Summary of this week:

Microsoft buys Nokia's phone business
Yahoo leaves China
Linux 3.11 is released
IFA show in Berlin this week so we'll have many gadget announcements
Lenovo's CEO again shares his bonus with employees
Samsung shows its watch
Qualcomm also shows a watch
Everyone yawns about the smartwatches
Yahoo has a new logo
Tokyo chosen to host the 2020 Summer Olympics

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday September 2, 2013

The IFA show is in Berlin this week, so expect many new product announcements.

Photos of Samsung's coming smart watch. It is still a watch and that is a piece of jewelry. Perhaps, not likely, but perhaps, these smart watches will break the centuries old tradition.

Acer shows its Iconia 10" tablet. At $330 for the WiFi version, it is too costly. These guys have to cut their prices if they want to compete with the iPad. See, for example, Microsoft.

I don't know if this is a huge tablet or what, but Acer shows its 24" touch screen computer running Android with a Nvidia processor.

Lenovo's CEO again shares his big bonus with the company's employees. That is a nice gesture. I wish each employee receives a real check, not a token.

This shock absorber generates electricity. That is nice, but automobiles have no trouble generating electricity. This technology would be better used in backpacks for hikers, pedestrians, and bicycle riders. Perhaps, one day, such technology will reach the real world.

Acer's smartphone is the world's first to have a 4K video camera. I suppose someone needs this much camera in their pocket.

The Tiny House movement in an infographic. This is a tiny movement to date. Perhaps it will pick up as people learn the benefits of smaller houses. My wife, our three sons, and I once lived in a small house trailer for a couple of years. We did not spend money on things during that time as we had no place to put things. There are many advantages to small homes.

Windows 8 has not been a success, but it is doing better than Windows Vista did.

Beijing has a huge water shortage. This is why I don't understand all these calls for people to move back into the cities. Our cities cannot survive daily resource use let alone disasters. See, for example, Super Storm Sandy and New York City. Sandy was called a "super storm" because it was too small to be a hurricane. What if a hurricane hit a big city. Note, New Orleans is not a big city.

The STEM crisis is a myth. Well thought arguments about the "shortage" of science, technology, engineering, and math persons available to work. Companies, government, and universities profit from the myth. The STEM persons, well, you know.

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Tuesday September 3, 2013

Microsoft buys Nokia's phone business. Will this save Microsoft? Will it push Microsoft into the mobile world, finally?

Today is the first day of school here in Fairfax County, Virginia. Engadget does a fashion and function review of new bags to carry to school. Reading, writing, mathematics?

HTC introduces new phones and better sound to go along with its new ad campaign.

The iPhone is the single most popular smartphone in the U.S. with 43% of the market.

For some perspective, as weak as Windows 8 has been, it is more used than Apple's OS X.

Lenovo shows five new portable computers. Maybe this PC world isn't quite dead yet?

Fascinating maps of the U.S. where every person is a dot. The maps show racial segragation in where we live.

Jeff Bezos talks about running the Washington Post.

This is not new, but I like it - a solar cooker in South Africa. These existed decades ago and they still are not as practical as they should be by now. Maybe one day...

And speaking of solar power...ooops, this London building is causing problems by accidentally focusing the sun's rays.

Another perspective on Google Glass: when a spouse is wearing one.

Comments on the fall of NASA. That is too bad, really a tragedy for America that we cannot do anything right in space.

Yahoo leaves China.

Linux 3.11 is released.

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Wednesday September 4, 2013

A board game, the kind that you sit around a table to play, that teaches kids programming principles.

Apple officially announces its next special event for September 10th.

Microsoft is building a $250million data center in Finland. I understand the need to spread your data centers worldwide. I would like to see some of this money spent in America for American jobs.

An opposing view from MIT about job losses and technology.

A lesson in how to boost the performance on an older computer with an SSD.

This is still in the research phase, but the idea has potential. Embed a camera in clothing that photographs everything you eat and calculates the calories. People who count calories tend to NOT input all the information. This system would remove that tendency to cheat.

