AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Source:   Make A Wish Foundation ,  Business Insider ,  Politico . Great news, folks.  Gotham City is once again safe.  Thanks to not Batman (he had a small part in it).  Not one of the various Robins.  Not Nightwing.  Nope, not Superman either.  Or the JLA.  It's Batkid!!! That's right!  Thanks to Make A Wish Foundation, more than 10K fellow Americans, and thousands if not millions of us on social media cheering him on, Batkid, aka Miles, roamed through Gotham (San Francisco) to save its citizens from evildoers. What's more, many are cheering him on via social media like Twitter.  Tweets from famous folks, politicans (some of them I like Batkid to deal with, and even the President of the United States. With little brother aka Robin. Choking back tears!  #sfbatkid   pic.twitter.com/apIpn9OUYn — patricia wilson (@pilarwish)  November 15, 2013 This has got to be one of the best stories of 2013. ...

It's safe to say that the federal government's rollout of the health insurance exchange has not gone well.  In fact, it's pretty dismal.  At the same time, they're hardly to be blamed for this.  Remember all those cloud services that Apple tried to unveil that didn't work? MobileMe, the early days of iCloud? I'm sure you can think of a few other examples of how things didn't work out well for private companies. And the health exchange is probably many times more complex.  This is why I don't get why Washington thought it could make it work from day one. Where was the beta testing with real people participation?  Google's Gmail has been in beta for years and I'm sure there are a few other apps that are still in beta? The health insurance exchange debacle is a very valuable lesson for government officials and entrepreneurs.  This reminds me of Google+ unveiling.  You needed an invitation to sign up.  And it was done over time probably to give...

Source:  The Verge . If you bought Xbox video, and you use Windows Phone 7 or Zune, you're going to be able to continue using it until Feb of 2014.  After that, nada. Microsoft gave some crap about how they improved on the video and offerings.  Translation:  if you wanna keep using Xbox content, get a new Windows Phone device, preferrably the Lumia which Microsoft effectively own. Zune?  I get that.  But Windows Phone 7.  Not so much.  It's still pretty new.  It's the OS that has been delayed over and over until Microsoft managed to ship it against some already entrenched smartphone heavyweights.  It, along with Blackberry, had owned the mobile market.  One theory I've got on why Microsoft is chucking WP7 now.  There were not many takers to begin with.  Kinda like Zune I guess.

Source:   TC . Apple got some blow-back from some quarters regarding the new iWork, you know, the office suite that they made free to everyone (almost everyone).  And while it was not surprising that in order to make iWork seem seamlessly across the two plaetforms, iOS and OS X, Apple would have to strip out some of the more advanced features in the previous versions. However, it did hit a nerve for some folks. This reminded me of when Apple released the new Final Cut Pro a couple of years ago that not only stripped out a lot of features pro users came to rely on but also made the projects incompatible between the new and older versions of the professional video editing app.  Eventually, many of the features did come back. So, I expected the same thing to happen with iWork as well.  And Apple pre-announced what they would be ( Apple ).  Here are the key updates that will be coming in the next 6 months: Pages Customize toolbar  Vertical ruler ...

Black Monday for Blackberry today. For both the company and its fans.  Apparently, things are so bad there that there are no real takers who believe the company can be turned around and reclaim even part of its former glory.  And that is sad. And apparently, the patents that Blackberry own do not have the value which many believe should have.  It's surprising because Blackberry is a pioneer in messaging and a trailblazer in smartphones as far as most are concerned. Today, the CEO of Blackberry, Thorsten Heins, was forced out and it received an injection of $1 billion in investment.  The details aren't that important here.  It's how the investors perceive today's announcement.  Blackberry has apparently taken itself off the market.  And it's uncertain what its turnaround plan is if there is one.  That's the scary part for investors. And this development certain does not inspire confidence among developers and consumers. There is a possibly a ...

Source:   Game Industry . There's a lot of competition between Apple and Google over the mobile war.  In some limited respect, they're also partners - they're partners in that Google pays Apple for being the default search engine in Safari.  Google has a set of very good apps on the iOS platform - some of the best and innovative apps I might add.  Still, Apple likes to brag about the many billions they've already paid developers. Right now, Google has surpassed Apple in the number of downloads.  It's to be expected as Google's Android platform owns a greater portion of the mobile market.  It's unclear if this include the non-Google variants.  Google has 1.25 times more downloads than Apple However, Apple still leads when it comes to monetizing the app market.  The GI post is a very interesting read if you're a mobile developer or a mobile enthusiast keeping scores.  The iOS platform generates 50% more revenue than Google Play. What...

This is the battery life from my new 15" Macbook Pro, less than a week old.  I finally decided to pull the trigger on this awesome work of computing wonder and retire my 11.6" Macbook Air from late-2010 which I bought in 2011.  The battery life was decent still but with the new Haswell chip and the increased in battery life to 8 hours of normal use, I think it was time for something new. Plus, I had been spoiled with Retina displays on my iPhone and iPads, not to mention the Nexus 7 as well. Even as I am writing this post, my batter life is still at 58% with about six hours to go.  I do a lot of writing so I find this to be pretty adequate right now.  Who knows what'll happen in three to four years where tech on the Macbook Pro will take us and how far. I'll have more to say about the Macbook Pro, my Mac, when I get more time with it.