Amazon pwned Google

Editorial: How Amazon picked Android’s lock
[Via This is my next...]

Legal challenges and royalties aside, Google’s official stance on Android has long been that it’s open and free. And yes, by some definitions of the words “open” and “free,” that’s [...]

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Great description of how Amazon’s fork of Android may end up killing the Android market and that there is little Goggle can do.

Amazon took everything Google gave away for free and created something that provides more than Google can provide. Why buy any tablet based on Google’s version of Android?

The only worrisome thing is the Silk browser.

Thanks to Amazon’s Silk Browser, the US government could get access to your browsing history

Amid security concerns, Amazon’s new Silk browser could be coming to Mac and Windows
[Via MacDailyNews]

“Along with its new Kindle Fire tablet, Amazon unveiled its brand new web browser called Silk,” Steve Kovach reports for The Business Insider.

“Right now, Silk will only run on the Fire, but Amazon has already registered several domains hinting that the browser could come to other platforms, according to domain registration watchdog Fusible,” Kovach reports. “Within the list of about 500 domains Amazon registered yesterday to defend the Fire and Silk brands, Fusible found amazonsilkformac.com, amazonsilkforpc.com, and amazonsilkforandroid.com.”

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Even secure https links may be accessible. As the article states, all Amazon servers are in the US. It would thus be legal and simple for the US government to subpoena  the information stored on the Amazon servers, even if the requesting device is in another country.

Sorry, it is bad enough that Amazon can get my browser history if it chose. But making it easier for the US government.

How about this? If you go to a free porn site, all the bits and pieces of the page go through many, many different servers. That is how the Internet works. While probably not impossible, it would take a lot of subpoenas and work to piece them all together.

If you use the Silk browser, a lot of that data goes right through the Amazon servers, making it very trivial to reconstruct by anyone,including the government.

Bye-bye porn sites. No more anonymity of browsing. Amazon – and thus the government – would know exactly where you have been.

So, Amazon makes out like bandits by using our browsing history for its marketing/ads and the government can easily get info on anyone using Silk.

Not the sort of world I’d like to live in.

It also means that any commercial enterprise that uses Silk essentially gives that information to Amazon. What sort of competitive advantage would they gain by being able to examine browsing behavior that comes from Google devices? How much money could Amazon make selling that info to Apple?

Any company should simply ban the use of Silk because I think this is a fundamental problem. We have only Amazon’s word that this information will be used in certain ways.

I’m not convinced. all it takes is one idiot – Sure, amazon could apologize but the damage is done. And is Amazon really going to go against a government subpoena, assuming that is even required? Maybe Amazon will simply turn it over if asked nicely.

Why everyone needs to give careful thought to using Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Fire and Silk: Did Amazon’s Jeff Bezos bury the lead?
[Via Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0]

The hardware Amazon (AMZN) introduced Wednesday dominated the early headlines. Most of the coverage focused on whether Amazon’s Fire tablet will cut into sales of Apple’s (AAPL) iPad or Barnes & Noble’s (BKS) Nook or both.

But the second-day stories have started to zero in on the implications of a less-heralded — and more unexpected — announcement: The special-purpose browser Amazon’s software engineers have designed to speed up Web searches on their new mobile device.

It’s called Silk, and CEO Jeff Bezos pitched it as a solution to the problem of pulling up content from today’s increasingly complex Web pages, using as an example a typical CNN.com home page with its 53 static images, 39 dynamic images, 3 Flash files, 30 JavaScript files from 7 different domains, 29 HTML files and 7 CSS files.

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Every single web page, its content and its location will go through Amazon servers. They will be able to not only aggregate all that information specifically to you but also put a credit card to it.

They may have greater knowledge of you than Google or Facebook and they will have a credit card connected to that information.

How much could Amazon make off of that information? How tempting it might be to insert its own directed ads rather than what is actually at the website?

This opens up all sort so of Big Brother issues,. Seems to me that this is how Amazon expects to make up the $50 they are losing in each Fire sale.

Along with the Amazon Kindle Fire, this spells even greater degradation of Android

Lack of protection from Google birthed Samsung’s Microsoft deal
[Via AppleInsider]

Samsung isn’t waiting for Google to close its acquisition of Motorola, and neither have a wide variety of other Android licensees who were supposed to be protected by the deal.

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The main benefit of Android – no licensing fees due to its open nature – is gone if everyone has to pay Microsoft licensing fees.

And with Amazon forking Android and closing it with its own App Marketplace, Google may get little if any benefit itself from the sale of those Kindles.

