“They’re probably doing it because the most common compound words with ‘head’ in them are ‘dickhead,’ ‘shithead,’ and ‘meathead,’” says WIRED’s copy chief, Jennifer Prior, who has spent more than a dozen years assessing the grammatical validity of made-up tech terms. There’s also pothead, cokehead, crackhead, and butthead. “They clearly don’t want Chathead to have a similarly pejorative connotation,” says Prior.
It makes sense: When you launch a new product, you don’t want it associated with dickheads and shitheads.
This is a case of overthinking a situation. If people want to make ‘shithead’ jokes, having a space between the words isn’t going to stop them. This level of crude humour has no regard for grammatical correctness.
If Facebook was worried this was an issue, the solution would be to find a different name entirely, not debate over compound words. This article puts too much weight on the importance of good brand names. In the vast majority of cases, products survive or die based on their feature set, not on their names.
“Today has been gangbusters for T-Mobile,” Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We experienced lines out the door this morning at nearly all of our almost 3,000 stores nationwide.”
Not all the lines persisted, though, with some critics of the company noting that later in the day stores were marked by a lot of no-longer-needed stanchions.
Whereas most product launches don’t even get a line, Apple gets criticised for having thinning lines (which started off “gangbusters”) as the day ends, for a launch of an iPhone that is not brand-new nor exclusive and is considered to be nearing end-of-life.
Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we’re launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.
For example, you can choose to have your data deleted — after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can select trusted contacts to receive data from some or all of the following services: +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube.
Also on the roadmap for fall 2014 is what’s listed as iOS/Android support for Office. One would assume this is the expected and widely rumored Office for iPad release. It could, however, be Office for iPhone and Android phone, given that it’s not listed on the roadmap as being tablet-specific.
Every day, new users are joining iOS and Android. These people are developing habits and workflows that don’t include Office at all. Waiting until late 2014 to address these potential customers feels like an error that is irrecoverable, at least regarding Office in the consumer space.
But let’s talk about the real news: the next-gen Thunderbolt tech (code-named Falcon Ridge) enables 4K video file transfer and display simultaneously in addition to running at 20 Gbps. It will be backward-compatible with previous-gen Thunderbolt cables and connectors, and production is set to ramp up in 2014. An on-stage demo with fresh-off-the-press silicon showed the new Thunderbolt running 1,200 MBps, which is certainly a step up from what’s currently on the market.
Next year, 4K will be ready for consumers technologically. The content situation, though, remains murky.
Sony Electronics is announcing prices and availability for its new 4K Ultra High Definition TV sets unveiled at CES in January. The new XBR-55X900A (55-inch) and XBR-65X900A (65-inch) 4K Ultra HD LED TVs will cost $4,999 and $6,999 respectively and are available for order online and at retail beginning April 21, 2013.
That’s a lot cheaper than I expected, considering the panels are still really new.
The Ouya began shipping to early backers of its Kickstarter campaign late last month, and this week some unflattering reviews of the hardware appeared on tech sites like The Verge and Engadget. Those sites suggested that the system wasn’t ready for release, and in a statement to GamesIndustry International earlier today, Ouya suggested it wasn’t ready for review, either.
The representative called this a “preview period” for early supporters to get a first look at the hardware, and said the company hadn’t shipped any units to the press yet with the intention of them being reviewed.
The Verge gave the Ouya 3.5 out of 10. In two months of further development time, even if it improves so much that its final score was doubled, the product would still be considered mediocre.
Also, I can’t shake the feeling that the “better soon” statement is a hollow statement. I don’t think the problems with the Ouya can be solved with a bit of additional engineering. The software problems are an annoyance, but could be overlooked if the content selection was good.
It isn’t. I doubt it ever will be. The major game developers are focused on the next Xbox and the PS4. Gamers complain that smartphone and tablet games are basic — weak imitations of ‘real’ AAA titles. Seeing as the Ouya is a screenless tablet with a bundled controller, I don’t see why it will buck the trend.
