My audio-tweet was from Srini Kumar, developer of TinyVox. He wanted to know what I thought of the app's "voicemail on Twitter" approach and its retro cassette tape aesthetic. I said I'd be happy to check it out on the condition that we conduct our interview asynchronously, back and forth over TinyVox. So we did, and I learned more about communication than any social app has taught me in a while.

Srini:

@jonmwords cool path article - stealing the News Feed? taped with audio app TINYVOX

The metaphors are all over the place with this app. Srini called it, at various times, "voicemail on Twitter," a "mix tape," an "audio brainstorm" that can be a "throwaway" just for getting ideas out, and "podcasting for everyone." It was hard to decide how to use it. I figured concision was a good rule of thumb, so I just shot off a brief question about the medium itself.

Jon:

Question 1: About whether or not this is a new kind of medium taped with audio app TINYVOX

Srini came back with a huge response, full of passion and color and drama... and it was really, really long. But it was clear that he intends the app to be all of those things and more. Whatever we can do with our voice, Srini wants TinyVox to help us do more.

Srini:

The Tyler Durden effect ? taped with audio app TINYVOX

I loved what he had to say about the honesty and unsettling newness of communicating this way, aloud, spontaneously, without constraints. But exchanges of 10-minute messages didn't seem sustainable to me. This began to seem like a problem with the way the app works. Tweets are constrained to 140 characters, and that's why the medium works. These "audio-tweets" break that wide open.

So I asked Srini whether he agreed:

Jon:

Question 2: On the tendency (temptation?) to go long in this medium. taped with audio app TINYVOX

Honestly, I sort of expected him to take a hint and rein it in for the next answer, but he didn't. He came back with another six minutes of rhapsody, pushing me on the cultural norms that made me want short, tight answers. It's hard to concentrate and really listen to someone, even when they're sitting right in front of you. Would we be better to each other if we worked on that?

Srini:

we're spanning time taped with audio app TINYVOX

So I did. I practiced the art of paying attention, and I listened to every word. I found myself sympathizing with his whole message much more deeply than I do on Twitter. A Twitter person is just a picture, a handle and a burst of text. But committing to listening to a six-minute tape of someone's voice makes you follow his train of thought wherever it goes. I learned much more about where his head was at than I do about people in a comment thread.

For my last question, I let myself open up the same way. I asked him about the nostalgia and sentimentality of TinyVox itself and where the app is going:

Jon:

Question 3: about how the TinyVox recipient gets to keep the sentimental metaphor of the mixtape. taped with audio app TINYVOX

Srini's answer was vast again, but it was really exciting to hear from a developer with so much love for the interaction he's designing. Rather than summarizing where TinyVox is going, I'll leave you with Srini's audio answer. TinyVox is available for iOS and Android, and I'd be interested to hear how you find ways to use it. Share them in the comments here.

Srini:

the mixtape in the cloud taped with audio app TINYVOX

Note: the timestamps are off for the recordings in this exchange because I didn't realize that TinyVox is better about privacy than I initially thought. It doesn't post clips to the Web unless you explicitly tell it to, so I had to ask Srini to re-upload them after we were done.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.

Now is the Time to Quit Facebook

Did you know there is a movement supporting those who have chosen to quit Facebook? Alicia Eler found that the movement is a great place to discover the stories of those who have left the social behemoth, and maybe buy a t-shirt to celebrate your Facebook abstinence as well.

More Must Read Stories:

Is the Digital Music Revolution Really Ruining Sound Quality?

It seems like every advance in digital music brings with it a debate about whether the latest format degrades quality in exchange for convenience. This was true when CDs first came onto the scene, and it's probably even more true today with MP3s and their digital audio brethren. Heck, even the advent of the gramophone in 1889 sparked debates over whether its sound quality was worse than Thomas Edison's phonograph. (more)

Microsoft Defines the New Mobile Business Experience on iPad

In 1984 and for a few years thereafter, Microsoft got its hands dirty in graphical computing by producing a few surprisingly mediocre applications for Macintosh, starting with a port of its otherwise decent spreadsheet called Multiplan. By the time Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, many of us felt the company would never again premiere a software concept on a machine bearing an Apple logo. (more)

The Most Social Super Bowl Breaks Records, Offers Advertisers Lessons

Twitter did not crash and the Super Bowl became the most tweeted sporting event in history, averaging more than 10,000 tweets per second.

That wasn't all that surprising: continued growth of the social network, not to mention tablet and smartphone technology that make it easier to tweet while watching television, means that record will probably be broken several times between now and next year's Super Bowl. (more)

Google Begins Building 1-Gigabit Internet Service in Kansas City

Google breaks ground today on the super-fast fiber optic network it plans to build for the lucky residents of Kansas City, Kan. They'll get a 1 gigabit-per-second Internet connection, which will offer downloads 100 times faster than what most Americans get. Uploads will be a thousand times faster than average. (more)

Since 2009, Mobile Internet Usage Has Doubled Every Year

The growth of the mobile Web is on a steady rise. While pundits throw around words like "explosive" and "outrageous" the more precise word is probably "consistent." According to analytics firm StatCounter, users accessing the Web through mobile devices has almost doubled every year since 2009. In its latest report, StatCounter says that global Internet usage through mobile devices rose to 8.5%, nearly doubling the 2011 figure of 4.3%. (more)

The Online Ad Fails at the Super Bowl

While most of us know the results of yesterday's Big Game, the results of the online ad campaigns from the dozens of companies spending multiple millions are less clear. Fortunately, monitoring firm Yottaa is here to lead the way and let us know who scored and who missed serving up online content to complement their TV spots. (more)

Believe It Or Not, There's An Upside To Diminished Online Privacy

Sunday's New York Times was a Luddite's dream. Tthe paper's Sunday Review section had three lengthy opinion pieces dedicated to "Life Under Digital Dominance" (their words, not mine), including Evgeny Morozov's lengthy treatise that social media will kill originality because we're all too afraid to publicly "like" something on Facebook that our friends don't like, a plea to adopt European-style rules to keep data private and a particularly threatening piece by Lori Andrews promising sudden cuts in our personal credit lines and troubles obtaining insurance because Facebook is using us. (more)

Twitter Could Go Public In 2013, But Why Bother?

