Also: HP may sell off underperforming business units; sayonara, netbooks!
Trying to be the one true social graph is like trying to hold water in your first [HUNTER WALK/ELAPSED TIME]
I think Facebook has always understood that different services would want different graphs. Wasn’t that the whole idea behind Facebook Connect and their platform strategy? Sure, let a thousand flowers bloom but they’d all be within the Facebook garden. Facebook would own the identity system and the underlying data. Well, while Facebook Connect is still a powerful tool, it appears to be less important to developers now than, say, two years ago. Largely because of mobile, there are other identity systems tied to your OS, your application experiences. People seem more willing to create accounts or use something other than Facebook. One way to view Poke isn’t as an innovation failure, but rather the result of Connect not being the glue of the social web? It’s not a Connect Only world.
Hewlett-Packard says it may dispose of units not meeting targets [BLOOMBERG]
“We also continue to evaluate the potential disposition of assets and businesses that may no longer help us meet our objectives,” Hewlett-Packard said in a Dec. 27 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That language wasn’t included in the document a year earlier.
Sayonara, netbooks: Asus (and the rest) won’t make any more in 2013 [GUARDIAN]
Actually, the number sold in 2013 will be very much closer to zero than to 139m. The Taiwanese tech site Digitimes points out that Asus, which kicked off the modern netbook category with its Eee PC in 2007, has announced that it won’t make its Eee PC product after today, and that Acer doesn’t plan to make any more; which means that “the netbook market will officially end after the two vendors finish digesting their remaining inventories.”
Why I’m quitting Instagram [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
In my search for technology products and services that somehow enrich or add value to my life, Facebook and Instagram have been a net negative not only in their usefulness, but also in other, subtle ways most people don’t often consider.
The longer users keep any of their accounts alive – even if dormant – on the dozens or hundreds of sites, services and apps registered with over the years, the greater the chances are of that data’s being used in ways we may not approve. This isn’t anything new, but as privacy policies shift and companies change hands, data we may think of as being rather personal can become highly liquid.
Video: Developer delivers in-depth overview of OUYA gaming console [DROIDLIFE]
The first video of the “interface” is easily the most interesting that we have included below. The UI is on display, which even I’ll admit looks very nice. It desperately needs some polish, but the OUYA team has time to make that happen. As you’ll see through the 17-minute video, there are bits and pieces of Android that will look familiar, such as the WiFi screen and browser. One thing we’re confused about, is why they chose the phone UI of Android over the tablet UI. You’ll notice during his browser and YouTube test, that the device clearly thinks the device is a smartphone and not a tablet, something I hope they change.
How entrepreneurs can help to fix education [KERNEL MAG]
The growing pace of change and increasing complexity mean that education reform will no longer be merely about summits behind closed doors. In an era of transparency, leaders will find themselves constantly in dialogue with nimble start-ups that are quickly able to adapt and provide solutions to their immediate needs. Meanwhile, innovations which transform societies can and will happen anywhere. Leadership, in short, will be not just come from seasoned education ministers, but from groups of 20-somethings working through the night in Silicon Valley, in London’s Silicon Roundabout and in Bangalore to address shortcomings in education systems that they themselves know intimately about from recent experience.
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