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privacy

Technology

November 29, 2013

Privacy And Why It Really Matters

United States President Barack Obama is tragically mistaken with his “we need to find a balance between security and privacy” rhetoric. Let me quote Benjamin Franklin who makes my point more eloquently than I ever could: “they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. President Obama, or anybody else for that matter, can’t guarantee your safety – sadly nobody can. The only way to guarantee our safety is to find an equilibrium with foreign societies where they have no incentive to harm us. We have all the tools but the will is missing.

Technology

November 6, 2013

Our business does not depend on collecting personal data

Foremost, the document explains Apple’s philosophy on customer privacy. “… Our business does not depend on collecting personal data,”* the report said in an obvious poke at Google, Facebook and others. “We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers. We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.”

This is why I love and use Apple’s products and services. It is a huge contrast to other companies such as Google, which rely heavily on user data to sell advertisements.

Charter CEO ‘Surprised’ Users Want Broadband With No TV

Charter losing 27,000 TV subscribers down from 71,000 last year. The company also managed to add 86,000 broadband subscribers, and broadband revenues jumped 23% to $575 million courtesy of price hikes.

“I would say that the one thing that surprised me…is that our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be,” said Rutledge.

I am not surprised to see the increasing trend of customers getting sick of the traditional TV business model. This is a reason why streaming services such as Netflix are skyrocketing. People would rather just have unlimited bandwidth and faster download/upload speeds and watch what they want, when they want. Hopefully, Apple is able to disrupt the television industry like they did with the music one.

The Movie Deal Netflix Wants to Make

While releasing those titles day-and-date with cinemas would be a tall order, Sarandos wants them 45 days or even 30 days after their theatrical bow.

This would definitely rock the industry. There subscription rate would increase even faster.

Microsoft Is Making An Astonishing $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties

This money, says Sherlund, helps Microsoft hide the fact that its mobile and Xbox groups are burning serious cash.

For the past few years, Microsoft reported the revenue and operating losses of Entertainment and Devices, which was the group that housed Xbox, Windows Phone, and those Android royalty payments.

That group always seemed to be profitable, but Sherlund says it’s largely because of the Android money.

Sherlund says that if you back out the Android profits, Microsoft is probably losing $2.5 billion on Skype, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform.

That’s some serious royalty dough. And an awesome photo of Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer. Maybe he didn’t do such as horrendous job after all.

Burger King’s Big King: A Big Mac By Any Other Name? 

Eric Hirschhorn, Burger King’s Chief Marketing Officer for North America insists the new burger is different than any other because of “the unique fire-grilling” for which Burger King is known.

If imitation is a form of flattery, then McDonald’s is basking in adoration from its much smaller competitor. Like McDonald’s, Burger King has rolled out salads, fruit smoothies, frappes, chicken nuggets and wraps in recent months.

Burger King is pretty much like the Samsung and Google or the fast food industry.

Current Events, Inspirational, LINKS, Photography, Technology

Progress

Sigma announces revolutionary lens 18-35mm f1.8 DX

Most constant aperture zooms, even those targeted at pros, peak at F2.8 – with exceptions including the Olympus 14-35 mm F2. This is why many photographers also have faster prime lenses in their kit bag for when they need those extra light gathering properties or an ultra-shallow depth of field. With its constant F1.8 aperture, the Sigma 18-35 mm F1.8 DC HSM lens could mean you don’t need to carry as many lenses with you.

This is a pretty exciting new development and a first in the photography industry. Never before has any one Nikon, Canon, Olympus etc. made a standard zoom lens with a fixed aperture of a stunning 1.8. But this results in the lens being quite large and pricey for the average joe, who are typically the targets of the DX or APS-C lineup of cameras.

LightRoom 5 Beta is revealed by Adobe

In my tests this week, the Lightroom clone and heal tools were almost as effective as Photoshop — about 95% there. As a photographer who brings 1,000 plus images into Lightroom every weekend, I will greatly appreciate the ability to do this sort of work within the app.

Digital photographers rejoice with the latest significant update to Adobe’s LightRoom editing software. One of the coolest new features for me is the “advanced healing brush”. This tool acts like the clone stamp, but allows you to brush over an area of the photo and then paste a cloned image from another more appropriate area of the image. It actually looks like it works pretty nicely.

Pictures: 2013 Pulitzer-Winning Photos Feature Syrian Conflict 

“It means that history won’t forget them.”

Winners of the Pulitzer prize are always top-notch. Javier Manzano is no exception with his photos of the Syrian conflict. I have always been drawn to the grittiness of war-photography and am sometimes jealous of brave these men and women can be.

Protecting the Right to Photograph, or Not to Be Photographed

“As a rule, I’d say it would be common courtesy to ask people whether you can take their picture,” he said. “But, then again, if you’re doing street photography and you see something going on, you don’t want to alter that dynamic.”

I love street photography and understand how some or many pedestrians absolutely hate having a picture of them taken without their consent. The issue is that technically, if the place the shot is taken is in a “public area”, then anyone can legally take a photograph of anything. What needs to be done is for street photographers to show some more class by learning how to “flow” with their work better. Learning how to “charm” your subjects will make you a better/stealthier photographer overall.

Austin Kleon on stealing like an artist via John Paul Caponigro

“Stealing from one person is called plagiarism, stealing from many is called research.”

This is a revisited talk by Mr. Kleon. But in essences, nothing we do today is completely and 100% “original”. Everything we do is built upon previous generations. And this is NOT a bad thing. This is called progression and an evolution into something even better. Having your work “stolen” or modified should be highly sought after by everyone as it builds on their own legacy.

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