Icon Ambulance: A Story About Steve Jobs And Attention To Detail

Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June.

No doubt there are plenty of career retrospectives about the just-departed Apple CEO Steve Jobs today. He did, after all, lead Apple to become the world's premiere technology company, and for a few moments earlier this month, Apple surpassed Exxon Mobil as the most valuable American company.

But there's one story, perhaps, that's piercing because it portrays the exacting nature of Apple's former CEO. Vic Gundotra — the man behind Google +, the company's entree into social media —posted a story about an interaction with Steve Jobs.

He writes that on a Sunday morning in 2008, he received a call during a religious service. He didn't answer, but Jobs left a message saying he had something "urgent to discuss." Gundotra returned his call almost immediately:

"Hey Steve — this is Vic," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn't pick up."

Steve laughed. He said, "Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".

I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?

"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow," said Steve.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

The CEO of Apple — the tech visionary who revolutionized personal computers, the way we listen to music and the way we think of mobile devices — was worried about the yellow in the second "O" in Google. Needless to say the problem was fixed, and Gundotra says it taught him a lesson on leadership and "passion and attention to detail."

"It was a lesson I'll never forget," wrote Gundotra. "CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday."

JailbreakMe creator Comex joins Apple as an intern

Allow us to extend our congratulations to Nicholas Allegra. He's more popularly known as Comex, the party responsible for crafting the infamous JailbreakMe and Spirit tools that's given Apple so many headaches recently. Starting the week after next, he'll be officially wandering around 1 Infinite Loop as a bona fide intern. We're not terribly surprised, since the skill level needed to give iOS engineers a run for their money can be a highly valuable asset to the company; hiring someone with the know-how to spot vulnerabilities in Apple's OS would only serve to make the platform more secure. It wasn't mentioned how Allegra's talents will be utilized by Apple, but -- given the programmer's extensive history -- we can make a few educated guesses.

R.I.P. DVD: Six Reasons It's Time for Discs to Die

When Apple launched refreshed hardware last week, it was no surprise that the ultrathin MacBook Air still does not have an internal DVD drive. Many were shocked to find out, though, that Apple has now also removed the DVD drive from the Mac Mini. But, Apple shouldn't stop there, and the revolution shouldn't be limited to Apple, or even just to PCs for that matter. It's time for discs to die.


Don't get me wrong, discs were great and contributed to the evolution of technology--I greatly appreciated when CDs came along to replace stacks upon stacks of floppy disks. We are now at a point, though, where discs are unnecessary and cause more problems than they solve.


CDs and DVDs are better than 3.5" floppy disks, but they've outlived their usefulness.


Here are six reasons I won't be sad to see discs go:

1. Noise. The CD or DVD drive has mechanical parts that spin the disc at high speed while the data is read using a laser. Even if you can't obviously hear it, the whirring of the drive adds ambient noise. In some cases--like my Xbox 360 drive--the spinning of the drive is audible and annoying from the next room.
2. Maintenance. Things with mechanical parts that spin at high speed eventually break. Disc drives can collect dust which can affect the ability of the laser to read the data. Looking back over the last decade, disc drives have been the number one cause of repair and replacement costs for me whether it's in a desktop or notebook PC, a game console like the Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360, or the variety of DVD and Blu-Ray players we have gone through.
3. Energy. It takes more juice to keep the disc spinning, and using a CD or DVD drive greatly reduces battery life on portable devices. Whether we are talking about an Xbox 360, a desktop PC, or a portable notebook, a disc drive consumes more energy than the alternatives.
4. Speed. Reading data from a solid state drive (SSD), or even from a traditional hard drive is exponentially faster than reading that same data from a CD or DVD. Your mileage will vary depending on the drives you're comparing, but you will get significantly better performance from data stored locally on a drive than you will reading it from a CD or DVD.
5. Media. This is the main reason I won't be sad to see discs go--the discs. The discs take up space. If you need to reinstall a program a year later, you have to try and remember where you stored the disc, and hope it is not unusably scratched or cracked. Hard drive capacity is cheap and virtually limitless, and it can be easily searched to find what you're looking for.
6. Convenience. I bought a Blu-Ray player over a year ago. I own one Blu-Ray movie and I can count on one hand the number I have rented. Why? The player also connects to my Internet connection and provides streaming media content--enabling me to choose and watch movies instantly rather than going to a video store or waiting for a disc to arrive in the mail.The same convenience applies with computer software, and with console games. Why deal with having to get or wait for a physical disc when the software can be delivered over the Internet in a few minutes?
I don't care that Apple ditched the drive in the Mac Mini, or that it only offers Mac OS X Lion as a digital download. I don't mind that Netflix seems to be intentionally driving customers away from using physical DVDs. I welcome rumors that Microsoft might develop a disc-less Xbox console.
Thank you for your service CDs and DVDs, but your time has passed. Buh-bye.

