Microsoft’s Bot Vision is Expansive but Faces Challenges | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

From a Microsoft + bots reality check

"However, as I see it, Microsoft has several key challenges as it aims to implement this strategy:

• The need for context and rich data may be thwarted by Microsoft’s third party status on the vast majority of mobile devices
• Skype isn’t a leading messaging platform and getting users to see it this way will require a significant education effort
• With many others building similar conversational UIs, Microsoft may struggle to compete against those with much larger installed bases"

Microsoft’s Bot Vision is Expansive but Faces Challenges | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Skype is getting Cortana and crazy bot messaging | The Verge

Also see Microsoft launches Bot Framework to let developers build their own chatbots (VentureBeat) and Skype Bots preview comes to consumers and developers (Skype blog)

"You'll soon be able to use Skype to books trips, shop, and plan your schedule, just by chatting with Cortana. During its Build conference, Microsoft demoed how Skype users will soon be able to start a chat with Cortana and get things done just by having a conversation.

"Cortana is brokering the conversation with a third-party bot," says Lilian Rincon, Skype's program manager. Essentially, Skype will know which company or service you want to talk to, bring a new bot into your chat to help out, and then get rid of the bot when you're done."

Skype is getting Cortana and crazy bot messaging | The Verge

HoloLens, A Year Later: A New Demo At Build 2016 (Tom's Hardware)

Now with improved demo choreography; also see Why Microsoft can't say when its incredible HoloLens will become a reality (CNET)

"A year ago at Build 2015, we got our first demo of Microsoft’s HoloLens. At this year’s event, we got a second crack at seeing the augmented reality device in action, and it was a completely different experience.

Or, we should say, Microsoft took a completely different approach. Last year was a highly secretive showing, with a complex offsite jaunt that required us to traverse numerous floors of a hotel and lock away anything resembling recording equipment. Pen and paper were our only tools, and we each were ushered into private rooms for intimate, quick demos.

This year, by contrast, Microsoft tricked out one of the huge ballrooms at Moscone West with dozens of HoloLens stations, comfy couches, work stations, monitors hung like an NBA scoreboard in the middle of the room, and a merry band of unbelievably chipper staff. It was a party atmosphere. “HoloGraphic Academy,” they called it."

HoloLens, A Year Later: A New Demo At Build 2016

Microsoft cozies up to Ubuntu as developers welcome cold day in hell | ZDNet

Also see Ubuntu (not Linux) on Windows: How it works (ZDNet), which notes "This is not a new idea. In fact, it's a downright ancient notion. It goes all the way back to the Windows NT POSIX subsystem. NT Posix was designed to run native Unix -- Linux hadn't been created yet -- binaries on Windows NT."

"Microsoft move to support Ubuntu and the Bash command line inside Windows 10 won't woo the masses, but feeds the company's developer base and courts more people to its platform. Microsoft's move also delivers good optics for CEO Satya Nadella's overall strategy.

The software giant outlined a lot of items at its Build conference opener--a new Windows 10 update on deck, a Cortana Intelligence Suite and bots designed to make Skype more productive--but the big item was building in Canonical's Ubuntu into Windows 10"

Microsoft cozies up to Ubuntu as developers welcome cold day in hell | ZDNet

Nest Revenue Around $340 Million Last Year, but Budget Troubles Ahead | Re/code

Also see Dropcam Founder: Selling to Nest and Google Was a ‘Mistake’ (Re/code)

"Nest generated about $340 million in sales last year, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. That’s an impressive figure for a company in the very nascent market of Internet-connected devices.

But it’s below the initial expectations Google had set for Nest when it bought the startup in 2014 for a whopping $3.2 billion. The company’s sales performance may face even deeper scrutiny inside Google’s new parent company, Alphabet, where Nest now sits, as the hardware maker faces its most critical year ever."

Nest Revenue Around $340 Million Last Year, but Budget Troubles Ahead | Re/code

Car-Pooling Helps Uber Go the Extra Mile - The New York Times

Learning to share

"Here’s another way to put it: UberPool may push us to re-evaluate how we think about Uber and its impact on the world.