If last week's highly-anticipated Facebook IPO was too much excitement, not to mention too many numbers packed into a dense, 197-page S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, breathe easy: it does not appear as if Twitter has any short-term plans to follow suit and become the last of the big three social networks to trade as a public company. (more)

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Last week, rock veteran Neil Young chimed in with his assertion that the digital music files we listen to today are of much lower quality than the original recordings. Speaking at the D: Dive Into Media conference, he said that the technology now exists to deliver much higher-quality audio to music fans, and that he had even talked to Steve Jobs about a possible solution.

How Serious is the Problem? ... And How to Fix It?

Exactly how bad is this problem? By Young's estimation, what we hear in most files today is "only 5% of the data of the original recording". That may be a slight exaggeration, depending on how the files are encoded. Certainly, lower bit rate files (such as 128kbps MP3s) have a noticeably degraded quality to them, compared to a CD. But most sources have graduated to higher quality files now that broadband speeds allow for it. A standard track on iTunes is a 256kbps AAC file and premium Spotify subscribers can listen to many songs at 320kbps, which is about 22% of a CD track's bit rate.

When it comes to streaming audio on mobile devices, the quality buck pretty much stops at whatever the data connection can handle. On 3G networks, streaming CD-quality audio just isn't feasible. Over a good WiFi connection, things look a little more promising, but there are still limitations if the user experience is to be preserved.

Young: We Need an iPod For Audiophiles

So what does Young propose as a solution? From the sound of it, he'd like to see a sort of mega-iPod with more disk space and internal guts optimized to playback massive files. Such a device wouldn't be designed to include one's entire library, but rather only a selection of audiophile-quality albums. Presumably, it would tend to be used with superior quality earphones or speakers, which is another important factor in the quality of what we hear.

Even if a device akin to what Young describes were produced and sold, how big of a market would there be for it? The quality of the audio found on sources like iTunes, Spotify, MOG, Amazon and Google Music is apparently good enough to convince millions of people to pay for access to it. At the end of the day, most of the content on the pay music services is certainly good enough. Musicians and audiophiles can pick up on the degradations in quality, but for the average listener, it's pretty subtle. The device that Young describes would have to be marketed toward the audiophiles for whom 320kbps simply won't cut it.

Last week wasn't the first time Young has criticized the state of digital music. Some may dismiss his stance as nothing more than a grumpy, old-school perspective, as though he's just an old guy that doesn't get the new-fangled ways of the Web and digital media. This isn't the case. Young may be a veteran of the music industry, but he's well aware of what's changed about it and why. During the same interview in which he slammed MP3's, he said that "piracy is the new radio" and encouraged new artists to forgo record labels in favor of doing it themselves.

There's Nothing Wrong With Analog

As Young pointed out, Steve Jobs may have been a digital music pioneer, but "when he went home, he listened to vinyl." This is true not only of the generation that grew up on LPs, but also of a growing number of younger music fans today. Vinyl sales have been surging for the last few years, with 2011 seeing a 39% increase in sales over the previous year. Digital music sales grew last year too, but by considerably less.

For music fans with the deepest concern for audio quality, it seems analog is increasingly the way to go. That's okay. We can have our digital revolution in music and still fall back on analog formats. Just like with books, the value offered by digital music is primarily about volume, convenience and ease of production and distribution. And just like sitting down with a good, paper-bound book, putting on a vinyl record is more about quality and the overall experience.

Digital and Analog Can Coexist Peacefully

Digital and analog don't need to be at war with one another. What many labels and artists are doing now is sell records on vinyl and include a coupon for a free, high-quality digital download in the record's sleeve. That allows people to enjoy the album as it was intended and also throw it onto their iPod or smartphone for listening on the go.

It's also possible to go the high-quality route in a digital-only format. When The Beatles' catalogue was remastered and reissued in 2009, the material was released on CD and, for the first time, via iTunes. For diehard fans who wanted more than what iTunes could offer, they also sold an apple-shaped (no, not that Apple) thumb drive containing every album in superior quality, lossless FLAC format, as well as as 320kbps MP3s.

However things may evolve, it's evident that digital music has brought us great value, but it's done so at a cost, namely quality. This may not be perceived as a problem by every consumer, but for those who take the craft of creating and recording music most seriously, it's one well worth solving. Whether it's solved through a hybrid of analog and digital music consumption or through some new, high-capacity device for playing back lossless digital audio, the challenge isn't an insurmountable one.

Vinyl sales chart courtesy of Digital Music News.

Editor's note: this is a longer version of ReadWriteWeb Editor-in-chief Richard MacManus' article for the SAY Media newsletter. The newsletter is delivered weekly and features SAY Media's take on media, culture, venn diagrams and the occasional Kubrick homage. You can sign up for it here.

Over half of all devices at this year's CES, the world's largest consumer electronics trade show, were Internet connected. Nearly 60% of those were non-traditional computing devices such as TVs, cars, refrigerators and washing machines. Connected devices are proliferating throughout our homes and the world around us. Which means consumers are about to become a whole lot more connected to the world.

Reaching Consumers in Their Connected Cars

At this year's CES, car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Audi were touting new media and communications features. Commonly referred to as a connected car, the prevailing trend is to integrate smartphone apps into the car's dashboard. This enables drivers and passengers to listen to online music, access news and other content, stream video and more.

To give you an indication of how pervasive the trend of connected cars is becoming, look at the evolution of Ford.

The American firm first introduced Internet technology inside its cars with Sync, launched in 2007. Sync is voice-activated technology which connects your smartphone and MP3 player to your car's dashboard and steering wheel. There are currently 4 million Ford cars in North America that have Sync running. The latest evolution of Sync is called MyFord Touch, an in-car communications and entertainment system which makes it even easier for drivers to consume Internet content.

In short, the connected car is going mainstream. In Ford's newest hybrid car, the 2013 Fusion, one of the main features is its connection to the Internet.

Connected cars are set to ramp up rapidly in the coming years. The GSMA predicts that the automotive sector will account for 1.4 billion (nearly 6%) of the world's 24 billion connected devices by 2020. If you're a marketer or publisher, that's a platform you'll want to be on!