India is the Most Popular Source of SPAM : Kaspersky Report

In its latest monthly spam report, Kaspersky Labs has said that India remained the most popular source of spam in June. Brazil returned to second place with an increase of 4.4 percentage points compared to May, reports CBR Online Media.
The amount of phishing attacks on social networking site Facebook increased significantly to push it to the top five most attacked organizations list. Report said that phishing attacks on Facebook increased by 4.07 percentage points in June. Attack on Social Network Habbo increased higher at 6.25 percentage points.
Experts at Kaspersky Lab predicted a surge in spam linked to Google+. Kaspersky Lab senior spam analyst Maria Namestnikova said, “We expect an increase in unsolicited emails exploiting the new Google social network. They will most likely contain both phishing links and malicious code.”
Major takeaways of the report:

• Volume of spam in mail traffic increased compared to May and averaged 83.3%.
• The amount of phishing emails accounted for 0.02% of mail traffic.
• PayPal and eBay were the top two organizations targeted by phishers in June, followed by Habbo and Facebook.
• Trojan-Spy.HTML.Fraud.gen occupies first place among the Top 10 malicious programs distributed via mail traffic.
• A third of all English-language spam was fraudulent and was either sent with the intention of extorting money from users or contained a malicious attachment or a link to malicious code.

Ending Thoughts
Coming to India, the Emerging Superpower ranks high in SPAM and it might be due to the high volume of internet marketers in the nation. India is now ranked 2^nd or 3^rd in all social networking and bookmarking sites like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious etc. Some experts believe that most of the accounts in these networks are fake or duplicate. The accounts are used for marketing, and spamming is its outcome.
It has to be noted that phishing and malware attacks are not commonly generated from India, and India is as such not a serious threat to internet security.

Apple A5 chip overheating might be delaying the iPhone 5 launch

Here we have another interesting theory on what might be preventing Apple from releasing the next iPhone yet. The latest bit of online gossip has it that the problem lies within the dual-core Apple A5 chip, which is causing the smartphone to overheat.

That one sounds pretty reasonable, as previous rumors had it that the next iPhone will be even slimmer than the current one. That means its parts will be even more tightly packed and cooling down its chipset will be more challenging.

Plus, the iPhone 5 (or 4S if they really decide to go with that) will have an extra core, which probably means that it will be producing more heat than its predecessor. According to the rumor source, Apple is still struggling to find a solution for this and if it doesn't come up with something shortly it will be unveiling a smartphone based on the current iPhone to buy some more time.

In related news, rumor has it Apple has already started test-producing its next generation chipset, the A6 processor with the Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC. The Cupertino-based company is obviously dead set on replacing Samsung as the producer of the brains of its devices.

Obviously, the heated court battle between Apple and Samsung was bound to leave a scar on the $5.68 billion/year partnership between the two companies and this might just be only the beginning.

Oops: Microsoft Accidentally Reveals Secret Social Project "Tulalip"??

Microsoft has accidentally revealed an experimental social search project called "Tulalip" on a newly-purchased domain.

