XBox One Game Protection looks like a World of Pain

On the subject of used games, Microsoft says "game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers," and that the company "does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games." However, publishers can opt in or out of game resales and are free to set up transfer fees with retailers. Games can also be given to friends via their discs. There are no fees associated with the transfer, but you can only pass them to friends who have been on your Xbox list for at least 30 days and each game can only be transfered once.

There's more about the possibility of loaning discs, and about how often your Xbox will need to connect to the Internet (short version: once a day, more if you're using someone else's console). Try explaining this stuff to a regular person and their kid in a store. It's almost as if appealing to serious gamers means you can assume a high level of understanding of/tolerance for DRM.

It didn't work for music, it's not working for books, and it's unlikely to work here too.

AppCamp for Girls

Have you ever attended a tech conference and wondered, "Where are all the women?" That was founder Jean MacDonald's question. She attends an annual developer gathering with over 5000 attendees every year, and only a few hundred of them are women. Instead of feeling cranky about it, she tried to think of a positive way to address the imbalance.

If you're in the US you should donate to this. Heck, even if you're not just donate anyway. Anyone know of similar initiatives in the UK or elsewhere?

Liquid Lenses Edge Closer to Mainstream

​I've been talking up this technology for ages, and this Canon patent suggests it's getting ever-closer to being something that could be deployed in tiny cameras. Exciting.

Fraser Speirs' Education Wishlist for iOS 7

This one's for the younger users. iPad's software keyboard shows capitals on the keys but younger users typically don't learn capital letters right away. If a version of the keyboard with lower-case characters were available that would help a lot.

Great suggestion. The others make a lot of sense for at-scale iPad deployment in schools and colleges too, and if anyone knows this stuff, it's Fraser.

One Device, Everywhere

For now, while I use separate devices, I’m beginning to think of them as a single experience: pick up the nearest one and use it.

And that, I believe, points to the future of computing. It isn’t just having to decide which device of many to use. It’s a way of using devices that makes everything one needs to do simple, seamless, and that get out of the way of the task of the moment.

Randy Murray is right that this vision is closer than we might think. The limiting factor is ubiquitous Internet access, but here in the city I can pretty much assume that the device I have closest to hand has access to all my stuff. It's not seamless yet though, and I'm regularly stymied by our overly-locked-down work network that kills things like iMessage and iCloud syncing, and ultimately pushes me to use my personal devices (with their own cellular connections) rather than work-provided networked desktop machines. I imagine that I'm not the only one who's doing that.

A Goal-Based View of Educational Technology

Of course, there isn’t one single holy grail because everyone sees learning differently: the role of academic learning, the function of standardized tests, the utility of having one set of common learning standards, and so on. Unlike the goals of business (profit), athletics (championships), conservation (environmental health), and other "cultural genres," in education the goal -- and thus the perfect system -- is impressively subjective.

Terry Heick over at Edutopia has an interesting way of looking at how technology offers up ways for educators to meet their broader goals.

Adobe Looks to Address Creative Cloud Concerns

However, Adobe did speak to one of the complaints we’ve heard most often: maintaining access to your files in Adobe proprietary formats outside of a membership. Adobe agrees that customers should be able to access files even after their memberships have ended, but the company is as yet vague on details. “Our job is to delight our customers with innovation, but there are a number of options open to us here and we expect to have news around this issue shortly,” Adobe said.

It'll be interesting to see how they handle this. Feature limited reader apps? File translators? It's a big problem for any software that goes subscription-only and has a proprietary format.

The Return of the Cybercafé?

The Guardian newspaper has opened a cafe in East London, ostensibly as a place for journalists to sit and work, but it seems they've blown it by thinking they need to build something reminiscent of a late 1990's Cybercafé:

Where once coffee culture meant broadsheets, mood lighting and oversized sofas, #guardiancoffee seems set up for those more interested in Instagramming their latte art rather than enjoying a conversation. The closest thing to a morning edition you'll find inside is a paper cup; instead, each branded table hosts an immovable iPad in its centre, showing off the Guardian's digital content. However in practice GQ found it to be more of an annoyance than interesting feature; encouraging a workplace for journalists without enough table space to rest a laptop is clearly a novel approach.

Very strange. Doesn't everyone have their own iPad, notebook or smartphone nowadays? If they want to open up access to The Guardian's walled-garden content they should be providing time-limited subscriptions for customers.

Million Dollar Hi-Fi

If I had silly money, this would be how I'd most likely spend it.

Microsoft says the iPad is a PC

But don’t take my word for it. This edict was actually handed down by Microsoft, by which I mean Frank X. Shaw, who heads Microsoft’s communications. In a post to the Official Microsoft Blog this week, Shaw reflected on how his company’s move to devices and services was warranted by the shift I describe above. And he declared, once and for all, that yes, the iPad is a PC.

I agree with much of what Thurrott has to say here, though I don't think of my iPad as a PC. I think of it as something way better that's, bit-by-bit, replacing the PC. Microsoft declaring it to be a PC is a bit like declaring the web to be an evolution of Gopher.

When does a game on a disc stop being a physical product?

Despite the criticism of Microsoft and the Xbox One's approach to game licensing, there still appears to be little clarity over what's legal when it comes to digital–rather than physical–products.​ Ben Kuchera's written a follow-up to his controversial and much-maligned positive spin on all of this:

Higgins offered the example of Netflix. Years ago, Netflix's main business was protected by the right of first sale. They purchased a copy of a DVD, and then they were able to rent that out as many times as they wished. It was their property. However, when Netflix switched to online movies, that right no longer applied even though many of the same principles were at work. Now Netflix is forced to license films and TV shows from publishers, and publishers have every right to refuse.

