Mike Loukides writes "App Inventor and the culture wars" on Radar this morning. Here's an excerpt:

"Apple is saying "trust us, it will just work." Google is saying "We'll help you to be creative and make your own stuff that works for you." There's nothing inherently wrong with either approach. Apple's approach is more appropriate for an entertainment device, more like the 60s TV, radio, or dial phone. It does more, but it's still sealed; you can't open it up and hack it. There are plenty of people who want that kind of experience--possibly a majority. Google is opening up the guts and letting you create--and taking the gamble that people who haven't been creative in the past will start."

Go read the full post on Radar.

Click on this picture of a story from today's New York Post, anyone notice a problem?

A confident picture of Steve Ballmer juxtaposed with the worried face of Larry Page. Except the caption says Sergey Brin. Typical NY Post blunder, maybe they used Bing to search for Larry Page's image?

At Scifoo, I sat in on the session about a handheld genetic sequencing device (hypothetical, but not improbable). The session was hosted by Dr. Fire and was attended by some of the most important voices in genetic research and sequencing. I'm still ruminating on some of the ideas expressed, but my general sense is that once we get sequencing down to the range of 50 cents a pop, we're entering into an age where one's genetic data becomes instantly accessible.

Check it out, this is the second audio interview published with O'Reilly. A smaller interview than the Brian Cox interview from last week, but still interesting. Luiz Barroso wrote a very interesting paper with Urs Holzle for IEEE Computing on Energy Proportional Computing, and I took this interview as a chance to ask him some questions.