Evi is a new app for iPhone and Android that’s similar to Siri, except it can do more. Evi can answer questions about how to make a certain dish, who was president during a certain time period, and other kinds of questions that Siri would kick you off to a web search for.

If you don’t have an iPhone 4S but want Siri-like functionality, you’ll want to check it out.

Seth Godin on how to become untrusted as a writer by using your influence as currency with others:

The problem occurs when the trading of favors become mercenary, when alert individuals start manipulating the system for personal gain. Suddenly, every favor is suspect, measured and not at all generous. Suddenly all the likes and links and blurbs become nothing but currency, not the honest appraisals of people we can trust. It means that bystanders have trouble telling the difference between honest approval and the mere mutual shilling of traded favors.

This kind of writing is only valuable insofar as it’s honest. That’s the most important part. Without it, it’s worthless.

David Wineman:

Apple is trying to establish a rule that whatever I create with this application, if I sell it, I have to give them a cut. And iBooks Author is free, so this arrangement sounds pretty reasonable.

Watts Martin responds:

So Apple’s “audacity” is that they’ve created a snazzy creation tool that, from all appearances, only works with their viewers. Wineman is correct in that it’s the license, not the technology, that prevents you from taking a .ibooks file and selling it somewhere other than Apple’s store. But you don’t have much reason to sell something this thing creates outside Apple’s store, ’cause it ain’t gonna be creating those snazzy multimedia books for your Kindle Fire.

The new version of xScope is out, and if you’re a designer of any kind, you’ll want to get it. I did.

Brad Plumer has a great overview of SOPA and PIPA and why they’re so dangerous. Here’s one reason:

The bills allow sites to be taken down without legal oversight. As Public Knowledge has pointed out, one little-noticed provision in both PIPA and SOPA would grant Internet service providers broad immunity if they voluntarily block perfectly innocent users or Web sites from the Internet. Copyright holders like the movie and record industries could draw up sweeping lists of sites they didn’t like (even sites that should be protected under fair use) and pressure Internet service providers to take action. As long as the providers could claim they were acting “in good faith,” those sites and users could be blocked without any oversight by the courts — all because Hollywood was feeling a bit vindictive.

Big thanks to the guys at Literature and Latte for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed. Scrivener is one of those Mac applications that feels very Mac-like to me—the geeky, made precisely for this kind of user because we are that user, kind of application. When I first became a Mac user in 2005, that’s what struck me most about it: the people making software for it did so because they really love the Mac, have some functionality they want to build for themselves in particular, and they want to do so in a way that honors what the Mac is all about. That’s still what I love about the Mac, and it’s something completely unique to it.

Scrivener is exactly that kind of application. If you’re a writer, or write decently long papers for school, take a look at Scrivener. They’ve built an application that’s for writers.

Writing a book or research paper is about more than hammering away at the keys until it’s done. Research, shuffling index cards to find that elusive structure – most software is only fired up after much of the hard work is completed.

Enter Scrivener, a content-generation tool that lets you compose and structure long and difficult documents based on material from multiple sources. Adopted by novelists, screenwriters, journalists, lawyers and academics alike, the program allows users to split the editor and view documents, PDF files, multimedia and other research materials next to each other. A virtual corkboard and outliner help with structuring or providing an overview of the draft. Collate, read and edit related text without affecting its place in the whole using Scrivener’s Collections feature. Close out the world in Full Screen mode. And when you’re finished, export to e-readers or the most popular word processing programs for submission.

Available for Mac OS X and Windows at Literature and Latte.

Dustin Curtis:

As they were hyper-focused on improving and slowly evolving their products, they lost sight of their market as it went through a massive revolution. It doesn’t matter how good you are at evolutionary iteration; no amount of evolution will make up for a revolution.

I don’t think it’s that simple in this case. While Kodak moved slower than other companies on digital cameras, they didn’t move that slow—they introduced their line of point-and-shoot digital cameras in 2001, and became the top-selling brand of digital cameras in the U.S. in 2005.

The problem was that as the camera business shifted from film to digital cameras, it lost what made it a profitable business—film. Companies could sell their cameras at attractive prices and then make a lot of money on higher-margin film. But there is no film for digital cameras, and digital cameras became a commodities business, which meant very low profit margins. Consumer digital cameras simply aren’t a very good business.

