Spotify: Android’s killer app – and bad news for iTunes?

Could be…

Have you seen the demo of Spotify on Android yet?

If not, check it out and listen really carefully. That sound you can hear in the distance is Steve Jobs swearing.

It looks like Android has found its killer app.

Bing is a terrible name for a search engine

Isn’t it? Yes.

This… is the same firm that decided to call its security suite Microsoft Wanker. Sure, it says OneCare when it’s written down, but go on. Read it aloud.

When readers won’t behave

This is brilliant: The Guardian hosts a reader Q&A with Neal’s Yard Remedies, an ethical beauty/homeopathic remedy company. The readers duly post questions and NY changes its mind about participating. [Via MetaFilter]

Linked below is a book [NY sells] on ‘Homoeopathy for Mother and Baby’. Given that homoeopathy has never been shown to have any effect distinguishable from placebo, do you regard it as ethical to profit from publications which seek to exploit the anxiety of new mothers to sell pseudo-medicines?

Does your part in the MMR scare make you feel guilty? Do you feel bad when you think of the children who have suffered measles and possibly even had brain damage or died because of the scare which you promote?

There is a melting face on my TV

Does anyone else find that, when they’re watching DVDs, they get a weird melting-face effect? It’s hard to describe – it’s as if when somebody’s face moves, their eyes go first and the rest of their face takes a second to catch up. It’s particularly noticeable in close-up, especially in scenes where the background is dark, and it turns absolutely everything into Jacob’s Ladder.

It’s really disconcerting and I’ve been getting it on different TVs, different DVD players and different discs/series. Anybody know what it is and better still, what causes it? Overzealous noise reduction? Weird DVD encoding? Something completely different?

Good god. It’s sexy Linux!

Moblin, the Intel-backed Linux for netbooks, looks pretty nifty. Which makes a change:

With most technology, looking into it is like shopping for a new and exciting car. We’ll happily spend days scanning brochures, reading reviews and coming up with increasingly imaginative and expensive configurations.

With Linux, though, it’s more like shopping for a new central heating boiler. You know it’s going to be worthwhile and you know it’s going to save you money, but it’s hard to summon up much enthusiasm. Oh look. It’s a boiler. Oh look. It’s another boiler. Oh look. It’s a slightly different boiler. Oh look. I’ve wasted my life.

The first rule of Write Club is: you don’t talk about Write Club

Well hello there. Sorry for the lack of non-work postings recently – I mentioned a while back that there was a reason for it, but I didn’t explain what it was. So here we go.

For the last five or six months I’ve been killing people.

I’ve killed so many people I’ve lost track of the total. I’ve pushed people off balconies, sabotaged cars and shot at people with a variety of weapons, and I’ve also attacked a bear with a helicopter.

Or to put it another way, I’ve been writing a novel.

Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those blog posts that finishes off by saying that the book is available from all good shops and you should rush out and buy it. It’s a long way from that, if it gets published at all. I’m just explaining why I’ve barely blogged or posted long drunken comments about sod-all. Because I’ve been doing the book in my spare time it’s taken over my life: when I haven’t been working I’ve either been writing, researching, editing, proofreading or thinking about what I’m going to write next. I’ve barely read, played video games or acted like a human being since Christmas.

Are you wondering what it’s about? It’s about 240 pages. Ho ho. It’s – I hope – a fast, funny thriller, and I think it would get on really well with books by Christopher Brookmyre, Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiassen and Robert Crais, or films such as Shaun of the Dead.

I didn’t mention it earlier for a number of reasons. First, I’ve tried to write a novel before. I’ve tried lots of times, and my hard disk is littered with drafts that, if I was lucky, ran out of steam at Chapter Four. I didn’t see the point in mentioning this one until I’d finished it (which I have. Six times. Some writers can sit down and bash out the finished article in a single draft. I’m not one of them, and I’ve benefitted greatly from other people’s input. More of that later, maybe).

Secondly, I know from bitter experience that if editors think you’re busy, they stop offering you work. If anything I’m working longer hours than ever to do the day job, but I didn’t want to take the risk that my wonderful employers might think I’m spending my time dicking about when I should be working.

Thirdly – and while this is weird, it’s true – I didn’t want to tempt fate. The working title is Live Forever, and when I was starting to believe I might just finish this one I became convinced that the universe would find it pretty funny if I died just before I finished it. “Yeah, he died before he could finish his book.” “What was it called?” “Live Forever! HA HA!” “HA HA!” That sort of thing.