At best, Ouya’s content selection is going to consist of ports of successful Android tablet games. Newsflash: the Android tablet app ecosystem isn’t exactly booming.
A floating picture of a friend’s head appears on the screen — their Facebook profile image — and can be dragged via your finger to anywhere on the screen. You can tap it to open a message window, and more than one chat head can be on screen at one time.
The floating icons appear above the active application. It means you can carry on chatting without having to bounce between applications.
I need to wait and see how intrusive they are, but based on the preliminary glances shown today at the event, I think they are cool.
However, in order to have Chat Heads, you have to download all of Facebook Home, and I definitely don’t want to sacrifice my whole home screen to Facebook for the feature. I want Chat Heads to be offered unbundled, but this — obviously — does not correlate with the interests of Facebook.
However, Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers, and supporting multiple architectures over the years has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium projects. This has slowed down the collective pace of innovation - so today, we are introducing Blink, a new open source rendering engine based on WebKit.
Whether this was done intentionally or not, this move will hurt iOS to some extent. Google will begin pushing new code improvements to its fork, Blink, rather than contributing to WebKit itself.
Blink is still open-source, so theoretically the additions to Blink could be reviewed by third-parties and merged back into the community WebKit tree. However, although that may be feasible initially, if Google really diversifies Blink’s codebase from WebKit’s, that process becomes convoluted and unwieldy.
Microsoft says it “worked with Apple to create a solution that benefited our mutual customers.” The company’s new SkyDrive app for iOS “is slightly different than other SkyDrive apps in that people interested in buying additional storage will do so via the web versus in the app,” says a Microsoft spokesperson. “Earlier this week, Apple approved the SkyDrive app for release and we’re excited to allow people everywhere to start using it.”
Once again, Apple did not cave to the “bigger players” and gave Microsoft no special treatment. It enforced the same terms on Microsoft as everyone else; if your user pays you money through an App Store app, you must use In-App Purchase and give Apple 30%.
Microsoft’s original submissions were rejected because Microsoft tried to circumvent this policy. As is now the norm, Microsoft got around the ‘problem’ the same way everyone else has. They do not allow the user to upgrade their SkyDrive storage in the app, only via the web.
In fact, I don’t really understand why this is news at all. This is just standard Apple policy.
Gascón said Foulkes discussed the long and laborious process of researching and producing a kill-switch technology for devices, and also said the next two generations of iPhones have already been developed.
“They preceded Tim Cook,” the district attorney said he was told of the future iPhones.
It’s an interesting tidbit, because the consensus opinion has been that the iPhone 5 was the last iPhone Jobs had any meaningful involvement in.
The BBC has today revealed some of the all-star cast that will mark the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. David Tennant and Billie Piper will join current Doctor and companion, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, while John Hurt (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alien, Harry Potter) will also co-star.
Of course, there’s no official word yet, but Apple has been active during the conference talking to developers about its plans and ensuring plenty of games will support the joypad at launch.
Hopefully, this comes alongside a joypad control API for iOS so third-party controllers are also viable. I don’t trust Apple to make a “traditional” controller, which I want for some titles.
For instance, when the device is turned on, it will immediately display a Facebook user’s home screen, the source said, a fact reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. Facebook’s camera and messaging apps will be the default apps for the core functions of the phone, the Facebook employee also said.
Seeing as Facebook already has a cache of Android apps and Android developers at their disposal, they might as well experiment with a fork of Android. The additional resource investment required is almost negligible.
Google is finally opening up its Google Shopping Express service to the public today, with the same day delivery service being made available as a test to select users in San Francisco and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose. Participating retailers include, as we’ve previously reported: Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle, Toys“R”Us/Babies“R”Us, Office Depot, San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Coffee, Raley’s Nob Hill Foods, and Palo Alto Toy & Sport.
If you had told me ten years ago that you would be able to get same-day shipping on consumer goods online, I would have said you were crazy.
If you had also divulged that Google would be the company to provide that service, I would have considered you insane.