Mark Waid has really put his money where his mouth is: After preaching the gospel of the “culture of sharing” for a couple of years now, he’s making his comic Insufferable available for anyone to download and share.

Although the comic is available for free from his Thrillbent website, he found that within 24 hours the first chapter had been copied and uploaded to torrent and file-sharing sites. “The only thing that startled me was that it took 24 hours,” he said, and sure enough, the next two chapters were uploaded even faster. And he’s happy about it:


Your mileage may vary but, me, I’m okay with torrenters and “pirates” sharing INSUFFERABLE. Not just because, what the hell, it’s free anyway, Mr. Cynic. .. my hand to God, even if we were charging for it, I’d still be happy because the exposure and promotion is worth more to me at this point than dollars and cents. But more than that…more than that … after having been hip-deep in the research for the past three years, I have seen zero conclusive evidence that, on the whole, “piracy” removes more money from the system than it adds to it.

Furthermore, he points out, pirates gonna pirate and he has no way to stop them. So rather than obsessing about that, he’s turned it to his advantage by posting each chapter as downloadable PDF and .cbz files — with a pointer toward Thrillbent on the last page. There’s no reason why the uploaders couldn’t remove that page, but they haven’t. What’s more, he’s finding that most of the uploaded files of Insufferable are indeed the ones he supplied, which means the “pirates” are really providing him with free advertising.

“It looks like it has become a more conservative execution engine rather than a pushing-the-envelope engineering engine,” says Max Paley, a former engineering vice president who worked at Apple for 14 years until late 2011. “I’ve been told that any meeting of significance is now always populated by project management and global-supply management,” he says. “When I was there, engineering decided what we wanted, and it was the job of product management and supply management to go get it. It shows a shift in priority.”

It might also simply be the result of the shift in scale at which Apple is operating today. They sold 35 million iPhones and 12 million iPads last quarter. Is it not inevitable that global-supply management would grow in importance and influence with numbers like that? The question to ask is whether these changes are because of the differences between Tim Cook and Steve, or the differences in the size and scope of Apple’s business a decade ago versus today.

The Verge reported yesterday that Google would soon be assimilating the Hewlett-Packard team responsible for creating Enyo, the HTLM5-based application framework for WebOS that debuted on the failed TouchPad.
Related story
HP's WebOS Enyo team reportedly heading to Google
But a blog item posted on the Enyo Web site today says the majority of the team remains, that development of Enyo will continue, and that the Enyo team is expanding.
In an update to its report, and citing unnamed sources, The Verge had added that the person in charge of Enyo, Matt McNulty, was one of the people headed to Google, along with other team members "responsible for 99 percent of the code."

According to a blog post by Cisco’s TelePresence Technology Group OJ Winge (via NetworkWorld), Cisco announced it is shutting down its Android-based Cius business tablet project. The roughly $1,000 tablet solution started shipping less than a year ago and clearly is not doing too well. The reason for killing off the 7-inch Cius tab? Winge noted 95 percent of organizations Cisco surveyed now allow employees to bring their own device, which he said underscores “a major shift in the way people are working, in the office, at home and on-the-go.”

There is no denying that iOS devices and cheaper Android solutions are taking the place of Cius. Recent studies show Apple with 97 percent of tablets in the enterprise, while 94 percent of the Fortune 500 is currently testing or deploying the iPad. The result is no further investment in the Cius tablet line and only limited support for what is currently available. The company will instead “double down” on Jabber and WebEx:

Over the last year, Cisco has demonstrated a commitment to delivering innovative software like Cisco Jabber and Cisco WebEx across a wide spectrum of operating systems, tablets and Smart Phones. We’re seeing tremendous interest in these software offerings. Customers see the value in how these offerings enable employees to work on their terms in the Post-PC era, while still having access to collaboration experiences… Based on these market transitions, Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what’s available today. However, as we evaluate the market further, we will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases.

“Pre-sandbox screening of submissions has been shockingly arbitrary and Apple staff are frequently either unwilling or unable to understand detailed technical arguments,” said one anonymous developer.

Developers looking to Apple for guidance about sandboxing their apps have been disappointed, not least because of Apple’s own failure to sandbox its apps. So far only TextEdit and Preview have been sandboxed.

