Tribute to Ferdinand Alexander Porsche

When someone thinks of fast cars and iconic designs, it's impossible not to think Porsche 911. German engineering with a twist, an unmistakable shape, and blistering performance.
The guy who designed this car was the grandson of none other than Ferdinand Porsche himself, who started the company and is famous for his tank designs and the Volkswagen Beetle. The 911 was meant to be the new flagship model for the company and boy did it become so. Arguably the most successful sports car ever, with many iterations but maintaining the original design. Introduced in 1963, to this day it is impossible to mistake it's shape with any other cars (save other Porsches which borrow a little from it), and it would be rare to find a high performance touring race without one of these rolling around.

So I wanna leave my respects to Ferdinand Alexander Porsche for designing one of the icons of the 20th century. He passed away thursday and we should all know who he was.

(photos include a Porsche 904, which was also designed by him)

Lack of posts

I have been diagnosed with clinical lazyness and that's why I haven't been submitting any posts as of lately.

The case is being handled by Doctor Nick. I hope this medication he prescribed me helps.

I'll be back soon with more interesting stuff. Unless these pills don't work.

iPad 3... too hot, too cold? Revolutionary, dull?

Reports are coming in that the new Apple tablet, the iPad 3, is getting too hot for comfort, literally. It can run 7º C hotter than its predecessor, the iPad 2, and is causing concerns among experts.

The simple fact is that the iPad 3 packs quite some punch compared to the previous one, thanks to a new faster quad-core processor and graphic unit, as well as a bigger capacity battery and a much more higher resolution display, dubbed the "retina display", boasting 'as much resolution as a human eye is capable of seeing', a claim contested by some.
All of this packed in about the same case, albeit a tiny bit thicker, means the device can run a little hotter, which concerns some people who claim it could cause "toasted skin syndrome", a skin condition normally attributed to using a hot laptop on one's legs, leading to lesions, and to low sperm counts on males.

Toasty...

This is only minor news though compared to the disappointment Apple fans felt when it was introduced. The device looked exactly like the iPad 2, and nothing like the edge-to-edge, 3D, revolutionary display everyone was expecting. Quite the contrary, many have dubbed this 3rd generation 'the least innovative of the iPads'.
Others on the other hand are declaring the iPad 3 is the "PC Killer". This is, that it's going to be the first device that will mark the beginning of the end for big, bulky personal desktop (and maybe even laptop) computers.
I don't see that happening but people are free to speculate. In the mean time, I will be using my very good Samsung Laptop which doesn't burn my crotch.

Artist concept of what the community expected the iPad 3 to look like...

How to access iPhone location data

After last post where I mentioned iPhones and Androids stored some location information, some people asked me how could they check theirs.
The truth is I don't have a smartphone, neither do I plan to get one since my old trusted Sony Ericsson keeps working perfectly after 4 years. The other truth is I know exactly who can help you.

MyPhoneTracker in action

This easy to use software is located at the very excellent source for Apple news, applications and other goodies, Mac-and-I .  As well as MyPhoneTracker you will find all kinds of tips and tricks, recommended programs for your Mac, games, etc.. Check it out and leave him a thanks for his work on this free and open source app!

The struggle to keep online privacy

As social networks and smartphones advance, it seems that privacy recedes into an ever shrinking pocket of the online experience. While ten years ago it was hard to find out someone's email address and with that perhaps his username at a certain forum, today a dedicated stalker can get all kinds of information about someone with very little effort.

Google is in the headlines because as of past thursday their new privacy policies kicked in, which in a nut shell claim to be aimed at offering a better experience to the user by suggesting relevant ads and interesting videos, for example, based in their searches, visited websites, etc. While one could see the advantage of this, many question what would happen if this sort of information fell in the wrong hands. Others ask why is there no way to opt-out of this tracking, which is active whenever someone's logged into any of the many services Google offers, including Gmail, YouTube and Google+. The reality is that this sort of data has always been collected and used to show advertisements (how else would a company who spends millions in infrastructure and offers mostly free services to the public make money?), and the only change is that instead of having around 60 privacy policies for each of their services, they have a unified one to better understand their target audiences and market their ads better. If you're concerned about what's being gathered, click on this link and find out, by accessing the Google dashboard.

Tracking data from an iPhone

Apple is also on the radar since there seem to be some apps that can access users' photos with the excuse of looking at "location information" in these files. With smartphones not only storing important information about contacts but also about GPS generated locations, this could be a little more dangerous than simple advertising. A deceivingly harmless looking application could be transmitting user location data to someone or something, and that's worrying. Of course the only thing Apple can do is ask app developers to add a privacy policy of sorts so users have to agree to it before using the software, but that doesn't quite work since almost nobody takes the time to read them.

Whatever these two giants will do to counter the accusations, only one thing is clear: as our lives get more and more digital, our privacy disappears slowly but steadily.