WSJ reported about Apple being sued for false advertising of iPhone storage capacity.

Mann said an iPhone 6 Plus with 16 gigabytes of storage can hold only 12.7 gigabytes of photos, songs, apps and other user data. That is 21% less than the advertised 16 gigabytes of storage. For the 16GB iPhone 6, the available storage is 13 gigabytes, according to the filing.

Anyone remember Microsoft’s Surface Pro?

A company spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge that the 64GB edition of Surface Pro will have 23GB of free storage out of the box. The 128GB model will have 83GB of free storage.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt wrote for Fortune on the United States Department of Justice’s e-book antitrust case against Apple.

Roger Parloff on the hearing:

“Judges Jacobs and Lohier seemed quite concerned that Judge Cote had used the wrong standard, but Jacobs’s qualms clearly went much further—seeming to question the government’s judgment in ever having brought the case. His problem was that Apple was a new entrant that was bringing competition to a market that had been, until then, dominated by a “monopolist,” Amazon. Judge Jacobs also repeatedly referred to Amazon’s $9.99 pricing policy, whereby it sold books at below the wholesale acquisition cost, as “predatory pricing,” and seemed to suggest that Amazon was obviously using it as a means of maintaining its monopoly dominance.”

In fact, the judges seem to think the wrong company prosecuted:

At times Judge Jacobs came close to suggesting that the government had prosecuted the wrong company. At the very least, he said, a horizontal initiative “used to break the hold of a monopolist” ought not be found to be illegal per se. He likened any collusive conduct on the publishers’ part to “mice getting together to go put a bell on the cat.”

Perhaps the DOJ should consider a case against a company that its power to influence the ebook industry.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/24/7446097/samsung-experience-store-westfield-closure

Along with a centrally located Oxford Street shop, this was Samsung’s biggest — and thus most expensive and ostentatious — exhibition space in London. Samsung made a big point of promoting its Experience Stores, making them the destination to get the very first Galaxy S4 and, later, S5 units sold in the UK, but excitement and sales have apparently petered out after a strong start.

Drop in profits seem to be hitting Samsung hard.

Graeme Reynolds wrote about how Amazon went to war against punctuation.

Apparently Amazon had received a complaint from a reader about the fact that some of the words in the book were hyphenated. And when they ran an automated spell check against the manuscript they found that over 100 words in the 90,000 word novel contained that dreaded little line. This, apparently “significantly impacts the readability of your book” and, as a result “We have suppressed the book because of the combined impact to customers.”

Graeme responded to Amazon explaining how hyphenated words were perfectly acceptable in English.

This was Amazon’s reply:

Hello Graeme,

Thanks for contacting us and giving me the opportunity to help you. I will be more than glad to assist you with your inquiry.

As quality issues with your book negatively affect the reading experience, we have removed your title from sale until these issues are corrected. Books with serious errors that are not corrected after 60 days will have their product detail pages removed from the website. Your book will still appear in your Bookshelf, and you can update it and resubmit it at any time.

Once you correct hyphenated words, please republish your book and make it available for sale.

This incident is another reminder of the power Amazon has over authors and book publishers. They seem to have no qualms about pulling the plug at their whim over such a minor issue, and end up screwing up the livelihood of authors.

I previously used Air Display to create a secondary display for my Mac, which is useful when I’m on the road. The only issue I had with it was the fact that they needed to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network and the lag associated with streaming the display over Wi-Fi. This new app called Duet uses the 30-pin/Lightning connector to link your iPad to your Mac, giving you a much smoother experience.

I still feel that the mouse cursor lags slightly, but it’s way more responsive than Air Display and well worth the $10. Seriously, it’s the cost of a fancy Starbucks beverage.

After getting past the price, setting up Duet was painless. I was up and running in five minutes after first downloading the app from the iOS App Store and then installing the free companion app on my MacBook Air (and rebooting). Duet found the iPad just as soon as I connected the USB cable. The company claims it can deliver a retina display at 60 frames per second with no lag.

via The Verge

Jennifer Saba wrote on Reuters about Jeff Bezos defending Amazon’s lack of profits and the company’s stance on publishers.

His comments come a day after Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its outlook on Amazon to “negative,” citing the company’s upcoming debt offering and the “lack of visibility” about how the funds would be deployed.

Investors have grown increasingly unhappy about Amazon’s spending and lack of disclosure about future plans. Its shares have fallen more than 18 percent this year, despite a 14 percent rise in the Nasdaq.

You would expect a big company like Amazon to be accountable to investors.

Bezos, relaxed in jeans and a gray jacket, defended Amazon’s culture as one willing to spend on new projects, even if they flop like its poor-selling Fire phone.

“We are a large company, but we are also still a start-up. There is a lot of volatility in start-ups,” Bezos said at a conference organized by the Business Insider blog in New York.

I think I have talked enough about the Fire Phone. The investors are probably glad to know that they are investing in a start-up.

Publishers are in better shape because of e-books, which became popular after Amazon launched the Kindle e-reader in 2007, he said, adding that books are still too expensive.

“It’s difficult for incumbents who have a sweet thing to embrace change,” Bezos said. “Making reading more affordable is not going to make authors less money. … It’s going to make authors more money.”

How is commoditisation of creative work a good thing for writers? Bezos shows a lack of appreciation for writing with his statement.

Ursula Le Guin puts it aptly:

I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. … The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.