Vice Uses Virtual Reality to Immerse Viewers in News - NYTimes.com

More VR mainstreaming

"There are three options for experiencing the project at home. The first is a virtual-reality headset, like the Oculus Rift device. The second is with the Vrse app, downloaded onto a smartphone and connected to a simple viewer, like a cardboard one that Google designed to be built on your own. Finally, viewers can download the app and watch directly on a phone, which provides a close approximation of the experience but loses some of the 3-D features.

Long the purview of the gaming world, virtual reality represents a new frontier for journalism. News reports for years have borne witness to the events shaping the world. Now, directors and reporters are experimenting with virtual-reality technologies to essentially transport people into those events."

Vice Uses Virtual Reality to Immerse Viewers in News - NYTimes.com

Winklevoss Twins Aim to Take Bitcoin Mainstream With a Regulated Exchange - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for assorted Bitcoin company crash-and-burn snapshots

"Bitcoin, the virtual currency that was once the talk of the financial world, has been taking a beating over the last year with the price tumbling downward.

Now two of the biggest boosters of the virtual currency, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, are trying to firm up support by creating the first regulated Bitcoin exchange for American customers — what they are calling the Nasdaq of Bitcoin."

Winklevoss Twins Aim to Take Bitcoin Mainstream With a Regulated Exchange - NYTimes.com

The next chapter of Office on Windows - Office Blogs

See the source for more details and screenshots

"These new Office apps will be pre-installed for free on phones and small tablets running Windows 10, and available to download from the Windows Store for other devices. The Office universal apps will be available with the Windows 10 Technical Preview in the coming weeks and general availability is on track for later this year.

Simultaneously, we are hard at work on the next release of the Office desktop suite that will be called Office 2016. (Unexpected, I know!) We will have more to share on Office 2016 in the coming months, but this suite will remain the comprehensive Office experience you’re long familiar with, best suited for a PC with keyboard and mouse. We have compelling new experiences coming as part of this Office suite–stay tuned to the Office Blog for more details. We expect to make Office 2016 generally available in the second half of 2015."

The next chapter of Office on Windows - Office Blogs

I, Cringely IBM's reorg-from-Hell launches next week - I, Cringely

Stunning, if accurate; check the link below for additional speculation; also see Why These 5 Companies Are Laying Off Thousands of Workers (Time/Money on eBay, AmEx, and others)

"IBM’s big layoff-cum-reorganization called Project Chrome kicks-off next week when 26 percent of IBM employees will get calls from their managers followed by thick envelopes on their doorsteps.  By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone. I’m told this has been in the planning for months and I first heard about it back in November. This biggest reorganization in IBM history is going to be a nightmare for everyone and at first I expected it to be a failure for IBM management, too. But then I thought further and I think I’ve figured it out…"

I, Cringely IBM's reorg-from-Hell launches next week - I, Cringely

Satya Nadella's Got a Plan to Make You Care About Microsoft. The First Step? Holograms | WIRED

Final paragraphs from the latest Wired cover story, an extensive Microsoft-in-transition profile

"It will take a while for any of these competitors to succeed, and Kipman suggests that if users and developers take Project HoloLens in another direction, or don't take to it at all, Microsoft will be OK. The real beneficiaries of Project HoloLens will be the company's operating system, Windows 10; its cloud-computing product, Azure; and its suite of software products, Office 365. They'll continue to improve even if Project HoloLens doesn't. What's important is that more people find more ways to use them. What's important is that, as the next new technology platform emerges, whether it's Project HoloLens or not, Microsoft gets there early.

Just when will the next computing interface take hold? I press Nadella on this, but he's not one to predict the future. “What is that quote? I forget now who said this,” he says. “You always overestimate what you can get done in a year and underestimate what you can get done in 10 years.”

Later, I look up the quote. He got the gist of it right. And the person who said it was Bill Gates."

Satya Nadella's Got a Plan to Make You Care About Microsoft. The First Step? Holograms | WIRED

Oracle’s Ellison Picks Data Center Hardware Fight With Cisco | Re/code

Raising the bar for Cisco+EMC and other "converged infrastructure" competitors

"With the new systems he also promised to beat Cisco on price. For example, Oracle says its Virtual Compute Appliance X5 is 50 percent less expensive to buy than a comparable Cisco product. Oracle has tended to lead Cisco on overall computing performance in this segment, Ellison said, but Cisco has been more aggressive on price. He promised to change that.

“We will compete with Cisco by delivering not only the highest performance virtual computing appliance machines in the industry, but now with the lowest price by far,” he said. “Our old strategy was to offer the highest performance and the best cost for that performance. … Now it’s highest performance with the best list price. We’re just trying to make the decisions easier.”"

Oracle’s Ellison Picks Data Center Hardware Fight With Cisco | Re/code

Google Hopes to Take the Web Directly to Billions Lacking Access - NYTimes.com

Comcast and Verizon (and other regional Internet/TV/phone service providers) are probably getting a bit anxious about this trend; also see Google planning to get into the mobile data business with project 'Nova' (ZDNet)

"These companies have different technologies and different ideas for making money, but the bind among them is a common assumption that there is no economic way to physically wire the world’s underserved consumers. So the only way to do it is with satellites and other wireless technologies.

There is another benefit for Google: The company is always looking for ways to get around Internet service providers. As Google executives have shown with new offerings, from insurance shopping to the growing Google Fiber broadband service, if there is one thing they believe, it is that their company’s interests are best served by going directly to the consumer."

Google Hopes to Take the Web Directly to Billions Lacking Access - NYTimes.com

The HoloLens: A Vision of the PC’s Future - NYTimes.com

Also see NASA And Microsoft Using HoloLens To Make It Possible To Work Remotely… On Mars (TechCrunch)

"All those caveats aside, the HoloLens is wondrous. It blew me away. And it suggests that interacting with holograms could become an important part of how we use machines in the future.

The HoloLens isn’t a gimmick. Microsoft has clearly put a great deal of engineering work into this project. When you put on the device, which looks a lot like ski goggles, you see three-dimensional digital controls — like buttons, lines and pictures — as well as the sheep from the video game Minecraft superimposed on the world around you."

The HoloLens: A Vision of the PC’s Future - NYTimes.com

HP’s Stream is more of a trickle - Business - The Boston Globe

tbd if Windows 10 will help to more effectively address this market segment

"I blame Windows. The software is for heavy-duty computing — astrophysics research, commodities trading, first-person video-games — and is designed to run on traditional computers with quad-core processors and lots of memory. Chrome was created for simpler tasks and runs well on simpler hardware. To get the same snappy performance out of Windows 8.1, the Stream needs a faster, more costly processor, and there goes your $200 price tag.

A respectable Windows machine will cost you more like $350. It’s a sound investment if you rely on Office and other Windows programs. But fewer of us do nowadays, thanks to devices like the Chromebook. It’ll take more than the Stream to turn that tide."

HP’s Stream is more of a trickle - Business - The Boston Globe

Project HoloLens: Our Exclusive Hands-On With Microsoft's Holographic Goggles | WIRED

From a detailed HoloLens overview

"The headset is still a prototype being developed under the codename Project Baraboo, or sometimes just “B.” Kipman, with shoulder-length hair and severely cropped bangs, is a nervous inventor, shifting from one red Converse All-Star to the other. Nervous, because he’s been working on this pair of holographic goggles for five years. No, even longer. Seven years, if you go back to the idea he first pitched to Microsoft, which became Kinect. When the motion-sensing Xbox accessory was released, just in time for the 2010 holidays, it became the fastest-selling consumer gaming device of all time.
Right from the start, he makes it clear that Baraboo will make Kinect seem minor league."

Project HoloLens: Our Exclusive Hands-On With Microsoft's Holographic Goggles | WIRED

Windows 10, inspired by Apple's OS X | InfoWorld

Final paragraphs of a déjà vu summary; also see Windows 10 Looks Pretty Cool, But Microsoft Is Still So Far Behind (Wired)

"OSes have long copied each other. Much of the original Windows UI was based on the original Mac OS, and over the years Apple, Microsoft, and Google have all borrowed from each other. Apple in fact has grown more daring about it in recent years, both in OS X and in iOS.

But it's striking how Microsoft, after the debacles of Windows 8 and Windows Phone, has stepped away from the troubled path it was on and instead looked to learn lessons from Apple, the only PC vendor that is still growing in sales and whose mobile technology has changed the rules for everyone."

Windows 10, inspired by Apple's OS X | InfoWorld

The next generation of Windows: Windows 10 (Windows blog)

Check the link below for a Windows 10 overview and links to related resources

"Today was a monumental day for us on the Windows team because we shared our desire to redefine the relationship we have with you – our customers. We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge. With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet."