Internet TVs & Personalized Media

For the consumer, it's all about personalizing one's media experience. The TV is another device where this trend is playing out.

While popular TV network shows such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad will continue to reach a large swath of people, Internet TV opens up opportunities for new types of video content to emerge and become popular too. Formats will evolve. We'll see TV stars and brands creating their own YouTube channels and releasing short bursts of content to the Web. But also, we'll see web applications arise that mix TV content with Internet programming. This is fertile ground for publishers to innovate and for marketers to latch onto to reach niche audiences.

The rise of Internet TV was evidenced at this year's CES by Samsung's announcements.

Samsung is the world's No. 1 TV brand and it launched significant upgrades to its Smart TV product line. Samsung's 2012 model TVs will enable users to consume a mix of traditional TV programming and Web apps. The devices are ready, now it's time for new types of content and apps to bloom.

The next big thing in computing isn't a new model smartphone or laptop. It's the Internet empowering everything else around us. Our cars, TVs and many other devices. Which means we all need to think about engaging digital Internet experiences for the car, TV and every device imaginable - because that's where audiences are heading.

By far the biggest chunk of revenue came from the iPhone and related products. This isn't surprising considering the highly successful launch of the iPhone 4S in October, which landed at the same time as iOS 5 and iCloud. The quarter on which Apple was reporting today also included the holiday shopping season, which is always a peak time for smartphones, MP3 players and tablets.

It also didn't hurt that in the previous quarter, sales missed expectations due to the fact that so many consumers were holding out for the next iPhone. That device was finally launched during the last quarter, and it was a huge one for Apple. In January, the iPhone 4S began shipping in China and now has a presence in over 90 countries.

iPad: Still Dominant, But What About the Competition?

The next biggest growth area for Apple was the iPad. Taken together, the iPad and iPhone product lines now account for 72% of the company's quarterly revenue. This is a trend that's been underway for awhile and the share of revenue generated by the iPad and iPhone just seems to keep growing. The stats speak volumes about the explosive growth of smartphones and tablets in general, two markets that Apple has played a massive role in.

The company pointed to the enterprise and educational institutions as two key sources of growth for the iPad. The latter point is no shock in light of last week's launch of iBooks 2, iBooks Author and an enhanced iTunes U app. While it was received with mixed reactions, the move marked Apple's biggest formal foray into the education space, where it intends to use the iPad as a way to deliver interactive digital textbooks to students.

When asked about other players in the tablet space, Cook said that the company doesn't "really see these limited function tablets, these e-readers, as being in the same category." In other words, it's not worried about the Kindle Fire or any other Android-based tablets. The iPad may continue to be overwhelmingly dominant, but we'll see in a few weeks whether the iPad 3's features or price point are changing in response to any of the other players on the market.

While less dramatic than its iPad and iPhone results, Apple did see quarterly and year-over-year growth in almost every other category, including Mac desktops and laptops.

The only category that saw a decrease from 2012 was the iPod, although it's worth noting that iPod sales did increase notably from the prior quarter. Year over year, however, the devices are no longer a huge source of growth for Apple, whose smartphones and tablets include all of the functionality of an iPod, in addition to access to 550,000 apps available in the iTunes App Store. Despite being overshadowed by its more sophisticated siblings, the iPod is still the top-selling MP3 player in many major markets.

At this point, Apple is sitting on a ton of money. The company now boasts $97.6 billion in cash, but Cook declined to comment on how they plan on spending that.

TechCrunch reports today that the Megaupload crackdown cut the site off at the knees just before it planned to launch a disruptive and legal music player. Another popular boogeyman for copyright holders, The Pirate Bay, announced a new, legitimate direction yesterday: It's going to host physibles, downloadable models for constructing 3D objects. Are the "pirate" sites actually Big Content's worst nightmare for legitimate reasons?

A "physible" is a digital plan for an object that can either be designed on a computer or uploaded with a 3D scanner. Those plans can be downloaded and used to assemble real, tangible objects using a 3D printer. Printers are getting more affordable, but they're still limited by the kinds of materials they can use. But that just means it's the dawn of this technology, and The Pirate Bay is getting in early. "We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare [parts] for your vehicles," TPB writes on its blog. "You will download your sneakers within 20 years."

"The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We'll be able to print food for hungry people. We'll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We'll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one."

As a renowned hub for trading files, The Pirate Bay is in a perfect position to be the go-to place for free physibles, which it can facilitate while making money from ads. "We're thinking of temporarily renaming ourselves to The Product Bay," the announcement jokes, but hopefully it's half-serious.

It's a perfectly legitimate business, and it blows the 2012 conception of intellectual property to smithereens. There's competition, too; Shapeways and Thingiverse are already on the market, and there's even a Google Warehouse for 3D models. Lobbyists for Old Media love to bang on sites like Megaupload and The Pirate Bay, but those very sites have hatched plans to usher in the future of digital media. When we can download a drum set, pirated MP3s will be the least of the copyright lobby's worries.

Check out The Pirate Bay's physibles category, but it's not our fault if you click on porny spam links.

Sometimes it's difficult to catch every story that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.

Why Apple Won't Disrupt the Textbook Industry Anytime Soon

Starting today, Apple's iBooks 2 became available in the iTunes App Store. Though Apple is known for disrupting industries, as they have done with the mp3 player, the phone, the tablet and music purchases, John Paul Titlow thinks the disruption of the textbook industry may take a bit longer, much like their attempt to disrupt television.

From our readers:

@rww Real market for iBooks is p2p study material e.g. tutor creates book for her students, kid creates book for friends out of class notes

— Raj Bandyopadhyay (@plusbzz) January 19, 2012

More Must Read Stories:

Will Windows Phone Get Instagram Before Android?

Fast Company is reporting that Instagram is working with Microsoft to develop a version of the popular photography app for Windows Phone.

