The European Commission has reached a settlement with most major publishers and Apple over eBooks. The upshot of it is that existing agency contracts with Apple will be removed and new ones written in their place. However, the new ones will not have in them the "Most Favoured Nation" (MFNs) clauses that prevented eBook retailers …
Google Maps and competition on the platform
Google Maps for iOS arrived today and it is clearly the best maps app for the iPhone and perhaps, according to some reports, over all mobile devices (including Android). It is beautifully and sensibly designed as Google's latest iPhone app offerings are. More significantly, it is a considerable advance for the Google maps that was …
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You knew it was coming. Google Scholar cites can be manipulated
Google Scholar works via algorithm. It examines papers that are hosted in certain domains (usually, publishers and higher education institutions) and then constructs citations based on those papers. As it is easily accessible and also includes citations from unpublished papers, Google Scholar is becoming increasingly popular as a key metric for academic performance. A new paper by Emilio …
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The fact Apple are losing whole towns is good news for Apple
Mildura is a town in the far west of the state of Victoria, Australia. According to Google/Wikipedia, around 30,000 people live there. News today, however, that for the rest of the world, Victorian police are warning those looking for Mildura not to use Apple Maps. Mildura Police are urging motorists to be careful when relying …
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A few little things
These bits of news warrant a mention but not a full post: A Kickstarter project has fallen $28 short of its $50,000 goal. This prompted speculation that Kickstarter might offer some flexibility in its rules. I have to point out here that that would be a terrible idea. What Kickstarter is, is a revelation mechanism. …
The Daily's Demise
The Daily was launched in February 2011 to great fanfare. It was the first iPad only newspaper (although it did have a web mirror but that was just for sharing). It had a simple price, $1 per week, and had a slick tablet interface. Apple promoted it very strongly and gave News Corp assistance in …
A quick note on Mathematica 9
Wolfram released Mathematica 9 yesterday. It doesn't take everyone's fancy but to a hack programmer like myself it is a revolution. I've been using Mathematica for 20 years and it is essential to my research. But I do not really know how to use Mathematica. That requires spending the time to learn programming syntax and …
Mario on other platforms?
Sega's games have been available on iPhones etc for some time. Microsoft's Smart Glass interface with the XBox 360 is also available on an array of mobile platforms. But one significant hangout is Nintendo. Nintendo are to app games like The Beatles where for iPods. They are sticking with their traditional distribution channels well beyond …
What an academic article of the future should look like
There is much discussion these days about the future of scholarly publishing. Much of this surrounds the value of traditional publishers. When challenged those publishers point to the value and potential value they create. Here is Elsevier responding to a recent boycott led by mathematician Tim Gowers: And we invest a lot in infrastructure, the …
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Does the app economy need institutions?
A New York Times piece on the app economy makes the point that very few apps make money and even fewer make lots of money. It is basically a cautionary tale that like everywhere else making money is hard. Like being in on the first days of a Gold Rush, having an app when there …
Digitopoly 