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Brian X. Chen at the New York Times:

Old-school train conductors are finally ready to give up their hole punchers to try something new: the iPhone.Amtrak, the government-owned corporation that oversees the nation’s railroad train services, has been training conductors since November to use the Apple handset as an electronic ticket scanner on a few routes, including from Boston to Portland, Me., and San Jose, Calif., to Sacramento.

Ken Bensinger for the Los Angeles Times

But all the miles they and 64 other unlimited AAirpass holders racked up went far beyond what American had expected. As its finances began deteriorating a few years ago, the carrier took a hard look at the AAirpass program.

Customers paid American Airlines $350,000 for a lifetime, first class ticket.

Matt Gemmell:

But knee-jerk design decisions are worryingly commonplace, and pose substantially more risk to software users. Familiarity is only one factor, and it’s often a deceptive one. Consider the entire scenario and context, and take the time to truly design your user’s experience.

Great stuff from Matt.

I always think that RIM can’t get any worse, any more stupid than they already are, and then they do something like this. This is the ending of its ridiculous “Wake Up” campaign against Apple.

The source code was supposed to document how Samsung had worked around design or technical elements Apple had patented, including the “overscroll bounce” described in U.S. Patent No. 7,469,381.Instead of producing this evidence, which could be used to help Samsung’s case (but could also be used by Apple to prove additional or continued infringement) the company chose instead to keep Apple and the court waiting.

Sasha Frere-Jones, for the New Yorker:

The ideal memorial is written from distance, a generous calculation of merit that proceeds honorably without abandoning accuracy. I have to apologize right now for being unable to give you that—Adam Yauch was a part of my childhood, an ambassador to America from our New York, which is now gone, as is he.

AppleInsider:

Chitika Insights, the research arm of the Chitika ad network, sifted through its database of ad impressions and found that 94.64 percent of all tablet web traffic can be attributed to the iPad.In comparison, the second place Samsung Galaxy Tab only managed 1.22 percent of the market, while the Asus Transformer Prime eked out 1.2 percent.

So much for the competition.

Julianne Pepitone for CNN Money:

The proxy fight between Yahoo and activist shareholder firm Third Point just got extra nasty. Third Point came out swinging late Thursday with an allegation that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson lied about his college degree — and on Friday, the activist shareholder firm called for Thompson’s ouster.

It’s worth noting that Third Point CEO Dan Loeb is bucking for a spot on Yahoo’s board of directors. This is ugly. But let this be a lesson: eventually, you’ll get caught if you pad your resume.

New York Times:

Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive said that he wished the company had never offered an unlimited data plan for the device and that he loses sleep over free texting services like Apple’s iMessage.“If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.”

Perhaps if Mr Stephenson’s company hadn’t consistently boned their customers with ridiculous charges, he wouldn’t find so many of us happy to use iMessage or Skype or any number of other services to get around the usurious costs we are forced to pay by AT&T.

Jim and Dan discuss the Apple TV set, the App Store kill switch, the Samsung Galaxy S III, Kindles, Target, the UK Ministry of Defence, Rock Band’s iOS cancellation notice, guitar stands, and more.Sponsored by Textastic, TapTyping, and Squarespace.

Gizmodo:

If you never attended a shuttle launch, you must watch this perfect video. Watch it with good and big headphones. Or better yet, with an amazing sound system. In fact, this is the perfect video to test your audio setup with gigantic subwoofer.But beware. It’s loud. Deliciously loud and crispy.

Zach Weigand:

I find it much more likely that Apple will just keep the phone the same width (as claimed in all the rumors), get rid of the dead space on both sides of the screen, and keep the aspect ratio 3:2.

Many thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

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Download Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store and check out Airfoil right from our site.

Sara Forden for Bloomberg:

Google Inc. (GOOG) is negotiating with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over how big a fine it will have to pay for its breach of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s Safari Internet browser, a person familiar with the matter said.

Google ran into trouble when it was discovered that the company had bypassed Apple’s Safari security settings to plant cookies to track what Web pages users were looking at. Google hasn’t denied the claim, but it says that the cookies were not used to track personal information. The action indicates that Google allegedly violated the terms of a consent decree it signed last year.

Rolling Stone:

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 48, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009. The rapper was diagnosed in 2009 after discovering a tumor in his salivary gland.

It’s a huge loss to the music world. The Beastie Boys – just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – had an enormous impact on a generation of musicians and music fans. Yauch will be missed.

UPDATE: The Beastie Boys’ official Web site confirms that Yauch passed away as a result of cancer.

Jacqui Cheng for Ars Technica:

As it turns out, Dropbox inadvertently put other developers using its SDK in violation of one of Apple’s app guidelines, resulting in a string of rejections that looked as if apps using Dropbox were being banned. The Web flew into a fury over what is essentially an annoying but long-standing clause in Apple’s guidelines. The problem has now been remedied and the fury has died down, but what, exactly, happened during this sordid drama and how did it end up being fixed?

