La Tour Eiffel, Paris
I have finally gotten around to posting a gallery of photos from my trip to Paris in May. I still need to get some captions updated, but I took too many pictures to caption them all at once. I hope you enjoy them.
Today Skype released an update to their iPhone app that enables multitasking. Along with it, they announce via their “Big Blog” that they won’t be charging for Skype-to-Skype calls over 3G as had been announced at their previous update.
At Skype, we believe that better call quality and better availability which is achieved with an app capable of multitasking and/or making calls over 3G lead to increased call frequency and longer calls. We also believe that the mobile world is in a period of significant change, for example, with some operators starting to move to tiered pricing models.
In light of that, we no longer have plans to charge a supplement to make calls over 3G. We’re delighted to make it easier for you to talk for even longer and do even more together using Skype.
Sounds like a top to bottom clash of cultures and a divorce waiting to happen.
When an AT&T representative suggested to one of Jobs’ deputies that the Apple CEO wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s board of directors, he was told, “We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”
TUAW is reporting that my alma mater, Oklahoma State University, is starting a pilot program to evaluate how iPads can be used in the educational space. Handing out MacBooks, iPhones, and iPads isn’t a new concept, but this is one of the few instances where the use of the devices is being monitored to evaluate its academic value to the student.
…OSU is really interested in how their students will go about using them. The results should be intriguing, not only for the lucky college kids who get to use iPads all semester but also for Apple and for other schools that are formulating plans over how to share and use technology. It certainly seems like having an iPad at college would be helpful in the traditional ways (you could read textbooks or take notes on it), but it’s cool that OSU is thinking about new ways to use it as well, such as apps for tests or connections across local Wi-Fi for networked learning.
The program will start with a mere 125 students among a 20,000-plus student body. The iPad is thought of by many as a potential game-changer for education. So it will be interesting to see what the OSU experiment finds.
Computerworld reports on HP’s plan to send ads to your printer. While discussing their new Web-connected printers and the idea of scheduled printing of Web-based newspapers, HP says it will throw in a few printed “targeted” ads along with it.
The company also sees a potential for localized, targeted advertising to go along with the content. While testing its ePrint Web-connected printers, HP ran two trials where consumers received content from a U.S. national music magazine and major U.S. newspaper along with advertisements, said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president in HP’s Imaging and Printing Group.
“What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement],” Nigro said. “Part of it I think our belief is you’re used to it. You’re used to seeing things with ads.”
…
“Through IP (Internet Protocol) sniffing, you have an idea about where those printers are so naturally it allows you to kind of already target your offers,” Nigro said. - ComputerWorld
First off, printing newspapers? Really? They couldn’t come up with a better use case than that? Haven’t iPhones, Android phones, and iPad-like devices proven that we are moving away from such a ridiculous waste of paper? Maybe it’s just me, but adding the annoyance of ads to the dying industry of home printers seems like a step in the wrong direction. It good business for them, though. The more ads printed, the more ink used, and let’s face it, ink cartridges are still HP’s best racket.
