150-WORD BOOK REVIEW: Jony Ive by Leander Kahney

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It’s interesting that the title of this book ignores Sir Ives’ knighthood, but why mention that when this hagiographic book tells of a saint? This particular designing saint who served under God Jobs and who helped us to revere Apple products.

While I enjoyed this well-written book, at times it was stodgy and like reading Apple promotional literature. Moreover, there are no direct interviews with Sir Ives and there is even a page at the end of the book called ‘Secrecy and Sources’ that sums up how much of this book comes from Third Party sources.

What is clear, however, from this book is that Sir Ives is not only an industrial design genius, he is also an egotist, strategist and was an expert player in the court of God Jobs. In a year that has seen the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli’s The Prince, Sir Ives’ continuing hold on power at Apple means a follow-up book will be even more interesting. Something has to go wrong for this man…

REVIEW: 7/10

LOVEFILM needs to open its ears to subtitles for the deaf

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A 10,000-strong change.org petition, backed by the UK’s largest deaf charity and TV stars and writers, is calling on LOVEFiLM to provide subtitles for viewers with hearing loss.

Currently, deaf customers of LOVEFiLM are not aware if will receive the latest movies or hit shows with subtitles until they arrive, something that can be extremely frustrating especially during Christmas.

According to Ofcom, 67% of people with hearing loss say that TV is important to them, rising to 74% of people who are severely deaf. People with hearing loss watch TV for an average of 4.3 hours a day, compared with average viewing across the UK of 3.46 hours a day.

The change.org petition is urging the distributor to offer subtitles for their On-Demand and postal service, and information on subtitle availability on films and boxsets before payment.

Stephanie McDermid, who is deaf, said: I wish they would make it clear at the outset whether content is subtitled or not. They should, like Netflix consider the 10 million people in the UK with hearing loss. Despite numerous correspondence flagging this issue, LOVEFiLM refuses to engage and I am urging people to sign the petition, which will hopefully force a response.’

150-WORD BOOK REVIEW: Designing The Internet Of Things

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When I agreed to review this book by Adrian McEwen and Hakim Cassimally, I thought I would be reading an everyman book about how our world is being changed by the collision between physical computing and the internet.

I was wrong, this book is for software engineers, web developers, product designers and electronic engineers; I couldn’t understand a word of it… and I CAN code. This book covers subjects such as embedded programming, microcontrollers, web APIs and electronics and if this is you, then I’m sure you’ll revere it.

According to friends of mine who work in the disciplines above, this is an excellent introduction to read through the principles of prototyping through to manufacture and business considerations. So, I’ll take their world for it that this is an excellent book.

REVIEW: 7.5/10 (VIA OSMOSIS)

Free WiFi is the peephole into stealing your content

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The more we travel and the more we need the internet, the more the desire to access WiFi at any public output. But this craving for connection may be the undoing of keeping personal data safe .

According to a survey by cloud-based social WiFi company Purple WiFi, 82% of 3,349 global WiFi venues believe they are legally compliant, but were actually in breach of legislation. More than 2,000 venues also confirmed that they were running completely open networks or handing, indicating the venue has no way of tracking internet access back to the user. This leaves the network open to criminal or terrorist use and such venues would be culpable. Continue reading →