“A great source of irritation for developers is Apple's own failure to sandbox its own programs,” noted one developer. “Apple has sandboxed some of its applications, but the vast majority remain outside of the sandbox and will still be available via the Mac App Store.”

“The reason that they can't sandbox their own applications is because they experience the very same problems as third party developers: appropriate entitlements do not exist, the APIs are buggy and the sandbox model makes no sense for many applications,” the anonymous developer added. “In order to sandbox their own applications they would need to remove features that users have come to rely upon. For no reason. They don't want to do so. They don't want to irritate their users.”

He claims that Apple is resort to "cheats" that third party developers would “never get away with.” He suggested: “Apple should first have sandboxed its own applications and made sure that the sandboxing works properly. Then they could legitimately have asked us to join them.”

“The sandbox doesn't really make sense and Apple knows it,” another developer, told us, anonymously.

“Something has clearly gone very wrong when Apple imposes changes that require a large proportion of non-game apps on the Mac App Store to be feature crippled. Nobody knows what the real motivation behind it is,” he noted.

“I suspect that Apple's new found love for the sandbox has more to do with exercising greater control over third party developers and streamlining their review process than with any end-user benefits,” suggested one developer, noting that Apple’s reviewers can now “just look at the entitlements to see what the application can do,” rather than “checking what an application does do.”

Though Yahoo's Livestand digital newsstand app has been up and running for less than a year, the company has decided to pull the plug on it.
The company announced its decision in a blog post today, saying it has learned a lot about what works and doesn't work with Livestand and is "actively applying those insights toward the development of future products that are better aligned with Yahoo!'s holistic mobile strategy."
The app has earned four stars in the App Store and is one of the first products the company plans to discontinue this year.
The blog says the company is "pivoting to a mobile products-first development model," and points to Yahoo's recently released Axis browser as proof.
"There's no doubt that one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, priorities for us is to innovate for the mobile user, whether they're using feature phones, smartphones, or tablets -- or iOS apps, Android apps, or mobile Web browsers, for that matter," the post reads.
Yahoo debuted Livestand in November, despite some uncertainty over the future of management at the company. Yahoo's recent management shakeup resulted in the appointment of interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

After bringing Classics Illustrated into the digital age, and onto Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet, in March, Trajectory Inc. announced this morning it has teamed with Apple to deliver the enduring comics series on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
[...] More than 120 titles are available from Apple’s iBookstore.
“Making the Classics available in digital form brings these brilliant works to where people live now, on their mobiles,” Trajectory CEO Jim Bryant said in a statement. “The iPad and iPhone are great for interacting with one of the most beloved comics and graphic novel series of all time.”

[...] designed for the new iPad, [it] has a neat trick up its sleeve: the keyboard is detachable, held in place by Velcro.
That might not sound like a big deal, but it allows you to vary both the angle of the iPad’s screen and the distance between keyboard and display, which is ergonomically very useful.

Detaching the keyboard even works while the whole thing is sitting on your lap, allowing you to type on the iPad as if it were a laptop. Ridges on one side of the case hold the bottom of the iPad in place.

Sales of webOS phones never made a dent in the industry, and the much-anticipated TouchPad tablet was cancelled by HP before it even got started.

Then HP reshuffled its management and decided to make webOS open-source to keep the platform from going the way of the dodo. It would offer webOS to the world for anyone to use, and keep the team intact to make a serious effort.

Now comes the word that Google has poached the core Enyo team from HP, to end up doing who-knows-what at Google. Odds are it won’t be bringing Enyo, the application framework behind webOS, into the Android effort. Whatever these smart folks end up doing for Google, their departure pretty much puts the kibosh on the open-source webOS effort no matter what HP says.

HP is not in a position to make a serious run at the webOS open-source effort. Having just announced the impending layoff of 27,000 employees, HP must be the worst place to work in any industry. You read that right, the layoffs are in the thousands, or more than many companies in the world employ in total. What a sad place HP must be to work today.

So don’t expect webOS to set the open-source world on fire, it is coming from too bad a place for that to happen. Given HP’s terrible situation, there is no way the open-source webOS effort will be a priority. Most of the key webOS team have already left HP for greener pastures, and this news about the important Enyo team is just a twisting of the knife.