It seems Microsoft may have “accidentally” leaked its own beta version, Tulalip, but some industry analysts observe the move as deliberate.

The brief posting of Tulalip on Thursday was found by a blogger identified only as J.B., who wrote about it on the website domain news site Fusible.com.

"The four letter domain socl.com would complement bing.com," the Fusible post said. "Although the site isn't operational, visitors can get an idea of where Microsoft is going with the service called 'Tulalip', which also happens to be the name of a group of Native American tribes located not far from Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered."

But shortly after the preview appeared, developers pulled the application down. An apology was issued by Microsoft, which says, “Thanks for stopping by. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest.”

J.B. snapped a screenshot of what could be found at Socl.com before Microsoft took it down -- a green rectangle with the word "Welcome" above a short description that read "With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever."

Sign-in options for the site appeared to be offered for both Facebook and Twitter users -- no Google+ option there -- but when links were clicked, they didn't work, the blog post said.

As a Microsoft representative reiterated to Search Engine Land, Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft’s research teams which was mistakenly published to the web.

Pointing to the extreme success of Facebook and Twitter, some analysts points out that Microsoft is again “late to the party,” even if it’s able to offer something different.

Google is now saying that Google+ has in excess of 10 million members and climbing, though the network is still in beta testing phase.

Internet search engines cause poor memory, scientists claim

Widespread use of internet search engines and databases such as Google and IMDb.com to find information is making people lose their memory, scientists have discovered. 

 

Scientists have discovered that use of internet search engines and databases such as Google and IMDb.com to find information is making people lose their memory.

 

 

 

Researchers found increasing number of users relied on their computers as a form of “external memory” as frequent use of online information libraries "wired" human brains.

The study, examining the so-called "Google effect", found people had poor recall of knowledge if they knew where answers to questions were easily found.

The scientists from Columbia University, in New York, found people were increasingly bypassing discussions with friends to use the internet as their main source of information.

Experts blamed the findings, published online in this week in the journal Science, on popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and databases such as Wikipedia and IMDb.com, the movie information site founded in Britain.

Prof Betsy Sparrow, who led the study, said such web tools were making information easy to forget and that if people could not find answers immediately it could feel like "going through withdrawal". 

                     

“We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems,” said Prof Sparrow, from Columbia's psychology department.
“We have become dependent on them to the same degree we are on all the knowledge we gain from our friends and coworkers — and lose if they are out of touch.
"Human memory is adapting to new communications technology."
She added: "We're not thoughtless empty-headed people who don't have memories anymore. But we are becoming particularly adept at remembering where to go find things. And that's kind of amazing."
Roddy Roediger, a psychologist at Washington University who was also involved in the study, added: "Why remember something if I know I can look it up again? In some sense, with Google and other search engines, we can off-load some of our memory demands onto machines."
In the study, titled “Google Effects on Memory: Consequences of having information at our Fingertips,” the researchers undertook four experiments involving student volunteers.
They firstly asked 46 students from the Harvard, the Ivy League university, a series of true-false questions based on trivia such as, ”An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain” before showing them words in different colours.
When the words could be linked to the internet, students responded more slowly and admitted they were contemplating searching for the answers on the web.
Another 60 students were then given 40 statements to type on a computer before being told that the information would either be saved or erased.
They discovered that people who believed the data would be saved were less likely to remember.
Another experiment involved 28 undergraduates from Columbia who were asked trivia questions. They were allowed to take notes and the researchers found they too struggled to remember information that would be saved.
Finally a further 34 Columbia students remembered where they stored their information in folders on their computers better than they were able to recall the information itself.
Prof Sparrow admitted it remained unclear what the effects of being so “wired” will be on people over the coming years.
She said the Internet had replaced a person's circle of friends where people would traditionally look for information.
"(They) did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statement they had read," she said.
"It may be no more than nostalgia at this point, however, to wish we were less dependent on our gadgets.
"(It shows) we must remain plugged in to know what Google knows."
Prof Sparrow said the idea for the study came as she watched the 1944 movie "Gaslight" one night with her husband and, after wondering who the actress was who played the maid, turned to her computer and Googled it.
The maid was thescreen debut of an 18 year-old Angela Lansbury, the British actress.