The car service has long been polarizing. Though Uber is beloved by many riders, the way it has muscled into cities and the public consciousness, and the manner in which it has altered labor relations and urban planning, have rattled lawmakers, activists and even its drivers.

UberPool raises the stakes. Because it reduces price and increases volume, it suggests that if Uber ultimately succeeds, the company could have a much bigger impact on urban mobility, labor, the environment, local economies and the national transportation infrastructure than we’ve all supposed — and its effects could confound the expectations of its harshest critics."

Car-Pooling Helps Uber Go the Extra Mile - The New York Times

Mossberg: Apple pours the latest tech into familiar gadgets | Re/code

Also see Apple 9.7-Inch iPad Pro Review: Tablet vs. Laptop Showdown (WSJ)

"After testing this new iPad, I’ve decided to upgrade. Even if you just use it to consume media and do light productivity, the improvements are noticeable and helpful. The screen is sensational, and when I compared it to my iPad Air screen, the improvement was obvious. The new True Tone feature, which seemed unnoticeable at first, suddenly seemed indispensable when I tried turning it off and the display turned to a shade of bright white I’ve been staring at for years, but which now seems unnatural.

The sound is greatly improved, with four speakers, one in each corner. I may not adore Apple’s keyboard, but it’s okay, and other keyboard makers will soon have different models that use the new connector.

Battery life was terrific. Apple claims 10 hours, but I easily got just over 12 in my test, which is based on playing video while collecting email, texts, tweets and Facebook posts in the background."

Mossberg: Apple pours the latest tech into familiar gadgets | Re/code

Microsoft’s ambitions are huge and surprising, because they have to be | The Verge

Perhaps not the lead theme Microsoft had in mind for yesterday's Build 2016 keynote

"If they aren't already, mobile devices will soon be the most widely used and important portals through which we access the internet and do anything technological. Having until recently competed to own a share of that all-important platform battleground, Microsoft now has its gaze fixed firmly on the future. Today's presentation reiterated the demise of Windows Phone as the aspiring third mobile platform after Apple's iOS and Google's Android. That fight is over, Microsoft lost, and now the company is transitioning to being platform-agnostic."

Microsoft’s ambitions are huge and surprising, because they have to be | The Verge

Lessons from Apple vs. the F.B.I. - The New Yorker

Excerpt from a timely FBI/Apple reality check

"It now appears as though the F.B.I. seized on the San Bernardino case as an opportunity to pursue a policy agenda that it has had for years, and that it oversold its case. The agency said that it was unable to unlock the iPhone 5C without Apple’s assistance. But as Daniel Kahn Gillmor, a technology fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, pointed out in a blog post published on March 7th, this claim didn’t ring entirely true. In his piece, which included pictures of an iPhone 5C’s circuit board, Gillmor described how investigators could work around the auto-erase feature by removing the device’s NAND flash memory and backing it up, then trying every conceivable four-digit passcode combination. “If the FBI doesn’t have the equipment or expertise to do this, they can hire any one of dozens of data recovery firms that specialize in information extraction from digital devices,” he wrote. It’s not known for certain if the F.B.I. used the method that Gillmor recommended to get into Farook’s phone. But the post suggested that the Bureau hadn’t exhausted all of the technological possibilities for accessing the data. This may damage its credibility if it gets into a similar legal dispute in the future."

Lessons from Apple vs. the F.B.I. - The New Yorker

Brain-zapping gadgets promise to make you a better you — smarter, stronger, even happier - The Washington Post

Interesting times

"There’s real, peer-reviewed science behind the theory driving these devices. It involves stimulating key regions of the brain — with currents or magnetic fields — to affect emotions and physical well-being. It isn’t too different from how electroshock therapy works to counter certain mental illnesses and how deep-brain stimulation smooths motion disorders such as  multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Indeed, recent studies have looked at the technique as a possible treatment for stroke, autism and anorexia.

Lots of people and companies are making investments, too, from Silicon Valley venture capitalists to large pharmaceutical companies and even the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And according to the start-ups selling the products, their technology appears to be safe and effective based on certain, very controlled tests."