An interesting look at a little tempest in a teapot that erupted recently in the Apple world.

A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.

Some amazing pics in here.

If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you’re probably aware of Darth on Twitter. He takes photos of me and Photoshops them in funny and weird scenarios. Here is a page of some of the most recent ones.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants told investors that Nokia’s conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market. It did not,” the lawsuit states. “This became apparent on April 11, 2012, when Nokia disclosed that its first quarter performance would be worse than expected. Nokia expected its first quarter 2012 non-IFRS Devices & Services operating margin to fall by 3%, and projected first quarter 2012 Devices & Services net sales of €4.2 billion.

It’s a good thing RIM owners never thought of this.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt for CNN Money:

“We do not expect Apple TV this year,” wrote [Mike Moskowitz,] J.P. Morgan’s chief Apple (AAPL) watcher. “Our research does not indicate any looming TV-related product launch, and our model does not incorporate any potential impact from a TV device at this time. Despite the constant hum of media and investor speculation, we think any product entry will be measured in years, not quarters.”

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has been trumpeting Apple’s next big thing as an Apple-branded TV set for so long now, I think some people just assume it’s fact, and that it’s a question of when, not if. I still hold that it makes absolutely no sense for Apple to get involved in such a saturated market. Apparently Moskowitz agrees with me.

John Paczkowski for AllThingsD:

According to IDC’s review of worldwide tablet shipments for the first quarter of 2012, Kindle Fire shipments dropped from 4.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 to less than 750,000 units last quarter. From 16.8 percent to “just over 4 percent” global market share is a swift decline indeed, and enough to cost Amazon its second-place spot in IDC’s ranking of tablet vendors. Amazon is now in third place, behind Samsung.

I expect this will help to quell rumors that Apple is putting out a smaller version of the iPad to compete with the Kindle and Nook. It doesn’t seem like consumers have any sustained interest in the Fire.

Washington Post:

The Smithsonian Institution is preparing an exhibit featuring Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ technology patents on the National Mall in conjunction with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.The exhibit opening May 11, entitled “The Patents and Trademarks of Steve Jobs: Art and Technology that Changed the World” will be on view through July 13 at the Ripley Center near the Smithsonian Castle.

Alexander Sliwinski for Joystiq:

Electronic Arts has informed Joystiq that Rock Band for iOS will remain active for mobile rock stars. There was a panic at the disco yesterday after users of the app received a prompt telling them it would “no longer be playable” after May 31.

EA raised the ire of iOS gamers yesterday when it sent a message out to players of Rock Band for iOS that read “On May 31, ROCK BAND will no longer be playable on your device. Thanks for rocking out with us!”

It’s not exactly unprecedented – EA has stopped circulating iOS games before that either haven’t worked well or haven’t sold well.

Stephanie Clifford and Julie Bosman:

Target, signaling its growing irritation with its rival Amazon, announced on Wednesday that it would stop selling the online retailer’s Kindle e-readers.

Target’s upset with Amazon for its “Price Check” app, which lets customers check prices of products on retailer store shelves. Target has accused Amazon of using “our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom.”

Stephen Lawson for Computerworld:

Apple and Samsung Electronics have until Monday to further boil down the number of claims to be considered in the sweeping intellectual-property lawsuit concerning their smartphone and tablet products, which is now scheduled to go to trial July 30.Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the companies to pare down the case, in which Apple and Samsung are suing each other over patent infringement and other claims, so a jury can understand and fairly judge the issues in one trial. It was the second time the judge had asked them to downsize their claims. The order came at a case management conference at the court on Wednesday afternoon.

Koh called the breadth and depth of patent infringement claims “cruel and unusual” to inflict to a jury in its present state, and ordered the companies to simplify their suits before the case goes to trial in July.

Cool Material:

The Pocket Artillery Mini Cannon looks like a harmless desktop accessory, it’s nicely polished, available in some eye-catching colors and it seems like an ideal way to show off your eye for design and love of little trinkets. Then you light the fuse. All of a sudden that fun office party turns into a hospital run cause Dottie took a BB in the hand.

Don’t lie – you know you want one.

TechHive:

You’re well aware that you can purchase music directly over the Internet—from Apple’s iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, Google Music, and a host of other sites. And these are perfectly fine options if you want to own your music. But, for those who like to listen to—but not necessary collect—a vast library of music there’s an alternative: Music subscription services.Cough up $5 or $10 a month and you can listen to any of millions of tracks in a wide variety of genres, whenever and (within reason) wherever you want. I took a look at the major subscription services—Mog, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, and Spotify—to see how they shake out and which might be the best fit for you.

Mental Floss:

Here are fifteen of the most beautiful libraries throughout Europe.

I’ve posted in the past about beautiful libraries in personal homes. These are ones the public has access to.