Uncarved

Dear LiveScribe Product Managers:

I really love my Pulse smart pen. One of the most valuable affordances it’s provided me is the peace of mind I have, knowing everything I’ve written is safely backed up on my computer (and in the cloud), after I’ve synchronized.

It’s certainly replaced my normal notebooks, but I find that I’ve also started leaving my laptop behind more frequently. I often bring it along “just in case” I want to capture a thought or other information that I’d likely want to share.

In a fantastic feat of accomplishment, the Pulse actually also played a part in “permitting” me to leave my laptop home, when I set off to a two-week vacation.

All of this is just great.

On the other hand, however, I’ve been finding that I’d like to synchronize and/or share information that I’ve written down with it sooner, rather than later. Of course, I could easily install the sync software onto my laptop instead, but then I’ll be back to being tempted to bring my laptop along for the ride – what a step backwards.

But there is an answer: iPhone OS 3.0‘s External Accessory framework.

This new API will allow third-party devices to communicate with iPhone / iPod Touch devices via either the dock connector, or Bluetooth. This, naturally, opens the door to “on the road” syncing with the cloud, without the use of a personal computer. And, really, isn’t the “untethering” of the human from his PC one of the fundamental goals of paper-based computing?

Please, oh please make this happen!

Best Regards, John Lianoglou

Open Letters computing, iPhone OS, open letter, Pulse

So Courtney Gaines, of the Telegraph’s “Gadget Inspectors” gadget reviews series rates the HTC G1 (the first Google phone) with a a 10/10 rating, citing capabilities that are theoretically possible in upcoming Android-based phones… what?!

Really? gadgets, Google Android, reviews, wtf

Microsoft has recently announced that they will be entering the retail space with their own stores. Clearly they feel a need to compete with Apple’s success in their retail endeavors. But, in a seeming effort to remain depressingly consistent, they’re once again stealing from the surface and ignoring the treasures below.

AppleInsider published a piece covering the story, and included a couple of photos taken in a private 20,000 square foot mock-up retail store constructed on Microsoft’s campus.

The piece includes this wonderful photo, showing a customer that we can only assume is a PC, pushing a shopping cart around the store:

We can infer immediately from this photo that the people designing this customer experience seem to think that shoppers will actually be pushing a shopping cart around the store.

Think about that. Read more…

Really? Apple, fail, funny, Microsoft, retail

William Hurley, author of the Evil Genius blog, recently published a post, titled Five Reasons Apple Should Open Source The iPhone. Despite the title, however, he never actually directly argues that the Apple should open source iPhone’s software. Read more…

Responses Google Android, Hurley, iPhone, oss, pragmatism, response