Google+ Users Share 1 Billion Items Per Day, Says Larry Page

Google+ already has 10 million users who share 1 billion items every day, and Google’s +1 button is being hit 2.3 billion times per day, Google CEO Larry Page said Thursday.

Page, speaking to analysts during Google’s second-quarter earnings conference call, also said that 550,000 Android-enabled phones are activated every day and 160 million people use Google’s Chrome web browser.

Page was careful to put those stats, some of which had already been reported, in perspective. Since Google draws the vast majority of its revenues from advertising, products such as Android, Chrome and Google+ are viewed as long-term investments. They can “generate huge new businesses for Google in the long run,” he said.

Nikesh Arora, senior vice president and chief business officer for Google, said that Android’s growth has acted as “an accelerator to our mobile [advertising] efforts.”

Page slices Google’s business into three categories including search/advertising; products that are having strong consumer success, like YouTube, Android and Chrome, and new products like Google+ and Commerce and Local.

Somewhere outside of that are products that Page calls “speculative,” like driverless cars. “We may have a few small speculative projects happening at any given time, but we’re very careful stewards of shareholder money,” said Page. “We’re not betting the farm on this stuff.”

Sammy's briskest-selling smartphone ever & The Best Android Yet!...

The Galaxy S II has been one of those handsets that the mobile community has been craving for. Sure we have the iPhone 4, but S II was, as far as I was concerned, to be the next best thing or the alternative for those with lower budgets. A few weeks ago we did manage to get our hands on preview, but here’s a more in depth look at what the Galaxy S II has to offer. But to get the ball rolling here's a quick unboxing - Samsung's Galaxy S II becomes company's quickest selling phone: three million in 55 days Form Factor Let’s forget about it’s predecessor. It’s, to put it mildly, as good a phone as it is, but it’s a bit outdated as the world of Dual Core devices is here. The Galaxy S II is factually, the thinnest Android mobile phone in the market. It’s remarkably just 8.5mm in depth, which is just about a shade thinner than Apple’s iPhone. The 4.3-inch Gorilla Glass display manages to keep even smudges away, which makes viewing a real treat. If the colours are little too ‘in-your-face’, for lack of a better term, you can tone them down via the display settings for Background Effects. There’s even an option to activate an Outdoor mode that boosts both brightness and contrast to a seriously high level that makes it easier to view in bright sunlit conditions. However, even with default settings, you’ll have no real problem with viewing angles. The resolution on this, the first ever Super AMOLED Plus display is 480 x 800 pixels which is, of course not nearly as refined as the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 that has it beat hands down, even if the colours are brighter on the Galaxy S II. The iPhone 4 should be a little worried A couple of touch sensitive keys (return and menu) are placed on either side of the rectangular ‘Home’ button. The micro USB connector for charging, USB 2.0 for PC supported connectivity, MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link) support and USB-on-the-go (no adapter cables provided) is located at the bottom while a 3.5mm handsfree socket is placed on top. Volume/zoom keys are located on the right side while a screen lock/Power button is on the left. Pity Samsung didn’t incorporate a small shutter release for the camera but it’s not really missed. What is a bit of a disappointment is the lack of a hot swap memory card slot. However with 16GB of internal storage it’s not really something I was too concerned about. The thinnest one yet! While it ranks high with me on the design front, being so light weight (116g), so thin and yet so large, I did notice that those with slender or long fingers usually ended up gripping the phone in one hand and activating apps that were a little too close to the edge with the tips of their fingers. While sensitivity is a good thing, in this particular case it’s not a good thing. The S II also feels a bit plastic-y and delicate being as light as it as, however I did drop it (unintentionally) a couple of times and although a couple of locks on the rear popped up, the handset remained unscathed. Impressive! Features and Performance Interface Samsung’s all new TouchWiz UI 4.0, although much better looking than past offerings, is a wee bit sluggish. Their new option of adding widgets is by opening up a small sliding section at the bottom of the display so you can click and drag whatever you want onto the multiple screens (than can be added or removed). What I don’t like about this UI is that once you’ve reached the last page it doesn’t return to the first page like Launcher Pro, which, by the way, worked out much better than the Stock UI. TouchWiz UI 4.0, better than before, for sure! TouchWiz’s overall functionality is quite well laid out. It allows you to arrange apps in the menus with an edit option and unlike the desktop, rotates back to the first page from the last. You can also create folders if you wish to be a little more organized. Like the LG Optimus 2X, the S II also has gesture-based features like holding down on an app and tilting the handset to move between screens. You can also flip the handset to silence it, hold your thumbs on either side of an image and tilt the handset forward or back to zoom in and out. The Double Tap for voice commands options was a complete bust as it worked in the trial simulation but never after.

