Author Archive for Ulysse Sabbag

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Instapaper becomes a start-up, it may be a bad idea

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

After leaving the responsibility of being the lead developer for Tumblr, Marco Arment decided to spend his time working for his own projects. And the most famous one is surely Instapaper, one of the greatest service ever.

Instapaper does one thing in such a great manner, it is quite incredible.

You place a Read Later bookmark in your bookmarks bar on your browser and when you’re on a web page, say, a long article, you click Read Later and it saves it in your bookmarks directory on Instapaper’s website.

Instapaper is a simple tool to save web pages for reading later.

Now, Marco will dedicate his time to updating, maintaining and enhancing Instapaper and this could be a bad idea. Sometimes, things are useful the way they are and success makes you think that change will make things even better.

You may say I’m not open-minded but I truly cannot see what could Marco do to make it better. No, I’m lying. I can. He can make an Android app—even though it seems like he does not want to craft one but instead make an HTML5 web-app compatible for all Android phones, which, of course, with the screen resolution proper to each phone, is the best idea. He can update the app to speed things up, on my iPhone, the app is quite slow. But these things are not impossible to make along with a job, say, leading Tumblr’s development.

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Is Android a threat to the iPhone?

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

nielsen.jpg

The blogosphere is all warmed up today because of the latest Nielsen research results. Android is the most popular operating system in the US among recent smartphone buyers.

Though RIM and iPhone OS are close, Android is on the rise.

Now, the very serious Bits blog from the New York Times posted an article stating that the iPhone has a real fight on its hands?

We must ask ourselves, is that true?

It seems that nobody noticed Apple’s policy change. It’s not called iPhone OS anymore, people, it’s called iOS and Apple doesn’t care anymore about iPhone-centric statistics. Apple is surely losing momentum. But they know things happen very fast and they know the iPhone cannot be king forever. Just like for the Mac. So they launch new products.

Please do not forget: Android is available on more than twenty (20) phones. Apple is aware of this fact.

For them, the iPad is the most important device. With billions of dollars in the tablet industry, the iPhone is starting to lose its luster. But it’s OK for Apple.

So, yes, Android is a threat to the iPhone, but right now, Apple has the innovation momentum and not the product momentum. Which is way more important.

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When it drops: cultural releases.

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

When it drops is a great new service—startup?—which was launched this week.

After almost a year of on-again-off-again development, I’m really excited to announce When It Drops! Now you can easily find what new movies, music, DVDs, games, and books are coming out each week. Ryan Sims came up with the original concept and did a smashing job on the design. Special thanks to Noah Stokes who has not only been doing a great job as our one and only user, but also for getting the ball rolling on this. Finally, you can also follow us on Tumblr if that’s more your thing!

I think they ought to open-source their code and share it internationally rather quickly, in order to meet a tremendous success.

The website is really well-designed. Check it out now.

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Next year for Palm: greatly improved Pre

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

It seems that the next Palm device, when it will be released, will play in the same league than his dear Android and iPhone friends.

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Google celebrates John Lennon’s birthday

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

Lennon, known to me as the second best song-writer of the 20th century would have been 70 today if M. Chapman controlled his emotions.

The nice thing is that Google put a YouTube video instead of its logo, on the front page, featuring an animation with Imagine as a soundtrack.

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Firefox Mobile goes live—Android wins

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

Another good reason to go for Android.

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Is your Mac slow? Try these simple solutions

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

Great write-up from TNW. It details various things you should try when you feel your Mac is slow. However, the article is concluded with an interesting psychological analysis. In fact, there aren’t much things you can do about your Mac’s speed.

At first, when you buy your Mac, you want it to be amazingly fast so you think it is. And as time goes by, you think your Mac is getting slower but it isn’t—it’s just the fact that since it’s getting older, you think that it will slow things.

I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree. The experience with your Mac isn’t psychic. When you feel it it slow, it unfortunately means that it is slow. Test it, you’ll see. Let’s not fall into psychologic answers for very pragmatic and mechanic questions.

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Google Goggles available on iPhone through Google Mobile App

Ulysse Sabbag | October 5, 2010

What a joyful surprise.