Looks like Microsoft and Apple will benefit along with Amazon, while Google will be left simply trying to sell its phones. But both Apple and Microsoft will have dual phone-tablet strategies that Google might not  really be able to match.

I’ll be buying an iPhone 5 along with 40% of everyone else apparently

Roughly 40% of mobile users in North America and UK plan to buy the iPhone 5
[Via AppleInsider]

Two new studies have revealed rising interest in Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 5 from North American and UK mobile users at the expense of rival mobile platforms from Google and Research in Motion.

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Lots of pent up demand. I may have to wait a month or two to actually get one.

Sequencing DNA from dirt

DNA in the Dirt Reveals the Number and Species of Animals in the Area
[Via 80beats]

Sequencing the DNA in a scoop of dirt can tell scientists what creatures are living nearby, a new study using soil from safari parks shows, and the amount of DNA present can even tell how many individuals of each species there are, which could allow field biologists to get preliminary surveys of species. But though the team managed to identify nearly all the species they had expected in the parks, from wildebeest to elephants, they are still addressing how to take samples that accurately represent the area’s biodiversity—one would have to avoid elephant latrines or wildebeest sleeping areas, for instance—and there is the additional problem that rare or small creatures, like insects, might easily be missed. That said, it’s still an unusual and interesting way to take a look at an area’s inhabitants without actually tracking them down.

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Pretty cool use of technology. Who knew that DNA sequencing would be so cheap and useful?

People could collect samples from all over an area and identify which species are present without having to spend years doing field studies.

Jerry Brown ignores rights to appease law enforcement lobby

Will California’s Governor Outlaw Police From Searching Mobile Phones Without A Warrant?
[Via Techdirt]

For years, we’ve discussed the legality of police searching the contents of your smartphone at a traffic stop. The issue is a bit complex legally. The law generally says that police can search through anything on your body, but that was generally meant for things like your wallet or other physical storage. When it comes to something like a smartphone, that contains all sorts of details about your life (and the ability to access a hell of a lot more) the questions become a lot trickier. It certainly feels like it should be against the 4th Amendment to allow such searches without a warrant — but the courts have been mixed. Tragically, earlier this year, California’s Supreme Court ruled that such searches were perfectly legal without a warrant. In response, the California legislature passed a bill, SB 914, which would require police to get a warrant.

But there’s a problem: Governor Jerry Brown hasn’t signed it yet.

Despite petitions and a variety of editorials urging him to sign it, he’s still sitting on it (he has until October 9th). Wired is reporting a rumor that Brown has agreed to veto the legislation in an effort to please the “law enforcement lobby.”

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So what happens if my iPhone is locked? Do I have a right to withhold he password unless a warrant is produced?

The Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Seems to me that papers and effects are protected. Nice of Jerry to stand up for the common man.

Soon you might have to have a Facebook account to access content on the Internet

Can You Sign Up for Spotify Without Facebook?
[Via Daring Fireball]

Not any more.

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Does anyone think this is a good trend? In order to listen to music or watch a movie or read a magazine, you’ll have to have a Facebook account?

Not what I envisioned free meant.

Not a lot of love for Steve Ballmer

Has Steve Ballmer lost the support of Microsoft employees? | The Microsoft Blog – seattlepi.com
[Via The Microsoft Blog at the Seattle PI]

At Microsoft’s company meeting on Friday, CEO Steve Ballmer didn’t do his famous monkey dance, he didn’t shout “I love this company” and, when he did speak, many of his employees started emptying out of their Safeco Field seats.

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I don’t think there will be lots of glowing articles written when he steps down, as there were for Jobs. Sales and marketing types should not be running tech companies.

One of the key aspects of Apple – Jobs always made sure you know the names

Gartenberg: If you think Apple is all about Steve Jobs, you have forgotten something
[Via MacDailyNews]

“Conventional wisdom dictates that Apple and Steve Jobs are one inseparable and inexorably tied entity and Apple’s success over the last decade can only be attributed to the symbiotic combination of the two,” Michael Gartenberg writes for Macworld.

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Can you name anyone besides Steve Ballmer at Microsoft? Not many could.

But lots of people knew about Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Jonathan Ive.

Many people know who developed the original Mac. Not only are many names known, but there are Wikipedia links for many of them. Check out the history of Windows and you will not see the name of a single member of the creative team.

Jobs is a tough taskmaster but he always made sure that the talent around him was recognized. Not many other CEOs every did as much.

What every modern company should be doing

My wonderful experience with Apple today
[Via MacDailyNews]

I spoke with a senior technical advisor and he didn’t want me to…

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The comments are full of lots of instances of Apple going beyond the expected. Helps explain why its customer service is so highl rated.