Brain-zapping gadgets promise to make you a better you — smarter, stronger, even happier - The Washington Post

Waze - Official Blog: Avoid Tickets and Stay Informed with New Waze Speed Limits Feature

tbd when you'll have the option of sharing the data with your insurance company

"You probably know the feeling. You might be driving on a business trip or a road trip. Or you might be driving down a road you’ve driven at least a thousand times. Suddenly it happens. You look at your dashboard and think to yourself, “What’s the speed limit on this street?” No need to worry, we got this.  

[...] To see speed limits you don’t need to change a thing. If you’re driving over the limit, a visual alert will appear on the Waze speedometer. It will stay there until your speed drops below the limit."

Waze - Official Blog: Avoid Tickets and Stay Informed with New Waze Speed Limits Feature

Amazon Assembly, Installation Services Bolster Big-Product Sales - Bloomberg

See this Amazon page to explore services by category

"Amazon now sells more than 1 million items that give shoppers the option of requesting assembly, installation or other related services, which is boosting the sale of home-improvement products, said Erika Takeuchi, a spokeswoman for Amazon. The most popular services requested are mounting flat-screen televisions to walls and assembling treadmills, she said.
Amazon’s home services also include a wide range of offerings that don’t require purchases from the online store. Housecleaning is the third most popular job requested, according to Amazon. Other services include landscaping, gutter cleaning, pet grooming and yoga instruction. But most service requests are tied to a purchase."

Amazon Assembly, Installation Services Bolster Big-Product Sales - Bloomberg

No One Wants to Be ‘the Next Square’ Anymore - Bloomberg

Full circle

"But by November, being the “Square of” anywhere suddenly wasn’t such a hot title. That month, Square sold shares in an IPO that valued the company at about $2.9 billion, less than half its private valuation from a year earlier. In the runup to the IPO, analysts began questioning whether the card-reader maker should really be priced like a high-flying tech company. Its stock price is hovering around $13, right where it was after its first day of trading. Square declined to comment."

No One Wants to Be ‘the Next Square’ Anymore - Bloomberg

Spotify Expected to Sign $1 Billion Financing Deal - The New York Times

Streaming money

"Spotify is about to close on a $1 billion deal that would double the amount of financing the music-streaming company has raised since its founding a decade ago, people briefed on the matter said Tuesday.

The money comes in the form of convertible debt, which allows Spotify’s investors to change their securities into equity at a future date, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal was not yet public."

Spotify Expected to Sign $1 Billion Financing Deal - The New York Times

FBI Breaks into iPhone. We Have Some Questions. | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Check the full post for more details; also see Apple Says the San Bernardino iPhone Case 'Should Never Have Been Brought' (Gizmodo)

"In addition, this new method of accessing the phone raises questions about the government’s apparent use of security vulnerabilities in iOS and whether it will inform Apple about these vulnerabilities. As a panel of experts hand-picked by the White House recognized, any decision to withhold a security vulnerability for intelligence or law enforcement purposes leaves ordinary users at risk from malicious third parties who also may use the vulnerability. Thanks to a lawsuit by EFF, the government has released its official policy for determining when to disclose security vulnerabilities, the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP).

If the FBI used a vulnerability to get into the iPhone in the San Bernardino case, the VEP must apply, meaning that there should be a very strong bias in favor of informing Apple of the vulnerability. That would allow Apple to fix the flaw and protect the security of all its users. We look forward to seeing more transparency on this issue as well."

FBI Breaks into iPhone. We Have Some Questions. | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream - WSJ

Also see Oculus Rift Review: A Clunky Portal to a Promising Virtual Reality (NYT)

"It will take some time for VR storytellers to figure out this craft. But the Rift itself, while an engineering marvel, still just isn’t that good at convincing you you’re in an alternate reality. After the novelty wears off, using the 1.5-pound headset is about as awkward as sleeping on an airplane. It’s hard to avoid feeling queasy when virtual scenes move without your actual body. I couldn’t even last one entire race in “Project Cars,” a racing simulator. (Oculus rates apps based on comfort: Our favorite zombie-hunting game, “Into the Dead,” all but forces you to stop and take breaks.)"

