Thord D. Hedengren

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Month: July 2015

  • Twitter and its course

    From Buzzfeed’s story on Jack Dorsey and his whirlwind of actions as the interim Twitter CEO:

    Twitter can no longer simply stay the course; it needs to chart a new one that others — users, investors, the media, and the company’s own leadership — can understand and follow.

    That’s exactly it. Twitter is in a great spot to stay relevant, but that means that they have to stop hugging their old ideas and concept. I think they’ll need to open up again, become the platform, because then developers could possibly do great things with the data, and that would be their upper hand. Sadly, I doubt that’ll happen.

  • Apple Music, explained

    Jim Dalrymple’s Apple Music woes has been sorted, sort of, although Jim’s stance on the matter is less clear now. Anyway, Joy of Tech has described how Apple Music actually works, so at least that’s good…

  • Magic glass

    I’m looking at images of Pluto and (the moon) Hydra on my phone, sent from a spacecraft that’s passing by. Science is awesome, and having a magical piece of glass and metal that gives me immediate access to that is sometimes mind boggling. Try to remember that the next time you refresh Twitter for the umpteenth time, wondering what it’s all good for.

  • Apple Music issues

    Jim Dalrymple have had some serious issues with Apple Music:

    At some point, enough is enough. That time has come for me—Apple Music is just too much of a hassle to be bothered with. Nobody I’ve spoken at Apple or outside the company has any idea how to fix it, so the chances of a positive outcome seem slim to none.

    As if all of that wasn’t enough, Apple Music gave me one more kick in the head. Over the weekend, I turned off Apple Music and it took large chunks of my purchased music with it. Sadly, many of the songs were added from CDs years ago that I no longer have access to. Looking at my old iTunes Match library, before Apple Music, I’m missing about 4,700 songs. At this point, I just don’t care anymore, I just want Apple Music off my devices.

    This doesn’t mirror my experience of Apple Music, but it points out that there are kinks left to sort out. Hopefully Apple can help Jim out, as a music lover who’s lost way too many albums over the years, for various reasons, I feel for him. Music listening is one of those things that really just has to work.

  • Jimmy Wales launches social network

    From Jimmy Wales’s manifesto for the new, ad free, social network Tpo:

    We spend your money on causes that you care about, rather than advertising.

    And you help us spread the word. To help you do that, I’ve designed a whole new social network – similar to Twitter but better – and I’m hoping it will be massive.

    So where does said money come from? Again, Jimmy Wales, replying to a question on Tpo:

    Yes, social network open to everyone, funded by a phone subscription, but 10% of your bill also goes to the cause of your choice.

  • The end of capitalism

    From the interesting Guardian piece, The end of capitalism has begun:

    It is the elites – cut off in their dark-limo world – whose project looks as forlorn as that of the millennial sects of the 19th century. The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phoney and fragile as East Germany did 30 years ago.

    All readings of human history have to allow for the possibility of a negative outcome. It haunts us in the zombie movie, the disaster movie, in the post-apocalytic wasteland of films such as The Road or Elysium. But why should we not form a picture of the ideal life, built out of abundant information, non-hierarchical work and the dissociation of work from wages?

    Interesting thoughts in this piece, but let’s read it for what it is: A dream about the future, with some valid points, sure, but it’s not a roadmap, nor an ideology.

  • Commodore PET

    Commodore PET, not the computer, launches in Italy, France, Germany, and Poland, soon. Wired:

    Now it’s appearing on a smartphone created by a pair of Italian entrepreneurs. It’s called the PET—sharing its name with Commodore’s other iconic PC—and its custom Android build includes two emulators so owners can enjoy old C64 and Amiga games.

    This isn’t the first time a product’s been built around the classic Commodore (or Amiga) brand. The chances for this smartphone are slim, I’d say. Maybe it’s time to let the Commodore brand rest?

