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25 Jun 2010 09:40

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Tech: On that iPhone 4 antenna problem: An antenna designer’s take

  • Dude blames a compromise between numerous entities. Antenna designer Spencer Webb says the iPhone’s new antenna – which he didn’t work on – was clearly a challenge to create, in part due to FCC regulations which don’t take hand placement into account for some reason. “There is no way around this,” he says. “It’s a design compromise that is forced by the requirements of the FCC, AT&T, Apple’s marketing department and Apple’s industrial designers, to name a few.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jun 2010 09:22

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Biz: It took all freaking night, but we have a finance reform deal

  • Quite frankly, common sense prevailed. … Our objectives were to get the risky stuff out of banks. We figured out how to do that.
  • Sen. Blanche Lincoln • On her derivatives proposal, the meat of which was kept in a last-minute deal brokered waaaaaaaaaaaaay past bedtime. Obviously, most of this stuff will fly over non-investors’ heads, but the deal essentially allows banks to keep using derivatives on less-risky investments – foreign exchange, interest rate, gold and silver swaps, and hedges on their own investments – while forcing them to spin off separate companies for their riskiest derivatives. You know, the ones that caused the financial crisis, like cleared and uncleared commodities, agricultural, energy and equities swaps, and credit. Some biz-friendly Democrats wanted to railroad this, but failed. Nice save. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jun 2010 09:22

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Tech: Who bought all those iPhone 4s, anyway? UPGRADERS!

  • 77% of iPhone 4 purchases were iPhone upgrades source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jun 2010 22:37

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Music: One-word album reviews: Jimmy Fallon’s house band made an record

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jun 2010 21:40

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Tech: Wethinks Gawker Media doth protest a bit too much about Apple

  • As with any other highly coveted consumer product, especially from Apple, the demand for the iPhone isn’t entirely rational. The improvement are incremental, like a faster processor, sharper screen and a very limited video chat capability.
  • ValleyWag blogger Ryan Tate • Downplaying the good things about the iPhone 4 in an attempt to broadly criticize Apple. (This from a guy who got into a pretty stupid war of words with Steve Jobs a few weeks back.) Dudes getting paychecks from Nick Denton’s company have been writing Apple hit pieces like this for weeks. (Going so far, in one case of one article’s headline, to blame Apple for problem that was clearly AT&T’s fault.) While Apple’s new iPhone deserves some of the criticism it’s getting (this is valid, for example), there’s no need to show us 40 videos of iPhone 4 users having the same problem. All you’re doing is trying to get back at a company you pissed off by leaking information about one of their products a couple of months early. They’re just hit pieces designed to cut down Apple, based less on actual reasons and more on vendettas. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jun 2010 21:38

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Tech: iPhone launch report: A lot of scattered, potentially serious issues

  • Be it yellow residue that hasn’t completely dried or antennas that aren’t working very well, a lot of new iPhones have been having some pretty bad issues at launch. And it’s something that could cause Apple to lose a little of its luster if it proves to be too bad or too serious. Apple’s allowed a rough launch every once in a while. OK? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jun 2010 20:07

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U.S.: Bridgeport, Connecticut clobbered by huge freaking storm

The storm has downed power lines, made buildings collapse and put the city into a state of emergency. Holy crap. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

24 Jun 2010 19:53

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Politics: Sarah Palin’s legal defense fund not legal, goes bye-bye

  • $386,000 gets paid
    back source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jun 2010 19:45

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U.S.: The DISCLOSE (unless your lobbying group is huge) Act passes

  • good The House passes the DISCLOSE act, designed to make political groups disclose who their five largest donors are (and to make the head of the largest company appear in the ads).
  • bad It sounds good for fans of political transparency, but it makes notable exemptions for the largest lobbying groups – inculding  the Humane Society, NRA, and AARP. WTF? Why are they special? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Jun 2010 11:20

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Tech: The Getty Images iPad app is full of photo-editing win

  • We mentioned this to our boy Charles Apple last night, but it needs to be emphasized. This app makes photo-editing – a job that once required people to spend hours looking at dull Web pages – significantly easier. We used it and found the interface impeccable – it’s just easier than clicking through page after page of photos. We approve. (Do this with iStockPhoto next, guys. Please? You own it. You could do it.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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