So anyway, I’ve written this thing, I think it’s pretty good, and I’m going to postpone having a life outside work for a bit longer as I start the expensive, time-consuming and soul-destroying process of trying to get an agent and trying to find a publisher. I’ve thought about self-publishing, electronic publishing and things like that but the truth is I’m a writer, not a marketer, and that means I need the expertise of a proper publisher. Whether it comes to anything I don’t know, but fingers crossed, eh?

If you’re interested, I’ll blog from time to time about what I’ve learnt so far, what resources I’ve found particularly handy and what progress, if any, I make. And if you’re not, I won’t. And once the letters are written and the manuscripts sent out, I’ll start blogging about bugger-all again.

One thing I’d like to do just now is to say thanks, though: conversations on this blog (and with some of you by email or on Twitter) gave me the kick up the arse I needed to go from thinking about writing to actually writing. Since then I’ve also had invaluable help from Mupwangle, Squander Two and Paul, all three of whom have spent an awful lot of time wading through multiple drafts and spotting the huge cock-ups I’d made when I wrote scenes after a double brandy too many. Even if the book doesn’t come to anything I’ve really enjoyed doing it, and I’m really grateful for everyone’s help.

More things I’ve written: Cyborgs and Chrome

Will humans of the future have extra ears? Probably not, but cyborg technology is still fascinating.

Sadly the “bionic arms race” owes much to a very real arms race. In 2005, the US military announced a multi-million dollar investment in prosthetic technology after a surge in the number of US soldiers losing limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Improvements in body armour technology mean that attacks that just a few years ago would be fatal are now survivable – but the armour doesn’t protect limbs.

Inevitably the military isn’t just interested in rehabilitating injured soldiers. It’s rather keen on enhancing soldiers’ effectiveness in battle, too, which is why it’s testing exoskeletons.

And Google Chrome 2 is out of beta. Time for another car comparison.

Firefox is a gadget-stuffed MPV, Chrome is a stripped-down sports car and IE8 is a Honda Legend: it’s built well enough, but it’s hopelessly outgunned by smarter and more stylish rivals.

Google fail: it’s the new blue screen of death

It’s that man again. And by that man, I mean me.

We’re rushing into a world where everything depends on an internet connection, whether it’s your email, your online apps, your Xbox Live or your TV on demand.

Most of the time, that’s absolutely fine. Great, even. But it means that we’re more vulnerable to catastrophe and cock-ups than ever before.

Things I don’t understand: Schweppes’ UK ad campaign

There’s an amusing little advert in the papers today showing a line drawing of Parliament with the “Benefit Fraud: We’re Closing In” target superimposed on the image. It’s funny and clever, and it’s for… soft drinks. Eh?

According to the PR blurb:

‘Schweppes’ will push the boundaries with this challenging and fresh campaign by creating Hogarthian-style cartoons that reference current affairs and the news agenda, but with a strong satirical edge. The intricate print executions will be rolled out with a new creative every two weeks until the end of the year. The sheer volume of the cartoons is designed to create an ongoing dialogue with consumers, and bring to life ‘Schweppes” point of view on why experience matters in today’s society, via the witty and satirical cartoon imagery.

The campaign embodies the brand’s rich heritage in social commentary and intelligent, witty personality, whilst embracing the British appetite for this style of humour. Satire is part of popular culture today and ‘Schweppes’ reflects this quintessentially British trait.

Am I the only person who sees the ads and doesn’t immediately think of having a refreshing carbonated drink?

Are search engines bad for the Web? And: what’s the future of the internet anyway?

Two of my things have hit the internet. First up, an op/ed on Google’s ever-increasing usefulness:

There’s no doubt that search engines are getting smarter, which is generally a good thing. However, they’re guilty of something called Mission Creep: that is, they’re doing more and more work. In the good old days search engines were facilitators, dumb actors that didn’t actually know anything but knew where you could find what you needed.

Now, they’re attempting to be oracles. Instead of showing you where to find the answer, they want to tell you the answer; instead of taking you to the right destination, they want to *be* the destination. That’s an important difference, and it’s bad news for webmasters.

Then, a feature I did for PC Plus about where the UK internet is heading:

…it looks rather like our creaking transport system: overloaded, prone to jams at the most inconvenient of times and under constant surveillance. Only Britain could take the idea of an information superhighway and try to turn it into the M6.