Additional iPad Haptic Feedback Details

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Update: Completely false rumor.

My colleague, Jacquelyn Erdman, writing on her website, Technolust & Loathing:

In Oct 2010, at the ACM SIGCHI conference in NYC, grad students presented on this technology and allowed people to demo it. See my conference notes at: http://technolustandloathing.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/acm-uist-notes-4-next-generation-touch-screens. They students mentioned that “someone” bought the rights to the technology, but wouldn’t say who. I then saw a very tiny blurb about Apple having the technology in the ACM Communications magazine several months back. I actually thought they would have this up and running for the iPad 3, (see prediction here), but I wasn’t sure how quickly it would roll out as I thought the iPad 3 was going to be out for last holiday season. So, enough of my rolling of the eyes on the release and self-congratulations and let’s talk about the technology! Jacquelyn goes on to describe what it was like to use it, and speculates on how Apple has probably improved it since then (if this all turns out to be true). She wrote this piece shortly after I shared the news from Apple Insider this morning about Apple using technology in the new iPad to be announced today from a company called Senseg. This could be huge.

Update: Apple patented this tech in 2010.

Jacquelyn dug up this 21 month old article on Apple Insider.

SC County GOP: If You’ve Had Pre-Marital Sex, You Can’t Be A Republican

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As I said earlier on Twitter, there are few things these days that can surprise me. I really shouldn't be surprised at the level of ignorance and naivety that is required to think that this could possibly be a good idea… yet they've done it again. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Republican Party: Jillian Rayfield, writing for Talking Points Memo:

Before you can join the Laurens County Republican Party in South Carolina and get on the primary ballot, they ask that you pledge that you’ve never ever had pre-marital sex — and that you will never ever look at porn again. Last Tuesday, the LCGOP unanimously adopted a resolution that would ask all candidates who want to get on the primary ballot to sign a pledge with 28 principles, because the party “does not want to associate with candidates who do not act and speak in a manner that is consistent with the SC Republican Party Platform.” Just…wow. How would one enforce this rule? What about the fact that a vast majority of people have had premarital sex? The date on that study is 2006, by the way. This isn't new. From the linked-to study: The study, which used statistics from the 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, asked about 40,000 people ages 15-44 about their sexual behavior and traced the trends in premarital sex back to the 1950s. Of those interviewed in 2002, 95% reported they had had premarital sex; 93% said they did so by age 30. Among women born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 did. At the same time, people are waiting longer to marry; 2005 data show median age at first marriage is just over 25 for women and 27 for men. Wait - I've changed my mind. The GOP should put this rule into place on a national level. It would guarantee the Democrats would win every election because of the poor caliber of candidates the GOP would be forced to come up with due to the rule diluting their pool of candidates down so small.

Ditching My DSLR On Vacation

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A week ago my wife and I went on vacation to Disney World in Flordia. The main purpose of the trip was for Steffanie to run in Disney's Princess ½ Marathon. While packing for the trip, I dutifully packed up my Canon 40D and my two lenses, a Tamron 28-300mm that I now regret buying, and my beloved Canon 50mm f/1.4. After arriving in Florida, however, it never left my bag. I thought about whether I should take it with me each morning as we were preparing to leave our hotel rooms, and each day I decided to just take my iPhone 4. I was quite happy with how a lot of the photos below turned out. When taking photos I primarily used the very excellent Pro HDR app which I picked up years ago at the recommendation of Merlin Mann. Below are some of the best photos I took using my iPhone 4 with this app. We stayed here: We saw this: And this: And even though this one didn't come out as well as I would have liked, I feel compelled to include this one: Check out the collection on Flickr of the various sets from this trip.

Thieves Are Your Best Customers in Waiting

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David Sleight, writing on his website Stuntbox:

These days the most common answer I get to, “Why’d you pirate that?” isn’t, “It was free,” but, “It was the only way I could get my hands on it.” Or, “It was a bazillion times easier.” As Jeremy noted, users are correctly identifying Byzantine content delivery mechanisms as damage and routing around them. Here’s what content conglomerates need to realize: This is a good thing. Fantastic even. The audience is telling you, in no uncertain terms, they want your stuff. And they are telling you precisely what stuff. The people you’re calling “thieves” are telling you where you need to be. They are jumping through hoops only slightly less complicated than the ones you set out for them via official channels, displaying the sort of pent-up demand that should make you drool. This is what’s commonly referred to in business circles as an opportunity. An excellent post that I recommend you read in its entirety.

The Little Boy Who Cried "Don't Be Evil"

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While catching up on the news I missed while I was on vacation, I ran across this via Daring Fireball. Nick Bilton on Google’s stream of privacy incidents:

“The past two months have been unprecedented; there has never been anything like it at the company,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land, who has closely covered Google since the company began. “They are a big company, and any big company is always going to have something happen that they don’t expect. But these things keep happening where you can’t even trust their word.” When I asked Mr. Sullivan if Google was now too big not to be evil, he said, “I don’t think they were ever not evil.” Google says nothing has changed. John Gruber says, "Exactly".

Mountain Lion: Hands On With Mail

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Dan Frakes, writing for Macworld on changes coming to Mail in Mountain Lion:

A VIP is any person you designate as being important enough to have their messages treated differently by Mail. You designate someone as a VIP by clicking the star icon to the left of the person's name in any incoming or sent message. You'll immediately notice that every message to or from that person now displays a star in message lists, making it easier to find those messages. In addition, when you designate a sender as a VIP, that person gets his or her own entry in a new VIPs section of Mail's Mailboxes sidebar. Click a VIP's name, and you get a list of all messages, across all mailboxes (including Sent and Trash), to or from that person. If like me, you use Mail exclusively, you'll want to read this article as it details all the gritty details of what's coming. Having been using the developer preview of Mountain Lion for 4 days already, I had not even noticed these changes yet.