Wow, the Tories really are scared of AV, aren’t they? In BBC article Ashdown attacks Osborne over AV (whose content sadly wasn’t entirely literal—I’m sure many of us would pay good money to see Ashdown give Osborne a kicking), the former Lib-Dem leader called out Osborne for trying to dig up dirt on the ‘yes to AV’ campaign.

What Osborne had discovered was, I’m sure you’ll agree, shocking in the extreme. The pro-AV camp, in favour of electoral reform, is being partly funded by the Electoral Reform Society, in favour of electoral reform. It’s clearly broken Osborne’s little mind that a society in favour of electoral reform and called the Electoral Reform Society would use some of its money to fund a movement campaigning for electoral reform.

But wait! Osborne said it stinks for another reason: the commercial arm of the Electoral Reform Society, Electoral Reform Services Ltd (ERSL), runs election services. The BBC says:

[Osborne] claimed that ERSL stood to benefit financially from a switch. The firm has denied the accusation, saying a switch would have “absolutely no impact” on its revenue.

The thing is, even if Osborne is right, it’s interesting he’s against the ERS part-funding the pro-AV vote. After all, Osborne is a member of a party usually fine with whatever private companies get up to, positively encouraging organisations to do whatever it takes to make huge piles of cash.

But what really stinks is the manner in which the Tories are fighting against AV. Make no mistake: this isn’t about history, democracy, Britishness, complexity, finance, extremism or any other argument you’ve heard. The sole reason the Tories are against AV is because the Tories stand to lose seats. AV will rebalance British politics so that the majority liberal vote gets slightly more weight and the minority Conservative vote gets less. Tories argue this is unfair, ignoring the fact that what’s really unfair is how regularly the Tories have been in government, with majorities, despite not having the backing of the majority of the voters.

A nice piece by Stu Dredge over at The Guardian, on Amazon’s Appstore terms. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is warning devs about Amazon’s pricing fluctuation, which will enable it to pay developers either 70% of the purchase price for their game, or 20% of the developer’s List Price, whichever is greater. The IGDA’s concerned, because:

Some developers will probably win in this scenario, but some developers – most likely, those near the bottom of the list – will lose, not gaining enough sales to offset the loss in revenue per sale.

And Amazon also reserves the right to make a game free that’s selling well, to which the IGDA responds:

This sort of promotional activity may attract consumers away from competing markets and into Amazon’s arms. But it might actually represent a net loss for the developer, which was already doing quite well and didn’t need to firesale its game at that moment in time.

Yeah, well, tough. This is how things are in Amazon-land. I know of a couple of book publishers who ended up going under because Amazon kept discounting products to the point that they effectively lost money, but Amazon’s not fussed, because it knows there are a lot of other publishers—and customers also flock to where things are cheapest. It won’t be any different for Android games and apps.

From a personal standpoint, I’m not terribly keen on Amazon’s terms, though. The rush-to-the-bottom on Apple’s App Store is bad enough, with games discounted within days of going on sale. While Apple’s managed to ‘train’ iOS users to buy stuff, they’ve also set an expectation that games should be dirt-cheap (something not entirely helped by giant publishers like EA and Gameloft doing regular fire-sales); and while I like games being more affordable (rather than being 30-quid cartridges), they don’t really need to be just 59p. But at least on the App Store the dev has a choice—Amazon’s terms are a little off in that regard.

Still, Amazon’s the one company that could really give Apple strong competition in the app/tablet/smartthing space, and so despite its iffy terms, I’m excited to see where it takes things.

The Guardian reports that US cinema chains are run by fucking idiots. OK, so The Guardian’s language isn’t quite that fruity (the article is ‘US cinemas threaten not to show films in video-on-demand dispute’), but I think my intro sums things up nicely.

Cinema is under increasing pressure from television, largely because people now have TVs the size of a wall, and they can watch stuff in private, without having idiots around them yammering on phones and stuffing overpriced popcorn into their faces, and, occasionally, their mouths. But with Hollywood studios planning to make new releases available for online rental two months after they debut on the big screen, US cinema chains are threatening to not show films by the likes of Universal, Sony, Warner Bros and Fox.

THAT WILL WORK!

No, wait. It won’t.