Swype input is by far the speediest way of typing once you get the hang of it. If you’e not used to it, I suggest using the tutorial, but it’s really not that hard. The phone book has a Merge with FB or Google set up that didn’t seem to do anything. I ultimately had to manually join contacts with FB and Google or Twitter. It was a bit unusual that I found no option to show my SIM card contacts though it was easy enough to copy them from the card to the phone and vice versa. So far, HTC’s sense UI phone book still has the best integration system. The swipe left/right to call and message respectively, was one of TouchWiz’s better ideas. Customize the menus to your preference The Samsung Galaxy S II, on the whole worked like a charm, pushing the Dual Core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor and Android Ginger bread (2.3.3) platform very steadily. Accessing data, opening apps, multi-tasking and creating or playing HD videos was almost fluid and lag-free.  Media The Galaxy S II truly excels in this regard. The music player, although lacking a jazzy gyro using, Cover-Flow style view, is simple and easy to use with EQ presets and an 8 band customizable setting, my personal favorite. It even has sound effect settings which include Bass enhancement for some seriously hard hitting low frequencies. A 5.1 Channel Surround sound option adds a little more to the value of audio output on the Galaxy S II. An in-ear styled handsfree kit is bundled and is quite comfortable to use and also manages to handle the output quite well even at peaked volume. It’s loud and clear enough for calls and music to be heard over the loud din emitting within a Mumbai local, needless to say, it passed my acid test. Plenty of audio settings for personalisation When it comes to video playback, the S II fully supports any and all files formats in a variety of resolution including full HD i.e. 1080p. There was no delay or lag while accessing or playing files. Visually, thanks to the brilliant display, playback was a pleasure. Watching videos in any lighting condition was just plain simple and comfortable. The S II also comes with a preloaded video editor that’s easy to use and makes things quite simplistic when it comes to creating videos from your image gallery or editing videos you’ve recorder via the camera. A photo editor is also provided. Full HD playback Than handset's FM radio in contrast was a bit average. Reception was just about adequate while commuting, with unfortunately quite a bit of disturbance. But when stationary in places where I usually get good reception it performed well enough. Connectivity Of course the Galaxy S II is a 3G capable phone capable of handling HSDPA with speeds of 21 Mbps and HSUP up to 5.76 Mbps. EDGE/GPRS functions quite well too but get yourself a 3G connection and you’ll seriously burn web space! With Bluetooth 3.0 + HS and USB-on-the-go capability the Galaxy S is well equipped for connectivity. Let’s not forget Wi-Fi with tethering and Wi-Fi Hot spot creation as well. Samsung also offers DLNA support for the Galaxy S II with their All Share app and Samsung Kies functions like iTunes for syncing and setting up an account for downloading apps etc. wirelessly. Another great feature regarding Wi-Fi is Wi-Fi Direct that pretty much works like Bluetooth for wireless transfer of data through Wi-Fi. Of course, it's only compatible with other devices featuring the same technology and rest assured there will be plenty of those real soon. The various Hubs that include Samsung’s Music Hub (that was inaccessible), Readers Hub for getting eBooks, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, Game Hub and Social Hub (showcases all SN accounts into one space – LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, Email, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Chat, Gtalk etc.) are part of the new TouchWiz UI 4.0’s make up. Samsung even has their own App market for downloading apps and another link to an online store called Samsung Suggests that offers apps that work well with the S II. Push services for email and FB are no different from other Android powered device. Plenty of connectivity options What was a big disappointment was the absence of a preloaded GPS software app. Usually Samsung offers a Route 66 based app but with a High-end device like the Galaxy II, not having it made a big difference. All of Google’s services were however present and accounted for from Maps to Navigation and Places etc.  