Author: <span>philip</span>

From bibles to web sites, the century-long trek of one font

Post published:February 19, 2015
Post author:philip

Part of the first page of the Doves Press edition of the Bible

I appreciate a good font, and I certainly appreciate good typography. Reading badly laid out books can be painful (although my threshold is much higher than my friends who are typographers by trade). The over-use of Comic Sans or Papyrus fonts is not something that just bothers me. Recently I read about the resurrection of a font last used over a century ago. The story is quite incredible. Two men founded a publishing company, one bringing the creative side (Thomas Cobden-Sanderson) and the other the money (Emery Walker). The company, Doves Press, created a new font (new, although based on a font from the 15th century) to be used in their publications, which included an edition of the Bible, as well as books by well-known authors such as John Milton, whose Paradise Lost published by Doves is nothing less than a masterpiece of bindery, before even getting to the contents. Trouble Begins When the publishing company ran into financial trouble, the partners fought over the single remaining asset of the company – the typeface. Today we think of fonts as digital files on a computer. We don't think about how much time goes into designing them, especially since anyone who wants…

The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components of a computer system are those that aren't there.

Gordon Bell, early employee at DEC, founder of Encore Computers and Microsoft Research

Time for some Pi

Post published:February 4, 2015
Post author:philip

The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

The Raspberry Pi is a single-board credit-card-sized computer introduced in 2012. The computer was designed for use in teaching computer science to a new generation whose cell phones and modern computers had reduced the number of children who knew how computers actually worked. Used in education as well as by hobbyists, the Raspberry Pi has been incredibly successful and has sold over four million units. New versions of the Raspberry Pi are designed by the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation, and then built by multiple partner manufacturers. This week the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the availability of their second-generation board, the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. It's not the second board (there has been the Model A, Model A+, Model B, and Model B+ before, as well as the Pi Compute Module for embedded applications), but rather it is the first board since introduction to use a new processor, the Broadcom BCM2836. The new processor is roughly six times as fast as the previous processor, going from a single-core ARM11 to a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, as well doubling the RAM to 1GB (shared with the GPU). Despite those changes, the board remains backwards-compatible with previous Raspberry Pi software, the hardware is pin-compatible with the previous Model B+ board,…

People have decided they don’t want to invent anything new anymore. To hell with them.

Steve Perlman, founder of WebTV Networks, Rearden, and Artemis Networks

Privacy in the age of technology

Post published:November 23, 2014
Post author:philip

The recent kerfuffle over Uber and Lyft employees being able to track the locations that individual customers get picked up and dropped off at reminded me of an incident back when I worked at WebTV Networks in 1996. WebTV, for those who don't remember, was a set-top box that allowed users to surf the web and send e-mail using a wireless keyboard and their television. It was truly a revolutionary device, and it was put together by some of the smartest people in Silicon Valley. It launched with devices manufactured by Sony and Philips, with the service run by WebTV. This was the early days of the Internet – the first mainstream browser Netscape was only introduced in late 1994, and Internet Explorer about a year earlier in 1995. These were dial-up days, when most people were not yet on the Internet, and those that were mostly accessed it via their telephone lines (at university were were able to access it via AppleTalk). The WebTV box had a modem inside and would dial-up to the WebTV Networks service, which was an ISP. Dial-up ISP Business Model The business model of dial-up ISPs was interesting in that they did not have the ability…

You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

What if Apple made watch movements instead of watches?

Post published:October 12, 2014
Post author:philip

ETA A07-211 Movement

I've written what features I think future all-in-one wearables will have, took a second look at that on the eve of the Apple Watch launch, and had some questions about what Apple left out of their presentation after they launched. All things considered, if you look at what features I think need to be in a smart watch, and what Apple delivered, there are some gaps. Most important to me are the following: Battery life needs to last longer. Battery charging needs to be simpler. Real water resistance would be nice. More health sensors are needed to replace the need for a separate fitness band. There are definitely improvements possible in the looks department. Let's take a look at these in turn: Battery Life Until the watch launches early next year we won't know for sure, but it seems clear the battery life of the Apple Watch is not particularly good. Apple reps have mentioned charging overnight, meaning the battery likely doesn't last more than 24 hours (and possibly not even that long). Considering fitness bands generally last a week or more, and that some people want to monitor their sleep patterns, this is particularly annoying. Not that one can…

