Google now asks you to enter your credit card as part of the Gmail signup flow. Bold. http://t.co/YT53tdB7

—
Robert Cezar Matei (@rmatei) February 22, 2012

This is going to go over well.

Wow! I guess Apple has 100 million credit card accounts and Google wants some of their own?

What computer would you rather use? A MacBook running Windows 7, or, say, a Lenovo ThinkPad running Mac OS X 10.7?

For me, the answers are easy. It’s the software that matters most to me. I’d pick a Nokia Lumia running iOS 5 over an iPhone 4S running any other OS, and I’d pick the ThinkPad running Mac OS X over a Mac running Windows. No hesitation.

via Daring Fireball: Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs.

How important is software to me? Put it this way, I bought and app to calculate how much I spend on apps.

Seriously, it’s 2012, and Apple has rocketed past Exxon Mobil as the most valuable corporation on the planet. You don’t get to that level of success driven along by a handful of dedicated, froth-flecked fans, nor do you achieve what Apple’s achieved by having a “cult” of people who will buy what Apple sells no matter what. Think logically for just half a second: Apple sold 37 million iPhones in 3 months. 37 million. If that’s a cult, it’s one damned huge cult.

Source How to avoid sounding dumb when you write about Apple

The issue is complicated. It’s upsetting. We, the consumers, want our shiny electronics. We want them cheap, yet we want them built by well-paid, healthy workers. But apparently, we can’t have both.

via The Dilemma of Cheap Electronics – NYTimes.com.

it’s nice outside but I’ve got a meeting. #squaready (Taken with Instagram at Bristol-Myers Squibb)

digithoughts:

Soaring Smartphone Growth

As for Nokia:

No soup for you! Come back, one year. Next!

- The soup nazi

Based on numbers from Strategy Analytics

jtotheizzoe:

Pasta, Not Bacon, Makes You Fat. But How?

I could do without the “Carbs Are Killing You” title here, but this is a great infographic demonstrating the true culprit behind a great deal of fat accumulation: carbohydrate intake.

Our cells evolved to use the sugars from starch and carbohydrates far more efficiently than fats. And we also have an intricate signaling mechanism to convert excess carbs to fat quite easily. It’s part of our basic biology.

It’s not just any carbs (liquid carbs – soda – are worse than complex by far) and it doesn’t mean that eating a bunch of fat is safe (your heart can still be quite unhealthy even if you’ve got low body fat). But it does show us why to the idea that the extra-large Coke and fries is just as dietarily dangerous as the burger in your value meal.

I’m not advocating for low-carb diets, but people should know how their metabolism works!

(via Co.Design)

maniacalrage:

Apple redesigned the Airport Utility app for OS X. It now looks much like the recently released iOS app and gives you a prettier, more useful look at your network. They’ve streamlined the settings themselves too… this is a huge win UI/UX-wise.

Tim Worstall, a Forbes contributor, absolutely rips apart the anti-Apple tone of the recent stories about Chinese factory conditions.  This, alongside Tim Cook’s response and the letter to The New York Times from BSR President and CEO Aron Cramer refuting just about everything attributed to an anonymous “BSR consultant” in the most recent NYT story, certainly makes it seem even more like the laser-focus on Apple here was simply unwarranted. Worstall’s best line is his last one:

Boycotting Apple for better Foxconn wages and conditions is like having sex for virginity. Entirely counter-productive and exactly the wrong thing to be doing.

[via The Brooks Review]

It’s finally blooming.#squaready (Taken with Instagram at Grant Way)