Bill Wolff’s Composing Spaces

Via Geoff Carter on the techrhet list, Jeff Bezos on Charlie Rose talking about the Kindle:

The device is getting the full media blitz, most notably the cover story in Newsweek, claiming that it is The Future of Reading and that the Book Isn’t Dead. I wasn’t aware that the book was in critical care.I haven’t used the Kindle yet, though I would obviously like to get my hands on one and see what its all about. I had the same initial reaction as Clay—that the lack of unlimited internet access is a serious drawback. Clay likes to check blogs in his phone; I like to do the same through my RSS reader.At Thanksgiving the family got into a discussion about the Kindle and I opined that I thought it would be another neat toy that some readers buy, just as some people bought the Sony Reader—the technology from which the Kindle heavily borrows (especially the liquid text screen). The only reason the Kindle is getting such buzz, I suspect, is because it is Bezos. But, we shall see.

Update 11/24, 9:27pm: Wired has a table that compares 8 categories among 9 ebook readers.

Update 12/2/07, 11:13am: I can’t resist pointing to Chip Kidd’s response to the Kindle at A Brief Message:

On Monday November 19th, Amazon released something called Kindle, the latest “e-book” reading device. I’ve been asked to comment on what effect I think this will have, if any, on book design as we know it. Here goes.

None.

Sincerely,
Chip Kidd

Via Common Craft, WetPaint has created a series of video parodies to advertise their easy to use wiki service. WetPaint uses a WYSiWYG for editing, which seems to be less awkward than the one now being used by PBwiki. It also offers users unlimited memory, though there is a limit to the number and size of uploaded files. Common Craft, the creators of the Plain English series, has partnered with WetPaint and has created a video highlighting its fearures.

A sampling of their parodies:

Read the rest of this entry »

The graphics in the new HP commercial featuring Jerry Seinfeld are incredible.

They beat out Google, pay $240 million for a 1.6% share.

Read/WriteWeb has a review of a new application by Radar Networks called Twine, which was announced on October 19, 2007 at the Web 2.09 Summit. The company describes Twine as “a revolutionary new service that helps you share, organize, and find information.” It is “a new service for sharing, organizing and finding information with people you trust. Use Twine to better leverage and contribute to the collective intelligence of your friends, colleagues, groups and teams. Twine ties it all together.”

Founder Nova Spivack tells Richard MacManus of Read/WriteWeb that “Twine will be ‘the first mainstream Semantic Web application.” MacManus praises Twine in his review (contains screen shots).

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A 17 year old from Glen Rock, NJ has hacked the iPhone so it can be used with carriers other than ATT. All you need:

• First, an iPhone. Of the sshed and jailbroken variety. Also, kill commcenter by moving the LaunchDaemon plist out of the directory.
• Some trusty case opener tools(read: guitar picks) Read one of the many tutorials available online for taking apart your phone.
• A soldering iron. This should’ve cost you more than $10.
• Fine pitch wire. I used magnet wire salvaged from a little motor.
• An unlock switch. The bigger and more badass, the better. Or if you are cheap, wire cutters
• A red bull. This requires concentration, something I don’t have without Red Bull.

To get a full detail of the mayhem that ensued during George Hotz’s journey, you can start at the beginning of his blog, Finding JTAG on the iPhone. Or, just to see the steps, start with Its Release Time and follow the links.

Oh, and the second hacked phone (he uses the first as his personal phone) was going for $1.2 million on ebay at the time of this post. Bidding was canceled for some reason. Check back latter.

No word yet on how apple is going to react to this.