The next generation of Windows: Windows 10

What the Web Said Yesterday - The New Yorker

Excerpt from an extensive article about the Internet Archive

"The day after Strelkov’s “We just downed a plane” post was deposited into the Wayback Machine, Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council, in New York, that Ukrainian separatist leaders had “boasted on social media about shooting down a plane, but later deleted these messages.” In San Francisco, the people who run the Wayback Machine posted on the Internet Archive’s Facebook page, “Here’s why we exist.”"

What the Web Said Yesterday - The New Yorker

Difference engine: The right to be left alone | The Economist

Final paragraphs from a timely privacy reality check

"Yet, in a sense, the issue is not whether to accept some erosion of privacy, so governments may protect their people better from evil-doers. Rather, the issue is whether doing so will actually make their country safer. The question asked repeatedly since the intelligence agencies embarked on their wholesale wiretapping of private citizens is, "does profiling hundreds of millions of good guys help to unmask the few dozen bad guys in their midst?" There is scant evidence that it does.

Many would argue instead that granting the intelligence agencies yet further powers to intercept, collect, decrypt and store still more exabytes of personal data only exacerbates their problem of finding the terrorist needle in the public haystack. The answer, surely, is to rely more on tried and tested methods of criminal investigation and trade-craft. In short, to depend less on computer data and more on real human intelligence. Citizens might then not have to chose between privacy and security. They could, in a very real sense, have both."

Difference engine: The right to be left alone | The Economist

Google is now a more trusted source of news than the websites it aggregates - Quartz

I'm assuming this has something to do with Google's information item quality ranking, not just aggregation

"Here is some sobering news for anyone in the journalism industry:

Online search engines have overtaken traditional media as the most trusted source for general news and information, according to a global survey of 27,000 people by Edelman, a public relations firm. The data will be presented to delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
The trust gap between traditional media and search engines is even more pronounced among millennials."

Google is now a more trusted source of news than the websites it aggregates - Quartz

The New Atlas Robot: Now Even More Terrifying (Gizmodo/ValleyWag)

Check the full post for details on the latest (Google) Boston Dynamics ATLAS

"Imagine a room full of these things. Like maybe a hundred of them. Now imagine you're going to tell them what to do, and they're going to listen to you, because they know about Asimov's Laws and of course are willing to obey some things written in a short story in 1942. Good luck with that."

The New Atlas Robot: Now Even More Terrifying

News Feed FYI: Showing Fewer Hoaxes | Facebook Newsroom

Striving to improve the Facebook news feed signal-to-noise ratio

"The goal of News Feed is to catch up with your friends and find the things that matter to you. We’re always looking to people on Facebook to tell us how we can improve this experience. We’ve heard from people that they want to see fewer stories that are hoaxes, or misleading news. Today’s update to News Feed reduces the distribution of posts that people have reported as hoaxes and adds an annotation to posts that have received many of these types of reports to warn others on Facebook. We are not removing stories people report as false and we are not reviewing content and making a determination on its accuracy."

News Feed FYI: Showing Fewer Hoaxes  | Facebook Newsroom

IBM Revenue Slides as Revamping Takes Hold - NYTimes.com

IBM in transition -- again...

"In the conference call and in an interview afterward, Martin Schroeter, IBM’s chief financial officer, made the case that IBM was showing encouraging progress in its transition. The new businesses the company has earmarked for growth — data analytics, cloud, security and mobile apps for corporations — grew at a 16 percent rate in 2014 and contributed $25 billion in revenue, or 27 percent of the company’s total sales. These growth businesses, he said, should continue to expand at a double-digit rate.

[...] But analysts question how well IBM is doing in achieving its objectives. IBM’s reported numbers for its so-called strategic growth businesses, according to estimates by A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst at Bernstein Research, suggest that revenue for the rest of IBM declined by 8 percent last year. “The fact is the core is not stable,” Mr. Sacconaghi said. “The jury is still out on IBM.”"

IBM Revenue Slides as Revamping Takes Hold - NYTimes.com

SpaceX Lands $1 Billion From Google and Fidelity - NYTimes.com

Would planetary broadband count as a natural monopoly? Also see Revealed: Elon Musk's Plan to Build a Space Internet (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

"The Internet giant, along with Fidelity, has invested $1 billion in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the private rocketry company founded by Elon Musk. The move could help Google achieve its aim of bringing satellite Internet to remote corners of the world while giving SpaceX more money for its founder to pursue dreams of going to Mars.

In addition to a payoff on its investment, Google may be seeking to put itself into orbit. Last year, Google bought Skybox Imaging, a maker of small, high-resolution imaging satellites, for about $500 million. Google already offers satellite imagery in its Google Earth product, but must purchase these images from multiple sources, often receiving what company executives have said is uneven image quality."

SpaceX Lands $1 Billion From Google and Fidelity - NYTimes.com

Google thinking of sinking a BEELLION dollars into Internet In SPAAACE • The Register

Lofty ambitions

"It was separately reported by the Wall Street Journal that Google planned to pump around $1bn into Musk's spaceflight firm.

Google's apparent flirtation with SpaceX is the latest in a number of efforts to invest in broadband-in-space initiatives, to allow the ad giant to spread its tentacles into every corner of the globe.

The Larry Page-run multinational unveiled its broadband balloons plan – dubbed Project Loon – in 2013."

Google thinking of sinking a BEELLION dollars into Internet In SPAAACE • The Register

Obama’s Social Media Team Tries to Widen Audience for State of the Union Address - NYTimes.com

Also see the GOP SOTU site, featuring "charts, graphs, and real-time fact-checking to hold the President accountable"

"“To not have an aggressive social media strategy in 2015 would be the equivalent of not having an aggressive TV strategy in the 1950s,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s senior adviser and the West Wing’s most vocal advocate of digital communication. “We have to go to where the conversations are already happening.”

The Office of Digital Strategies is crammed into a five-office suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. The team, made up of about two dozen members, hold regular planning meetings, and few ideas are dismissed out of hand."

Obama’s Social Media Team Tries to Widen Audience for State of the Union Address - NYTimes.com

Mobile platforms and technical debt — Benedict Evans

Excerpt from a long-view mobile platform market dynamics perspective

"One way to look at this is that iOS and Android have been converging - they arrived with more or less the same capabilities despite starting from opposite ends. Apple has given up control where Google has taken it. And of course Google has had to add lots to Android just as Apple had to add lots to iOS (and they've generally 'inspired' each other on the way), and just as Apple has added cloud services Google has redesigned the user interface (twice, so far). 

But the underlying philosophies remain very different - for Apple the device is smart and the cloud is dumb storage, while for Google the cloud is smart and the device is dumb glass. Those assumptions and trade-offs remain very strongly entrenched.  Meanwhile, the next phases of smartphones (messaging apps as platforms and watches as a dominant interface?) will test all the assumptions again."

Mobile platforms and technical debt — Benedict Evans

Edge.org 2015 question: What do you think about machines that think?

Check here for more annual question context-setting and this page for 182 responses from leading (human) thinkers

"In recent years, the 1980s-era philosophical discussions about artificial intelligence (AI)—whether computers can "really" think, refer, be conscious, and so on—have led to new conversations about how we should deal with the forms that many argue actually are implemented. These "AIs", if they achieve "Superintelligence" (Nick Bostrom), could pose "existential risks" that lead to "Our Final Hour" (Martin Rees). And Stephen Hawking recently made international headlines when he noted "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."   
 
THE EDGE QUESTION—2015 
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MACHINES THAT THINK?"

Edge.org

A Google-backed startup wants to change VR as we know it (Engadget)

Also see Exclusive: Facebook hiring spree hints at ambitions in virtual reality and beyond (Reuters)

"What do you do when a good idea fails? You invest in a better version of it. We've known about Google's huge bet on startup Magic Leap for months, but a recent patent application explains why Mountain View has thrown over $540 million at an unknown entity. We don't know exactly what Magic Leap will offer, but by piecing together various patent applications we can surmise it relates to a wearable display system that will supposedly enable a super-realistic type of VR it calls "cinematic reality"."

A Google-backed startup wants to change VR as we know it

Is the Stylus Making a Comeback at Apple? | Re/code

Check the full article for related patent etc. links

"Apple has filed several patent applications relating to a stylus and touch-sensitive displays capable of receiving signals from such a device — some as recently as last September.

The latest speculation comes from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities. According to a report by Kuo, obtained by AppleInsider,  the patent filings suggests Apple plans to introduce a stylus with the anticipated launch of a 12.9-inch iPad that some have dubbed the “iPad Pro.”"

