New York Post:

Over his storied career behind the wheel, he’s ferried movie stars such as John Wayne and Rock Hudson, suffered countless bad tippers — and tolerated passengers getting frisky in his back seat. Well, until the new hybrids arrived.

Imagine the stories he could tell.

[Via NextDraft]

John Gruber responding to Anil Dash about Readability.

This is a great read from Time tech columnist Ben Bajarin.

This is a great looking app.

AllThingsD:

Led by the 4S, Apple’s iPhone line continues to rack up strong sales at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. So strong that some believe it’s likely the top-selling phone at all three of those carriers.“Our March checks indicated the iPhone continues to extend its market share gains,” Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley writes in a note to clients today. “In fact, we believe iPhones are outselling all other smartphones combined at Sprint and AT&T and selling at roughly equal volume to all Android smartphones at Verizon.”That’s pretty astonishing, all things considered.

But Android is still “winning”.

Ben Brooks has been all over this Readability debate. Another interesting read.

Universal Audio:

But while XY microphone recording is the most obvious method, it’s not the only game in town. The Mid-Side (MS) microphone technique sounds a bit more complex, but it offers some dramatic advantages over standard coincident miking. If you’ve never heard of MS recording, or you’ve been afraid to try it, you’re missing a powerful secret weapon in your recording arsenal.

I love using this technique to record.

Matt Burns and his article “It’s Time To Believe In RIM And The BlackBerry Again”:

RIM is beaten and laying on the floor. Together, Apple and Google knocked out the champ. Since then, they’ve started fighting each other, seemingly ignoring RIM as regains his strength. He might take another blow from time to time, but with a renewed focus he should stay on his feet from here on out. After years of savage beatings, he’s like the honey badger now and just doesn’t care.

At best, this article is misguided.

BBC News:

Announcing its recommendation, Sir Alan Haselhurst, chairman of the committee, said the trial had cut MPs’ costs by “several thousand pounds” as they could circulate information electronically rather than in hard copy.

Brett Terpstra gives us an amazing amount of information about iOS text editors.

Brought to you by Flying Meat’s Acorn, the Mac OS X image editor for humans.

Jean-Louis Gassée:

The trouble for RIM is simply stated: Too little too late, while the money runs out. If only the cure were as easily put.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Macalope’s 10 fools of the year.

Ben Bajarin:

They create objects of desire and out of that focus comes a visually and easy to use user experience paradigm that drives emotional responses in consumers of their products.

Great way to put it. Apple products, like few others, elicit a response from its users. It’s not just the design or the interface, it’s the whole package.

Dexigner:

Barely a year after the unveiling of the BMW i8 Concept, BMW i unveiled the second variant of this innovative hybrid sports car. Like its Coupe sibling, the emotionally charged BMW i8 Concept Spyder combines intelligent lightweight design with the leading-edge drivetrain technology eDrive, while its open-top two-seater construction delivers an even more intense driving experience.

Impressive.

“They lost my ‘Ace Of Spades’ tour jacket,” Lemmy said. “They had this heavy metal presentation thing and they said, could they borrow a pair of boots and a bass and my ‘Ace Of Spades’ tour jacket, so I lent it to them, and they said they lost it. A likely story. Look me in the eye and tell me again. One of their girlfriends is wearing it, no doubt.”

Idiots.

This doesn’t surprise me one bit, it’s my favorite too.

This is a great article by Dave Caolo. Definitely worth a read.

Nick Bilton for The New York Times:

Girls Around Me uses Foursquare, the location-based mobile service, to determine your location. It then scans for women in the area who have recently checked-in on the service. Once you identify a woman you’d like to talk to, one that inevitably has no idea you’re snooping on her, you can connect to her through Facebook, see her full name, profile photos and send her a message.

C.R.E.E.P.Y.

During a match against Berliner AK 07, a group of fans stood behind the visiting team’s goal, each with a large, brightly colored arrow pointing to the net so their team would know where to shoot. And just to clarify their intentions, another group of fans held up a banner that read, “We’ll show you where the goal is!”

WOW, BRUTAL!

Apparently the team hadn’t scored in five games.

. Matthew Humphries for Geek.com:

Jordan Mechner may not be a name many of you know unless you are up-to-date with your video gaming history. He’s probably better known as the creator of Prince of Persia.

Jordan Mechner reports on his blog that his father discovered a treasure trove of floppy disks from Mechner’s early time in the video game industry. Among the disks recovered were ones containing the Apple II source code from Prince of Persia itself.

Mechner is working with a friend to recover the files to a MacBook Air, where he’ll be working to turn them “into some kind of 21st-century-readable format.”

It’s strictly a labor of love for Mechner, so don’t expect to download that converted source code in a useable format any time soon, but he advises to keep your eyes peeled on his social media presences to get the latest updates.

(Via Engadget)

TIME:

With a half-billion-dollar multistate lottery jackpot up for grabs, plenty of folks are fantasizing about how to spend the money. But doing it the right way — protecting your riches, your identity and your sanity — takes some thought and planning.Making sure you don’t blow the nation’s largest-ever lottery jackpot within a few years means some advice is in order before the Mega Millions drawing Friday, especially if you’re really, really, really lucky.

I got my ticket – how about you?

Patrick Spence, its managing director of global sales and regional marketing, told British news site Pocket-Lint that “The claim that RIM has said it will withdraw from the consumer market is wholly inaccurate.” He says that the company will still go after “targeted consumer segments” but may seek partners for stuff such as media-consumption apps.

Come on RIM, seriously?

Marcelo Somers:

Unfortunately, most organizations and even start ups still start with a list of features or things they want to build. People don’t consume features. They experience activities that add to their lives.

This is why Apple has been so successful. They build a product to solve a problem and make our experience better. Consumers may not understand that’s what happening, but when they use an Apple product, they immediately get it.

Apple makes the difficult look very easy. There’s a lot going on under those simple-to-use apps, but they hide all of that from us so we can just get things done.

Chris Ziegler for The Verge:

In the hours since RIM’s fiscal Q4 2012 earnings call with newly-minted CEO Thorsten Heins yesterday, there’s been a lot of talk about the company’s “focus on the enterprise” — and we’ve seen a number of headlines flatly saying that RIM is abandoning the consumer market.This simply isn’t the case.

Regardless of RIM’s intentions, the problem is that they’re not making products that consumers want. Which is why they’re circling the drain.

Many thanks to Oomph software for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. If you haven’t seen the special “beard page” they made, you really have to take a look.

This has to be the most amazing sponsor page ever made. The guys at Oomph made this page to promote Sidekick as the sponsor on The Loop this week. (Tip: click on the lightning bolt on the right hand side).

Sidekick is a stealthy little Mac app that automatically updates laptop settings based on where you are. It takes care of annoying tasks so you can focus on what you need to do.

Reuters:

But at the Foxconn factory gates, many workers seemed unconvinced that their pay wouldn’t be cut along with their hours. For some Chinese factory workers – who make much of their income from long hours of overtime – the idea of less work for the same pay could take getting used to.

What would people in North America or Europe think if a Chinese company came over and said “we’re cutting back your hours and the amount of overtime you can work.” I’m betting it wouldn’t be a welcomed decision.

I understand what Foxconn is doing and if the workers end up benefiting from it, then that’s good.