But wait! Kodak could have out-innovated their competition, made dramatically better digital cameras, and then charge higher margins. That only works, though, if the other option isn’t already good enough—which digital cameras very quickly became. For most people, the difference between eight and five megapixels or a much better lens were negligible, because all they wanted was an affordable camera that took decent photos.

Kodak’s real problem was not that they didn’t move quickly enough or innovate enough in digital cameras. Their problem was that they were in the digital cameras business, which had little future.

(Via Marcelo Somers.)

Susan Cain on the “rise of the new groupthink”:

To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.

She points out that American businesses, classrooms and religious organizations are moving toward open, “collaborative” set-ups, where individuals work in public areas exposed to everyone else, and students work almost entirely in groups. She argues that not only is this ineffective in increasing productivity and creativity, but it’s worse than the much-derided cubicle set-up.

Being exposed to your co-workers and their different ideas certainly is a good thing for creativity, but that doesn’t mean locking everyone up in public is a good idea. In this case, because a little is good doesn’t mean a lot is even better. Cain links introvert personalities to creativity, and argues that introverts need solitude to produce great work, but we all need it. Everyone needs their own space, where they know they’re alone and can focus on what they need to without interruption, a place they can always go to when they need it.

Cain’s suggestion—for private spaces along with public spaces—is precisely right. When Pixar built their new building, they gave ample room for each person to have their own space, that they controlled and could do what they wanted with. But Steve Jobs also insisted that the building be designed in such a way that people have no choice but to bump into each other:

“The philosophy behind this design is that it’s good to put the most important function at the heart of the building,” Catmull said. “Well, what’s our most important function? It’s the interaction of our employees. That’s why Steve put a big empty space there. He wanted to create an open area for people to always be talking to each other.”

Jobs realized, however, that it wasn’t enough to simply create a space: he needed to make people go there. As he saw it, the main challenge for Pixar was getting its different cultures to work together, forcing the computer geeks and cartoonists to collaborate. (John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar, describes the equation this way: “Technology inspires art, and art challenges the technology.”) In typical fashion, Jobs saw this as a design problem. He began with the mailboxes, which he shifted to the atrium. Then he moved the meeting rooms to the center of the building, followed by the cafeteria and the coffee bar and the gift shop. But that still wasn’t enough; Jobs insisted that the architects locate the only set of bathrooms in the atrium. (He was later forced to compromise on this detail.)

In a 2008 conversation, Brad Bird, the director of “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” said, “The atrium initially might seem like a waste of space…. But Steve realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen.”

That’s the ideal, where people have their own space, but naturally run into different people they would otherwise never talk to.

(Via Tyler Cowen.)

Ford intends on using web services to make their cars more efficient:

McGee believes the computing power available on the Internet will allow cars to become smarter. Last spring, at the annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco, McGee announced a deal to use the search giant’s prediction algorithms—online software that analyzes large data sets to spot trends. Ford’s idea is to send data from your car to Google’s data centers, which would then predict where you are headed every time you key the ignition. Google might predict, say, that there’s a 59.24 percent chance you’re headed over to Bob’s house. A hybrid car might use a map of low-emission zones to determine when to switch to battery power as you drive. Or the algorithm could pick a fuel-efficient path with few hills, no rain, and the least traffic.

“Fuel optimization depends on the topography, traffic patterns, and how a customer drives their car,” says McGee. “The cloud will allow us to use these three data points that historically were not aligned in real time.”

This is all talk, of course, but it’s a very good idea. One of the biggest jumps we can make this century in innovation and efficiency is capturing all of the data we never have before, and use it to make better decisions. When we drive a particular place, we all have a route we feel to be the most efficient way to get there. While it might really be the most efficient, we don’t have a good way to verify it. We base that mostly on our own intuition, rather than actual data.

Individually, these changes might not mean much to us. A few seconds, a small fraction of a gallon less gas (or of battery capacity), and a bit less emissions. But in the aggregate, those small amounts add up.

There’s bigger gains to be had, too, if we move toward autonomous cars. Imagine fleets of autonomous cars-for-rent that, when you request one in an app, it shows up to your house in minutes, ready to take you wherever you need to go. If that becomes reality, and it’s affordable, there’s little need for families to own multiple cars, because most of their needs can be handled by a rented car. That reduces the number of cars on the road, which means less emissions, less congestion, and more open parking spaces.

(Via Rebecca Rosen.)