Is the Stylus Making a Comeback at Apple? | Re/code

Microsoft Looks to Windows 10 for a Jolt in the Mobile Realm - NYTimes.com

A major Microsoft milestone this week, with the unveiling of Windows Not-8

"On Wednesday, Microsoft plans to unveil details about Windows 10, a new operating system for PCs, at an event at its headquarters outside Seattle. The operating system, the company says, will help win back developers by allowing them to more easily adapt PC applications to mobile devices. The company hopes it will also increase the availability of applications for — and lift sales of — the company’s smartphones.

The move is the biggest effort yet by Satya Nadella, who took over as chief executive nearly a year ago, to save the company’s moribund smartphone business. So far, Mr. Nadella has put Microsoft’s overall mobile offerings on a more practical path. Last year, he released the company’s Office suite of applications for Apple iOS and Google Android devices, and he improved tools for developers of nearly all device brands."

Microsoft Looks to Windows 10 for a Jolt in the Mobile Realm - NYTimes.com

N.S.A. Breached North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say - NYTimes.com

More cyber spy-vs-spy details

"But fearing the exposure of its methods in a country that remains a black hole for intelligence gathering, American officials have declined to talk publicly about the role the technology played in Washington’s assessment that the North Korean government had ordered the attack on Sony.

The extensive American penetration of the North Korean system also raises questions about why the United States was not able to alert Sony as the attacks took shape last fall, even though the North had warned, as early as June, that the release of the movie “The Interview,” a crude comedy about a C.I.A. plot to assassinate the North’s leader, would be “an act of war.”"

N.S.A. Breached North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say - NYTimes.com

Insurance via Internet Is Squeezing Agents - NYTimes.com

Tangentially, see Banking Start-Ups Adopt New Tools for Lending (NYT)

"And while it might seem like an odd match for Google, whose projects include driverless cars, delivery drones and a pill to detect cancer, the key to insurance is having lots of data about people’s backgrounds and habits, which is perhaps the company’s greatest strength.

“They have a ton of data on where people drive, how people drive,” said Jon McNeill, chief executive of Enservio, a Needham, Mass., company that makes claims-processing software. “It’s the holy grail of being able to price auto insurance correctly.”"

Insurance via Internet Is Squeezing Agents - NYTimes.com

Information technology: Computing, fast and slow | The Economist

Final paragraphs from an IBM reality check

"Other analysts imagine a more pessimistic scenario: IBM is increasingly held back by its legacy business; it becomes less profitable because cloud services offer lower margins than the more customised IT services IBM is used to providing; and it steadily loses customers to newcomers, such as Amazon’s cloud-computing arm.

If this starts to look like it is happening, pressure will mount for Ginni Rometty, IBM’s boss, to take more radical action. It is unlikely that the firm will break itself up, as its rival HP has decided to do: IBM’s businesses feed too much on each other. But it could be forced to separate its old from its new businesses more clearly. Many of its clients are going for “two-speed IT”, in which they separate their faster-moving and more innovative IT needs (data-crunching, say) from more basic services (payroll processing, for instance). To keep them, IBM may need to do the same."

Information technology: Computing, fast and slow | The Economist

Bitcoin May Succeed as Software, Not Medium of Exchange - Businessweek

Final paragraph from a Bitcoin reality check; also see Bitcoin Has Been Getting Obliterated

"So the future of Bitcoin may rest with entrepreneurs seeking to build straightforward, regulated companies that do a straightforward thing that is now more expensive than it needs to be: moving money. That might not be up there with creating a global currency, but it would be no small accomplishment."

Bitcoin May Succeed as Software, Not Medium of Exchange - Businessweek

Can We Avoid a Digital Apocalypse? : A Response to the 2015 Edge Question : Sam Harris

Final paragraphs of a Sam Harris artificial general intelligence (AGI) reality check

"And yet it is beginning to seem likely that some small number of smart people will one day roll these dice. And the temptation will be understandable. We confront problems—Alzheimer’s disease, climate change, economic instability—for which superhuman intelligence could offer a solution. In fact, the only thing nearly as scary as building an AGI is the prospect of not building one. Nevertheless, those who are closest to doing this work have the greatest responsibility to anticipate its dangers. Yes, other fields pose extraordinary risks—but the difference between AGI and something like synthetic biology is that, in the latter, the most dangerous innovations (such as germline mutation) are not the most tempting, commercially or ethically. With AGI the most powerful methods (such as recursive self-improvement) are precisely those that entail the most risk.
We seem to be in the process of building a God. Now would be a good time to wonder whether it will (or even can) be a good one."

Can We Avoid a Digital Apocalypse? : A Response to the 2015 Edge Question : Sam Harris

Facebook Offers Artificial Intelligence Tech to Open Source Group - NYTimes.com

A busy week for AI-related news

"Certainly, Facebook’s move shows a bit of enlightened self-interest. By releasing the tools to a large community of researchers and developers, Facebook will also be able to accelerate its own AI projects. Mark Zuckerberg has previously cited such open source tactics as his reason for starting the Open Compute Initiative, an open source effort to catch up with Google, Amazon and Yahoo on building big data centers.

Torch is also useful in computer vision, or the recognition of objects in the physical world, as well as question answering systems. Mr. Chintala said his group had fed a machine a simplified version of “The Lord of the Rings” novels and the computer can understand and answer basic questions about the book."

Facebook Offers Artificial Intelligence Tech to Open Source Group - NYTimes.com

How Google Search Dealt With Mobile — Backchannel — Medium

Excerpt from an extensive Google search strategy summary by Steven Levy (the first of a four-post series)

"But for now, the challenge of crawling the apps universe hasn’t affected Google’s search dominance. The statistics remain staggering. Google accepts over 3 billion search queries a day. In the US, two-thirds of all searches use Google — worldwide, there’s similar dominance. (A recent dip in market share is largely attributed not to search quality , but Yahoo’s deal to dislodge Google as the default search engine on Firefox). Even more impressive, Google hosts well over 80% of mobile searches. When Google suffered a five-minute outage in 2013, global web traffic dropped forty percent.

No search competitor has Google’s infrastructure, its deep talent, or its experience. Few have its ambition. So while news coverage of Google has dealt with regulatory issues, the fortunes and misfortunes of Glass, and the adolescent superstars of YouTube, Search has been going through a steady but intense reinvention."

How Google Search Dealt With Mobile — Backchannel — Medium

How ‘Family Sharing’ Can Save You a Ton of Money on Apple and Amazon (Yahoo Tech)

From a David Pogue summary of Amazon and Apple family sharing options

"Consider what’s really going on here: These companies are, in effect, deliberately giving up money, and saving you money. Until now, a husband and wife would have to buy two copies of an ebook if they wanted to read it in their own accounts. A family of four Apple account holders would have to buy a certain app or movie four times if they all wanted it.

Those days are gone now. Common sense has prevailed. Family sharing prevents that duplication of spending."

How ‘Family Sharing’ Can Save You a Ton of Money on Apple and Amazon

SpaceX releases dramatic pictures and video of failed Falcon 9 landing | The Verge

Video at the link below

"Musk described the attempted rocket landing last weekend as "close, but no cigar" — but this assessment doesn't really do these images justice. The 14-story-tall Falcon 9 rocket is seen hitting the deck of the barge at a 45-degree angle as the four stabilizing fins lose hydraulic power. The engines then fire in an attempt to restore balance but it's too late and the rocket smashes into the deck of the ship. The four images tweeted by Musk can be seen below, who cheerfully sums up the situation: "Full RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) event. Ship is fine minor repairs. Exciting day!""

SpaceX releases dramatic pictures and video of failed Falcon 9 landing | The Verge

Elon Musk Donates $10M to Keep AI From Turning Evil | WIRED

Natural intelligence at work

"The program—and the $10 million donation—will fund research around the world supporting this mission. On Monday, the Future of Life Institute will open up a portal allowing researchers to apply for grants to the program. Beyond hardcore AI science, money will be awarded to researchers in other fields as well, including economics, law, ethics and policy. The FLI says the program will be open to individuals who work in academia, industry, or even independently.

For so long, the artificially intelligent future has been fodder for Hollywood and science fiction, or discussed abstractly in philosophy. But as behemoths like Google incorporate AI into the very core of its current and future technologies, and as a wave of smaller startups build businesses on top of the science, we can no longer deny its very real rise. AI is here to stay; but the debate over AI ethics is just beginning."

