Amazon Pulls 1984 Off Users' Kindles

Oh how predictable this was.

"In a story just dripping with irony, Amazon Kindle owners awoke this morning to discover that 1984 and Animal Farm had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for, and thought they owned. Apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by George Orwell from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. Amazon customer service may or may not have responded to queries by stating, 'We've always been at war with Eastasia.'"

Amazon Pulls Purchased E-Book Copies of 1984 and Animal Farm

The move was an accident but it shows what may be a future problem. I don't like the fact that data that I put on my machine may be altered or deleted at whim. Data must be protected. Once the data is installed on your device it should be IMPOSSIBLE for the publisher (and ideally anyone else) to remove or alter it.

Google Wave - The Future of Office Meetings?

Last month Google unveiled a new application, Google Wave, brainstormed by the creators of Google Maps. It's meant to be a new communication platform for the web. Wave will combine the features of email and IM - a Facebook, so to speak, for business projects. Users can upload comments, which in turn can be commented on and graphics, video and other items can be included into the mix.

Unlike Facebook the history remains so that new users can easily come up to speed on a project by reading the posts and comments.

It seems to have great potential and there is great need for this technology. Conference calls and email work, but as everyone knows, it's certainly not perfect.

I would add voice to screen transcription so that phone conversations can be added to the comment section as IM communication is included.

See the product from Google's IO Conference:

Wolfram Alpha - the Star Trek Computer Coming to Life

There’s a new search engine out, Alpha, which, instead of finding sites discussing the topic, as does Google and other search engines, actually attempts to deliver answers. Stephen Wolfram, the developer of Alpha says that it "makes it easy for the typical person to answer anything quantitatively.” Wolfram does not consider Alpha to be a Google competitor:

“We are not a search engine. No searching is involved here,” he said. “The types of things that people are currently searching for have some overlap [with Google], but it isn’t huge. What’s exciting is that we have a whole new class of things that people can put into a input field and have it tell them what it knows.”

It still has many problems as will be discovered but, whatever its problems it is an interesting first step to developing a computer that will provide answers – and give source material. I wish it well.

If you want to know more:

• Impressive: The Wolfram Alpha “Fact Engine”
• Steven Levy on the Answer Engine, a Radical New Formula for Web Search

Patent Trolling or Patent Infringement

It's hard trying to make head or tails about the i4i v Microsoft case. Anybody interested in a robust tech industry needs to be concerned about this. Large, powerful entities can't simply take processes created by smaller firms but neither should we allow the copyright process be taken advantage of.

The patent in question is for separating the manipulation of content from the architecture of the document, which the company, named i4i argues, covers basic XML editing. It's quite troubling that doing something as simple as adding an XML editor should infringe on a patent, but what's even more troubling is that the court somehow ruled that such an editor was worth $98 in the copies of Microsoft Word where it was used. An XML editor. $98. And people say patent awards aren't out of sync with reality?
Wait, Editing An XML Document Is Patented And Worth $98 Per Application?

Doug Cawley, i4i’s lead trial lawyer argued that i4i demonstrated its product to Microsoft in 2001 and that Microsoft, instead of buying it incorporated a similar function of its own. i4i did not accuse Microsoft of copying its code or product. The question then is - how is this a patent infringement? I'm not a patent lawyer, nor have I read the patent in detail, but it seems as if i4i is arguing that any XML editor written now, or in the future, owes i4i royalties. What would change my mind would be if the i4i patent was for something truly insightful. I'm not getting that impression in any of the reporting.

Patent Litigation Weekly: E.D. Tex Unkind to Tech; PubPat's Other Suits

Make Your Own Fonts

Tell me this isn't great. YourFonts.com allows users to make fonts from their own handwritting practically instantly (a few hours). Twenty years ago, was it that long ago, when I was making my first fonts I would have been ecstatic about a program that could have made fonts so quickly, so easily, so inexpensively.

How I love what's happening. What used to be fantasy is now ordinary.

Forms, Labels and Usability

I received some interesting feedback on a website I was working on. It's a form heavy site where the employees, as they get new customers and leads, enter the information into the database. The forms were designed with the labels right-aligned. The creative team liked it because it looked better. The business owners signed off on it for the same reason.

However, we started to get complaints from the users that "the forms were hard to use." In the end it was decided that left-aligned labels were "easier to read" than were right-aligned labels.

Personally I find the right-aligned text more visually appealing and I don't find the left-aligned text "easier to read." But that doesn't really mean much, does it?

Jakob Nielsens First Rule of Usability

Jakob Nielsen's First Rule of Usability still holds true today: pay attention to what users DO - and not what they say.

This holds doubly true in what users predict they will do in the future.

Say, for example, that 50% of survey respondents claim they would buy more from e-commerce sites that offer 3D product views. Does this mean you should rush to implement 3D on your site? No. It means that 3D sounds cool. The world is littered with failed businesses that banked on people's attitude toward hypothetical products and services.
First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users

When in doubt, think like Dr. House. "The patient always lies about what he does." Do not take the user's "word" for it - send out your staff to ascertain how the patient/user acts,

In short, any and all changes must improve the bottom line. It must reduce the time and effort in accomplishing a task by the users, whether they are customers or employees.