  • Marshall London

    The Marshall brand is on a lot of things these days, including headphones. While headphones makes sense, a smartphone might not, and yet there’s now a $600 Android thing called Marshall London. But despite the dual headphone connectors, and the Marshall branding obviously, you don’t get much bang for the buck. Gizmodo sums it up nicely:

    Under the hood, the phone’s core specs are barely respectable compared to a top-of-the-line handset. It’s got a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display, which is going to feel pretty tiny and low-res compared to today’s 5-inch=plus QHD displays. It’s got 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, plus a Micro-SD slot. It’ll run Android Lollipop at launch, which is great! But that Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset is a few years old, and might drag compared to a new flagship. We don’t know much about the 8 megapixel camera, but it’s lower resolution than the most up-to-date phones. It’s a low-spec handset, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean bad.

    I see no reason what so ever to consider the Marshall London, unless you’re a die hard Marshall fan that wants to match it with your t-shirt and headphones. In which case I’ll just remind you that unless you actually hook up your guitar to a Marshall amp, a product line with pedigree and quality, you’re basically buying a look. I guess that’s fine too.

  • Apples nya iPod touch

    Apple har (äntligen) uppdaterat iPod touch till något lite modernare. Jag skrev lite om det, och vad det kan innebära, på TDH.me.

    But here’s the thing: I don’t think that the iPod touch exists to be an entry level device. I think this is the replacement for the iPod classic, because you can fit a whole lot of media in 128 GB. I also think that Apple wants to keep the iPod alive, and understands that some people doesn’t want to rely on streaming at all times, and thus they offer this. The iPod touch is the top of the line iPod, a true entertainment machine that can do so much more than just play music.

  • The iPod touch and the 4 inch iPhone

    The iPod touch and the 4 inch iPhone

    Apple has released a new model of the iPod touch, alongside new iPod models. Where the latter are more or less the same as before with new colors, the iPod touch is a different story.

    The new iPod touch retains the same form factor as before, adding new colors. That means that it’s still a 4 inch screen, much like th iPhone 5/5s has. This is surprising, since Apple used to keep the iPod touch in line with the current iPhone, but obviously that’s out of the window since they left it untouched for years, up until now.

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  • Comments for the commenter

    Comments just for the commenter, with Echochamber.js:

    When a user submits a comment, echochamber.js will save the comment to the user’s LocalStorage, so when they return to the page, they can be confident that their voice is being heard, and feel engaged with your very engaging content. It does not make any HTTP requests. Since LocalStorage is only local, you and your database need not be burdened with other people’s opinions.

    Or in layman terms: The comments only live in the commenter’s browser, thus that’s the only place it exists.

  • Tech Troopers och Komplett i ehandelspressen

    Eller på Ehandel.se i alla fall. Tech Troopers, som jag är inblandad i, nämns i deras lilla knäck om Kompletts satsning på support.

    Komplett har även lanserat ett pilotprojekt tillsammans med Tech Troopers i Stockholm, ett serviceföretag byggt på crowdsourcing där teknikstudenter anlitas för serviceuppdrag. Det för att kunna erbjuda kunderna stöd och hjälp med produktfrågor. Bland annat genom hembesök för att göra installationer.

  • Resonate

    Resonate

    We all resonate with different things. That makes some things work better for us than others, no matter if the difference between the options are large or small.

    Take fitness trackers, which are all doing the same thing. Sure, some measure your pulse, others are great as vibrating alarm clocks, and the apps where all your data is displayed is more or less useful, but in the end they’re all essentially the same. Different design, same type of thing. I can vouch for that, because I’ve tried most of the leading brands, and some of the off-brands as well.

    So why is it then, that one fitness tracker might work for a person, where another doesn’t?

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  • Satoru Iwata blev bara 55 år gammal

    Trist sätt att börja veckan på, men så klart ännu värre för Iwatas familj. Jag skrev lite mer om Satoru Iwatas bortgång på Spelbloggen. Hans livsgärning förtjänar något mer omfattande dock, för Iwata var en av de stora i spelvärlden.

  • Help Fireside Fiction stay alive

    There are just two days left of Fireside Fiction’s Year 4 drive, and it’s looking grim. They need $13,000 to keep on publishing, but as I’m writing this, they’re at $8,096. Over the years, Fireside’s published a lot of great content, so I hope you’ll consider signing up for a Year 4 subscription, or support them on Patreon.

    Oh, and remember that time they published a short story by yours truly? Good times.