On this special Thursday edition of In the news, let's start by turning back the clock. The iPhone and iPad may be the cool tech items du jour, but when I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, Atari was all the buzz. I cannot even imagine how many hours my brother and I spent playing Pong and then the Atari 2600 hooked up to our TV. The Atari of today bears little resemblance to the original Atari, but there is enough of a connection to celebrate 40 years of Atari this week. Harry McCracken of Time has a great interview with Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari (and one of the first people to hire Steve Jobs). And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:
- Boston attorney Martha Sperry of Advocate's Studio took the time to answer "what's on your iPad" for Patrick Jordan of iPad Insight.
- Oakland, CA attorney Jeffrey Allen talks about iPad apps in the June MacNotes column for the ABA's GPSolo eReport.
- Attorney Edward Tan of FindLaw discusses the Court Days Pro app.
- Tan also discusses the JuryTracker app.
- John Barkett of Law Technology News discusses the ABA's efforts to revise the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to update references to technology. For example, a proposed amendment to Modle Rule 1.1 would require lawyers to keep abredst of "the benefits and risks associated with technology." I'm already trying to comply with this proposed rule.
- South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer opines that SpiderOak is better for lawyers than Dropbox. His arguments are logical, but I love that Dropbox support is so widespread in iPhone and iPad apps.
- Glenn Fleishman, who knows more about Apple Wi-Fi technology than almost anyone else on the planet, reviews the new version of Apple's AirPort Express in this article for Macworld. In my home, I have an AirPort Extreme and two AirPort Express devices strategically located to ensure Wi-Fi throughout my house.
- Nick Wingfield of the New York Times writes about the Surface, a tablet recently previewed by Microsoft. But of course, one cannot talk about any other tablet without talking about the iPad, and this article contains interesting tidbits such as the time that Apple bought a large quantity of high-quality aluminum from an Australian mine to corner the world market and ensure sufficient supplies for the iPad.
- Hone is an interesting idea and a Kickstarter project. For $49, you get a fob for your keychain that uses low power Bluetooth 4.0 that works on a battery for up to six months. When you lose your keys, an app on your iPhone can make the keys beep and point an arrow in the direction of your keys to help you locate them using a proximity sensor.
- The iEconomy series in the New York Times has included some unfavorable articles about Apple. I think that parts of these articles are sometimes unfair, but they are still good reads. For example, a few day ago David Segal wrote this cover story about how employees at Apple Stores work long hours for little pay. I think his premise is a little silly. Does anyone think that working at an electronics store in a mall is going to be a high-paying job? And yet the demand to get a job at an Apple Store is still incredibly high because of the perks of the job including working with cool technology, great benefits, and the fact that it looks much better on a 20-year-old's resume than flipping burgers.
- And finally, the smart guys at Tovbot have created a iPhone (and Android) external speaker that is also a robot. They called their creation Shimi, and the robot dances along to your music, alerts you when you get a Facebook post or a new Twitter follower, and can recommend songs to play based on hand gestures. And the Shimi will be open to third party development as well, so I'm sure that before long somebody will combine Siri and Shimi (Shirmi?) to turn it into a robot that can talk to you and dance with you This item is expected to launch in early 2013, and it looks like a lot of fun, as you can see in these two videos. And if you like Star Wars, check out this one too.