Year after year.

Partly why it has such a rapid user base. People are so often treated poorly.

When HP had a heart

Jobs and HP
[Via danielmiessler.com]

When he was in eighth grade, Steve Jobs decided to build a frequency counter for a school project and needed parts. Someone suggested that he call Bill Hewlett. Finding a William Hewlett in the telephone book, the 12-year-old Jobs called and asked, “Is this the Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard?” “Yes,” said Bill. Jobs made his request. Bill spent some time talking to him about his project. Several days later, Jobs went to HP and picked up a bag full of parts that Bill had put together for him. Subsequently, Jobs landed a summer job at HP. He later went on to co-found Apple Computer.

Think of how amazing this is.  The founder and CEO of one of the major companies of the time, Bill Hewlett, got on the phone with a random 12-year-old he had never heard of.  He then proceeded to personally make sure to assemble the bag of HP parts the kid needed.

via blog.eladgil.com

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Hard to imagine HP doing anything similar. I’m not sure any of the recent CEOs would know what a frequency counter was. Of course they all have unlisted phone numbers, I imagine.

I wonder if this is why Jobs continued to receive and answer personal emails from users? It certainly is a great way to maintain a connection with the customer.

Very nice in depth article about global warming

The American ‘allergy’ to global warming: Why?

[Via The Seattle Times]

Tucked between treatises on algae and prehistoric turquoise beads, the study on page 460 of a long-ago issue of the U.S. journal Science drew little attention.

“I don’t think there were any newspaper articles about it or anything like that,” the author recalls.

But the headline on the 1975 report was bold: “Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” And this article that coined the term may have marked the last time a mention of “global warming” didn’t set off an instant outcry of angry denial.

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Over 35 years ago, Wally Broecker’s article coined the word global warming. Using primitive computers – the most powerful supercomputer of the day was about as powerful as an iPad 2 – Broecker made some initial suppositions about temperature changes based on the level of knowledge at the time.

History over the last 35 years have shown his predictions to be amazingly accurate. His model showed that CO2 production by humans would begin to overwhelm the effects of other natural processes. Here is a figure of his prediciton and real data since 1975 (from SkepticalScience):

Not too bad a difference between real data and an idealized curve based on some necessarily  inexact numbers. We have much more exact numbers today and more complicated models than he had but they simply simply add details to the overall effect.

Nothing that has been discovered in the last 35 years has disproven his paper. In fact, a much wider body of knowledge covering many more disciplines exists today than he had access to. All of them support his model.

Arrhenius discussed heating of the globe by human produced carbon dioxide over 100 years ago. Frank Capra produced an educational film on the subject in the mid-1950s. Broecker provided not only the model but accurate predictions 35 years ago. That model has been refined but not overturned by intense research since.

I think I’ll stick with 110 years of scientific research rather than corporate sponsored media campaigns.

Arctic Sea Ice melt

Nice animation from NASA based on satellite measurements. This was the second lowest sea ice extent and the smallest sea ice volume on record. Just look how open the Northweat and Northern passages are.

How you really are what you eat

What You Eat Affects Your Genes: RNA from Rice Can Survive Digestion and Alter Gene Expression
[Via 80beats]

RNAs from rice can survive digestion and make their way into mammalian tissues, where they change the expression of genes.

What’s the News: It’s no secret that having lunch messes with your biochemistry. Once that sandwich hits your stomach, genes related to digestion have been activated and are causing the production of the many molecules that help break food down. But a new study suggests that the connection between your food’s biochemistry and your own may be more intimate than we thought. Tiny RNAs usually found plants have been discovered circulating in blood, and animal studies indicate that they are directly manipulating the expression of genes.

What’s the Context:

• MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, are molecules involved in regulation of gene expression, the transcription of genes into proteins. miRNAs bind to the messenger RNAs that ferry genetic information from DNA to the ribosomes, which translate messenger RNAs into proteins.
• When a miRNA binds a messenger RNA, it keeps it from being translated, thus preventing that gene from being expressed.

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MicroRNAs have recently been found all over the place. The fact that they can withstand all sorts of digestive processes is unexpected. The fact that they can also act as a new type of hormone – released by one cell type to affect expression in another – is also just now being appreciated.

Now we find out that the microRNAs from the food we eat can also affect gene expression and our metabolism. So, you could eat exactly the same calories of food but the microRNAs present could alter your metabolism so one set of calories goes to fat while the other goes to muscle energy stores.

Dieting just got a lot more complex. But it explains somewhat how two people could eat the same things but have different outcomes. Their own miRNA background would interact with the incoming miRNAs to create an almost unique response to the food.