Elon Musk Donates $10M to Keep AI From Turning Evil | WIRED

Black Box Society by Frank Pasquale: A chilling vision of how Big Data has invaded our lives. (Slate)

Excerpt from a stark big data reality check

"Some of these categories are dicey enough that you wouldn’t want to be a part of them. Pasquale writes that some third-party data-broker microtargeting lists include “probably bipolar,” “daughter killed in car crash,” “rape victim,” and “gullible elderly.” There are no restrictions on marketers assembling and distributing such lists, nor any oversight, leading to what Pasquale terms “runaway data.” With such lists circulating among marketers, credit bureaus, hiring firms, and health care companies, these categories—which cross the line into racial or gender classification as well—easily slip from marketing tools into reputation indicators.

This customer information is considered highly valuable and lucrative, and Facebook has partnered with brokers like Turn (700 million user profiles) to get its hands on it (as I chronicled in my feature “You Are What You Click”). Once the genie is out of the lamp through comprehensive and multifaceted monitoring of your Web habits, your purchases, searches, and social media activities go on sale and resale to the highest bidders, with everyone profiting except you—unless you consider invasive personalized ads a benefit."

Black Box Society by Frank Pasquale: A chilling vision of how Big Data has invaded our lives.

Skype Translator Review: Impressive, but Far from Human | MIT Technology Review

Excerpt from another natural language market dynamics snapshot

"Microsoft’s software tries to filter out “disfluencies” (such as “um,” “ah,” and repetitions) on the word and sentence level. Some of these disfluencies made it through during my conversation, but the translation still occurred with impressive speed and accuracy.

The limitations of Skype’s translation software are also revealing, since they show how difficult it is for even the smartest machine to mimic the subtleties of effective human conversation. Determining which meaning of a word is appropriate in different contexts can be vexing. “If software is translating between American and British English, and it recognizes the word ‘football,’ it also needs to know when to change it to ‘soccer’ and when to keep it as ‘football’ or ‘gridiron,’” says Christopher Manning, a professor of linguistics and computer science in Stanford University’s Natural Language Processing Group."

Skype Translator Review: Impressive, but Far from Human | MIT Technology Review

Google Glass to Leave Research Lab as New Boss Takes Over Project - NYTimes.com

tbd if the next step will be a deal with a hardware partner

"Google announced on Thursday that the Glass project was graduating from the company’s research division, called Google X, and would operate as a stand-alone division within Google. The company also said that, as of Monday, it would end its Explorer program, which was a test version of Glass that cost $1,500 in its Play Store, and which was geared toward software developers and device aficionados.

This means, in essence, that regular people will no longer be able to buy Google Glass. The company will still have its Glass at Work program –- a pilot initiative to use the device in areas like hospitals and factories –- and the device will be available to “certified partners” who are developing software for it."

Google Glass to Leave Research Lab as New Boss Takes Over Project - NYTimes.com

Here's Why Samsung Would Want to Buy BlackBerry - Businessweek

Perhaps not yet the final BlackBerry chapter; check the story link below for some reasons why Google and Microsoft may try to preempt a Samsung deal

"Reports that Samsung Electronics has approached BlackBerry briefly sent the battered smartphone maker's stock soaring. Any deal is far from done and BlackBerry denied it, but the possibility does raise the question: Why would Samsung want to acquire BlackBerry? Yes, the Korean conglomerate would get a robust suite of patents, BlackBerry's powerful (though unloved) new mobile platform, and a history of highly lauded hardware design. Still, there is really only one reason the Canadian phonemaker is attractive to Samsung right now: security. And security is the gateway to the highly valuable enterprise market."

Here's Why Samsung Would Want to Buy BlackBerry - Businessweek

Why on Earth Is IBM Still Making Mainframes? | WIRED

Final paragraph from another IBM mainframe reality check

"As developers of new applications come to rely on the ease and power of the cloud, the mainframe remains a powerhouse for tasks computers have performed for decades, such as transactions. IBM has realized it can no longer make money selling traditional hardware, and as of late, the company has been focusing its efforts on software and data analytics, including a recently announced partnership with Twitter. But investing in industrial-grade hardware still aligns with IBM’s focus on serving as an engine for business. Business is more mobile than ever. Yet however lightweight those mobile devices feel in your pocket, they can still make good use of a big, powerful machine chugging away in a back room, not going anywhere."

Why on Earth Is IBM Still Making Mainframes? | WIRED

Facebook Looks to the Workplace for Future Growth - NYTimes.com

Also see ‘Facebook At Work’ Hits App Stores (WSJ) and Facebook Unveils Facebook At Work, Lets Businesses Create Their Own Social Networks (TechCrunch)

"But can a consumer company that thrives on people sharing early and often make friends with businesses more interested in keeping information on a need-to-know basis?

The Silicon Valley company said on Wednesday that it had begun formal pilot testing of Facebook at Work, a corporate edition of its service intended to be a social network for individual companies and organizations.

“It’s the Facebook everyone knows and loves but adapted to work,” Lars Rasmussen, the director of engineering for the product, said in an interview."

Facebook Looks to the Workplace for Future Growth - NYTimes.com

They’re Watching You Read by Francine Prose | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

Meta-reading?

"As disturbing may be the implications for writers themselves. Since Kobo is apparently sharing its data with publishers, writers (and their editors) could soon be facing meetings in which the marketing department informs them that 82 percent of readers lost interest in their memoir on page 272. And if they want to be published in the future, whatever happens on that page should never be repeated.

Will authors be urged to write the sorts of books that the highest percentage of readers read to the end? Or shorter books? Are readers less likely to finish longer books? We’ll definitely know that. Will mystery writers be scolded (and perhaps dropped from their publishers’ lists) because a third of their fans didn’t even stick around long to enough to learn who committed the murder? Or, given the apparent lack of correlation between books that are bought and books that are finished, will this information ultimately fail to interest publishers, whose profits have, it seems, been ultimately unaffected by whether or not readers persevere to the final pages?"

They’re Watching You Read by Francine Prose | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

BrainGate Develops a Wireless Brain-Computer Interface | MIT Technology Review

Both inspirational and scary

"A few paralyzed patients could soon be using a wireless brain-computer interface able to stream their thought commands as quickly as a home Internet connection.

After more than a decade of engineering work, researchers at Brown University and a Utah company, Blackrock Microsystems, have commercialized a wireless device that can be attached to a person’s skull and transmit via radio thought commands collected from a brain implant. Blackrock says it will seek clearance for the system from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so that the mental remote control can be tested in volunteers, possibly as soon as this year."

BrainGate Develops a Wireless Brain-Computer Interface | MIT Technology Review

BlackBerry Climbs on Report Samsung Made Acquisition Offer - Businessweek

Another happy outcome for John Chen, but perhaps not so much for long-term BlackBerry shareholders (RIM stock was > $147 in 2008)

"Samsung approached Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry with an initial offer price of $13.35 to $15.49 a share, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter and documents. That’s at least a 37 percent premium to BlackBerry’s closing price yesterday.

BlackBerry rose 30 percent to $12.60 at the close in New York. Adam Yates, a U.S. spokeswoman for South Korea-based Samsung, declined to comment. Representatives for BlackBerry didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment."

BlackBerry Climbs on Report Samsung Made Acquisition Offer - Businessweek

Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman Sign Letter To Stop Killer Robots (ValleyWag)

Another cheery AI reality check by Dan Lyons

"The institute was co-founded by Jaan Tallinn, one of the co-founders of Skype. Its "scientific advisory board" (see here) includes Stephen Hawking (a smart person), a bunch of professors from MIT, Harvard, Berkeley and Cambridge (fine), as well as Elon Musk (um ... not sure) and finally, those two notable artificial intelligence experts, Alan Alda and Morgan Freeman.

No seriously, those two guys are on the list. Alda is described as an "actor, writer, director, and science communicator." Freeman is an "actor, director, narrator and science communicator." Honestly, I loved Morgan Freeman in March of the Penguins, and if he's scared about AI, then so am I. Actually I was scared even before this but if Freeman is on board then I am even more convinced that the end is nigh for humans."

Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman Sign Letter To Stop Killer Robots

How Amazon Tricks You Into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices | Re/code

Actual results may vary

"The study was part of a white paper Boomerang released on Tuesday to bring attention to the idea of price perception in e-commerce. The startup has created a “price perception index,” which it described as “a numerical pricing model that captures customer psychology of price perception. It does so by providing a tangible statistic of how a company’s products … are priced, relative to the competition, weighted by customer interest.”

The goal of the index is to highlight how a nuanced approach to pricing — such as Amazon’s — can be a smarter, more cost-effective option over simply price-matching across the board. This is where Boomerang enters the conversation: The startup wants to help Amazon competitors think about pricing in as sophisticated a way as Amazon does."