Misc. Features Some of the ‘extras’ that Samsung has thrown in with the phone as preloaded content include Mini Diary – that lets you capture images with geotags and add a little information about the picture to it. It’s similar to Sense UI’s Footprints. Polaris Office is provided for reading and accessing documents and of course all the standard Android apps like Google’s Voice Search, Voice Commands (The voice command settings worked quite well provided you speak loudly and slowly), Task’s, Voice Recorder, Calendar with Google Sync, World Clock, Stopwatch, Timer and another extra - a File Manager are also provided. Widgets like an Agenda, Ap Mobile, a Sticky Notes type app called Mini paper etc. are also thrown in. GIngerbread all the way Camera With an 8 megapixel auto/touch focus camera with an LED flash loaded onto the S II that’s capable of recording videos in 1080p @30fps, the handset was even more impressive. Although, I do wish Android handset manufacturers could devise a simpler camera like the iPhone’s, the S II does manage to offer quite a range of very digicam like features. Those include a wide range of scene modes, Geotagging, face/smile and blink detection, White balance, Beauty shot, auto stitch Panorama mode, Cartoonize, and action shots, a timer and a few color effects amongst others. The touch focus isn’t nearly as good as any of HTC’s new devices but on the whole, image quality was great. Details were clear and quite crisp for a mobile camera. Colour reproduction was also quite vivid. Outdoor looks pretty good too Video capture was just a little bit framed but not enough for anyone who’s not overly particular to find a reason to complain. On the whole the camera proved to be quite an asset for the S II with almost instantaneous activation when selected. Processing was also quite speedy so most of the time you won’t really miss those spontaneous moments. Auto stitch Panorama The S II also features a 2 megapixel fixed focus camera up front near the proximity sensor, just above the display. This camera could be used for taking pictures of yourself or for video calls. The quality of pictures from this camera is also quite decent for both video and images. Great for macro Battery The 1650 mAh battery works out just fine for the Galaxy S II clocking in at 6 hours of standalone talk time which is quite impressive as mobile handsets go. I was also able to watch 2 full length movies back to back without the handset dying on me. The task manager and device’s pre-loaded Power Saving mode does help optimize the battery life of the handset as well. You’ll get about a day and a half of usage which will easily include a little bit of video, music, web browsing and at least 2 hours worth of calls.  The Bottom Line The Galaxy S II, although officially available for Rs. 32,490 (16GB), is also available, in some locations, for about Rs. 30,000. The fact that the device performs quite seamlessly and is priced rather reasonably, impressed me. When compared to similar products like the LG Optimus 2X or theIncredible S, the S II stands out. If ever the iPhone 4 had to seriously be worried, the Galaxy S II would be the handset that would make it sweat. The one thing Samsung should do for the S II in terms of packaging is - include a more cables to fill out the empty space in the premium pack. An adapter for USB (like Nokia's) and a MHL cable would have been great! While it may not have the elegance of the simplistic yet, classy user experience as the iPhone 4, it makes up for it with speed and just tad more functionality. Of course that will all change come iOS 5, but for now, if the iPhone 4 is too heavy for your wallet, the Galaxy S II the next best thing and well worth the price tag.