Two things here:

1. Cinema chains rarely leave anything other than blockbusters on for more than a few weeks. Therefore, if the window really is going to be reduced to two months, it isn’t really going to make any odds anyway.
2. Cinema chains rattle on about how cinema remains relevant because it’s all about the experience. If that’s really the case, cinemas shouldn’t feel threatened by video-on-demand—they should instead be doing their level best to improve the cinema-going experience. Clue: this doesn’t involve sticky floors, suddenly turning the best seats into super-expensive VIP chairs that no-one ever sits in, charging more for popcorn and a drink than a meal out at a local pub, and sound systems that distort the audio so much that you think the latest Oscar winner is about a bunch of bees disguised as humans.

Good grief. While everyone’s still reeling from the shock of Lenovo’s 23-inch tablet and the non-shock of dual-14-inch-screen tablet Kno quietly passing, Kyocera’s seen its chance to fight hard to top the Bonkers League Table of Touchscreen Stupidity.

As anyone paying attention to the smartphone battle between iOS and Android will know, it’s often a fight between usability and bullet-points. Apple hardware and software is designed to be easy to use, but is somewhat locked-down, and so Android and its hardware partners regularly respond with a list of exciting specs and bullet-points, typically offering ‘more’ in a number of areas that geeks and engineers care about, to best Apple’s shiny toys.

We’re thinking that with the Kyocera Echo, there was a discussion that went along these lines:

“We need something to beat the iPhone. What can we do to be one-up on those guys?”

“Other Android phones have done more speed, more RAM, more installed and impossible-to-remove third-party apps, so we can’t do any of that. What’s left?”

“What about… screens?”

“Genius! The iPhone’s only got one screen, so we’ll clean up if we release a device with two!”

And so (probably) was born the Echo, a device Katherine Boehret on All Things Digital says:

may turn out to be a niche product

No kidding. The device is a fat little bugger, due to the dual-screen nature, and it’s also awkward to get it into dual-screen mode. Worse, though, is this little nugget of information:

only seven of the phone’s apps work in the mode that runs an app on each screen

So even Nintendo DS-style arguments don’t really work here. Instead, you have a device where you can get:

• a slightly bigger screen with a huge black bar across the middle of the content
• a standard-sized screen, hiding the other within the device’s bulk
• ‘Simul-Task Mode’ on seven (count ’em) apps

Sounds great.

Now, where’s my damn 12-screen Android phone? That’s sure to be a winner!

Whatever you think about Hugh Grant, your opinion might change after reading The bugger, bugged (New Statesman). Grant, by chance, met ex-News of the World hack Paul McMullan when Grant’s car broke down; he was given a lift and was invited to the hack’s pub sometime. Grant was keen to hear more about the phone-hacking scandal, since he’d been a victim. Being a canny sort, he also figured he could secretly record the conversation when he later visited the pub.

The revelations are astonishing, implicating Andy Coulson (“Coulson knew all about it and regularly ordered it”), Rebekah Wade and the Daily Mail. McMullan is quoted as saying:

For about four or five years [The Daily Mail have] absolutely been cleaner than clean. And before that they weren’t. They were as dirty as anyone… They had the most money.

McMullen revealed he was also a fan of the Daily Mail’s cash mountain when it came to non-stories about celebs:

When I went freelance in 2004 the biggest payers—you’d have thought it would be the [News of the World], but actually it was the Daily Mail. If I take a good picture, the first person I go to is—such as in your case—the Mail on Sunday. Did you see that story? The picture of you, breaking down… I ought to thank you for that. I got £3,000. Whooo!

Presumably, McMullen went to them a second time after Grant dropped by his pub, since The Daily Mail on April 4 reported Grant’s invited visit with the shocking, hard-hitting exposé Hugh Grant racks up bar tab worth £5.45 at local pub in Dover… but leaves without paying. Naturally, it neglects to mention the invitation and the chat Grant and McMullen had (and it referring to the pub as Grant’s “favourite pub in Dover” seems spurious at best). Still, perhaps McMullen will be happy he got his retaliation in first (not least those jibes about Grant’s riches, which he used to justify the invasion of celebrity privacy regarding phone-hacking) even if the Mail’s article comes across like a fey slap to the cheek compared to Grant’s knockout punch.