Critics love Windows Phone, but it still has a relatively low market share, which left most people to assume Instagram would next aim to conquer Android. The photography application was named the iPhone's app of the year by Apple and now has more than 15 million users. (more)

Apple Takes Aim at Education With iBooks 2 and Textbook Publishing Tools

Having already done their part to shake up several industries, Apple officially unveiled what the company hopes is the next phase in textbooks. Starting today, iBooks 2 will be available in the iTunes App Store. The update will provide access to Apple's new breed of interactive textbooks, which are aimed at high school students and will cost $14.99 each. To help populate the store, the company is also launching a suite of digital publishing tools for authors. Phil Schiller, Apple's VP of Worldwide Marketing, revealed the company's plans this morning. (more)

Top 0 Lessons Learned from the SOPA Protest

So what just happened? Well, several of the world's most prominent Web destinations interrupted their regular programming to remind their readers of the dangers of a world where certain content may be arbitrarily made to disappear. For most Americans, this was probably the first they'd seen of any efforts by Congress to change the Internet, for whatever reason they'd want to do so. (more)

Twitter Buys Summify for the Next 500 Million Users

Twitter has acquired Summify, a service that digests the links in one's Twitter feed and produces a daily email of the most relevant stories. The developers will join Twitter's Growth team, and their work will still "explore ways to help people connect and engage with relevant, timely news." As Twitter nears 500 million users, it needs new ways to teach them how the service works. (more)

Maybe Turning Off Email Is Catching On

Last year I wrote this post reviewing 40 years of using email. I am old enough to recall many of those events and while I wasn't exactly present at the dawn of email, I know people who were. But it seems as if email, at least corporate email, has come and is in the process of going all in my own lifetime. A number of factors are making turning off, or at least reducing your email dependency, more viable these days. (more)

Foxconn Chair Calls Employees Animals

Terry Gou, chairman of Taipei-based Hon Hai, Foxconn's parent company, called his employees animals at a recent company party, according to Want China Times. Foxconn makes many of the devices Western consumers use, such as the iPhone and the Kindle.

"Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide," he said, "and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache." (more)

Infographic: Key Moments in Social Media Law

The Socially Aware blog has put together a nice infographic that highlights several key decisions in social media case law, starting with the Sony v. Universal Supreme Court Betamax recording decision of 1984 and continuing to the more recent past. In light of the SOPA and PIPA protests and discussions of this week, I found the review enlightening and interesting to see how far we have gone in terms of legislating copyright violations and other digital misdeeds. Remember Facebook suing and ultimately crushing Power.com? How about Courtney Love's Tweet that supposedly defamed a fashion designer? (more)

Al-Shabaab Tweets Terror

Since the Kenyan army has gone into Somalia in October (during my trip to Kenya), the main Islamist group Al-Shabaab has used Twitter in its propaganda war against the Kenyan government.

It's latest tweets, posted yesterday on @hsmpress, include photos and descriptions of two Kenyan government officials they've kidnapped, Fredrick Irungu Wainaina and Mule Edward. (more)

Ditch the Dongle: Make Payments With Your Smartphone's Camera With Card.io

Imagine making credit card-based payment with your smartphone. Visions of dongles are go dancing through your head. This is a function of conditioning that companies like Square and Intuit have taught users to expect. But, what if you could make a payment just by scanning the card with your smartphone's camera? Ditch the dongle. That is the goal of payments startup card.io. (more)

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Today, the company set their sights on textbooks, an industry Steve Jobs himself described as being "ripe for digital destruction." True as that may be, is what Apple planning to do in the space really all that disruptive?

If the company's efforts are going to help revolutionize textbooks and education, it's going to be some time before that happens, and they're not going to do it alone.

Costly and Not Cross-Platform

Apple released the second version of its iBooks app for iOS today, which includes access to the new textbook titles. One thing the company did not announce is that the app is coming to other platforms. Granted, the iPad is still the leader of the tablet market, but Android is slowly catching up and Amazon just released a device geared toward content consumption that costs less than half of the entry level iPad. And it's growing fast.

Of course, Apple ultimately wants to sell more of its hardware, but if it really wants its textbook initiative to truly take off, it will have to develop apps for other platforms, just as Amazon has done with its Kindle apps.

Another barrier to widespread adoption of this model is the cost of the iPad. It starts at $500, which is not something every American family can afford, especially with an economy in flux. With hundreds of "pages" of content, 3D interactive graphics, embedded video and other bells and whistles, we have to imagine these books aren't particularly light on file size. As the books accumulate over time, alongside other content stored on the iPad, the 16 GB entry level model may no longer cut it, making it an even more expensive investment.

Not Aimed at the College Market (and Did We Mention the iPad is Expensive?)

The cost issue might be mitigated somewhat if the initiative were not targeted exclusively at high school students.

At least for the time being, Apple's digital textbooks are targeted primarily at high school students. That fact alone presents a few roadblocks to the initiative being truly disruptive. For one, not every high school student in the United States can afford a $500 tablet device. Apple may well end up dropping the price when they launch the iPad 3 in a few weeks, but even then we're probably still talking about a several-hundred-dollar gadget. Many middle and upper class families can afford that, but kids in inner city schools and other low-income areas, some of which can barely afford enough paper textbooks, aren't going to be learning from iPads anytime soon.

For college students, investing in an iPad or similar device to replace textbooks makes simple economic sense. A single semester's worth of textbooks can easily approach the cost of an iPad. If the e-books available on the device are drastically less expensive than their paper counterparts, it would be foolish not to make the digital switch. Of course, how dramatically prices would drop remains to be seen.

Apple is Partnering With Big Publishers, Not Killing Them

College textbooks are enormously, obscenely profitable for the the companies that print them. In fact, they've come up with all kinds of creative ways of milking more money out of students. Textbooks about ancient history will be revised and re-issued every other semester and the company will package supplementary CD-ROM's and other digital learning materials, using them as a justification to jack up the price.

To get its new initiative off the ground, Apple is partnering with major publishers like McGraw Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. For the high school market, perhaps those companies can afford to agree to a $15-per-book price tag. But when it comes to higher education, publishers are unlikely to allow a $180 biology print textbook be replaced with a $15 e-book. That would cut into their profits pretty dramatically. At the same time, interactive e-textbooks can't be resold once they're used, so perhaps the publishers can be convinced that their e-book revenues will be replenished on a semesterly basis without fail.

Interestingly, at the same time that Apple has unveiled major partnerships with textbooks publishers, it also unleashed what appears to be a powerful, easy-to-use publishing toolkit for producing those books. If independent authors manage to create enough competition, it's possible that bigger publishers will have no choice but to play ball with Apple's preferred pricing for textbooks.

