- Manufacturing Returning to USA (The Atlantic) — because energy and wages. Oil makes shipping pricey, while “booming” US natural gas helps domestic manufacturing. Wages rising in China, dropping in America.
- The Android Engagement Mystery (Luke Wroblewski) — despite massively greater sales, Android users do less with their devices. Why?
- What’s Coming in 3D Printers (Wired) — enormous printers, printers that use sand to help with metal molding, and more.
- Drone Crashes Mount at Civilian Airports Overseas (Washington Post) — The drone crashed at a civilian airport that serves a half-million passengers a year, most of them sun-seeking tourists. No one was hurt, but it was the second Reaper accident in five months — under eerily similar circumstances.
"android" entries
Commerce Weekly: Predicting 2013
Industry executives predict commerce trends, mobile shoppers are Apple users, and the genius of the barcode.
Here are a few stories that caught my attention in the commerce space this week.
Predicting the 2013 commerce space
As 2012 wraps up, industry executives are looking ahead to what 2013 might bring. In a report at eCommerceBytes, executives at e-commerce and Internet service company Rakuten pulled together five trends to watch in 2013, including increased use of video on e-commerce sites; a market shift toward specialized retailers, both brick-and-mortar and online; and the advent of curated commerce, or “shopping for a lifestyle” as opposed to shopping for individual items.
Executives also highlighted mobile integrations, noting that they expect an increase in in-store integration via apps, QR codes and augmented reality. Predicted trends also included a change in the way consumers pay: “Services like PayPal and Apple’s iTunes have already begun to centralize payments on mobile, but the next step will be services such as Square that offer sellers the ability to receive card payments with their existing smartphone and a simple plug-in device,” the report says.
PayPal president David Marcus also took a look ahead. He sees cash registers going mobile, with customers able to pay from the store aisle or even the changing room, and predicts location-aware and context-relevent shopping and payments will be more disruptive than many now expect. In the payment space, he sees mobile wallets, consumer loyalty programs and coupon platforms merging into one efficient and convenient business. He also predicts NFC will die a slow death in 2013: “it’s not solving a real consumer problem,” he writes at the PayPal blog, “and it’s not providing additional value to encourage me (or anyone else, for that matter) to change my behavior.”
In related news, Square COO Keith Rabois pulled together some predictions for what consumers and retailers can expect from Square in 2013. In an interview with CNET’s Daniel Terdiman, Rabois said Starbucks’ customers haven’t seen anything yet, that they can “expect full Square Wallet functionality” in 2013 as well as new features and “major enhancements” — Rabois said Square’s partnership with Starbucks is in its “first inning.”
Rabois noted, however, that Square is just the beginning, that “anything new that’s developed in the coming months will also be rolled out for use at every single merchant that’s part of the Square Wallet program” and that additional retail partnership announcements can be expected in the coming year. Looking further ahead? “Rabois said that the company envisions Square Wallet working ‘everywhere,'” Terdiman reports, “from personal trainers to interactions between friends to contractors working people’s homes.”
Four short links: 3 December 2012
Manufacturing Returns, Android Mystery, 3D Printing Novelties, and Dropping Drones
Four short links: 24 October 2012
Deblurring Images, Games Design, Secure Control, and Faster Emulation
- Restoration of Defocused and Blurry Images — impressive demos, and open source (GPLv3) code. All those blurred faces and documents no longer seem so safe.
- Peter Molyneux Profile in Wired — worth reading for: (a) Molyneux’s contribution to the genre; (b) the inspiration he drew from his satirical Twitter mirror (@PeterMolydeux) is lovely, and (c) the game jams to build the fake Molyneux games, where satire becomes reality. (via Andy Baio)
- Trusted Computing for Industrial Control Systems — Kaspersky reveals plans for an open source O/S for industrial control systems, so reactors and power stations and traffic systems aren’t vulnerable to StuxNet-type attacks. (via Jim Stogdill)
- Android Virtual Machines — faster emulation for testing than the traditional simulators.
Seeking prior art where it most often is found in software
Open Invention Network plans to mine open source projects for patent busters
Patent ambushes are on the rise again, and cases such as Apple/Samsung shows that prior art really has to swing the decision–obviousness or novelty is not a strong enough defense. Obviousness and novelty are subjective decisions made by a patent examiner, judge, or jury.
In this context, a recent conversation I had with Keith Bergelt, Chief Executive Officer of the Open Invention Network takes on significance. OIN was formed many years ago to protect the vendors, developers, and users of Linux and related open source software against patent infringement. They do this the way companies prepare a defense: accumulating a portfolio of patents of their own.
