links for 2009-11-29

I blanch at the thought that I should pay more for the WSJ because I now read it on my iPhone in addition to getting it at home. What are they thinking? I will simply choose another option. The theory that they can get me to pay creates the same resentment that my bank and phone company create when they want to charge me for my e-bill. That said I am totally hooked on my iPhone e-readers

This article spells out how apple is taking PC learnings and applying them to micro-mobile-pc's. Also how relatively small changes are still able to have a large impact. A good exercise for any aspiring iPhone killer would be to map the iPhone roadmap for the next 10 years and assume it's basic form factor does not change. Now where does that get you?

This looks a little cumbersome and I wonder about the trade-off vs buying a 17inch screen. Two screen definitely make one more productive and provide a useful organizing paradigm. On the MAC I use spaces for much the same reason.

“Social networking is not delivering on the need for intimacy that people have in their daily life,” he warns. In a world of global citizens, there remains a desire for local relationships and local knowledge, he says.

…the need for people to move or travel for work, has bought with it "a desire for richer forms of digitally mediated intimacy".

… mobile communication will become both easier and more invisible. He envisages a future of multi-sensor interfaces that respond to everything from gestures to the emotion in a user's voice. "It’s about taking away the technology and making it almost real," says Korkman.

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are fundamentally changing the relationships and interactions between people, says Korkman. We now have multiple identities which we share with our different groups of friends and acquaintances, and this in turn has created a desire for social experiences even in the most transient of moments.