​This will run and run.

16GB iPod touch

Yesterday Apple stopped selling the 4th generation iPod touch that's hung around as the entry-level model since last autumn's introduction of the higher-price-but-impressively-built 5th generation. That older model looked pretty outdated, especially since the new design is the first in a while to come close to the quality of the current iPhone. In many ways, the latest iPod touch is even nicer than the iPhone–slimmer, lighter and great to hold–and it's a great entry model for the iOS platform. At £249 though, it's very close to the price of an iPad mini, and while that comparison gives you less storage, it also gives you the ability to use Apple iBooks text books and a longer battery life.

The ​16GB model introduced yesterday however (black+silver only) brings the entry price down to under £200 for what I think will be the first time. We lose the main camera and the 'loop' wrist strap connector (for a barely perceptible 2g weight loss), but keep the FaceTime camera on the front, the gorgeous screen, and the super design. I'm hoping that iOS 7 will bring those iBooks-Authored text books to iPods, since this would be a fantastic device for students who aren't ready or able to get an iPad.

​As a gaming device the lower-priced iPod touch gets even more appealing. It's now much closer to the PSP Vita's £170, and even to the 3DS's £130 or so. That price difference disappears if you buy a few games. Is there any iOS game that costs as much as the cheapest game for either of those platforms?

Marco Arment sells The Magazine

​The Magazine wasn't the first app-based publication to eschew the complexity of many print-to-digital approaches, but it was the first to coherently articulate this as a new model for publishing on Newstand. Now Marco has sold to his first employee, and it's definitely in good hands. I sometimes go several issues without having time to read it all, but I keep returning (and keep my subscription active). 

​This snippet from the press release is interesting:: 

Jessica Simmons of Simmons Ardell , formerly of sister design firms Milton Glaser Inc and WBMG, has signed on to design an upcoming print collection drawn from both the first 100 articles appearing in The Magazine and newly commissioned work.

​A print version of the best bits! Count me in.

iOS 7: Expect Evolution, not Revolution

Jim Dalrymple on ​what he expects from iOS 7:

Take a look back at the first version of OS X with the Aqua interface and compare that with what we have today. You can see a lot of the same types of elements in the OS design, but it’s more modern — it’s smoother and less dramatic in its effects.

This is exactly how I've been talking about the changes we should see in iOS 7. There's an outside chance of ultra-flat, but it's slim.

Nancy Chandler's Wonderful Paper Maps

The maps have remained popular in part because they offer a lot more than just a way to get from one place to another. They also offer carefully curated recommendations. Rather than depicting a traditional city layout, or firing off a laundry list of attractions in the style of a guidebook, Chandler's maps combine the best of both worlds, plotting destinations while adding pithy advice or useful tips about what to expect. The expertise come from meticulous research and well-placed connections. "If we stopped selling maps," said Nancy Chandler, "we could become taxi drivers."

I love Bangkok, and I love Nancy Chandler's maps. In fact the two have been almost inseparable in my mind since my first trip there seven years ago.

Digital Textbooks Still Have a Way to Go

“It’s moving steadily forward,” said Tim Bajarin, president at Creative Strategies Inc., a tech industry research firm. He predicts that it will take two to three more years for the digital textbook industry to reach critical mass, and that he believes Apple now has a head start. “In many ways, you have to look at this as an Apple evangelistic move. The textbook industry has been relatively slow.”

Solid assessment of the current state of digital books in the classroom sixteen months on from Apple's iBooks launch. It's a big shift, and it was always going to take a while for educators to adapt their thinking and processes to the new medium. In many ways I'm glad to see that people are taking the time to learn how to do it properly, rather than just shovelling old content into the new form. I've been really impressed by the way those people I've worked with on iBooks projects have been quick to grasp the potential, and have begun thinking about how to make it work best in their own contexts.

Tablet Sales to Beat Notebooks in 2013

So, a mere three years after Apple launched the iPad, 2013 looks set to be the year that tablets trounce the traditional notebook computer. Remember how many people said that they couldn't see the point of the iPad, when you could buy a cheap notebook for less? Remember Netbooks?

McQuarrie's Beautiful Star Wars Paintings Brought To Life

​That's the promise of the just-announced Star Wars animated show, replacing The Clone Wars and arriving in 2014. I remember seeing Ralph McQuarrie's paintings in 1977, before the film arrived here in the UK, and being instantly captivated. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

Re-engineering Pinch-to-zoom for Paper

I really like Paper as a sketching App for iPad,and it's intriguing to see how developer FiftyThree is approaching the difficult task of dealing with added complexity. As iOS apps begin to take on more functionality, and become viable replacements for more traditional desktop software, this kind of ing becomes more and more important. 

“Pinch to zoom” reinvented zoom for touch devices, and Apple made the gesture ubiquitous by including it in iOS. “Pinch to zoom” is now probably the single most broadly understood multitouch gesture; it feels like something we’ve been doing all our lives, even though it entered the popular lexicon barely six years ago.

Pinch-to-zoom in the latest version of Paper works like a loupe tool, but one where you can directly work within the magnified section. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's a definite improvement to an already-essential App.

It Depends What You Mean By "Winning"

As usual, some very clear thinking on this from Benedict Evans. It's a quick read, eloquently expressed, so go read the whole thing. I wonder how the whole smartphone share thing looks if you plot the numbers on a as-yet-speculative scale of potential smart devices, and include TVs, wristwatches, and cars.