Apple's Not the Only Player

There's little reason to doubt that a decade from now, the classroom and the tools in it will look very different from what students are accustomed to today. The textbook is indeed one of the educational tools that is most in need of a digital makeover. When paper textbooks are finally a thing of the past, it won't have been Apple's efforts alone that got us there.

For one, education is already being blown wide open by the Web. The mere concepts of "the lecture" and "the textbook" begin to look antiquated in light of things like Khan Academy, Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, iTunes U and MIT's Open Courseware.

Those examples are just the tip of the iceberg. You'd be hard-pressed to find a student in the U.S. today that isn't already using the Internet to supplement their educational experience to some extent. Apple is well aware of the changes that are already underway. That's why they're doing this. That's why their DIY publishing tools include the ability pull in pieces of the Web and incorporate HTML5 and JavaScript.

Apple is also not the first company to try to re-imagine the textbook for a digital world. The so-called "smartbooks" offered by e-textbook startup Inking are in some ways more advanced than what Apple is bringing to the table. Other companies already active in this space include Chegg and Kno, as Audrey Watters points out on Hack Education.

Indeed, Apple is anything but the first entrant into this space. Not that that's stopped them in the past.

Lead textbook photo by Stephen Cummings. Phil Schiller photo courtesy of The Verge.

Shortly after GKBO began in September, Mocality "started receiving some odd calls" from customers who were confused by pitches to build them websites that came from Google in apparent partnership with Mocality. There was no such partnership and Mocality claimed to discover it was Google lying to its customers to bring them into GKBO.

Google has released a statement which we have included at the end of the article after the jump.

Mocality did some pretty deep forensics on their traffic and discovered a specific IP, which used a Kenyan ISP and utlized the latest Chrome build, was extensively accessing their business listings. So on December 21, they re-directed a percentage of the inquiries from that IP to a page that gave a different phone number - one that connected to the Mocality call center. The calls that came in were startling.

Here's an example, a call from someone identifying himself as Douglas, from Google Kenya, who tells the person who answered the phone, whom he believes is a business owner using Mocality, that Google and Mocality are collaborating on a new website service. Another call, available here in transcript, has the speaker accusing Mocality itself of fraud. They estimated the team identified as Google Kenya made 20-25 calls per hour to Mocality customers.

After a Christmas break, Magdalinski said there were no more instances of access from that IP. Instead, a new trend started from an Indian IP which belongs to Google. The calls began again, but this time from India. Here's an example, starring a caller named "Deepthi."

"It looks like Google has now outsourced the Getting Kenya Businesses Online operation to India!" wrote Magdalinski. He continued:

"When we started this investigation, I thought that we'd catch a rogue call-centre employee, point out to Google that they were violating our Terms and conditions (sections 9.12 and 9.17, amongst others), someone would get a slap on the wrist, and life would continue.

"I did not expect to find a human-powered, systematic, months-long, fraudulent (falsely claiming to be collaborating with us, and worse) attempt to undermine our business, being perpetrated from call centres on 2 continents."

We contacted Joseph Mucheru, Google's senior lead for Sub-Saharan Africa. We met and interviewed him in October in his office at Google's Nairobi headquarters where we talked, among other things, about the GKBO program. We have yet to hear back from him. We also contacted Magdalinski. If either respond, we will update this article.

Forbes reported that Google's policy manager for Africa, Ory Okholloh, said the company would make a statement by the end of the day. It is the end of the day in Kenya and all we have been able to get is a boilerplate line from Google's corporate PR department.

"These are clearly very serious allegations, and we are doing everything possible to investigate them."

Other publications, including The Register, have carried a different statement.

"We're aware that a company in Kenya has accused us of using some of their publicly available customer data without permission. We are investigating the matter and will have more information as soon as possible."

Clearly, Google is looking to shift the focus onto the fact that the information in Mocality's database was user generated. However, as Magdalinski notes on his Twitter account, "The real issue is not taking 30% of our 'publicly available db' - it's what was said to our customers on the calls."

UPDATE: Here is the statement from Nelson Mattos, Vice-President for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets:

"We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality's data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites. We've already unreservedly apologized to Mocality. We're still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we'll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved."

As Matt McGee notes on Marketing Land:

"The statement doesn't specifically say that Google itself was doing the scraping and attempting to contact Mocality's customers. By saying 'a team of people working on a Google project,' Google keeps open the possibility of placing responsibility for the incident on third party contractors - which is similar to what happened last week when Google said that ad agencies were responsible for a poorly-executed sponsored blog post campaign for Google Chrome."

During my conversation with Mucheru in October, he spoke of GKBO as a Google program, conducted by the Kenya office he oversees, and not by a contracted group. If this was inaccurate, I hope he will correct it in his response to ReadWriteWeb's questions.

What all three of the above car manufacturers, and others like General Motors and Toyota, have in common is that they are leveraging the rapid evolution of smartphone technology - rather than trying to build new Internet devices into their cars.

Today Mercedes-Benz announced "mbrace2," which connects web apps and smartphones to its vehicles. It will include new apps for Facebook, Yelp and Google Local Search. There will also be iPhone and Android smartphone apps that enable users to track car usage, control door locks, see diagnostic information and more. Mbrace2 is expected to be available in 2013 editions of Mercedes-Benz cars.

Audi

This week at CES, Audi announced new features for its Connect system. Audi defines Connect as "networked mobility" for its cars. The new features include a seven-inch 3D screen, improved control wheel and integration of LTE (Long Term Evolution, designed to handle large amounts of data). The A3 will be the first car to get these upgrades, but not for another 18 months or so.

What's more interesting is the next generation of Audi's heads-up display (HUD), which can project information onto the windshield just below a driver's normal field of vision. it reminded the New York Times of the film Minority Report. The system can be used by passengers as well as the driver, for example to look at travel routes.

Ford

Perhaps the car company doing the most with web and smartphone app integration is Ford. The American firm first introduced Internet technology inside its cars with Sync, launched in 2007. Sync is voice-activated technology which connects your smartphone and MP3 player to your car's dashboard and steering wheel. There are currently 4 million Ford cars in North America that have Sync running. The latest evolution of Sync is called MyFord Touch, a "cabin tech" system which we covered at last year's CES. Ford recently announced free upgrades for MyFord.

