Readability is an excellent bit of Javascript that strips online content down to its barest and most readable elements, and was borrowed wholesale last year by Apple for the new Safari Reader option in Safari 5.
Late last month, it became even more excellent by relaunching itself as a reading platform in its own right. Launching aside a native iOS app powered by Marco Arment’s excellent Instapaper, Readability is now more than a snip of Javascript code but instead a monthly subscription service that pays 70% of its collected fees directly to the writers and publishers being read.
We reached out to Arc90’s Richard Ziade for a quick chat about what Readability’s new change in scope would mean not just for existing users, but for publishers of web content looking to get paid.
Mike Daisey isn’t afraid to rant. The mercurial storyteller first made a name for himself on stage by decrying the state of American theater. Tech is a natural target for him – he’s survived a stint at Amazon.com and takes apart computers to relax – so he really makes his point forcefully with a two-hour monologue called “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” onstage now through Feb. 27 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. (See our review of the show here.)
During our 40-minute conversation, I get the uncomfortable feeling he’s ranting directly at me. In fact, the show takes tech journalists to task for being subservient to the industry as well as missing the whole story of where all the shiny gadgets we report about so breathlessly come from. Ahem.
Cult of Mac talked to Daisey about why both Apple fans and PC people will enjoy his show, as well as his own gadget gear and why donning Steve Jobs’ signature black turtleneck on stage would’ve been “fucking stupid.”
Experimental portrait of Steve Jobs. @Charis Tsevis
Visual designer Charis Tsevis creates high-impact images by piecing together digital minutia into stunning mosaics.
Tsevis, based in Athens, Greece has worked for Toyota, IKEA, Bradesco Bank, Saatchi and Saatchi, BBH and media like Time, Fortune, Los Angeles Times, Sunday Times and Forbes, to name a few.
But you probably know his work from the intricate portraits he created of Steve Jobs from Apple-related images, which frequently grace the covers of international magazines. (He starts with a Mac-only software called Studio Artist by Synthetik before heading to Photoshop.)
These odes to Apple can sometimes take a week or so of 16-hour days to put together — it’s the kind of work only a Cupertino fan could love.
Cult of Mac talked to Tsevis about how he got started, getting the portraits into T-shirt form and his favorite piece of Apple technology.
Former vice president Al Gore recently spoke about another kind of inconvenient truth: his role as the last Mac standing in what became a PC White House during the Clinton administration.
Nowadays, Macs and PCs coexist in the inner sanctums of power — iPads abound for playing Pac Man or catching up on email — but back in the day it was much more an either/or proposition.
Mac Directory recently published an interview with Gore, where he touches on being the last Apple holdout in the West Wing, as well as the importance of Apple’s commitment to open source and how it may influence and help grow the Cupertino company.
Unkrich during production of "Toy Story 3" in November 2009 (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar)
This is a guest interview by Mike Bastoli of The Pixar Blog, a popular news blog about the studio.
Lee Unkrich is the director of Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 3, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, which was released on DVD, Blu-ray and iTunes today. He also served as co-director of Toy Story 2 and editor of Toy Story, and is a member of Pixar’s Senior Creative Team.
Unkrich is an avid Mac user and Apple ‘addict’ who can be spotted at Apple’s events from time to time. “Whenever I’m invited, it’s something awwwwwwesome,” he tweeted to his 80,000 plus followers on Twitter ahead of the launch of the iPad in January.
Here’s an exclusive interview with Unkrich, who talks about his first Mac, Apple cameos in Pixar’s movies and Steve Jobs feeding his Apple addiction.
Jesse, as many of you will know, is the genius behind several other apps for iOS and the desktop, including WriteRoom and TaskPaper.
PlainText is very similar to, but not exactly the same as, another of his apps called SimpleText. Where SimpleText was built to sync with a home-made service called simpletext.ws, PlainText has been built from scratch to sync with Dropbox.
PlainText is a simple text writing tool for iPhone and iPad. It will sync with Dropbox, and includes support for TextExpander snippets if you use them. It’s free, supported by adverts. If you want to switch them off, you can for a one-off payment of $4.99.
Fried’s 37signals is behind the popular, Web-based workgroup services Basecamp, Highrise, and others. But in addition to Web apps, Fried is also an expert on the modern workplace, and how “the new workplace in the new normal.”
Fried is becoming well-known for his strong opinions about the inefficiencies of the typical workplace and how it’s designed for distractions. His ideas are spreading via his popular blog and Twitter feed. This story from Inc. magazine — The Way I Work: Jason Fried of 37Signals — serves as an introduction to Fried’s approach.
I’ve been invited to live tweet during the webcast with Fried, and would like to invite you to submit your questions. Fried will be discussing everything about the modern workplace, from physical layouts to management practices and what tech-tools are indispensable.
The interview will be livestreamed on Thursday at 11 AM PST or 2 PM EST. Tune in using this link.
To ask a Jason a question, post it in the comments below or on Twitter. Address your question to @lkahney with the hashtag #hpio, or do it yourself during the webcast using the #hpio hashtag.
HP’s Input|Output series has featured Chris Anderson of Wired; Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class; and John Battelle, Federated Media. Coming up soon is Clay Shirky, the renowned author and teacher.
It’s not like director Tom De Nolf doesn’t have 35mm film cameras and a bunch of other video-making tech at his disposal; no, De Nolf was so surprised by the video capability of his recently purchased 3GS that he chose to shoot the above music video using just three iPhones.
One of the greatest things about App Store games is that they’ve broken the seemingly relentless escalation of costs for developers and price-increases for end users. In a sense, many of the games on the store return us to the halcyon days of 8-bit games—playable, quickfire efforts that innovated and packed in plenty of personality.
Over at creature24.com, three guys are about to take this idea to the extreme, taking a skeleton idea for an iPhone game through to App Store submission—all in just 24 hours. Progress will be shown live on the website on March 6, starting at 9:00am EST, and the trio of devs say comments from visitors might even be integrated into the game. I caught up with one of the three crazy game creators, Binary Hammer‘s Bob Koon, to find out more.
![Interview: Arc90’s Richard Ziade Explains Why Readability Is Now A Whole Lot More Than Just Javascript [Exclusive]](http://www.cultofmac.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
![Interview: Arc90’s Richard Ziade Explains Why Readability Is Now A Whole Lot More Than Just Javascript [Exclusive]](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/screens1.png "screens")
![The Agony & The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs: Q&A with Mike Daisey [Interview]](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/MD_SJ61.jpg "MD_SJ61")
![The Designer Behind Those Stunning Apple Mosaic Portraits [Interview]](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2313082920_27ce2a886e_z.jpg "2313082920_27ce2a886e_z")
![I’m an Apple Junkie, Says Toy Story 3 Director Lee Unkrich [Exclusive Interview]](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Lee_Unkrich.jpg)
Would you like to ask Jason Fried, founder and CEO of 37 Signals, a question? Tomorrow is your chance.