Cody Fink has a great look at Phraseology on Macstories.

Interesting new app from Greg Pierce, who also made Terminology.

Phraseology is for writing, and it looks quite good. I love the archive idea. Instead of deleting pieces you don’t think work anymore, you can just archive them—which is great, because sometimes I realize what an old piece needs to work, so getting them out of sight, but not out of storage, is great.

Bloomberg reports on the iPad 3:

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s next iPad, expected to go on sale in March, will sport a high-definition screen, run a faster processor and work with next-generation wireless networks, according to three people familiar with the product.

In other words, John Gruber called it back in February 2011, when he wrote that he thinks the iPad 3 will have a double-resolution screen, and he’s said rather definitively since then. Of course, he also said that Apple may release the iPad 3 in Fall 2011, but one thing’s for sure: if you want to know what Apple’s going to do ahead of time, Gruber’s the guy to listen to.

Interesting that they are pushing for LTE support—it could indicate that they are targeting the next iPhone for LTE support, too, which I didn’t expect.

I can’t wait to see what the double-resolution screen looks like in person. Imagine just how beautiful applications can be with so many pixels and such a great screen.

Aaron Mahnke:

I stepped in from of the thermostat and waved my hand in front of it. Instantly it came to life, and presented me with a speech bubble that said, as best as I can remember, that “Away Mode has been activated. Press to continue.” I pressed the face of the thermostat and instantly the heat kicked on, bringing the room back to the desired temperature. Crisis averted.

Why was our thermostat set on “away mode”? Because every Sunday morning my family happens to be out of the house for a couple of hours. And our thermostat had learned that by watching us. See, we have a Nest thermostat.

How awesome is it that Nest is getting us excited about a thermostat?

Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom released a few details about their plan for how to do advertising:

“I think the advertising experience is going to be extremely engaging,” Systrom said. “It’s much harder with text,” but Instagram offers photos, and brand names such as Audi, Kate Spade, and Burberry have joined Instagram.

“They’re sharing pictures of products and the message of their brands. That shows we’re at the beginning of what will come with brands,” he said.

As Marco points out, this likely means they’ll insert photos from companies—advertisements—in our timelines. I’m not sure how they’ll do it otherwise.

This could be an interesting form of advertisement, if advertisers use it as such—rather than show straight print-like adverts, they could use it to tell stories about their products. Audi could use it to take well-done photos of their cars in use, ones that fit with Instagram’s purpose, to convey a more general feel of what Audi is to viewers, rather than simply try to convey specific information (e.g., “best-in-class safety!”). Of course, other forms of advertisements could be used in more interesting ways—print adverts in particular—but they tend not to be.

Advertisements could be done in an interesting and effective way, but not only is it likely advertisers won’t use it as such, but the entire concept walks a fine line. Delivering ads within someone’s timeline—a stream of photos from users the user decided to follow, and thus is inherently private—will likely end up feeling invasive. I wonder, too, if Instagram will target ads to users. What personal information do they have to target ads? And if they don’t, that makes the venture a lot less likely to be successful.

Thanks to HelpSpot for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.

At HelpSpot we’re big supporters of open source software and simply couldn’t run our business without it. So, 6 years ago we created Open Source Help Desk List to assist companies looking for an open source help desk software solution. It’s success has been beyond our wildest expectations; serving as an invaluable tool for thousands of companies to find the solution they need. We hope it can help you as well.

If you’d prefer a professionally developed and supported help desk application, then give us a look: HelpSpot: Help Desk Software.

DJ Patil:

One of the questions most founders always ask is about the key secrets to hiring.  What they need to understand is that there’s a big difference between “hiring” and “talent”.  I’m continually surprised how rarely I see people put down their strategy for talent compared to hiring. It’s so prevalent, in fact, you’ll often see on a company’s priorities a bullet of “hiring”.  And that slight shift in wording fundamentally sets up the wrong dynamics.  Hiring, is a sub-bullet of talent and if you’re focusing on hiring you’ll be quickly setting up a revolving door.

I think that shift of focus changes who you hire, too—because if you’re focused on hiring, or getting the right amount of people to do what you need to do who have a specific skill, you’re focused on the micro rather than the macro. In a company, each new hire is not just an addition. They change the dynamic within the company, and thus what effect they have on the system has to be fully considered. For each potential employee, they cannot be considered in isolation.

(Via Marcelo Somers.)