How Amazon Tricks You Into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices | Re/code

IBM Introduces z13, a Mainframe for the Smartphone Economy - NYTimes.com

Not dead yet

"“This is a mainframe for the mobile digital economy,” said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president in charge of IBM’s systems business, which includes mainframes. “It’s a computer for the bow wave of mobile transactions coming our way.”

IBM brings out a new mainframe about every three years, and the success of this one is critical to the company’s business. Mainframes alone account for only about 3 percent of IBM’s sales. But when mainframe-related software, services and storage are included, the business as a whole contributes 25 percent of IBM’s revenue and 35 percent of its operating profit, estimates A.M. Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research."

IBM Introduces z13, a Mainframe for the Smartphone Economy - NYTimes.com

Apple Patent Shakes GoPro’s Stock - Digits - WSJ

Disrupt different

"The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple 34 patents Tuesday, including one for a new digital-camera system that can be mounted and operated by a remote control, according to Patently Apple, a blog that follows the patent filings of the technology giant.

In its patent filing, Apple says its system overcomes some of the shortcomings of GoPro’s cameras, such as a susceptibility to vibration. [...] 

Capitalizing on the popularity of its cameras, GoPro went public last year. On Tuesday, the stock fell 13% to $49.87, off 47% from its October high. GoPro’s stock is still more than double its initial public offering price of $24."

Apple Patent Shakes GoPro’s Stock - Digits - WSJ

We Know How You Feel (The New Yorker)

Subtitled "Computers are learning to read emotion, and the business world can’t wait"; check the link below for an extensive market profile

We Know How You Feel

GM fires a Bolt at electric car rivals - FT.com

Also see Charging Ahead in Detroit: Automakers Keep Rolling Out Electric Vehicles (NYT)

"But the Model S, which has a 208-mile range and is Tesla’s cheapest vehicle, costs $74,570, even after the effects of US federal tax rebates for electric vehicles. Many other vehicles on the stand sell for more than $100,000. Consumers face an unpalatable choice between affordable vehicles that offer only a relatively modest performance — such as Nissan’s Leaf, which is small, achieves only 85 miles per charge but costs less than $30,000 after tax rebates — and the premium performance of Tesla, at a premium price. The issue is whether either GM or Tesla — which is planning to introduce a mass-market vehicle known as the Model 3 — can provide the sophisticated batteries and control equipment for a 200-mile range for the $30,000 price tag both are targeting."

GM fires a Bolt at electric car rivals - FT.com

Uber Offers Trip Data to Cities, Starting in Boston - Digits - WSJ

On a similar note, see Strava Metro

"The data partnership marks the first time Uber has opened up its transportation database, one of the most valuable assets for a company that owns no cars and employs no drivers. In exchange for helping regulators track user data, the company hopes to build political clout and make a stronger case for its legitimacy in many places where its legal status is in doubt.

Uber is currently in talks to share data reports with New York City, and is open to discussing similar arrangements anywhere in operates in the U.S., said Justin Kintz, head of policy for North America.

“We intend to make this a national standard policy that we are going to offer any U.S. city that’s an Uber city that’s interested in access to similar data,” Kintz said."

Uber Offers Trip Data to Cities, Starting in Boston - Digits - WSJ

Cut-Rate PCs Led End-of-Year Computer Sales - Digits - WSJ

Rapidly changing PC market dynamics

"Another market researcher, NPD, said Chromebook unit sales in U.S. retail outlets rose about 56% in the five-week holiday stretch through Dec. 28. Overall computer sales rose 3.5% during the period, NPD estimated. The average sale price of Windows PCs was $408 during the holiday period, down from $436 a year earlier.

The sales reports show how the Chromebook, introduced in 2011, helped change the perception of what a PC is and what it should cost.

Chromebooks and machines running Windows 8.1 with Bing join a growing number of computers that meld functions of laptops and tablets. They also compete with emerging “stick” devices that pack PC functions into a pocket-size form factor.

At the other end of the price spectrum, Apple is enjoying a revival of the Mac."

Cut-Rate PCs Led End-of-Year Computer Sales - Digits - WSJ

Amazon to take over textbook sales at UMass Amherst - Business - The Boston Globe

Elsewhere in the article: "Amazon told UMass that it could save students an average of 31 percent, or $380 annually, compared with prices at the old store."

"This isn’t Amazon’s first foray onto campus. In 2013, the company launched its first textbook partnership with the University of California Davis, followed by Purdue University in 2014.

The company said it is negotiating similar contracts with a number of other universities and colleges.

“Many schools are feeling pressure to control the cost of education, and textbooks contribute to that,” said Ripley MacDonald, Amazon’s director of student programs. “Many are also seeing revenues in their bookstores flat at best, or even going backward, so they’re looking at ways to stem that trend. We’re trying to reinvent the bookstore experience.”"

Amazon to take over textbook sales at UMass Amherst - Business - The Boston Globe

Docker security 'immature', but not scary says Gartner • The Register

Overview of a Docker security reality check

"Analyst outfit Gartner's written an assessment of Docker's security and found the containerisation tool's sound, but immature.

Security Properties of Containers Managed by Docker, published last week, finds “ Linux containers are mature enough to be used as private and public PaaS” but “... disappoint when it comes to secure administration and management, and to support for common controls for confidentiality, integrity and availability.”

The document also suggests that running Docker inside a hypervisor – advanced by VMware and, to a lesser degree Microsoft – doesn't necessarily help matters."

Docker security 'immature', but not scary says Gartner • The Register

White House Moves to Protect Data Privacy - Digits - WSJ

Busy cyber-politics heading into the 1/20 State of the Union

"President Obama announced on Monday a package of legislative proposals aimed at safeguarding privacy across sectors including education, energy, and tech.

The education bill, the Student Digital Privacy Act, would bar tech companies that manage and analyze student data from selling it to third parties that use it for anything other than educational purposes, and from engaging in targeted advertising to kids. Most of the key language in the education proposal became law in California last year

Seventy five companies have already signed on to the proposal, including Silicon Valley giants Apple, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. and ClassDojo, a startup that provides teaching tools."

White House Moves to Protect Data Privacy - Digits - WSJ

A Small Software Company Sees a Future in Containers of Code - NYTimes.com

On a related note, see An introduction to containers, Kubernetes, and the trajectory of modern cloud computing (Google Cloud Platform Blog)

"“It absolutely makes it easier to write applications,” said Eric Brewer, Google’s vice president for computer infrastructure. Google developed the first type of container, for internal use, about eight years ago, which helped it build its Internet services quickly.

Docker took the Google innovation and made it easy for people to use across computers.

“It’s a huge efficiency gain in how you write code,” said Mr. Golub, who started his career teaching business courses in Uzbekistan. “You don’t have to rewrite everything, then fix all the breaks when it goes into production. You just work on what you change.”"

A Small Software Company Sees a Future in Containers of Code - NYTimes.com

ISIS Is Cited in Hacking of Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube Accounts - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

"“There’s a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account,” Mr. Earnest said.

But for the Defense Department, the hacking was, at the very least, embarrassing. A black-and-white banner with the image of a hooded militant and “I love you ISIS” replaced Central Command’s usual banner on Twitter. Some posts listed purported names and phone numbers of American military personnel, while another said the so-called cybercaliphate is “already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base.”"

ISIS Is Cited in Hacking of Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube Accounts - NYTimes.com

Language Translation Tech Starts to Deliver on Its Promise - NYTimes.com

Excerpt from a language recognition/translation snapshot

"Automatic translation of web pages into some major languages is already a feature on Google’s Chrome browser. People using the browser can render a page that is in English into, say Korean. There are also 140 languages in which it is possible to change things like Gmail settings.

It is possible to set your email to languages like Klingon, Pirate and Elmer Fudd. Other options, like Cherokee, are more serious, and Google aspires to eventually have these as full translation languages. Google will also soon announce a service that enables you to hold your phone up to a foreign street sign and create an automatic translation on the screen."

Language Translation Tech Starts to Deliver on Its Promise - NYTimes.com

Whittling Down The MacBook To An iPad — Five Hundred Words — Medium

Final paragraphs from a perspective post about the next MacBook

"Some believe the iPad will never be able to take the mantle. I think that’s folly. The innovation there, with the chips in particular, is moving so fast that we’re going to have iPads as powerful as laptops very, very soon. Then it’s just a matter of continued software tweaks to get everyone comfortable with the conversion. Kids will grow up never having used a laptop.

