Good grief. I have a really busy week, turn my back for a moment and the entire bloody internet explodes about OMG GOOGLE GLASS IS TEH BEST! Bad internet! Go to your room!

Google outlines more about Project Glass on Google+:

We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t.

Call me old-fashioned, but I also happen to think technology should actually exist and be available to buy, rather than companies shitting out pointless concept videos. If Project Glass was available now, I might be all: “Hmm, that’s actually quite clever of Google.” But as a concept video? Gah! Did someone from Microsoft take over Google when we weren’t looking?

A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment.

Or pulling you out of every single moment by overlaying said moments with horrible pop-up messages and stupid advertising. It’s one step away from Google Mandatory Brain Implant, which would give you no escape from massive corporate giants desperately trying to sell you things and that git on Google+ who just won’t stop asking you stupid things, despite you practically begging him to stop.

As for exploring and sharing your world, things are bad enough with smartphone zombies walking along the streets during rush hour, staring glumly at their glowing screens while the world rushes by. With Project Glass literally sitting between you and the world, I expect a lot of people would start exploring the underside of a really heavy bus and sharing their innards with the world.

The sky is once again falling for Mac users, with many now hit by the Flashback Trojan. The BBC reports that 600,000 Macs might be infected! But that also happens to be a figure well shy of the number of viruses that can screw up Windows PCs.

Ultimately, infection from viruses and malware continues to be a numbers game. Such things are extremely rare on the Mac but less so on Windows. Apple has since released a security update, but once again an antivirus company started stiring:

“People used to say that Apple computers, unlike Windows PCs, can’t ever be infected—but it’s a myth,” said Timur Tsoriev, an analyst at Kaspersky Lab.

I don’t recall ‘people’ ever saying Apple computers can’t ever be infected—that is the myth. And, of course, Kaspersky Lab would be thrilled if millions of spooked Mac users suddenly started using its products. But the reality is that even those Mac users who don’t have a clue about security will be less likely to be affected by trojans, malware and viruses than their Windows PC-owning chums, and with Gatekeeper for OS X Mountain Lion, such problems will become even rarer on the platform. It’ll be interesting to see if Microsoft follows suit.

As ever, the best advice—on Mac and PC—remains the same: don’t open documents and files if you aren’t confident about where they came from and that they won’t screw up your computer.

Gizmodo asks: What would it take for Apple to make a new iPad truly exciting again? Apple’s device is, after all, two years old now, and beyond totally revolutionising tablet computing and bringing with the latest version a display akin to print, it’s now a disappointment, argues Sam Biddle:

The new Apple iPad is kind of a paradox: At the same time it’s both the best possible tablet you can buy, and yet, it’s a disappointment. It retained the crown with an incremental performance bump.

See? (Obligatory link to ‘everything’s amazing right now and nobody’s happy‘.)

Waah, poor us: saddled with a piece of technology so well-executed in its first two iterations that the current generation is a letdown by virtue of not being Earth-shattering. We took a timeout from our tears to wonder: What would make a new iPad truly different, and even amazing?

People not banging on about how the new iPad isn’t amazing, despite the fact it kind of is?

Apple needs something that fundamentally changes the iPad.

As the new iPad’s terrible sales figures prove! (What we need is something that fundamentally changes tech journalism. Possibly involving mandatory lobotomies for many tech journalists.)

It needs something that makes the iPad a different, better sort of object, rather than just a refined one.

Because users and developers love nothing more than established popular platforms becoming moving targets. Just look at Android. Everyone loves Android!

Look, everyone’s a critic. We’re trying some constructive criticism—a wish list of ideas for a new iPad that actually feels new.

I WANT A UNICORN!

Luckily, Gizmodo then produces a list that doesn’t require magic or technology that doesn’t exist. No wait—it does precisely the opposite.

Imagine if the next iPad could run for days without a charge.

Imagine if electricity was free and smelled of strawberries!

Just imagine a subtle solar cell on the iPad’s back that would at least slow the battery drain while you’re using it outside.

Just imagine your iPad turning into the 2012 equivalent of a solar-powered calculator!

And focusing on a more efficient processor instead of a more powerful one would let Apple squeeze extra hours out of your pad—and we’ll take extra hours and days of life over a few aggregate seconds shaved off app launching.