It’s a safe call to say that webOS is finally dead in reality, if not in name. Such a sad end for what could have been a revolutionary mobile OS. RIP webOS.

Flickr has just announced new Groups features on its blog, including a Justified View, the ability to submit photos directly to Groups via the Uploadr and brand new API methods for developers. Yahoo has, of course, been floundering lately, and Flickr is really feeling the heat from competitors like 500px – all the more reason to push forward and provide some desired improvements for users.

The Justified View, which we’ve already seen on the Photos from Contacts and Favorites pages, looks pretty damn impressive compared to the previous design. With this change, Flickr has also added sidebar navigation

Kickstarter does not want you to see failed projects. Failed Kickstarter campaign pages include robot meta tags to keep search engines from indexing them. Plus, Kickstarter’s front page and “Discover” interface never show failed projects. Ever.)
[...] failed results do show up in Kickstarter’s own search results [but it] has made an interesting design decision when it comes to how it displays (or doesn’t display) “failed” projects.

From today on, you will be able to select the photos you want to transfer in the Bump app, go to the Bump website on your computer, and then tap the phone on the spacebar key to transfer them. In order for it to work you have to enable location sharing on your computer’s web browser.
According to Lieb, the feature works with most modern web browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. There are some sporadic issues with Internet Explorer, he says.
So how does it all work? The new app uses the same technology in Bump’s self-titled app and in Bump Pay. A combination of the sensors in the phone and Bump’s Cloud services allow the phone and computer to communicate and then transfer the photos.

Plants, like pets, need to be constantly cared for, but not everyone's blessed with the requisite green thumb. So, for those of you imbued with what we'll call the bad, brown touch, Swiss outfit Koubachi's got a cloud-based solution to sidestep those negligent ways and keep your window garden thriving. Dubbed the WiFi Plant Sensor, this wireless peripheral nestles into the soil of any potted flora or fauna, sending relevant vitality data off to the company's servers where it's then analyzed and beamed back to your handset (via iPhone app) or online account with care instructions in tow. You'll have to cough up £99 (about $156 USD) for the currently available European-only, golf club-like device, but that's about all -- access to the company's apps and services are free for users. So, if you've been dying to pull back the curtain on the secret life of plants or just sick of shelling out to replace your withering window collection, hit up the source below to get your order on.

Con un comunicato stampa, Apple ha ufficialmente affermato di voler pagare i dividendi ai propri dipendenti con RSU, ovvero quelle azioni che in genere vengono consegnate ai dipendenti come incoraggiamento per restare all’interno della compagnia. Tra i vari impiegati troviamo una figura di spicco, questo è Tim Cook, egli possedeva 1 milione di RSU per un valore complessivo di 75 milioni di dollari. Nonostante abbia già incassato moltissimo denaro di recente, egli ha compiuto un gesto molto interessante, infatti ha completamente rifiutato la propria parte. Per dovere di cronaca, ricordiamo che le azioni sono state pagate a 2.65$ l’una.

Eccovi un breve estratto del comunicato:

Come richiesto da Mr.Cook, nessun elemento appartenente alle sue RSU verrà pagato come dividendo; assumendo un valore di 2.65$ ad azione e moltiplicandole per 1.125 milioni di elementi, Mr.Cook ha rinunciato a circa 75 milioni di dollari di dividendi.

La notizia dei pagamenti non è stata inaspettata, infatti verso la fine di Marzo, l’azienda aveva comunicato l’intenzione di spendere parte dei 100 miliardi di dollari nel distribuire quanto dovuto ai vari impiegati. I calcoli sono stati effettuati, i pagamenti veri e propri avranno inizio il 1 luglio.