At CES, Ford announced a new hybrid car called the 2013 Fusion. One of the main features in this car is the integration of Sync and MyFord Touch.

According to Ryan McGee, a technical expert at Ford interviewed by Technology Review, "with Sync we empowered the driver [and] our next leap is into empowering the vehicle." It hopes to do this using Internet technology. In other words, making cars smarter. Use cases include fuel optimization, predicting your travel route on-the-fly, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication (which could help reduce crashes, among other things).

Smartphone as Car Component

All of the systems we discussed above - mbrace2, Audi Connect and MyFord/Sync - are enablers of smartphone applications and content. In other words, the smartphone becomes a component of the car via its connection to the dashboard system.

It still feels like early days for these technologies, but Audi's futuristic heads-up display is an indicator of where the car manufacturers will eventually take us.

Spotify's free accounts are normally restricted to ten listening hours per month. If you really, truly love a particular song, you'll only be able to stream it five times in a given month. These caps will come on top of the usual limitations of free accounts: You have to listen to advertisements and there's no mobile access.

The question of whether users will convert to paying customers is crucial to the viability of Spotify's business model. The company has deals in place with all of the major music labels and many independent ones, but those relationships are not necessarily set in stone, nor did they come about easily. Its U.S. launch was delayed due to extended negotiations with the labels. More recently, concerns have been raised over the relatively small payout seen by artists, a few of which have opted to keep their new releases off of Spotify.

From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads.

• 1920's: The record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can't compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
• 1940's: Movie studios had to divest their distribution channel - they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. "It's all over," complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
• 1950's: Broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn't compete with paid.
• 1970's: Video Cassette Recorders (VCR's) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie businesses and its lobbying arm MPAA fought it with "end of the world" hyperbola. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
• 1998: The MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( DCMA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
• 2000: Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVR's reignite interest in TV.
• 2006: Broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers.

Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business. Sound familiar?

Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology?

Technology Innovation

The movie industry was born with a single technical standard - 35mm film, and for decades had a single way to distribute its content - movie theaters (which until 1948 the studios owned.) It was 75 years until studios had to deal with technology changing their platform and distribution channel. And when it happened (cable, VCR's, DVD's, DVR's, the Internet,) it was a relentless onslaught. The studios responded by trying to shut down the new technology and/or distribution channels through legislation and the courts.

Regulation/Legislation

But why does the movie business think their solution is in Washington and legislation? History and success.

In the 1920's individual states were beginning to censor movies and the federal government was threatening to do so as well. The studios set up their own self-censorship and rating system keeping most sex and politics off the screen for 40 years. Never again wanting to be at the losing side of a political battle they created the movie industry's lobbying arm, MPAA.

By the 1960's, the MPPA achieved regulatory capture (where an industry co-opts the very people who are regulating it) when they hired Jack Valenti, who ran the studios' lobbying efforts for the next 38 years. Ironically, it was Valenti's skill in hobbling competitive innovation that negated any need for studios to develop agility, vision and technology leadership.

Management of Innovation

The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to existing markets, particularly to content/copyright owners whose sell through well-established distribution channels. The incumbents tend to have short-sighted goals and often fail to recognize that more money can be made on new platforms and distribution channels.

In an industry facing constant technology shifts the exec staff and boards of the studios have lawyers, MBAs and financial managers, but no management skill in dealing with disruption. So they rely on lobbying ($110 million a year), lawsuits, campaign contributions (wonder why the President won't be vetoing SOPA?) and Public Relations.

Ironically, the six major movie studios have a great technology lab in Silicon Valley with projects in streaming rights, Video On Demand, Ultraviolet, etc. But lacking the support from the studio CEOs or boards, the lab languishes in the backwaters of the studios' strategy. Instead of leading with new technology, the studios lead with litigation, legislation and lobbying. (Imagine if the $110 million/year spent on lobbying went to disruptive innovation.)

Piracy

One of the claims that studios make is that they need legislation to stop piracy. The fact is piracy is rampant in all forms of commerce. Video games and software have been targets since their inception. Grocery and retail stores euphemistically call it shrinkage. Credit card companies call it fraud. But none use regulation as often as the movie studios to solve a business problem. And none are so willing to do collateral damage to other innovative industries (VCRs, DVRs, cloud storage and now the Internet itself.)

The studios don't even pretend that this legislation benefits consumers. It's all about protecting short-term profit.

SOPA

When lawyers, MBAs and financial managers run your industry and your lobbyists are ex-Senators, understanding technology and innovation is not one of your core capabilities. The SOPA bill (and DNS blocking) is what happens when someone with the title of anti-piracy or copyright lawyer has greater clout than your head of new technology. SOPA gives corporations unprecedented power to censor almost any site on the Internet.

History has shown that time and market forces provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology is a video recorder, a personal computer, an MP3 player or now the Net. It's prudent for courts and congress to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude.

What the music and movie industry should be doing in Washington is promoting legislation to adapt copyright law to new technology- and then leading the transition to the new platforms.
The U.S. State Department has been championing the Internet Freedom initiative across the world. Secretary of State Clinton said, "...when ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled, and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us."

It's too bad the head of the MPAA - an ex Senator - made a mockery of her words when he wondered "why our online censorship can't be like China?" We wonder, "Why can't the film industry innovate like Silicon Valley?"

Lessons Learned

• Studios are run by financial managers who have no corporate DNA to exploit disruptive innovation
• Studio anti-piracy/copyright lawyers trump their technologists
• Studios have no concern about collateral damage as long as it optimizes their revenue
• Studios110M/year lobbying and political donations trump consumer objections
• Politicians votes will follow the money unless it will cost them an election

Movie camera by Jeremy Burgin

For Amazon, this is an "of course they would" moment. The company loses money on the hardware for the Kindle Fire and basically breaks even on other Kindle products. Amazon then must push consumers to its digital products. What better way to do so then by highlighting some of its best paid apps and expensive books?

The top recommended Kindle book is "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, the official biography of Apple's founder. "The Social Network," about Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, is the top movie.