Apple is about to whittle the MacBook down to perfection. Peak laptop. From there, there’s nowhere to go but to slowly disappear…"

Whittling Down The MacBook To An iPad — Five Hundred Words — Medium

WhatsApp sails past SMS, but where does messaging go next? — Benedict Evans

First and last paragraphs from a timely mobile messaging/apps reality check

"Noted this week: WhatsApp reported that it now has 700m MAUs sending 30bn messages a day. For comparison, the global SMS system sees about 20bn messages a day.
[...]
The deeper issue here is that the whole interaction model for smartphones is deeply unsettled. With smartphones we've moved away from the unifying model of the web browser plus Google, but haven't reached stability in a new model - everything is still changing, including the questions. We don't really know what it will mean to 'find', 'discover' and 'install' an 'app' in a few years." 

WhatsApp sails past SMS, but where does messaging go next? — Benedict Evans

Q4 social login report: Facebook losing ground to Google - Inside Facebook

Collectively controlling 83% of Q4 2014 social login preferences

"While Facebook may be gaining ground on Google in video publishing, the social network is seeing its market share of social logins cut into by the search giant.

Janrain’s Q4 2014 social login report shows that while Facebook is still the dominant way people log in to websites, Google is closing in. Facebook lost 3 percent of its social login market share, while Google gained 6 percent. Google is gaining on Facebook among music and consumer brand sites."

Q4 social login report: Facebook losing ground to Google - Inside Facebook

The iPhone’s 8th Anniversary | Monday Note

Summary of the latest Jean-Louis Gassée post

"Smartphones existed before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone on January 9th, 2007. But by upending existing technology platforms, application distribution, and carrier business models, he kickstarted a new era of computing whose impact is yet to be fully understood."

The iPhone’s 8th Anniversary | Monday Note

Obama to Announce Cybersecurity Plans in State of the Union Preview - NYTimes.com

A timely topic domain

"In a series of speeches, Mr. Obama will call for better safeguards against identity theft, improved privacy protection, enhanced cybersecurity for the government and private companies, and increased access to high-speed broadband connections across the country.

A White House official said in a statement to reporters that the president would “lay out a series of legislative proposals and executive actions that will be in his State of the Union that will tackle identity theft and privacy issues, cybersecurity, and access to the Internet.”"

Obama to Announce Cybersecurity Plans in State of the Union Preview - NYTimes.com

SpaceX rocket landing was ‘close, but no cigar’ — Tech News and Analysis (GigaOM)

Check the full article for details

"SpaceX’s first attempt to land its Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth after a launch failed when the 14-story-tall structure ran out of hydraulic fluid and touched down too hard. The startup did, however, accomplish the tricky maneuver of positioning the rocket for the landing over a platform floating off the coast of Florida.

SpaceX will attempt the landing again after its next launch. The rocket will carry at least 50 percent more hydraulic fluid. If the landing succeeds, it could usher in an era of much cheaper spaceflight thanks to more reusable rocket parts."

SpaceX rocket landing was ‘close, but no cigar’ — Tech News and Analysis

Scannable: A New Mobile Scanning App from Evernote - Evernote Blog

Apparently Evernote is following Facebook's app-disintegration/specialization lead

"Given how much the modern workflow relies on mobile devices, mobile scanning needs to be better. Mobile document scanning doesn’t happen in a vacuum — one way or another it’s part of a larger process in your life that a scanning app should speed up, not slow down. Done well, a great scanning app should emphasize action, not archiving. It should be about the words on the paper, not the paper itself. That’s why we’re happy to introduce Scannable. Available for iPhone and iPad, Scannable is designed to scan and share fast because those receipts and documents don’t belong in your camera roll."

Scannable: A New Mobile Scanning App from Evernote - Evernote Blog

Microsoft lays out year-long roadmap for unifying OneDrive sync engines | ZDNet

More unified; less Groovy

"By the end of this year, Microsoft promises both services will be accessible from a single sync engine that will work with OneDrive (the consumer service) and OneDrive for Business.

The announcements come in a post at the OneDrive blog, which promises that the new sync engine will include two long-awaited features: the ability to sync shared folders (a la Dropbox), and selective sync across all platforms. The latter feature is especially important for OneDrive for Business users, who currently have to choose between syncing all files from the cloud to a local device (up to 1 TB, with unlimited storage coming later this year), or accessing everything solely from the cloud."

Microsoft lays out year-long roadmap for unifying OneDrive sync engines | ZDNet

Box, a Data Storage Provider, Seeks Up to $162.5 Million in I.P.O. - NYTimes.com

Another example of the new IPO math

"Box, the online data storage provider, disclosed on Friday that it was seeking to raise up to $162.5 million in its initial public offering, as the company embarked on a road show for potential investors. (If demand proved high, the company could sell additional shares and raise up to $186.9 million.)

In an amended prospectus, Box said that it planned to price its shares at $11 to $13 a share. At the midpoint of that range, the company would be valued at about $1.4 billion — less than the valuation the company fetched in a private $150 million fund-raising round last summer. (The company has said that its valuation was adjusted as the stocks of publicly traded peers declined.)"

Box, a Data Storage Provider, Seeks Up to $162.5 Million in I.P.O. - NYTimes.com

Happy New Year -- Let's Talk About Human Extinction (ValleyWag)

Lead paragraphs from an AI reality check by Dan Lyons

"Stephen Hawking sees the danger of artificial intelligence. So does Elon Musk. Oxford professor Nick Bostrom, head of the Future of Humanity Institute, has written a whole book about it. Even the scientists at Google DeepMind, who are developing artificial intelligence, seem a little spooked about it.

What they all say, in one form or another, is that AI could be dangerous. Some go further and say that if and when true artificial intelligence emerges, humans will face extinction. We will simply be outcompeted by a superior new species, one that we ourselves have created."

Happy New Year -- Let's Talk About Human Extinction

Social Media Site Usage 2014 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Check the full Pew report summary for some salient social stats; also see WhatsApp's Growth Exceeds Christianity's First 19 Centuries (Forbes), and keep in mind the fact that Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp

"In a new survey conducted in September 2014, the Pew Research Center finds that Facebook remains by far the most popular social media site. While its growth has slowed, the level of user engagement with the platform has increased. Other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn saw significant increases over the past year in the proportion of online adults who now use their sites."

Social Media Site Usage 2014 | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Drones are getting better faster than anyone expected | The Verge

From a drone market dynamics snapshot

"At its keynote this year, Intel showed off drones that could fly themselves through a forest, navigating around trees. Onstage, they reacted to people who moved towards them, dodging to avoid a collision. It was powerful sense-and-avoid technology, and it was powered by Intel’s RealSense, a system of camera hardware and software originally developed to allow people to control their computer without having to physically touch their mouse or keyboard. "This is a good example of technology being extended beyond its original intent," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "Once we had that developed, we learned we could push that into drones.""

Drones are getting better faster than anyone expected | The Verge

No, Data Is Eating the World | Re/code

Check the source for a timely data reality check by Dries Buytaert

"Marc Andreessen famously said that “software is eating the world.” While I certainly agree with Marc that software companies are redefining our economies, I believe that much of that technological shift is being driven by data. So, is the value of a business in the data, or in the software? I believe the value is increasingly more in the data, and not the software. Let’s investigate why:"

No, Data Is Eating the World | Re/code

Apple's Cut From App Sales Reached $4.5 Billion in 2014 - NYTimes.com

Later in the article: "App Annie, an analytics firm that tracks mobile app sales, said that in the third quarter of 2014, Apple’s App Store revenue was 60 percent higher than revenue generated from Google Play."

"Apple continues to make billions of dollars from mobile apps sold in its App Store. The company said on Thursday that in 2014, billings from app sales rose 50 percent from the previous year, which results in roughly $15 billion in revenue for app developers and a $4.5 billion cut for Apple."

Apple's Cut From App Sales Reached $4.5 Billion in 2014 - NYTimes.com

I Put on the New Oculus Rift Headset. This Is What I Saw - Businessweek

In other Facebook news, Facebook Acquires QuickFire Networks, A ‘Pied Piper’ For Video (TechCrunch)

"This newest version of the Rift VR headset is indeed astonishing. You strap on a pair of goggles and are transported to a series of different settings, one of which includes a lumbering, slobbering T-Rex. In another, the wearer materializes on a ledge, high above a futuristic city. As I stood on that imaginary perch and looked at the ground far below, I felt actual, heart-palpitating fear.

I spoke to Oculus Chief Executive Officer Brendan Iribe about Crescent Bay and his plans to finally launch the much anticipated device. Among other things, he said that getting acquired by Facebook has allowed the company to grow fivefold, from 50 engineers to more than 250, in a short nine months. Oculus hasn't committed to a ship date for the Rift, but when it comes, it may well be worth the wait."

