cat /dev/brain > /www/blog: July 2010

Clearing up the "Back to the Future" mis-information

There is meme going around that Doc Brown in the film "Back to the Future", was planning to travel forward to this day, before he got gunned down by the Libyans. It all started with this tweet by @totalfilm which is the official Twitter account of the Total Film magazine.

So what actually happened in the Film? Doc Brown is about to leave 1985 to go to the future, here's the quote:

"Marty: The future,? So where you going?

Doc: That's right, 25 years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next 25 World Series." (source)

Now, Back to the Future was first released in the USA on the 3rd of July 1985 and that's maybe where the confusion comes from. The current date as shown in the time machine is the 26 October 1985 so it's wrong. Total film did try to correct themselves, but, posting a photoshopped picture, was not the best way and attached tweet was unclear.

It's now 7 hours after the original tweet and people are still passing on this information in vast numbers:

Twitter we have a problem

Twitter is fast moving system and sometimes people make mistakes and I can understand that. Typically the way to resolve this is to send an updated message to all your followers admitting you made a mistake. The problem however, comes in when people start retweeting your incorrect tweet, you can't inform all those who received the incorrect tweet about the error. In fact it gets worse as people remove the original attribution and pass the tweet off as an original tweet of their own (as you can see it the screenshot above). Of course blogs don't have this problem, people simply update the post with new information as it comes to light. Facebook and Blogs also have comments so the post can be shouted down for inaccuracies there, even before the post is updated.

So is this a problem? Well today it's some tweet about meaningless facts from a 25 year old film, but tomorrow it could be mis-information about someone's death for example, though it's not like that hasn't happened before.

Posted via email from Richard Cunningham's posterous

YouTube Hacked

It looks like someone calling themselves "SPONGE" on this page

It looks like they are deliberately using malformed HTML to get past YouTube's checks for HTML sanitisation in the comments. The comment I've seen is using the long forgotten marquee tag and a javascript alert, though in principle it could be expanded to support XSS type flaws.

It looks like YouTube are dealing with this currently be deleting comments presumably until the can fix their code.

I'd suggest staying away from YouTube until they have this fixed or at least logging out of YouTube if you use it.

Posted via email from Richard Cunningham's posterous

iOS devices will and are disrupting the desktop space

In 2007 when Apple unveiled the original iPhone, I was quite surprised they had used OSX as the basis for the operating system. It was notable that they were able use a fully featured operating system on a mobile phone, something that wasn't being done widely at the time and marked the transition of mobile phones from simple devices to scaled down desktop computers. The iPhone OS as it was then known, seemed very basic given that it didn't support 3rd party applications, multi-tasking or copy and paste, however, it has quickly gained these features, this is one of the hallmarks of a disruptive technology:

"Disruptive innovation is a term used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect" - Wikipedia

The iPhone was disrupting to some low end uses of laptops by allowing web browsing and email on the move without a laptop (they weren't the first on email, but were on the providing the full web). The iPhone was better at these tasks than a laptop by virtue of being smaller, instant on, with GSM networking built in, GPS built in, no noise, no heat, no viruses and simpler to use.

The iPad has continued this disruption by replacing times when you would use a traditional laptop. In fact, in Technologizer's survey of iPad users, around 70% said they were frequently using their iPad instead of their computer. The iPad has the advantage of having a much longer battery life than a laptop, meaning you don't need to plug it in as often, or all during normal use. Also, it benefits from a better form factor for web browsing which is better suited to the easy chairs and sofas where people would normally consume written content such books and magazines. The iPad of course has same benefit as the iPhone of being instant wake which typically laptops don't do - at least not well.

I believe that Apple it's trying to solve it's own innovators delema. Apple's innovators deliema is that computers are getting cheaper and the primary use for many home users is simply to browse the web and not to use many applications, meaning that any advantage Apple has in it's application base and ease of use, could be supplanted by a web browser only system. This will tend to lead to people buying cheaper, simpler devices that only do just that. Apple's problem that very few people will want to pay $1000+ for a Apple laptop, if the only application they ever use is the web browser. It's notable that none of Apple's iOS devices cost more than that $999 mark that it sells it's cheapest laptop for.

So that's the state of Apple's disruption against traditional desktop operating systems, so what's next?

Both iPhone and iPad already support a larger number of games than the Mac, but what if this could be scaled up? Apple could produce an iOS capable device that plugs into your TV, this would provide the same app store type system to directly compete with Nintendo in casual games as well as providing a media centre for watching online video, music, podcasts etc. Also, I wouldn't rule out Apple making a full TV themselves buying the display panel from someone else as they do with the iMac.

Apple could also produce a version of the iPad in the laptop form factor with a rotatable screen. For this type of device there would be the demand for proper multi-tasking support, Intel CPU and CD/DVD drive support, though of course this support already exists in the underlying operating system, Apple just needs to enable an interface in iOS to make it work.

In a similar vein Apple could introduce a version of the iMac running iOS. At some point the iOS would have to stop depending on desktop PC for initial setup, syncing and upgrades as people would not have such as device in the future.

Posted via email from Richard Cunningham's posterous