What really of interest to us are the apps. ESPN Score Center is the top recommended Android app, followed by LinkedIn, QuickOffice Pro, The Weather Channel, EasyTether, Exchange by Touchdown, Pandora, Urbanspoon, MapQuest and Zillow Real Estate. Those seem like some strange choices for a best of list. LinkedIn's Android app has been thoroughly lambasted by the tech media while MapQuest is distinctly NOT Google Maps.

The regular suspects dominate the list for Android games. Angry Birds takes the top spot, Words With Friends second and Bejeweled 2 in third.

Software has two Office products in the top listings, with Microsoft Office: Home & Student 2010 the top and Office Mac Home & Student 2011 second.

Of course, Amazon is touting its own apps as well with Kindle for (pick your platform), Amazon Mobile, MP3, Price Check, Deals and Windowshop all on the list.

What is your "best of" for 2011? Did Amazon's editors get it right? Let us know in the comments.

Instead, the RIAA is lashing out at Google, whose search engine is the gateway to the Web for hundreds of millions of people. Over the last year or so, Google has been making it a bigger priority to discourage copyright infringement among people who use its various Web services. Those measures, the RIAA has argued, are not enough.

The RIAA isn't satisfied. In a rather scathing "report card" on Google's anti-piracy efforts, the music industry group gave the company an overall grade of "incomplete" and went on to harshly criticize their efforts as being inadequate.

For one thing, the RIAA thinks Google could be investing more time and energy into stopping piracy. The search giant spent $60 million on these efforts, which the RIAA points out is a very tiny percentage of their total revenue. The group argues that other Internet players, such as payment processors and ISPs have done more to combat piracy and that Google has a "special responsibility" to do more.

Tightening the Reins on Android Apps and Users' Takedown Appeals

The organization takes issue with Google's slow removal times for taking down copyright-infringing Android apps. The Android Marketplace, which is less tightly regulated than Apple's mobile app store, leaves more leeway for thing like malware and apps that violate copyright. The RIAA spends a paragraph lashing Google for not being more timely about app takedown requests, but does briefly concede "that Google has improved its takedown speeds for links to infringing files in search results and on hosted blogs to less than 24 hours."

Still, the organization complains that Google makes it too easy for uploaders to appeal takedown notices. If the recent YouTube spat between Universal Music Group and Megaupload is any indication, it would appear that major labels still have the upper hand in that process.

RIAA: Please Censor This, Even Though It's Not Illegal

The RIAA acknowledges where Google has made progress in the last year, but in each case, argues that it could be doing a lot more. For every piracy-related term that has been filtered out of autocomplete, there are a half a dozen that the RIAA thinks should also be tossed out.

For example, their report takes issue with the fact that typing "lady gaga mp3" leads to the autocomplete result "lady gaga mp3 download", which can lead users to sources of illegal downloads. This may be the case, but downloading MP3 files is not an inherently illegal act, so we can understand why Google wouldn't want to censor those terms.

This part of the report is particularly unconvincing. The Lady Gaga example they provide is flimsy and no additional evidence is offered that Google has done a shoddy job of blocking piracy-related terms from autocomplete. We have to imagine this is an ongoing process within Google and one that must carefully balance the interests of rights holders with the sensitivities of Google's users, many of whom will balk at any sign of perceived censorship.

The Devil in the Details: SOPA

Many of the RIAA's demands are not unreasonable. Blatant piracy should be harder to conduct in the Android Marketplace. There are a few of its own policies that Google could do a better job of enforcing.

Still, the report underplays the progress Google has made and has a certain angry, zealous ring to it. When you reach the end of the document, you get a better sense of where some of the frustration is coming from.

"While professing to agree that copyright infringement is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, Google raises alarmist, self-serving criticism to any legislative proposal to deter or thwart rampant copyright infringement."

This is an obvious reference to the Stop Online Piracy Act and legislation like it, which is indeed opposed by Google and most major Web companies, not to mention a growing contingent of the Web's most active and passionate users.

Of course, the opposition to SOPA has little to do with simply not wanting to "stop online privacy" but rather focuses on the broad freedom it gives authorities to shut down websites and the threat it poses to the kind of innovation and creativity that has built the Web we know and love today.

Of course, this list is subjective, so please let us know what you think about the voices we've chosen.

In a July 29 post, Dan Rowinski reported that AT&T had announced plans to throttle the data speeds of users on their network who had exceeded the bandwidth thresholds the company had set on their 3G network. As you can imagine, many people commented passionately, but Chris Holt's comment, below, was so popular as to be our top rated comment of 2011.

Chris Holt - "Is 'bandwidth threshold' the term AT&T uses? Bandwidth is a rate not a quantity. It's like a cop pulling you over and telling you that you have used too many MPH this month."

2. What Do Kids Say Is The Biggest Obstacle To Technology At School?

Way back on April 3, Audrey Watters wrote about the Speak Up 2010 survey, and the findings that children want to be able to bring their own device and to enjoy unfiltered access. With 43 comments, many weighed in, but Janet Abercrombie shared an experience that few could, and her comment was widely appreciated.

Janet Abercrombie - "In our new 1:1 program, we (teachers) are trying to differentiate behaviors that are a result of character and behaviors that are a result of the technology. Before computers, I could take away pencils from students who were drawing or I could ask them to produce a drawing that demonstrates understanding of the lesson.

One of the keys to successful student engagement is to build in formative assessments that continuously check student understanding. I find that, if students need to produce something by the end of class and/or engage in a Google doc or other discussion thread (where I can review the history and see who types what), 95% of my students will remain engaged in the lesson. Students who do not demonstrate master of the day's objective get pulled into small groups for guided instruction the next day where the independent learners are given a more independent task.

My personal belief is that teacher PD should focus more on ways to differentiate instruction and implement formative assessments than about the navigation of hardware/software."