I Put on the New Oculus Rift Headset. This Is What I Saw - Businessweek

Snowden: Don’t Hack Back - Digits - WSJ

A multifaceted sign of the times

"“When it comes to cyber warfare, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth,” Snowden said, according to a transcript. “The technical sector is the backbone of the American economy, and if we start engaging in these kind of behaviors, in these kind of attacks, we’re setting a standard, we’re creating a new international norm of behavior that says this is what nations do.”

Many current and former U.S. security officials agree. If the Internet becomes a battlefield, they say, the U.S. is so well wired that it would be relatively easy to inflict damage. But there’s less to attack in a country like North Korea."

Snowden: Don’t Hack Back - Digits - WSJ

Intel Unveils Pocket-Size Computer That Plugs into TVs - Digits - WSJ

More details on Intel's new Compute Stick

"Intel is known for its chips, but it also combines them into systems to be distributed to customers for demonstration purposes. Now the Silicon Valley giant is taking a more unusual step: developing a tiny computer it plans to sell directly.

The company used this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev., to disclose plans for the Intel Compute Stick, a pocket-size device that plugs into the HDMI port on a TV or computer monitor. The unit includes an Intel Atom processor, Wi-Fi, 32 gigabytes of storage and a slot to plug in an SD card for further capacity.

Intel says a version for the device running Windows 8.1 will cost $149 and arrive by the end of the first quarter. It plans to offer a Linux-based version for $89."

Intel Unveils Pocket-Size Computer That Plugs into TVs - Digits - WSJ

Google Wants to Sell You Auto Insurance - Digits - WSJ

The full article includes speculation about Google needing to go "vertical" in order to stay relevant, especially on mobile devices

"Google is plotting a move into auto insurance in the U.S., including a comparison-shopping site from which users would also be able to buy policies, an industry analyst says.

Forrester Research analyst Ellen Carney wrote in a blog post Wednesday that an entity called Google Compare Auto Insurance Services is licensed to sell insurance in 26 states and is authorized to sell policies in at least one state on behalf of six insurers, including MetLife, Mercury and Viking Insurance of Wisconsin."

Google Wants to Sell You Auto Insurance - Digits - WSJ

Predictions For 2015: There Will Be Blood [Valleywag]

Dan Lyons is back -- check the full post for his 2015 predictions

"But the main reason I'm running the photo is to make an actual serious point, which is that nobody in this industry ever has any idea what is going to work. Nobody. Not even these big-brained masters of the universe who are entrusted with billions of dollars. These are smart guys. The one on the left founded Netscape. The one on the right was an early investor in Google. The one in the middle was in a boy band, I think. Anyway, they're experts. They spend their whole lives trying to spot trends and pick winners, and they are paid ungodly amounts of money because they are considered the best in the world.

And yet, back in 2013, less than two years ago, these three experts really believed Glass was going to be huge. They were very passionate about it. They got into huge arguments over it.

Clearly those guys did not have a clue. And if they can't predict the future, then I sure as hell can't either. Nevertheless, making predictions for the year ahead is a thing one is supposed to do when one writes a tech blog, so here are mine for 2015."

Predictions For 2015: There Will Be Blood

What the Shift to Video Means for Creators | Facebook Media

Multimedia hypertext mainstreaming

"We’re increasingly seeing a shift towards visual content on Facebook, especially with video. In just one year, the number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the US. And with people creating, posting and interacting with more videos on Facebook, the composition of News Feed is changing. Globally, the amount of video from people and brands in News Feed has increased 3.6x year-over-year.


Since June 2014, Facebook has averaged more than 1 billion video views every day. On average, more than 50% of people who come back to Facebook every day in the US watch at least one video daily and 76% of people in the US who use Facebook say they tend to discover the videos they watch on Facebook."

What the Shift to Video Means for Creators | Facebook Media

Ford Chief Says Mass-Market Autonomous Vehicle Is Priority - WSJ

Have you been driven by a Ford lately?...

"Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields said he is focused on being the first auto maker to produce a mass-market autonomous vehicle, not on being the first car maker to have one at all.


Mr. Fields was a keynote speaker at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Tuesday. In his speech, he covered how Ford was trying to become a mobility company in an attempt to solve problems, not just build cars. Later, he spoke with The Wall Street Journal."

Ford Chief Says Mass-Market Autonomous Vehicle Is Priority - WSJ

In a World of Phones, Gadgets Must Adapt - NYTimes.com

A timely software + platforms perspective

"Here’s the important lesson for consumer electronics companies: The future of tech may not be in flashier, more powerful hardware, but instead in services enabled by clever software. The gadgets matter, but only if they allow for software that can create useful, perhaps groundbreaking services that work across all our gadgets. “Today, what every customer expects is for their device to be a platform,” said John MacFarlane, the chief executive of the connected-speaker company Sonos, referring to a design practice in which the machine’s intelligence and user interface are built out of flexible software rather than baked into the hardware — thus enabling future improvements through updates.

"In a World of Phones, Gadgets Must Adapt - NYTimes.com:

F.B.I. Says Little Doubt North Korea Hit Sony - NYTimes.com

The rest of the story?...

"Responding to critics who have questioned why the United States thinks North Korea was the source of the attacks, Mr. Comey said on Wednesday that the hackers became “sloppy” as they tried to cover their tracks. He acknowledged that the North Koreans had used decoys but did not elaborate about the specific mistakes the hackers made that gave him “high confidence” the country was behind the attack."

F.B.I. Says Little Doubt North Korea Hit Sony - NYTimes.com

Intel® Compute Stick

"The Intel® Compute Stick is a new generation of computing that transforms any HDMI* display into a fully functional computer."

Pricing and availability yet to be announced

"The Intel® Compute Stick is a new generation compute-on-a-stick device that’s ready-to-go out-of–the-box and offers the performance, quality, and value you expect from Intel. Pre-installed with Windows 8.1* or Linux, get a complete experience on an ultra-small, power-efficient device that is just four inches long, yet packs the power and reliability of a quad-core Intel® Atom™ processor, with built-in wireless connectivity, on-board storage, and a micro SD card slot for additional storage. It’s everything you love about your desktop computer in a device that fits in the palm of your hand."

Intel® Compute Stick

The Real Story Behind Jeff Bezos's Fire Phone Debacle And What It Means For Amazon's Future | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Excerpt from an extensive Fire Phone disaster review

"What makes the Fire Phone a particularly troubling adventure, however, is that Amazon’s CEO seemingly lost track of the essential driver of his company’s brand. It’s understandable that Bezos would want to give Amazon a premium shine, but to focus on a high-end product, instead of the kind of service that has always distinguished the company, proved misguided. "We can’t compete head to head with Apple," says a high-level source at Lab126. "There is a branding issue: Apple is premium, while our customers want a great product at a great price.""

The Real Story Behind Jeff Bezos's Fire Phone Debacle And What It Means For Amazon's Future | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Fitness Tracker or Bionic Ear? The Dash Wireless Earbuds Might Be Both - Businessweek

Impressive design -- check the review link below for more details

"Fitness bands typically don’t do much beyond clocking your activity—steps taken, laps swam, calories burned, hours slept. Earbuds are nothing more than tiny speakers. But what if they got married and had a baby, and that baby was both wireless and smart like a fitness band and a tiny speaker that fit perfectly in your ear?

That’s the unholy union that calls itself the Dash, a pair of earbuds that packs a laundry list of functions inside a discrete, tiny waterproof gadget, including a fitness tracker (with training feedback), a 4-gigabyte MP3 player, and a Bluetooth headset, among other features. Oh, and they’re cable-free, which is terrific for athletes but less good for anyone prone to losing things."

Fitness Tracker or Bionic Ear? The Dash Wireless Earbuds Might Be Both - Businessweek

Dell Venue 8 7000 Review: A Thin Tablet With Real Depth - WSJ

An important Intel milestone in a net-positive Dell tablet review

"The “Intel Inside” logo is fused to the back of the device but admitting you have an Intel-powered tablet is finally no longer shameful. While there was a time I would have run screaming from the chunky, battery-hogging tablets, the latest generation of Intel processors have caught up to the competition."

Dell Venue 8 7000 Review: A Thin Tablet With Real Depth - WSJ

A Dispatch from Cloud City – 2014 Retrospective | Platformonomics

Excerpt from an insightful and entertaining Charles Fitzgerald post

"HP (sorry Hewlett Packard Enterprise) trails IBM significantly in terms of existential angst and has a massive internal distraction in splitting themselves up. Helion: they only wish they had another L. While I have been assuming a “better than Autonomy” bar would lead to acquisitions like Box or Rackspace, their efforts to get their hands on VMware suggest there may be some sanity lurking somewhere. Delusion factor: medium."

