Fred Brunel

Rest in Peace

Frederic Brunel — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:03:30 +0000

Thank you, Steve, for everything. We’ll miss you.

The Brief Life of Microsoft Kin

Frederic Brunel — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:11:33 +0000

Ken Segall:

Inexplicably, Microsoft thought Kin was a good idea. It wasn’t. In fact, it wasn’t even close, which is why it died faster than any product I can remember. For a company in this industry not to recognize the utter wrongness of Kin is even more unforgivable than creating it.

iFixit: Inside the iPhone 4 Gyroscope

Frederic Brunel — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:20:29 +0000

Impressive microscopic photos of the iPhone 4 gyroscope chip.

Google Acquires ITA Software

Frederic Brunel — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:13:24 +0000

ITA Software is famous among engineers for using Lisp and complex puzzles as part of their recruitment process. It will fit perfectly in Google’s culture.

And with the deal, Google put their hands on the service behind the reservations systems for many major airline companies.

Good call.

Jon Lech Johansen: Google’s Mismanagement of the Android Market

Frederic Brunel — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:28:54 +0000

You wanted the Far West? You got it: the good, the bad and the ugly, especially the last ones.

Where Old iPhones Go to Die

Frederic Brunel — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:26:38 +0000

I’ve underestimated the value of an “old iPhone.” An iPhone 3GS can still be sold for $300 to $400 on eBay, according to this article.

77% of iPhone 4 sales were upgrades. So, if I assume most people will resell their old iPhone to the second-hand market, it means an even bigger and stronger installed user base for the iOS platform.

This too, is totally underestimated.

The iPhone Is Not A “Smartphone”

Frederic Brunel — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:36:33 +0000

Kevin C. Tofel:

I started the conversation by asking: “How many of your parents use a smartphone?” Not a single student raised their hand [...] But then the light bulb went on and I asked: “How many of your parents have an iPhone?” Nearly two-thirds of the hands went up.

Brand recognition is where Apple excels at, but what strikes me the most is how poor most companies are in that regard.

Nokia, for example, has a complicated line of products with weird names and codes, an no one can remember of any single one — the N-Gage was a good start (for branding) but they didn’t build on that.

iOS 4 Adds Support for Gmail Archive

Frederic Brunel — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:28:12 +0000

When activated, it replaces “delete” with “archive”, so you don’t have to manually move mails to the “All Mail” folder.

It’s very welcome since I was waiting for this since the first version of Mail for iPhone. But I would have expected to have a choice to archive or delete, now I have to move mails to the “Trash” folder.

IBM’s Watson

Frederic Brunel — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:32:33 +0000

Watson is a “question-answering” computing system designed by IBM that can understand complex questions expressed in natural language, and compete against the world’s best Jeopardy! contestants.

Dr. David Ferrucci (Watson Research Lead) said that winning a game doesn’t mean the system is able to completely understand the language; still far from it.

But it’s very impressive nonetheless.

Loic Le Meur on Silicon Valley vs. Europe

Frederic Brunel — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:02:52 +0000

It’s an on-going debate and like Loic, I’d like to believe in entrepreneurship in Europe, but unfortunately to date, I agree with him on every single point: Silicon Valley just wins big time!

Loic mentioned importants points about the mindset in Silicon Valley — like thinking globally, trusting individuals and the dynamic job market —, but I think it’s more than just Silicon Valley, it’s the North American mindset and I also feel it in Montreal, Canada.

When I decided to move to North America, it was for entrepreneurship; and Montreal for its quality of life, accessibility and its central position on the map.

And I haven’t been disappointed so far, it’s the right mindset I was looking for, it just fits me.

If Europe want to start being a serious competitor to the US, it must change its mindset; but I very pessimistic about it, it’ll be very hard, if not impossible in the short-term.