3. ATDHE Seized: How Site Takedowns Are Ceremonial

On February 1, Mike Melanson reported on the take down of ATDHE, a site that lists video streams, many illegal, of nearly every televised sporting event. MDurwin's comment was a passionate rebuttal to the act and through your upvotes, it's clear that many of you agreed.

mdurwin - "My biggest concern here is why is Homeland Security acting as the bitch of media conglomerates? How is a site hosting video, legal, questionable, or blatantly illegal the responsibility of Homeland Security? aren't they supposed to be hunting down terrorists? The CIA is not supposed to operate inside US borders, nor is the Military. The FBI and police are in charge of crime on American soil. So, which is Homeland Security? Pretty soon I expect they'll be jailing 12 year olds who rip Justin Beiber CDs and email the mp3s to their friends!"

4. Your iPhone Is Tracking Your Every Move

Earlier this year, on April 20, Audrey Watters detailed just how much your iPhone knows about you, including a look at the file "consolidated.db". Jason Moffatt's toungue-in-cheek comment must have made many of you smile. It comes in at #4 on our list.

Jason Moffatt - "Note to self. Get rid of cell phone before robbing that bank next week."

5. Verizon Blocks Hotspot Tethering for Jailbroken Devices

On August 5, Dan Rowinski reported that the throttling announced by AT&T earlier had likely begun as at least one person was being blocked from Android tethering on a rooted device. milrtime83 argued that this was an unfair charge, due to double billing. Many of you agreed.

milrtime83 -" 'The networks do not like consumers getting away with data for free.'

No, we are already paying for the data. They want people to pay for the same data twice."

Next Page: [6-10 plus a surprise guest]

6. There Will be 2 New iPhones, iPhone 5 & 4S, Analyst Says

From a June 27 article by Sarah Perez, we saw an analyst quoted about the upcoming iPhone 4s and iPhone 5 (now debunked). Paddy McCann poked fun at the analyst and made many of us giggle.

Paddy McCann - "How do I get to be an analyst? Seems pretty easy - just make stuff up."

7. Why Facebook's Seamless Sharing is Wrong

Not long after ReadWriteWeb started deep-diving into Facebook's Frictionless Sharing, Marshall Kirkpatrick told us why Facebook's seamless sharing is wrong. With 48 comments, the agreement on this post was deafening. Jeff Pester summed up the fear that many of you have in 8 words. Bumper sticker anyone?

Jeff Pester - "Zuckerberg's utopian dream is becoming our Orwellian nightmare."

8. Facebook, You're Not a Newspaper

Another passionately debated post, Richard MacManus' September 21 post, "Facebook, You're Not a Newspaper" looked at Facebook's recent newsfeed changes. Leila expressed outrage that again, Facebook was fixing what wasn't broken.

Leila - "I wish Facebook would just show me *all* updates from my Friends and Pages, in the order that they were posted, and let *me* decide which ones I don't want to see by hiding individual people, pages, or posts. I will never understand why Facebook insists on deciding for me which posts are important to me because it's frequently wrong."

9. Why Groupon's Super Bowl Ad Was So Offensive

Remember that Groupon Super Bowl ad that had so many people up in arms? Marshall Kirkpatrick shared, on February 6, why that ad was so offensive, including the dismissive mockery of Tibetan troubles and the observation that "it came across as the kind of out-of-touch humor that overpriveleged, spiritually mean, advertising industry creatives (specifically, the kind that kids refer to as 'douchebags') would come up with." BillieMac shared his point of view, that of a former ad exec, and his knowledge of industry norms made his comment all the more relevant and helpful.

BillieMac - "As a former ad exec, I have to assume that Crispin Porter steamrolled this ad right to air. Any reasonable effort to run this ad through a qualitative disaster check with consumers (i.e. a focus group) would have told them they had a problem on their hands. The adage of 'any publicity is good publicity' does not apply in this instance. Groupon had an objective: educate people about their brand and make a connection with people. They failed miserably on both fronts. They are a bunch of marketing novices driving a marketing vehicle. If I were a big brand, I certainly wouldn't be lining up to partner with Groupon right now. They just proved they don't belong in the big leagues."

10. MacBook Air Contest: What are the Considerations When Looking at Server Infrastructure?

Alex Williams asked, on June 3, "What are the considerations when looking at server infrastructure?" Dylan Ludwig answered with gusto, not forgetting to accommodate appliance needs, security, data control and pricing. While his comment didn't win that month, you loved it, with 22 likes.

Dylan Ludwig - "It's important to have secure access to applications and data from any network device, for business and personal use. With cloud based services, all devices are in sync with the cloud. Internal clouds allow computing on private networks, businesses can restrict applications and content, limiting uses. Customer support, cloud providers should work hand in hand with your needs, as your partner.

What appliances need to be supported; servers, firewalls, networks, etc? All infrastructures are unique. What's important to you? Security's a must, whether it's a shared cloud or unique to you. Creating a custom solution to fit the needs of you/your company brings power, mobility, organization, speed, simplicity/ease of access, and scalability. Imagine if your computer crashed; many files would be backed up within the cloud.

Cloud pricing can be expensive. ISP's cap the upload speed and most charge for data usage. Clouds continue to undergo security/privacy breeches. Some personally like having control of their own data.

Figure out your needs, for now and long term. Don't limit the accessibility of the cloud and your future. Infrastructure software should always be chosen wisely.

When I started using the cloud, it took me a while to understand its concept. We use cloud based services everyday without even realizing it, for example Google Docs and Gmail. Files on these services can be accessed from almost any device-- anywhere, anytime. Amazon introduced the Cloud Drive; it allows users to store 5 GB of files online for free. Apple's iCloud stores content and allows integration with all apps, but it's also restricted; an Apple-only service. Unlike most cloud services, data won't be accessible across all platforms. Cloud deployment is just a huge center for data storage; it's the future of our computing needs. Possibilities of clouds are endless and have a promising future."

Bonus Yes Klout Is Flawed, But Here's Why You Should Give It a Chance

As a bonus, we wanted to share a comment from our favorite robot dinosaur, Fake Grimlock. On November 22, Richard MacManus looked at how Klout might be useful, even if it's not perfect. Fake Grimlock found a use for Klout that not many of us had imagined...

FAKE GRIMLOCK - "IT GREAT IDEA! START SITE FOR ONLY BIGGEST ATTENTION WHORES ON WHOLE INTERNET.

THEN TRAP THEM INSIDE, BURN WHOLE PLACE DOWN."

What do you think? Did we pick the best of your top-ranked comments or were some overlooked?