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On Stuxnet: what must be said

Ulysse Sabbag | October 3, 2010

Stuxnet is a computer worm that infects industrial-class computers and operating systems. It was designed to provoke chaos in such systems. It is feared to be capable of taking over the system’s brain which would allow it to take total control. It does not steal your personal data, it’s not a baby worm.

Now, many questions remain unanswered. Who created it? Why?

Fortunately, certain events brought light to the situation. We know that Iran and China were attacked.

PhysOrg reports:

The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc in China, infecting millions of computers around the country, state media reported this week.

Governments fear cyberwarfare. The thing is that they do not possess all the necessary defense infrastructure to deal with it. That is why Stuxnet is not making headlines—not because it is harmless.

“The Stuxnet worm is a wake-up call to governments around the world,” Derek Reveron, a cyber expert at the US Naval War School, was quoted as saying Thursday by the South China Morning Post.

Still, it is important to note something. Stuxnet is not fated to destroy systems. It is fated to prepare them to further attacks. We may be in a state of pure speculation, right now, but to weaken industry computers is to “brace for carnage”—if you play Halo: Reach.

Now, who could have possibly created it? Some say it’s Israel, some say it’s the United States (Western nations were also mentioned).

The IDF has shifted focus to cyberwarfare, earlier this week. Are they using the old technique: saying one thing so big and making something even bigger to make it look like they’re innocent? What I mean is since they have shifted focus to cyberwarfare, could they be behind Stuxnet? Wouldn’t it be too big? They’re probably happy watching a worm spreading chaos in Iran, but did they design it?

The US? Again, it would be way too big. China and Iran. I know they’re not subtle but come on.

But who, then? I suggest to read War in Context for further information and development regarding this story. I’ll also be closely watching it.

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Is Qwiki the future of information consumption?

Ulysse Sabbag | October 3, 2010

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

The fundamental problem with Qwiki as an informatioin tool is that it is focused on a snazzy production, re-hashing and re-purposing tons of existing web content, to create an “experience” of the content rather than facilitating the most efficient comprehension and utilization of the content.

— Brianstorms.com

 

It’s not.

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Steve Jobs NeXT years: why Apple is doing well

Ulysse Sabbag | October 3, 2010

He’s the same Steve in his passion for excellence, but a new Steve in his understanding of how to empower a large company to realize his vision.

—Kevin Compton, on when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.

Read the New York Times story.

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Europe according to Americans

Ulysse Sabbag | October 1, 2010

europe.jpgThis is in no way related to technology, but it still is quite funny. Cheers, kottke for discovering it.

read more on mapping stereotypes.

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Entrepreneurs in the Middle East: YallaStartup weekend

Ulysse Sabbag | September 30, 2010

On november 12th, 2010, in Beirut, Lebanon will take place a conference weekend that will be all about entrepreneurship in the Middle East, how can start-ups be successful and all that kind of interesting topics.

I wanted to have a story for the Middle East, showing the world that there is interest in entrepreneurship and technology there. People perceive the Middle East as a land of wars, we just want to show the other side, the passion of the youth.—Elie El-Khoury, founder of Woopra on YallaStartup weekend.

Read more.

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Mac Apps for power-users: HyperDock and TotalFinder

Ulysse Sabbag | September 30, 2010

Hat-tip to Macgeneration for discovering these two, fine apps.

TotalFinder brings tabs to your native Finder and more!

totalfinder.jpg

HyperDock adds long awaited features to your Dock: Select single application windows just by moving the mouse on a dock item, use mouse clicks to quickly open new windows and many more.

hyperdock.jpg

 

The apps are free, for now at least.

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So, what time is it?

Ulysse Sabbag | September 30, 2010

Another quite fascinating piece by Babbage on Time as a concept. It explains the famous story of the pendulum that went up in the air and came back down—younger.

Obviously not even the finest Swiss timepiece can boast the accuracy required to detect such minute shifts. So physicists have come up with “atomic” clocks that rely on some fundamental physical properties of electrons in an atom. Normally, these reside on specific energy levels but when electromagnetic waves of a particular frequency are shone on them, they absorb energy and jump to a higher level. As they re-emit the energy, they drop back down. By creating a feedback loop which has electrons continuously hopping between two levels, physicists are able to construct an ultrafast and extremely consistent subatomic pendulum. The clocks currently used to set the international time standard rely on microwaves with a frequency of 9.2 billion cycles per second being shone on cesium atoms.

 

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