Item 5.02.    Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers
 
(e) Compensatory Arrangements with Certain Officers.
On May 24, 2012, the Compensation Committee (the "Committee") of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. (the "Company") approved amendments to each outstanding and unvested restricted stock unit award granted by the Company to its employees (other than Timothy D. Cook, the Company's Chief Executive Officer). The amendments provide that if the Company pays an ordinary cash dividend on its common stock, each award will be credited with an amount equal to the per-share cash dividend paid by the Company, multiplied by the total number of restricted stock units subject to the award that are outstanding immediately prior to the record date for such dividend. The amounts that are credited to each award are referred to as "dividend equivalents." Any dividend equivalents credited to an award will be subject to the same vesting, payment and other terms and conditions as the unvested restricted stock units to which the dividend equivalents relate. Depending on the domicile of the employee, accumulated dividend equivalents will either be paid in cash or used to offset employee taxes due upon vesting of the restricted stock units.

The Committee determined these amendments were appropriate in light of the Company's announcement on March 19, 2012 that it intends to commence paying ordinary cash dividends of $2.65 per share to its shareholders on a quarterly basis sometime during the fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year. As restricted stock units are not outstanding shares of common stock and thus would not otherwise be entitled to participate in such dividends, the crediting of dividend equivalents is intended to preserve the equity-based incentives intended by the Company when the awards were granted and to treat the award holders consistently with shareholders.

At Mr. Cook's request, none of his restricted stock units will participate in dividend equivalents. Assuming a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share over the vesting periods of his 1.125 million outstanding restricted stock units, Mr. Cook will forego approximately $75 million in dividend equivalent value.

 

Optrix case transforms your iPhone 4/4S or iPod Touch 4G into a rugged action sports video camera. Bump, bash, crash, and splash with your phone safely housed in our polycarbonate shell and rubberized inner iPhone case. Perfect for sports like skiing, biking, skating, motocross, auto-racing and many more. 

1080p HD Video (4S)
Military Grade Enclosure
Water Resistant
Mounts Anywhere (3M 4991 industrial adhesive)
Soft Touch iPhone Sled (can be used as everyday case)
Telemetry Apps
175 Degree Wide-Angle Lens

If you have both an iPad or Retina display device (iPhone 4 or 4th generation iPod touch) and any other iPhone or iPod touch, you can use the fantastic remote control feature to wirelessly control the iPad/Retina display device with an iPhone/iPod touch over bluetooth or wifi. Then plug the iPad/Retina display device into a TV or display through the component cable or VGA adapter and play Chopper 2 on your TV from your couch!

Chopper 2 is also one of the few games to support full 1080p output to an HD TV over HDMI from the iPad 2, and supports AirPlay mirroring with iOS 5 and an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S.

Note: TV output is only supported from an iPad, iPhone 4, or 4th generation iPod Touch or better.

This version of Chopper 2 can also be used to control the Mac version, available on the Mac App Store.

Nokia chose not to sell the N95 phone in Egypt when the sale of GPS-enabled devices there was illegal before 2009, whereas Apple opted to make and sell a special GPS-less iPhone 3G for that market. Early models of the Chinese iPhone 3GS lacked wifi, while the Chinese iPhone 4/4S has firmware restrictions on its Google Maps app.

Just after its proposed $1 billion acquisition of mobile photo sharing service Instagram, Facebook announced Facebook Camera for iPhone in a blog post this afternoon. The app features filters just like Instagram, and it has the ability to upload a batch of photos at once. The regular Facebook app only allows you to upload one photo at a time. Upon first opening Camera, it detects any Facebook accounts already associated with the iPhone, so you can upload photos immediately. Facebook Camera for iOS is now available on the iTunes App Store.

As you can tell from the screenshots of the app in the gallery below, it reminds us a lot of Instagram. There is also the ability to view your friend’s photos in a single timeline. Complete with filters and quick-sharing options, it is almost as if Facebook launched a competitor to its own app.

Here is the full breakdown of features:




Post multiple photos from your camera roll at a time
Crop and apply filters to give your photos a new look
Scroll down a single feed of all your friends’ photos
Tag your friends, add photo captions and say where you are
See photos from the different apps your friends use

Now, developers have another business model option thanks to today’s newly-announced in-app subscription feature within in-app billing. The feature is quite self-explanatory—users can purchase subscriptions to any type of extra content from an app using any Android device. Some examples of in-app subscription could apply to bonus game levels/maps or and recurring services like journals and magazines. The ability to sell monthly or annual subscriptions in any app is effective immediately, while users can also start buying right away.