Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

Supreme Court: "first sale" does apply to works manufactured overseas — this is a hugely important (and positive) copyright ruling.

This line in particular sums up why I have preferred +Android over iPhone ever since I first picked up an +Motorola Mobility OG Droid in November 2009:
  
The iPhone is still my go-to recommendation for people who want as few surprises as possible and the easiest phone to use and maintain. An iPhone is a delight fresh out of the box and for the life of the device. An Android phone is a delight starting around…week two, after you’ve made a bunch of minor adjustments that change it from “Good for the majority of users” to “great for you, personally.”

That lack of surprises on the iPhone means that what you start with is what you'll have at the end of the phone's life and if certain things don't suit your tastes or needs, well that's just too bad. You need to learn to live within Apple's constraints. I prefer having the option to optimizes my devices to a market size of one. (props to +Ford Motor Company senior technical leader Venkatesh Prasad for that last line)

http://www.techhive.com/article/2030116/customize-and-collaborate-why-i-switched-from-iphone-to-android-part-2.html

http://www.techhive.com/article/2030168/pros-and-cons-why-i-switched-from-iphone-to-android-part-3.html

First and foremost, Twitter is not an open web standard, it's a service from a private company that once offered a relatively open API but now does not. Depending on a single company's largess when it comes to creating an open and viable third-party app ecosystem is a fool's game.

While it's fascinating to consider this story in the context of the period following the Cuban missile crisis, it's even more important today. Considering the right-wing leanings of so many in the military, and the vehement opposition to the current president by so many Americans, a similar plot today is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.

We must remain just as vigilant of our "friends" as we are of our enemies. 

The late president has become an icon to the far-right in the years since leaving office, but much of what they claim to love about him is total bullshit.

Apps like +Flipboard and +Currents present content in a very pretty format, but to varying degrees, they are designed to present curated content, particularly Flipboard. I like to use sources like Google+, Twitter and sometimes even FB to to discover stuff that I might not otherwise see. 

However, I also like to fave rapid, unfiltered access to large quantities of material so that I can find and curate myself and a straight-up RSS reader is by far the best way to do that. Admittedly not everyone wants to do that, but for those of us that do, we should have the option. If Google is going to take away that option, hopefully others will step up and provide a similarly clean interface to RSS.

Reshared post from +Mike Elgan

Why they want to take control away from you.

The Internet freaked out this week after Google announced the closure of its cloud-based RSS reader, Google Reader.

What Google Reader and RSS fans fear is not the loss of a good service and a great format. They fear the loss of control. They fear a future in which decisions about what they see, watch, read and listen to are determined by secret algorithms and the whims of the social media masses.

It's not an unreasonable fear: The taking away of control from the user is the way the whole industry is going. 

Here's why: 

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237636/More_innovation_means_less_control._Is_that_bad_