Tech News Digest—Issue XLIX
This will be a somewhat interesting issue of my Tech News Digest series. First off, I have not followed my schedule of publishing one issue per week, for a long time. Therefore, there will be an unusual amount of old posts that I will comment on for this issue. Second, because of this, many of the comments are more like retrospecting rather than prospecting; I even forgot what I wanted to comment for some of the posts as they are so long ago. (Note: halfway writing this post up, I decide to split it as it might be too long.)
Microsoft makes MS-DOS and Word for Windows source code public
This news appears in March of 2014. Nearly two years has passed, too bad that I have not heard of an open source project to reverse-engineer the proprietary Word file format.
Experimental Gmail feature shows promotional emails as a grid of images
Nah it didn’t happen. What came out finally was a sort of automatic labeling (or bundling being the correct terminology?). I have not embraced this feature yet. I have my own Social label in Gmail and filters to auto-labeling, albeit there is one auto created by Gmail as well. Some settings are hard to change once you are into it.
There would always be security bugs here and there. We have grown dumb into such news by now.
One-Third Of iPhone Users Would Shell Out $100 For Bigger Display
This news appeared at the time when iPhone 6 was still a rumor. At the time I added this article into my comment list, I was about to say, “see, there are still two thirds iPhone users would not.” And it turns out that I would be wrong on this. The big screen on iPhone 6 turns out to a huge success. A lot of users went for iPhone 6 Plus as well for the even bigger screens. I personally think iPhone 6 screen size is just about OK. I would likely get one with this size next time I upgrade my cellphone.
Snupps for iOS is a more visual, social way to log and share your physical collections
I absolutely think there is a need for a home inventory management app. Some existing ones on the market are not so easy to use, and cost a small fortune. This service looks nice, but I stopped at the point where I was asked to sign-up for an account. I don’t have a need to showing off my stuff to the world. I just need a book-keeping app that’s easy to use.
Some of the items do now apply now. But I still make #3 mistake like always. Nearly all of my original tweets are carefully tailored to meet the 140-character requirement. Interesting, huh?
‘None of the Web companies are doing anything’ to protect you, say security pros
Yeah, I knew.
I am speechless with complex feelings with this story.
I’d say this idea is brilliant. However I don’t know if the mentioned apps by this article actually work. Mood tracking sounds like a really hard thing to do.
This is also a brilliant idea. I tried Refresh for a while and then it started to seem weird: it can dig other people’s information (i.e., from the article screenshot, “Natasha is a fan of her hometown team, the Golden State Warriors, …”, “You know Natasha’s brother-in-law, [name]”) from nowhere and provide to you probably as an ice breaker, which sounds nice but also sounds like you are a creepy stalker to an acquaintance on a second thought.
Another problem with this app, as are with other similar apps, are that the artificial intelligence is not intelligent. It would be better if the app can market itself as information manager rather than being intelligent.
With FuelBand exit, Nike signals the limits of tech’s appeal
There are lots of companies competing in this market still, but it’s not yet clear who will win. My belief is that, whoever first are able to make meaningful sense of the tracked data would win, and it’s definitely not about more sensors.
Sina.com Punished For Pornographic Content By China’s Government
Trust me, whenever they say it’s because of the porn, it is not.
Meet Swarm: Foursquare’s ambitious plan to split its app in two
This bit is particularly interesting, as the newest news I’ve heard is that Foursqure is returning to one app only. And, the introduction of Swarm (so that I couldn’t check in without that additional app) was exactly the reason that I quit Foursquare.
From Paper to iPad, Pixel Press Turns Drawings Into Videogames
In terms of business idea I think this is brilliant. Selling materials you need to create a game while helping you achieve the dream of designing a game. I just don’t know if there are indeed some game made popular in this way.
Seems Tesla, Uber, and a couple of other car companies are also working on this. Hope they can succeed. The bottom line is I wouldn’t let a driverless car take me anywhere.