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“Windows 8 Itself is Still Not Successful”

The Acer president seems to be pretty sure of his opinion:

“Windows 8 itself is still not successful,” said Wong, whose company posted a 28 percent drop in fourth-quarter shipments from a year earlier. “The whole market didn’t come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that’s a simple way to judge if it is successful or not.”

Cut Down Twitter Usage, Get More Done

Adam Brault presents a stellar argument for cutting down Twitter usage in this essay. Here’s an excerpt:

I used to believe that time was the most important thing I have, but I’ve come to believe differently. The single most valuable resource I have is uninterrupted thought.

I certainly understand Adam’s feelings. I’ve whittled down my “following” number from nearly 600 to around 420 in a conscious effort to be less distracted. Perhaps I need an even more drastic approach.

US Medical Marijuana Policy Compared to Catholic Church Denying Earth Orbits Sun

John Schwarz, Theoretical Physicist and co-founder of Superstring Theory, speaks out in support of marijuana legalisation:

It reminds me of the great divide that developed between the then-ruling Catholic Church and the European public over the order of the cosmos in the 17th century. In 1633, the Church sentenced Galileo Galilei to lifetime house arrest for claiming that the earth revolves around the Sun rather than the other way around…

There are a few other people of note on that list supporting legalisation, too.

LinkChris Armstrongweed
Color Thief for iOS

Speaking of app icons, here’s an app I discovered recently which sports a beautiful one: Color Thief.

The premise of this image manipulation app is simple: take the colours from one image and apply them to another. Simple, beautiful and elegant, I find myself playing with Color Thief regularly. Recommended.

About App Icons

Louie Mantia writes passionately about iOS icons in this delicious article. He sums up thoughts I’ve had for a while, but have been unable to put into words:

I believe good app icons are most valuable for your customers, your everyday users, not first-time shoppers.

Make an icon valuable to someone who is looking for the app on their iPhone every single day. They’re your ideal customer.

LinkChris Armstrongmantia
Reshuffle of Body Scanners at US Airports

Unfortunately for Ben Brooks, whilst some scanners are gone:

In total, there are 174 Rapiscan backscatter X-ray machines that will be pulled from airports and relocated, on top of the 76 that were removed last year.

More are coming to replace them:

It's not the end of naked pictures at airports, though. Three other companies, including L-3 Communications, sell millimeter-wave radio-based scanners to the TSA. Bloomberg is reporting that the TSA is purchasing additional millimeter-wave scanners to help make up for the loss of Rapiscan's backscatter machines.

This whole TSA thing doesn’t feel right to me.

Dell Playing With Android, Makes Sense

Here’s another Ars piece, this time written by Sean Gallagher, talking about a new report suggesting Dell might be making some bold changes to turn the company around. It certainly needs it:

Dell has been moving gradually away from its consumer PC roots for the past five years. The company's desktop and mobile computer business has suffered in the global PC-buying slump of the last year. Its consumer segment has been losing money, while the enterprise business outside of PC sales accounts for a majority of Dell’s revenue. But the stock market has been punishing Dell as it has tried to shift focus. The company has lost 43 percent of its market capitalization over that time[.]

So, how’s Dell planning to fix these problems?

[R]elaunching Dell's desktop and mobile business around a brand-new product: a computing device the size of a thumb-drive that will sell for about $50.

What could possibly go wrong?

I think what’s interesting to take away from this story is what I said about the Surface just last week:

The surface, with its Apple-esque 30%+ margins, is a way for Microsoft to keep revenue and profit high, without manufacturers like Asus and Dell paying $50 a pop for a Windows license… Manufacturers who could easily switch to making hardware for Android — which lacks this hefty fee.