Posts

• May 4, 2012

  Congress Should Grill the FCC Over Redacted Google Wi-Fi Snooping Report

  Chris Soghoian, writing for Wired, on the role of FCC in this farce:

  However, even if the FCC lacked the legal authority punish Google, nothing prevented the agency from alerting the public, the media, and Congress to the full extent of Google’s sins. Instead, the agency opted to keep the public in the dark.

  The FCC has yet to reveal the reasons why it opted to so heavily redact the most damning portions of the Google WiFi report. Congress should not wait for the FCC to volunteer an explanation. It should demand answers.

  The US regulators have time and again cited bureaucratic reasons to absolve themselves of doing what regulators are there for.

  Remember the SEC in the Madoff scandal?

  [via]

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• May 4, 2012

  German court rules against Microsoft in Motorola patent fight

  Reuters:

  A court in Mannheim ruled on Wednesday that Microsoft infringed Motorola Mobility’s patents and ordered Microsoft to remove its popular Xbox 360 gaming consoles and Windows 7 operating system software from the German market.

  However, Microsoft said that the ruling did not mean that its products would be taken off retailers’ shelves because a U.S. district court in Seattle has granted Microsoft a preliminary injunction against Motorola to prevent the phone maker from enforcing any German court order.

  I cannot even begin to describe this lunacy that is going on with IP law and enforcement.

  This needs to stop before the true repercussions on innovation in everyday life is felt. Look no further—the drug industry.

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• May 4, 2012

  A Closer Look at Font Rendering

  Tim Ahrens writing for Smashing Magazine:

  Now that we have a great choice of fonts that can be used on websites, it becomes clear that the translation of a design into pixels is not something that happens naturally or consistently. OS makers apply different strategies to render how typefaces are displayed, and these have evolved greatly over time (and still continue to do so). As we now look closer at fonts on screen more than ever before, we realize that the rendering of these glyphs can differ significantly between systems and font formats. What’s more, it has become clear that even well-designed fonts may not look right on Windows if they are missing one crucial added ingredient: hinting.

  This article presents the mechanisms of type rendering, how they were developed, and how and why they are applied by the various operating systems and browsers—so that when it comes time to choose a font for your next project, you know what to look out for to ensure the quality of the typography is consistently high.

  It’s a great read, even just to understand why identical typefaces on Windows and Mac OS X look different.

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• May 2, 2012

  Scaling Instagram

  Mike Krieger, on scaling Instagram:

  It’s rather fascinating, albeit hard to understand given the lack of vocal context. Nonetheless, there are few great pointers that we should all keep in mind when building our web applications.

  1. Simplicity.
  2. Optimise for minimal operational burden.
  3. Instrument everything.

  Click through the slide-deck for more technical gems.

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