Android evolves and so must you
Christopher Neugebauer on Android interfaces, Jellybean, and future updates.
Christopher Neugebauer (@chrisjrn) is an Android and Python developer at Secret Lab and conference coordinator of PyCon Australia.
Chris recently wrapped up his work on Meebo for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry which was recently acquired by Google. I got a chance to talk to him at OSCON this summer about Android development.
Key points from our full discussion include:
- Great features from Jellybean are available for older OSes. [Discussed at the 2:32 mark]
- Android devices vary greatly in size and shape – design with this in mind [Discussed at the 4:35 mark]
- Developers need earlier access to new versions of the OS [Discussed at the 5:32 mark]
You can view the entire interview in the following video.
Four short links: 28 June 2012
Bogan Ipsum, Disassembled and Deconstructed, P2P Commerce, and Android Sensors
- Bogan Ipsum — the Australian version of Loren Ipsum. (via Seb Chan)
- Microsoft BASIC for 6502 — reverse-engineering magic, this person has RE’d the assembly language for various versions of the BASIC interpreter that shipped on microcomputers in the 80s. This page talks about the changes in each version, the easter eggs, and the hacks. This, kids, is how real programmers do it :)
- The Sudden Rise of Peer-to-Peer Commerce (Casey Research) — Today, business are sprouting up around the world based on the idea of connecting individuals directly to each other to trade products and services. While the idea is very much in its infancy still, like the music business at the dawn of Napster, we’re beginning to grasp the potential. Something we are tracking at O’Reilly as well.
- The Sensor/itive Side of Android (Luke Wroblewski) — lots of details about sensors in Android, from a Google I/O talk. Sampling rates change between devices. The data has variance and static because it comes from cost-effective components for mobile phones not robust and industry-grade sensors.
Developing cross-platform mobile apps with C#
Greg Shackles on using C# and .NET to build apps that work across mobile platforms.
Web developer and author Greg Shackles reveals the advantages of using C# over C++ for writing mobile apps. He also explains why Android and iOS developers should give C# a serious look.
Four short links: 24 April 2012
Craft Pharma, Silly Toy, Failure, and Android Image/Audio Capture
- 3D-Printing Pharmaceuticals (BoingBoing) — Prof Cronin added: “3D printers are becoming increasingly common and affordable. It’s entirely possible that, in the future, we could see chemical engineering technology which is prohibitively expensive today filter down to laboratories and small commercial enterprises. “Even more importantly, we could use 3D printers to revolutionise access to health care in the developing world, allowing diagnosis and treatment to happen in a much more efficient and economical way than is possible now.
- Bolt Action Tactical Pen (Uncrate) — silliness.
- Ken Robinson’s Sunday Sermon (Vimeo) — In our culture, not to know is to be at fault socially… People pretend to know lots of things they don’t know. Because the worst thing to do is appear to be uninformed about something, to not have an opinion… We should know the limits of our knowledge and understand what we don’t know, and be willing to explore things we don’t know without feeling embarrassed of not knowing about them. If you work with someone who hides ignorance or failure, you’re working with a timebomb and one of your highest priorities should be to change that mindset or replace the person. (via Maria Popova)
- Using Android Camera in HTML Apps (David Calhoun) — From your browser you can now upload pictures and videos from the camera as well as sounds from the microphone. The returned data should be available to manipulate via the File API (via Josh Clark)
Four short links: 10 April 2012
Instagram's Architecture, New ssh, Android Economics, and Design Principles
- The Instagram Architecture (High Scalability) — great summary of the Instagram team’s post about the technology that runs Instagram. Lots of Python goodness in here.
- Mosh — ssh that lets you roam and stay connected. UTF-8 native.
- Android Economics — working back from Google’s declared valuation of Android royalties to figure out how much they have and how it’s growing. Error bars for Africa here, but can’t argue with the conclusion: Whereas Android generates $1.70/device/year and thus an Android device with a two year life generates about $3.5 to Google over its life, Apple obtained $576.3 for each iOS device it sold in 2011.
- UK Govt Digital Service’s Design Principles — if only everything in government followed Principle 1: Start with Needs (User Needs not Government Needs).
Commerce Weekly: Google Wallet vs Isis is coming soon
Preparing for the mobile wallet wars and in-app purchases continue to rise.
Mobile wallets are in their infancy, yet pundits are already handicapping future showdowns. Also, in-app purchases show increasing promise as mobile revenue streams. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)