The recent release of an IDC report shines a pretty bad light on Microsoft. Windows 8 is selling very poorly with the steepest declines ever in the PC market, and in particular it has entirely failed to gain traction in tablets, with companies like Samsung even pulling their Windows RT products in
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Writings of J. Todd Ring: The New Blackberry 10 – Time to ditch Apple and Google both
The Blackberry 10 has just been unveiled, and the question returns: Blackberry, iPhone or Google-based Android smart phone? Here are some thoughts, techno-weenie talk aside. We’re talking pure functionality and ethics here, not who has the best gizmo-gadgetry whiz-bang for the buck. Google is a partner in evil, willingly collaborating
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What Fools These Mortals Be
The title of this post, taken from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, hardly qualifies as a startling insight. Nonetheless, after reading two columns in this morning’s Star, I couldn’t help but reflect on the mass of contradictions that we are. It has likely always been thus, but stands in especially sharp
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Humbling Lesson About Critical Thinking
I am going to be offline for a few days as I join two of my fellow retirees on a trek to Algonquin Park, so I leave you with the following rather lengthy blog post: While I am always mindful of the vital importance of critical thinking, logic, and clear
Continue readingExponential Book: Mountain Lion and stuff
Between work and home I own eight Apple computers — four iMacs, two MacBook Air, two Mac Pro. So, like any respectable user, I promptly upgraded the operating system to the new version, OS 10.8 (aka Mountain Lion), which has now been available for a few weeks. Around this time
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Liberal Party’s Future, New Apple or Old Microsoft
Tablet computers have been around for years, but it took Steve Jobs to make them popular. Though the Liberal Party has been around longer than any tablet computer, it shares more than a few similarities with the now ubiquitous device. The Liberal Party has strong fundamentals and viable market share
Continue readingWise Law Blog: Will Microsoft’s Surface be the Tablet for Lawyers?
Though I’m a long-time Windows user, I’ve certainly done my best over the last couple of years to warm up to Apple’s clearly superior mobile and tablet products. To be sure, though, I haven’t quite succeeded. Subconsciously, I keep asking myself the same nagging question: “Why can’t I do all the
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Apple Adds Same-Sex Emoticons To iOS 6
Have you ever been composing a text message and wanted to insert a generic and practically microscopic representation of a gay couple only to discover that all available visual iconography was exclusively heterosexual? Well, I say straight people have had this unshared privilege for too long! It’s time for a
Continue readingArt Threat: Mobile app shows dirty side of making cellphones – Phone Story by Molleindustria banned by iTunes
Video games have permeated so deep into mainstream culture that they are now places of social activism and protest. Phone Story, a game designed by the Molleindustria collective in Italy, does just this. It turns the fancy screen and sleek design of a smart phone into the engineered system of slavery, inhumanity,
Continue readingTrashy's World: Apple and Chinese factories – does anyone care?
Here is a very interesting article on working conditions inside Chinese factories where Apple products are assembled. … but I wonder how many people would actually change their purchasing patterns if they knew about this. People are lazy and only concerned about first world issues, aren’t they? And, hell, not
Continue readingRedBedHead: Apple’s $98 Billion Is Blood Money
There’s a lot of hand-waving around Apple’s use of sweat shop labour in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook is offended and outraged by the mere suggestion that Apple engages in poor labour practices. And now they’ve sent the “Fair Labor Association” into Foxconn to perform an “audit” of labour practices
Continue readingArt Threat: An ugly and remarkable tale about iEmpire – Storyteller turned investigative journalist learns what happens in an Apple factory
What do you get when you combine a master storyteller and investigative journalist? Mike Daisey is one answer, a storyteller and performer whose story about what happens inside an Apple factory is touching hearts and minds. After his visit to China, tours of factories, and meetings with union organizers and
Continue readingRedBedHead: Is Siri Anti-Choice?
My wife, who is a pro-choice photographer and activist, sent me a tumblr post the other day about the inability of people using the Siri, personal assistant on the iPhone 4S, to get it to access abortion or birth control services. As the screen grab above demonstrates, while you can’t
Continue readingcmkl: Lemon of a battery
So the first battery I got with my laptop lasted six years, more than twice the number of anticipated charge cycles. The one I got to replace it in February is now dead. Or more accurately, it thinks it’s charged only it has exactly 0 mAh of power in it.
Continue readingRedBedHead: Steve Jobs’ Biggest Success: Sweatshops & Fat Salaries
The other day I mused on the simultaneous outpourings of sadness and loss over Jack Layton & Steve Jobs and what each of them represented. As I noted at the time I am a Mac Head and a bit of a technophile/gadgetphile. Having had a few days to think…
Continue readingExponential Book: Tough acts to follow
This week has marked the untimely departure of two charismatic leaders from the helm of two very different organizations. Canada’s New Democratic Party Jack Layton succumbed to cancer, shortly after leading its party last May to the best electora…
Continue readinggay persons of color: Tim Cook becomes Apple CEO
Hailed by some as the “world’s most powerful gay man,” Tim Cook was announced Wednesday to replace Apple founder, Steve Jobs, as CEO of the American multinational corporation. Jobs is stepping down from the role to face continuing health problems.
D…
Continue readingPoliTeching: Patent That Becomes a Tool for Obstructing Innovation Needs to Go
Software patents have become an unnecessary obstruction to innovation. Company that used to oppose software patent are spending billions to acquire them (including Google). Small time developers (which could include open source and Smart-phones/Tablets Apps developer) are now being targeted. Software patent produces opposite effect of what patents are designed
Continue readingExponential Book: Time for a change ?
It is a warm mid-Summer weekend. Instead of relaxing and enjoying the outdoors, the fresh air, the company of friends, the ferocious northern mosquitoes and all the joys that the season brings, I am in my home office, cursing the new Apple operating sy…
Continue readingdjkelly.ca: CBC Radio column: RIM stock dives, what’s next for the BlackBerry maker?
It looks like my predictions about Blockbuster and RIM are coming true. In this alberta@noon column on CBC Radio One with host Donna McElligott I discuss what options are available to Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, in the shadow of a massive stock price drop. We talk about
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