Some of the wonderful benefits that LinkedIn employees receive. I hope they cherish and appreciate these benefits.

Bruce Schneier has an excellent essay on risk and how we have become risk averse to the extreme.

Africa may skip the wired network phase and go directly to higher-speed wireless networks.

A new line of tiny computers that run Android.

Communities are closing schools. Can these empty publicly funded buildings be put to good uses such a places for builders?

HDMI 2.0 has been announced.

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Thursday September 5, 2013

Xiami shows its new, faster smartphone.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 is udpated.

I suppose this is the year of the smartwatch - the Qualcomm Toq. I suppose it is also the year of goofy names for watches.

And here is the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch. It looks like a watch, not a thing. Maybe they will make it.

Adobe cuts the price of its Creative Cloud subscriptions.

Who cares if you can bundle all those things in a smartphone? Bundle the 3D printer and scanner in one device.

Who cares about smartwatches with those tiny screens? Samsung shows a 110" 4K television.

And who wants a small tablet when you can have the Panasonic ToughPad with a 20" screen?

LG tricks people into thinking the world is hit by a meteor via its crystal clear HDTV picture. Good demonstration done in bad taste.

Kodak is officially out of bankruptcy. Kodak still exists as a small commerical printing company. An era ends.

Yahoo has a new logo. Some people are exited about these things.

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Friday September 6, 2013

No viewing today.

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Saturday September 7, 2013

The TSA creeps back into the news. If you pay them $85, the TSA will let you skip the take of your shoes and belt drill.

And more government - Yahoo recieved 40,000 requests from government agencies about its users in just six months.

Techmeme has now started writing its own headlines. This must be of some significance to some people.

California may move to electronic license plates. Concerns over privacy and liberty abound.

More on the culture of the company shuttle bus in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. The free ride to work was and is a good idea in many respects. There have been, however, unintended consequences.

Amazon may offer its first smartphone at no cost.

Dollar stores continue to boom across America. From travelling through rural America, the dollar store is the single most popular franchise in America. They vastly outnumber McDonalds and the like. Perhaps the dollar store is the general store of the 21st century.

Julian Assange has been living and working from a renovated embassy ladies room.

Aha! Someone has finally proved that playing video games makes your brain younger.

The rich get richer. Stanford will invest in startup companies from its students. How about a rich, private university investing in startup ideas from poor kids in public schools? Haven't seen that one lately.

The best and highest paying jobs in IT.

Samsung and Qualcomm show new smartwatches and everyone yawns.

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Sunday September 8, 2013

Tokyo is selected to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.

This could be important: the connected world is moving to Cards as the design module.

400 million people in China cannot speak Mandarin - the official language. That is 30%.

Google is 15 years old. Here is a piece on the earliest mention of Google in the press.

Write about your life. Notice your life.

Ten tips that may help you write your first drafts.

Write - 'So you need to write--put what's in your mind on paper. Then you'll own a piece of paper. That's leverage.'

Some types of writers you may encounter in a writing group.

Cutting through the distractions that plague freelance writers.

Using a Virtual Private Network while travelling. The security is probably worth the cost.

Thoughts on setting and following goals. Like almost all practices, experiment with this. If it works for you, keep it.

For example, this tip is to lie awake each night and think of things. That is disaster for me as I would have a terrible night's rest afterwards. I think in the morning, not late at night. I have tried both ways and variations of both ways. Experiment, keep what works for you.

Do you listen to music while writing? What types of music for what types of writing? I listen to talk radio and the US Open tennis tournament while writing. At least that is what I am doing this week.

The often strange addictions of famous writers. Most of these addictions are actions, not drugs. You should read this.

I've never seen this before - excellent chart from 1931 shows the history of the world.

There are times for the freelance writer to move onto something else.

I like the way this post puts the topic of competition among writers: The only person you need to better is the writer you were last year.

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