now commit suicide by trying to compete with the Kindle Fire by slashing their prices. That will surely work…
• To my surprise, I have come along only one article from Mobile Opportunity which looks a bit more closely at the fact that we have seen an Android tablet being released and neither the Android community nor Google seem to be happy about it. Crickets…
• Here is the reason: Android is just a means to an end. The Kindle customers don’t care about, whether it’s Android underneath. Which made the tech community start another double rainbow rumor: Amazon has set its eyes on Palm. Honestly that gets even me excited. I just wonder what would happen to Amazon’s Android Store?

Another punch in Android’s face are the patent-licensing deals between device makers and Microsoft. MSFT reportedly has made $444 million in revenue from this business alone. Which begs two questions: who makes more money with Android, Microsoft or Google? And which makes Microsoft more money, Android or their own Smartphone-OSes? (HT to John Gruber)

Even if it seems that I sum up Daring Fireball this week (hey, it’s not my fault that he is so much better than the rest), I can’t skip on the Oracle-Autonomy drama. Yes that’s three different links. As Gruber puts it: grab some popcorn and especially read the press releases from Oracle. Hilarious. HBO could make this a TV show.

Finally two short links for your lazy Sunday pleasure: Flowing Data gives us an infographic about the most popular infographics around the web. My favorite: a crapload of irrelevant data put together in a big vertical image. Love those!

If you ever wondered how Ferrari got its horse, Logo Design Love points you to the video from Ferrari. Fascinating.

Amazon Kindle pricing in Germany needs explaining

The German Kindle blog is happy to announce the first Kindle with German menu (the version without keyboard or touch).

I commented on the blog post and almost wrote my own rant here, as to why the German version was so darn expensive. I should have stayed in Google Reader to come along Marco’s post, who linked to an article by TheNextWeb about the misleading pricing. Ahh, there was my mistake.

The US prices you might have seen are all ad-supported, the so called “Special Offers”. The ad-free versions cost between $30-40 more. The first model in Germany is an ad-free one. There is, to date, no ad-supported version of the Kindle.

So, German buyers are NOT once again ripped off. The problem is the baseline. If Amazon had given the ad-free prices as the official prices in the U.S. there would be no room for confusion. It is also saying a lot about where Amazon wants the Kindle to go. It might become a platform which nurtures impulse buying via “Special Offers”.

Long story short: the €99 Kindle in Germany is actually the $109 Kindle in the U.S.

The Anti-Tablet Tablet Which Is No Tablet

So here we have it, the Amazon Kindle Fire. You can find details on your favorite tech blog, I won’t copy those things here.

Way more interesting are the debates surfacing whether it is tablet or not (or a second tablet), whether it is an iPad killer, just a killer (product) or non of the previous.

The best non-spec-list-driven article so far belongs to Shawn Blanc. Go read it!

Many smart people say it was a brilliant move by Amazon not to market the Kindle Fire as a tablet or a (direct) iPad competitor. Take a look at the page at amazon.com: the marketing copy has not a single mention of the word tablet. One is in the “Included in the Box” line of the specs, the other is a user generated keyword. That’s it! Oh and iPad gets mentioned exactly one time: “Kindle Fire uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology - similar technology to that used on the iPad”.

Why is it a smart move? While the tech nerds here and there will go wild to compare the Kindle Fire with the iPad, the average customer is already conditioned by Amazon to not compare the two devices. Hence, customers will hardly ever ask the question “iPad or Kindle Fire?”. The iPad is placed as a rather serious device that can replace your regular computer. The Kindle Fire, due to its price and size, is a gadget, something you have additionally to your regular computer. Therefore it will fall short in any comparison, as you’ll compare apples and oranges.

At this price point, if an Apple-branded device might suffer this holiday season, it is more likely to be the iPod Touch and not the iPad.

UPDATE: Another great article by The Loop, and thankfully (yes, I take pride in such things) they draw similar conclusions.