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A biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is on display at a bookstore in New York, October 24, 2011.

Walter Isaacson’s much-anticipated biography on Apple cofounder Steve Jobs gives us an amazing look into the life of one of the greatest innovators of our time.

It is worth the read perhaps as much for its insight into Jobs (early in his adult life, he often walked barefoot, even to interviews and sales meetings) as it is for the history on some of the technology that has shaped our lives.

The tech giants and their founders that played a key role in Jobs’ rise to greatness ranged from Hewlett Packard to Atari to Microsoft.

It has been noted elsewhere that Jobs Read more…

Connecting America with broadband service means another fee tacked onto the phone bill.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing to create a “Connect America Fund” to extend high-speed Internet service over the next six years to 18 million Americans who don’t have access to it.

The plan will reform the Universal Service Fund, established years ago to help provide affordable phone service to consumers in rural or high cost areas and supported by a small monthly surcharge on landline and cellphone bills. A new fee will come from proposed changes to so-called inter-carrier compensation, or rates carriers pay each other to access their networks. Read more…

Verizon Wireless

The super-thin Motorola Droid Razr.

The Motorola Droid RAZR has a 4.3-inch touchscreen and access to a high-speed 4G network – two clear advantages over the record-breaking iPhone 4S. But those are advantages other devices already have over the iPhone.

Here are five more reasons to be excited about the latest Android-based gadget, which was unveiled today:

1. It’s a smartphone that’s RAZR thin at 7.1 mm (the iPhone 4S is 9.3 mm thick).

2. Even with that thin form factor, the RAZR will pack a high-capacity 1780 mAh battery. For any Droid owner, battery life is a serious issue. The Droid X2 comes standard with a 1540 mAh battery.

3. It includes “water repellent nanocoating,” which protects the phone and inside components against everyday spills. Read more…

Screen grab

MapQuest Vibe doesn't think too highly of Aurora, Co.

MapQuest Vibe is a new feature from the Denver-based online mapping service that gives users hyper-local information, such as the best Sushi restaurant in Cherry Creek rather than just the best restaurant in Denver.

The site assigns cities, and neighborhoods within cities, a “Vibe Score,” which is based on a secret sauce “VibeRank” algorithm that includes factors such as historical searches on MapQuest. It also ranks restaurants, stores and activities within a city or neighborhood.

It gives downtown Denver a perfect 10, while Cheesman Park is near the bottom with 1.8. Aurora garnered a default score of just Read more…

MapQuest

MapQuest will roll out a new product Thursday.

Denver-based MapQuest will roll out a new product Thursday called MQ Vibe, which the company says will “pivot and repackage the local space.”

I’m guessing that means the company believes the new service will have a big impact.

Fusible noted last month that AOL, MapQuest’s parent company, purchased a social networking site called NVIBE.

Visit NVIBE.com and you’ll be redirected to a MapQuest page, with this message: “Something cool is coming to your neighborhood.”

MapQuest moved Read more…

Denver Post

Apple said iPhone 4S pre-orders topped 1 million in one day.

Despite a rotten reception at its unveiling, the new iPhone has set another sales record for Apple.

The company said this morning that it received more than 1 million pre-orders for the iPhone 4S within 24 hours, surpassing the previous mark of 600,000 set by the iPhone 4. Apple started taking pre-orders for the iPhone 4S on Friday, and the new device will hit stores this coming Friday.

Every new version of the revolutionary iPhone has set a sales record, dating back to the iPhone 3G, of which 6.9 million units were sold during the first quarter of its release, compared with 6.1 million for its predecessor over five quarters.

The iPhone 4 is the most popular Read more…

Yesterday, the world lost an innovator, an inspiration, an icon.

Here’s a small collection of links to recent articles, blog posts and photos that I found noteworthy, starting with a creative take on Apple’s logo. (Please see update at the end of this blog post for credit info on the logo).


Darren Rovell on WhoSay

Time Magazine’s photo essay of Steve Jobs covers.
Read more…

The Verge

Specs of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4.

Sixteen months of pent-up demand, and Apple gives us this?

The star of today’s new iPhone announcement was Siri, a speech-recognition feature that turns the device into a personal assistant.

But with so much hype leading up to the event, and with it being new CEO Tim Cook’s first product launch, Apple needed to something special. It didn’t deliver.

The iPhone 4S has the same form factor as its predecessor. It’s not thinner. Not only that, it’s heavier. And it doesn’t feature a 4-inch touchscreen that’s found on the more popular Android smartphones. Read more…