A Dispatch from Cloud City – 2014 Retrospective | Platformonomics

Biz Break: Twitter soars after talk of Yahoo acquisition - San Jose Mercury News

In another possible pairing permutation, see Verizon Has Approached AOL for Possible Takeover or Joint Venture (Bloomberg)

"Twitter stock soared Tuesday after former interim Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn suggested that the San Francisco social-networking company should buy Yahoo.

Twitter shares gained 6.5 percent to $38.76 Tuesday, easily the biggest jump in the SV150 -- the next largest percentage gain was 2.3 percent by Rocket Fuel, and no other major Silicon Valley tech company added more than 2 percent on the day. Most of Twitter's gains came in the afternoon session, after Levinsohn told CNBC that he believes Twitter should buy the core business of Yahoo."

Biz Break: Twitter soars after talk of Yahoo acquisition - San Jose Mercury News

Google Cast for audio

In other Sonos-related news...

"Google Cast, the same technology behind Chromecast, lets you cast your favorite music from your mobile device to your speakers. Simply use your Android tablets and smartphones, iPhone®, iPad®, Mac, Windows and Chromebook to control the music directly from the apps you already know and love."

Google Cast for audio

Facebook Acquires Wit.ai To Help Its Developers With Speech Recognition And Voice Interfaces | TechCrunch

Check the full article for more details on Facebook's speech plans

"As part of Facebook, Wit.ai could help the company offer voice control development tools alongside its Parse development platform, aid with voice-to-text input for Messenger, improve Facebook’s understanding of the semantic meaning of voice, and create a Facebook app you can navigate through speech.

“Wit.ai has built an incredible yet simple natural language processing API that has helped developers turn speech and text into actionable data,” Facebook tells me. “We’re excited to have them onboard.”"

Facebook Acquires Wit.ai To Help Its Developers With Speech Recognition And Voice Interfaces | TechCrunch

CES: New Options for Networked Speakers - NYTimes.com

A new competitive landscape for Sonos

"Since streaming music has become more popular, it should come as no surprise that home stereo systems are starting to get a connected makeover. This could be the year that Sonos, the longtime leader in this field, gets some competition.

LG, the Korean electronics giant, showed a new line of networked speakers at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show, as well as an app that controls playback and lets users stream music or audio from their own digital music collections or streaming sources like Pandora or Spotify."

CES: New Options for Networked Speakers - NYTimes.com

Start-Ups Aim to Break Down ‘Deep-Linking’ Walls Between Apps and Web - NYTimes.com

Rediscovering the power of hypertext?

"That is but one example involving one app. But as people spend more time on their mobile devices and in their apps, their Internet has taken a step backward, becoming more isolated, more disorganized and ultimately harder to use — more like the web before search engines.

“How remarkable it is that we are back in 1997!” said Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, an investment firm in Menlo Park, Calif.

In tech speak, the problem is known as “deep linking,” the technological hurdle of giving apps some sort of links — those identifying lines of letters, dots and slashes that make up a web address or URL."

Start-Ups Aim to Break Down ‘Deep-Linking’ Walls Between Apps and Web - NYTimes.com

Big data needs a product like Microsoft Access — Tech News and Analysis [GigaOM]

Check the full article for more details and a lively comment thread

"Access heralded the beginning of self-service data management and, perhaps ironically, it gave rise to widespread adoption of client/server databases in the enterprise. In order for Hadoop and other big data analytics technologies to see the same sort of adoption, we need a tool like Access that can serve as a catalyst, allowing business users to model concretely the kinds of big data systems that they need.

Such a product, call it “Big Access”, would connect to cloud data sources, spreadsheets, enterprise data sources, log files, and perhaps certain machine data beyond those log files. Big Access would also provide functionality for data quality, data blending, and data shaping. It would provide basic data visualization capabilities, though it would leave the fancy stuff to tools that already cover the visualization space."

Big data needs a product like Microsoft Access — Tech News and Analysis

Facebook Undersharing Has Become Bigger Crime Than Oversharing | The New Republic

Excerpt from an interesting social norm reality check

"The predominant complaint on social media used to be against oversharing, from banal complaints about your subway ride to reckless murder accusations. But in the past year or so, the balance has shifted: Whereas we used to question the ethics of sharing, now we question the ethics of withholding. It’s not enough to vent to some offline friends. Anyone who has a private story that might benefit others owes that story to the general public, and whatever is holding someone back from telling all—concerns about reputation, perhaps—starts to look selfish."

Facebook Undersharing Has Become Bigger Crime Than Oversharing | The New Republic

Mark Zuckerberg Starts A Book Club, Becomes This Generation’s Oprah | TechCrunch

Apparently opting out of Amazon Associates payment opportunities (his book page, at least for the first book, links to a Facebook page rather than an Amazon catalog page)

"Zuck thanked the over 50,000 members of the Facebook community who contributed suggestions for his personal goals this year and wrote that reading books was one of the more popular suggestions in a post on his page: “My challenge for 2015 is to read a new book every other week — with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies.”

Zuck created a group page, “A Year of Books,” for the reading club soon after. Nearly 100,000 Facebook fans have liked the book club page that just went up two days ago."

Mark Zuckerberg Starts A Book Club, Becomes This Generation’s Oprah | TechCrunch

Amazon’s Third-Party Merchants a Growing Piece of the Sales Pie - Digits - WSJ

Perhaps time to make a bid for eBay

"The Seattle company said Monday third-party merchants were responsible for 2 billion items sold last year, double the total in 2013, even as the number of such businesses held about steady compared with the prior period at “more than 2 million.”

Those merchants sold more than 40 percent of the items Amazon unloaded last year, according to a statement, suggesting a total of at least 5 billion items sold. Amazon used to regularly disclose what percentage of items it sold came from third parties—it said 39% were from outside vendors at the end of 2012—but had more recently suspended the practice."

Amazon’s Third-Party Merchants a Growing Piece of the Sales Pie - Digits - WSJ

PlayStation 4 Faces Resurgent Rivals in Xbox One and Wii U - NYTimes.com

The price competition game

"During the recent holiday season, though, both companies were resurgent, with Nintendo releasing a series of hit games for its Wii U system that underscored the unwavering loyalty of its fan base. And Microsoft, Sony’s most direct competitor in the games market, cut the starting price of the Xbox One to $349, $50 cheaper than the PlayStation 4. The move helped it regain a lead in sales in the United States, the most important market for the product."

PlayStation 4 Faces Resurgent Rivals in Xbox One and Wii U - NYTimes.com

Who’s the true enemy of internet freedom - China, Russia, or the US? | Comment is free | The Guardian

Final paragraph from an Evgeny Morozov reality check

"Whatever motivates the desire of Russia and China to exert more control over their digital properties – and only the naive would believe that they are not motivated by concerns over domestic unrest – their actions are proportional to the aggressive efforts of Washington to exploit the fact that so much of the world’s communications infrastructure is run by Silicon Valley. One’s man internet freedom is another man’s internet imperialism."

Who’s the true enemy of internet freedom - China, Russia, or the US? | Comment is free | The Guardian

International CES: The Internet of Things Hits Homes - NYTimes.com

Should be an interesting week

"Major tech companies that are not usually part of CES will play a part in the show, too, because of their relationship to the new generation of connected devices. Although Apple, for example, will not have any official presence at CES, expect companies to announce home automation devices that work with its HomeKit development platform. HomeKit lets companies build smart home gadgets that can be controlled with iPhones or iPads and can even work with Siri, Apple’s built-in assistant.

The stakes for the companies could be huge. IDC, a market research firm, predicts that the global market for Internet of Things devices and services will exceed $7 trillion by 2020, up from $1.9 trillion in 2013."

International CES: The Internet of Things Hits Homes - NYTimes.com

Google posts Windows 8.1 vulnerability before Microsoft can patch it [Engadget]

A controversial but consistent policy

"Google's Project Zero tracks vulnerabilities in software systems and reports them to vendors "in as close to real-time as possible" -- a noble cause, no? But what happens if said vendor then fails to push a fix within the 90-day window? Microsoft just found out: Google will go ahead and publish the bug anyway, complete with code that can be used to exploit it. A researcher found a Windows 8.1 security hole that allows lower-level users to become administrators, giving them access to sensitive server functions they'd normally have no right to. Though it remains unpatched by Microsoft, the Zero team published it several days ago -- right on schedule."

Google posts Windows 8.1 vulnerability before Microsoft can patch it