Right up until Apple says it concentrated on the battery over the processor and Gizmodo runs with APPLE STUPID BERKS WITH RUBBISH PROCESSOR SCANDAL MEANS ANDROID WILL WIN.

And then we get “make it indestructible”, “make it flexible”, “improve the camera”, “resist the fingerprints” (OK, I like that one), “kill the Dock connector”, “GO GO GADGET PAGEVIEWS”, all before the wonderful finale:

Apple knows it doesn’t have to do any of this. For now. It can put out a minor upgrade every year and sell millions and millions more iPads—so why try? Because trying is what made Apple the most valuable technology company in the world.

If you’re still reading and your brain hasn’t exploded, here’s what not trying apparently  looks like:

• A Retina display considered by many to be among the very best displays that have existed, ever;
• Massive behind-the-scenes improvements in graphics power to ensure the screen doesn’t compromise performance;
• A battery that’s massively more powerful than its predecessor, housed in a case with roughly the same form factor.

Apple has shown that it can take its best current product (say, an iPhone 3GS), disassemble it, and put it back together as something golden and incredible and worthy of spectacle. Say, an iPhone 4. The step between those two phones was radical. The way the 4 was built, the way it felt, the screen, the camera that was like nothing else—it was dramatic.

I agree. The shift between the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4, which was mostly about improved performance, a better camera and the Retina display, really was dramatic.

A fundamental change.

Just like the new iPad. Which. Got. The. Same. Kind. Of. Changes.

After a few more years of institutional incrementalism, these iPad press conferences are going to stop justifying themselves. With enough cautious updates, the iPad will just turn into another thing you can buy. There’s no magic future there. But the magic future is what we all want.

The magic future is what we already have.

AppStart recently argued in favour of an iPad mini with a 7.85-inch screen, and the story is now doing the rounds on Mac rumour sites. Inevitably, they are using it to back up ongoing unsourced garbage from publications that should know better than to claim a wee iPad is definitely due this year. Or possibly next year. But it’s definitely due! Honest!

The short of the thinking in this case is that a 7.85-inch iPad would result in a device with the same PPI as the original iPhone, and would therefore conform to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines:

[When] Apple was designing its first iPhone (circa 2006), company engineers determined through testing that the minimum comfortable size for an interactive element on a touchscreen display is 44 x 44 pixels. Anything smaller would yield erratic results. The pixel density used to arrive at this number, naturally, was that used in the first iPhone — again, 163 PPI. […] In layman’s terms, all this simply means [is] that no app has tappable input zones smaller than Apple’s approved dimensions. Whatever the size of a given menu option in a given iPad app, it cannot shrink beyond Apple’s pre-established minimum. It might take a bit more hand-eye coordination, but overall interaction should not be affected.

This all sounds great until you realise that one of the fundamental aspects of iPad design isn’t slavish adherence to minimums, and that all existing apps have been designed for the current form factor. In other words, app designers haven’t been thinking about what-if scenarios such as a mythical 7.85-inch iPad—they’ve been optimising their creations for the 9.7-inch screen on the current models. That goes for everything: multitouch interactions; UI components and navigation; text sizes; and so on.

Arguing everything would be fine if a 7.85-inch iPad arrived with a 163 PPI screen is nonsensical. At best, existing apps would be fiddlier to use, causing more hit errors, and the text within them would be smaller and therefore harder to read. Apple to date has rarely been about compromising user experience in order to force itself into another market segment, and so I can’t see it doing that with the iPad. Additionally, Apple’s clearly moving its entire iOS line to pin-sharp Retina displays, and so why would it release a new product with a far inferior display to existing ones? Far better to perhaps power-up the iPod touch with 3G and improved electronic guts, thereby turning that device into a more viable iPad mini.

Reuters on Samsung seeking a killer design. Some great quotes from Samsung Mobile’s vice president for design, Lee Minhyouk.

I might not be at (Ive’s) level yet, but I believe Samsung will produce such iconic products one day. It’s not just effort that makes it possible for a new product to be a massive hit. It also has to be timely, and technology should be ready to make a certain design a reality.

I feel a bit sorry for Lee, but the way Samsung will produce iconic products like Apple’s will only be when it stops copying Apple’s iconic products and makes something truly of its own.