You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

What was not said about the Apple Watch

Post published:September 9, 2014
Post author:philip

So the keynote just ended. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were about as expected. Other than the obvious screen resolution and battery differences, it seems the only functional difference between the two is Optical Stabilization for photography in the 6 Plus. Apple Pay is a great solution for payments that Apple has already gotten many large retailers on board for, something it seems they are uniquely capable of doing. I don't remember other companies getting that kind of traction from the stay with a new payment method. The real announcement of the event was, however, the Apple Watch. Some things about the watch which are interesting: The Digital Crown is a great user interface coup for Apple. Being able to navigate through some features without ones fingers blocking the screen is important for such a small screen. There is some intelligence in the messaging app that allows it to suggest answers to texts which is really interesting if it works. i.e. if You receive a text asking 'Do you want to get Sushi or Burgers for lunch?' it should be able to suggest Sushi and Burgers as quick-response options. Apple is clearly leading in physical options for their watch.…

Dream up the kind of world you want to live in. Dream out loud.

Bono

On the brink of an Apple wearable

Post published:September 9, 2014
Post author:philip

Asus ZenWatch and Sony SmartWatch 3

Back in April I wrote a post titled One Wearable to Rule Them All? Not likely. predicting where I thought the wearable market was heading. My basic idea was that there are essentially three types of wearables – the all-in-one, the single-purpose, and the multi-position. The all-in-one is where the smart watch category is headed. These wearables will look like watches, have sensors to track many different health issues (steps, motion, heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen, etc.), and be able to assist in authentication and commerce. This is in addition to an array of information-realted apps, and an optional link to your smart phone. The single-purpose is best represented by fitness bands that track health data or bands like the nymi that can be used for security applications. These bands are almost always worn on the wrist, and are focused on a single application. These wearables can be wholly replaced by an all-in-one wearable. The multi-position is a variation on the single-purpose, is usually focused on health, but can be worn in several positions, such as your wrist, your ankle, etc. and be used for many sports such as running, biking, swimming, etc. The best example of this is the Moov, although…

It's not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.

Edwin Land, inventor and co-founder of Polaroid

Uber meets Pretty Woman

Post published:June 28, 2014
Post author:philip

Uber Search on Product Hunt

Robert Altman's The Player, a 1992 crime drama that at the same time skewers Hollywood as an industry (the main character is a Hollywood producer), famously opens with a long shot listening to several people talking, including screenwriters pitching their movie to the main character, played by Tim Robbins. After trying to describe their film, one pair of screenwriters finally summarize it as "Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman". This type of summary, called a high-concept pitch, is a short easily-understood summary, usually based on a comparison to something well-known. Some people credit Barry Diller (later CEO of Paramount, Fox, and IAC/InterActiveCorp) and Michael Eisner (later CEO of Disney) with coming up with the high-concept pitch, when they both worked at ABC in the 1960s, and needed a way to draw attention to their programs from the brief descriptions allowed in TV Guide. This carries over not only to the description of movie or TV show, but the very concept – i.e. that the movie or show's concept be simple and easy to summarize quickly. The high-concept pitch is the sound-bite of the entertainment world. Ash Maurya in his Running Lean book, suggests using the high-concept pitch to distill one's company down to a…

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

Alan Kay, pioneer computer scientist

The rise of hardware startups – thank you crowdfunding

Post published:June 26, 2014
Post author:philip

Keyboardio Model o1

I've worked in both hardware and software companies over the years, and both are interesting and challenging, but there there is something special about making something you can hold in your hand, and that people will see on store shelves (even if virtual). One of the amazing things that crowdfunding sites have enabled is hardware products to come out faster and from smaller companies than was possible in the past. I should add that almost all great hardware companies have great software behind them. Certainly with any electronic product, there is software controlling it. Sure, not all hardware needs software – my friend's Grape Ninja product which became the OXO Tomato & Grape Cutter – doesn't need software to operate. It did benefit from crowdfunding as part its marketing campaign, however, before moving to OXO. I've touched on this, particularly in Crowdfunding hardware and Sous Vide cooking, and earlier in discussing A few interesting keyboards, nearly in existence…, and I think this trend towards individuals and small teams coming out with more innovative hardware faster is only going to accelerate as more and more successful products come to market. In A few interesting keyboards, nearly in existence… I mentioned Keyboardio, a company started by an…