Daily Archives: March 10, 2012

What? Microsoft Has Taste?

I am soooo late to this video. It was posted over two weeks ago and has near 900,000 views.

It’s a take-off on the classic TV series, Moonlighting (which, if you’ve never seen, you should; it made Bruce Willis a star).

I never thought I’d see the day when Microsoft would produce any sort of video that didn’t invoke my gag reflex.

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Filed under Google, Marketing, Video

Archos Arnova 9 G2 9.7″ Tablet

I had no idea this was coming. I was trawling through the J&R website and happened upon it.

And it’s a recent tablet, too. It was on QVC just last month. And the earliest videos I could find were from December 2011, where it apparently went on sale in England and Germany in time for Christmas.

After the break, a hands-on video from January.

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Filed under Android, Other Hardware, Video

R.I.P. Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Artist

French comic-book artist “Moebius” dies

Most Americans encountered some of his work in the movie, The Fifth Element.

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Filed under R.I.P.

Authors Guild Favors Big Six eBook Price Cartel

Letter from Scott Turow: Grim News

The Justice Department has been investigating whether those publishers colluded in adopting a new model, pioneered by Apple for its sale of iTunes and apps, for selling e-books. Under that model, Apple simply acts as the publisher’s sales agent, with no authority to discount prices.

We have no way of knowing whether publishers colluded in adopting the agency model for e-book pricing. We do know that collusion wasn’t necessary: given the chance, any rational publisher would have leapt at Apple’s offer and clung to it like a life raft. Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Turow would have every one of you — and the AG membership — believe that revisionist bullshit.

And I want everyone to notice his weasel wording: “making it uneconomic for physical bookstores” — not, “making books more affordable for customers.”

Let’s see just what the history of book publishing and pricing — before Amazon ever existed! — was really like.

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Filed under Books: General, Digital Overthrow