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Third to a billion >> asymco

Horace Dediu:

Android is the third platform to reach a billion users (Although activations are not users, I'm assuming that usage is not far behind and the cumulative sales figures I gather are roughly comparable). The first was Windows and the second was Facebook. Apple sold around 650m to 700m iOS and is expected to be the fourth to a billion sometime next year. (Separately, iTunes reports 575m account holders.)

If we define the Race To a Billion to be bounded by a time limit of 10 years, then Windows does not qualify and Android is actually second. The race is shown in the following graphs (the one on the left is logarithmic scaled, the one to the right includes only a few contenders for illustrative reasons).

BlackBerry Messenger for iPhone submitted to the App Store two weeks ago >> 9to5Mac

Sources say that the BBM for iPhone application is nearly identical to the version on the BlackBerry Z10, but lacks a couple of unspecified features.

While BBM has been in review for 2 weeks, Apple tells developers that it has been approving 99% of submitted apps within 5 business days:

Puzzling. And where's the Android version?

Microsoft is copying the wrong company >> SuperSite for Windows

Paul Thurrott thinks it should copy Google:

Looking back on the PC era, Microsoft won because the hardware became commoditized and many partners created many different kinds of PC, giving customers great choice. Apple's system, the Mac, was relegated to also-ran status.
With today's smart phone and tablet markets, the same situation is repeating, but this time it is Android that is relegating Apple's system, iOS, to also-ran status. What's changed is that Android has grown quickly simply because it is free and infinitely malleable. Unlike Windows. Unlike iOS.
With Android and perhaps with Chrome OS, Google is attempting—and perhaps succeeding—at rendering Windows irrelevant. Which it sort of already is. Metro has gotten off to a slow start, obviously, and there hasn't been a major new Windows desktop application in years. You couldn't name one if you tried.

The question of why Microsoft is emulating Apple's structure, rather than Google's, is indeed puzzling.

Computing's future Is not on your wrist >> Daily Intelligencer

Kevin Roose wanted to like the Samsung Galaxy Gear, but couldn't:

I couldn't rationalize a defense of the Samsung smartwatch for one giant, insurmountable reason. Namely: The wrist is a terrible place for a computer.

But he sees potential:

The future of wearable computing, if it arrives, will be found in devices that free us from tactile input altogether. It will be computers that exist in glasses, that allow us to voice-command our surroundings, that connect our shoes and pants and belts into one giant, data-collecting technological exoskeleton. It will be computers that work with our natural movements, rather than simply putting a computer onto a body surface and requiring us to interact with it in the same old way.

Yes, you can disrupt the wristwatch — putting a new spin on a 100-year-old technology. You could also disrupt the quill pen. But why?

Over one-fifth of people use ad-blocking software—and it's beginning to hurt >> Quartz

A recent report (PDF) from PageFair, a service that websites can use to measure the extent of ad-blocking, sheds some light on just how afflicted those sites are.  Based on data from 220 clients, PageFair found an average ad-blocking rate of 22.7%. It estimates that one of its "typical" clients, with a 25% block rate, loses about $500,000 a year due to ad blockers. Based on data from a small sample of clients, PageFair says ad blocking is growing at 43% every year.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, websites where ads are most often blocked tend to cater to the technologically savvy: Gaming sites had their ads blocked by one of every three visitors, technology sites by one of every four. For travel websites, by contrast, the figure was only 5% (chart below):

If you use ad-blocking software: what would you do if your favourite site (whichever it is) took countermeasures against ad-blocking? (Ars Technica experimented once by showing a blank page.)