So, soon it’ll come with its own black box. Need to get myself one of these for some filming. Flying one of these babies through a nearby forest would be a beautiful thing.

Not sure why I haven’t linked to this before now, but Horace Dediu (who is still biting his nails, for those keeping track) has written a fascinating article explaining how the Surface fits into Microsoft’s plan for the future.

In short, tablets are where the growth is happening in larger-than-phone computing — and Microsoft has little presence there. In traditional PC sales, Microsoft receives around $50 for a license of Windows, and $67 for a license of Office.

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. Sometimes, Google will even pay manufacturers to use Android.

It seems that Android is doing more harm to Microsoft than I originally realised — Google might be going after third party device manufacturers. Smart.

Not looking good.

RT reports some sad news for toy companies like Mattel and Hasbro:

Toymakers will most likely see their Christmas sales lower this year, as children prefer gadgets as holiday presents, according to analysts reported in the Financial Times on Monday. A source told the paper that its top selling product this Christmas was a mobile phone case.

One of the more thought-provoking lines from later in the piece:

“Everyone I know who has a kid under 10 has a tablet in the house. And that tablet is the babysitter,” Dylan Collins, an investor in Fight My Monster, an online gaming company, told the paper.

Whilst looking back on 2012 is fun to do in early January, it’s just as valuable later on, too. MailChimp have just released some astonishingly large numbers in a beautifully crafted website which feels more like an immersive infographic than a collection of HTML. If you sent or received a MailChimp newsletter in 2012, you’re a part of these numbers.

Jessica Moon writes a solid and interesting piece for The Industry, in which she reveals some ways to create emotional design elements — parts of websites or apps which make us feel something. Number three is my favourite.

Ever wondered how every retail store seems to have the same prices for Apple products? Marco Tabini writes a great piece for Macworld explaining how it works, and why Apple operates that way.

My favourite line from a fascinating and thought-provoking episode of The Crossover, featuring Dan Benjamin, Christina Warren and Brett Terpstra, discussing creativity, software, writing, tech and more.

Now, by linking this, I’m not implying anyone actually cares about BlackBerry — I think it’s interesting to point out just how similar certain aspects of BB10’s design are to iOS and Android. And, interestingly enough, the aspects which aren’t similar all appear pretty ugly to my eyes. Just look at that Siri rip-off.

(How did they manage to make something which so closely resembles both an Apple and a Samsung feature so much uglier? We’ll never know.)

Still, just 16 days until we see the real deal. I can’t wait.

Neat trick by Bjango’s Marc Edwards.

Note: I interviewed Marc for The Industry a while back. It’s a good read even now — Marc is a super talented and interesting guy.

We move from an awful example of horrible accessibility to a stunning example of innovation and work for the greater good of humanity.

Google’s self-driving car transports Steve Mahan around his hometown — and he even orders a burrito from a drive-through. Did I mention Steve has lost 95% of his vision? It doesn’t seem to make much difference as he cruises through town in the driver’s seat.

When Amazon first created the text-to-speech feature in their Kindle devices to read purchased books out loud, book publishers and the Authors Guild promptly claimed its use was illegal and forced Amazon to make the feature optional for every individual book. Needless to say, many publishers never allow it, even today.

The quote that Paul Aitken, executive director of the Authors Guild, gave to explain the Guild’s decision is as follows:

“They don't have the right to read a book out loud. That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”

It appears the concern raised is that reading a purchased book out loud would kill sales of audiobooks. This view seems very short sighted and greedy.

If a Kindle owner wants to listen to high quality and professionally recorded audio from a book, there are plenty of options available: the first which springs to mind is Audible, Amazon’s own audiobook service. Unfortunately, the library of audiobooks is much smaller than the library of ebooks. Many more books are available for Kindle than are available through Audible.

If a customer searches Audible for a title they’d like to listen to, then discovers it’s unavailable, it seems reasonable to assume the customer will simply do without. Text-to-speech integration in technology is not mainstream enough for most people to consider as an alternative to audiobooks.

It goes without saying that a computer reading text out loud — à la Siri — won’t sound anywhere near as good as a professionally voiced audiobook.

There is a group of users, however — larger than you may imagine — who will expect text-to-speech integration in a device like a Kindle and don’t mind its relative shortcomings: the visually impaired or disabled. Where the Authors Guild step over the line, in my opinion, is in their refusal to accept text-to-speech even in the capacity of accessibility.

The Disabled World website writes about the Kindles, back in 2009:

Many people with disabilities were happy to learn that the Kindle version 2.0 includes a text-to-speech feature, but their joy has been short-lived because the Authors Guild promptly pressured Amazon to remove the audio feature from Kindle due to concerns that it would interfere with sales of AudioBooks. Amazon’s response was to allow each publisher to decide whether the text-to-speech feature would be available for their titles.

Several publisher [sic], to include Random House, have already told Amazon to turn text-to-speech off, cutting off a resource related to people with disabilities and a channel of mainstream media access. Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) and additional members of the Reading Rights Coalition are working to get Amazon to reverse this policy. It seems that Random House prefers greed over people.

[Emphasis mine.]

It’s worth noting that blame shouldn’t be placed on Amazon for this. I hope the Authors Guild reconsider their approach to text-to-speech and allow its use for accessibility reasons.

Text-to-speech is a bread and butter accessibility feature. If a customer cannot enjoy a book visually, why penalise the customer further by not allowing them to enjoy it audibly? Audiobooks are clearly the preferred options for both average customers and the visually impaired or disabled, however the library of audiobooks is smaller. The compromise text-to-speech makes in quality is below what average customers want, but it’s a lifeline to the visually impaired, who have few options.

Amazon and the Authors Guild should be striving to improve the experience of every reader, by making more titles available as audiobooks and improving accessibility of Kindle devices.

Note: it’s worth mentioning that when VoiceOver is enabled on iOS, purchased books in iBooks will be read out loud. Books purchased through Amazon, shown in iOS’s Kindle app, will not.