Oculus Rift Review: VR’s Rising Star Isn’t Ready for the Mainstream - WSJ

U.S. Says It Has Unlocked iPhone Without Apple - The New York Times

I'm guessing this is not the final chapter in the Apple/FBI saga

"Yet law enforcement’s ability to now unlock an iPhone through an alternative method raises new uncertainties, including questions about the strength of security in Apple devices. The development also creates potential for new conflicts between the government and Apple about the method used to open the device and whether that technique will be disclosed. Lawyers for Apple have previously said the company would want to know the procedure used to crack open the smartphone, yet the government might classify the method.

“From a legal standpoint, what happened in the San Bernardino case doesn’t mean the fight is over,” said Esha Bhandari, a staff lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. She notes that the government generally goes through a process whereby it decides whether to disclose information about certain vulnerabilities so that manufacturers can patch them."

U.S. Says It Has Unlocked iPhone Without Apple - The New York Times

Growing up | The Economist

From a review of Splinternet

"The open internet accounts for barely 20% of the entire web. The rest of it is hidden away in unsearchable “walled gardens” such as Facebook, whose algorithms are opaque, or on the “dark web”, a shady parallel world wide web. Data gathered from the activities of internet users are being concentrated in fewer hands (see article). And big hands they are too. BCG, a consultancy, reckons that the internet will account for 5.3% of GDP of the world’s 20 big economies this year, or $4.2 trillion.

How did this come to pass? The simple reply is that the free, open, democratic internet dreamed up by the optimists of Silicon Valley was never more than a brief interlude. The more nuanced answer is that the open internet never really existed."

Growing up | The Economist

Netflix’s Grand, Daring, Maybe Crazy Plan to Conquer the World | WIRED

Planetary-scale content distribution

"These so-called Open Connect appliances serve a simple purpose: To keep Netflix from clogging up the Internet. In North America alone, Netflix is singlehandedly responsible for 37 percent of downstream Internet traffic during peak hours. The service as a whole streams 125 million hours of content every single day. Without relieving as many pressure points as possible, things could get ugly, fast.

The total capacity of the Internet’s country-to-country backbone is 35TB per second, says Ken Florance, Netflix’s VP of content delivery. “Our peak traffic is more than that … . Our scale is actually larger than the international capacity of the Internet.” Netflix doesn’t literally break the Internet because the vast majority of its traffic is delivered locally, via Open Connect, rather than across the transoceanic cables that connect the Internet between continents."

Netflix’s Grand, Daring, Maybe Crazy Plan to Conquer the World | WIRED

Google and Apple: the High-Tech Hippies of Silicon Valley - The New York Times

A long-view perspective on the new Apple and Google campuses

"These images and experiments fueled the imagination of Silicon Valley, even as the young tech entrepreneurs began converting their ramshackle means to far different ends. It was, after all, an earth held in common that inspired the hippie Modernists to find new ways of designing and living. The new unearthly Silicon Valley campuses represent the triumph of privatized commons, of a verdant natural world sheltered for the few. Neither the Google nor Apple campus is open to the public, nor are their designs replicable on the scale that the ’60s utopians imagined for their designs. Well after the orchards of Northern California were overwhelmed by glass boxes and suburban tracts, the tech companies find themselves looking longingly at an Edenic, prelapsarian moment, when it seemed that — to adapt a more recent slogan — another world was possible. But what was originally borne from improvisation and a desire to live simply is now borne from unimaginable mountains of cash. The new Apple office will cost an estimated $5 billion, making it possibly the most expensive office building in history. We are dealing with a bubble of a different kind."

Google and Apple: the High-Tech Hippies of Silicon Valley - The New York Times

Silicon Valley Looks to Artificial Intelligence for the Next Big Thing - The New York Times

From a machine learning market momentum snapshot

"The A.I. resources Ms. Greene is opening up at Google are remarkable. Google’s autocomplete feature that most of us use when doing a search can instantaneously touch 500 computers in several locations as it guesses what we are looking for. Services like Maps and Photos have over a billion users, sorting places and faces by computer. Gmail sifts through 1.4 petabytes of data, or roughly two billion books’ worth of information, every day.

Handling all that, plus tasks like language translation and speech recognition, Google has amassed a wealth of analysis technology that it can offer to customers. Urs Hölzle, Ms. Greene’s chief of technical infrastructure, predicts that the business of renting out machines and software will eventually surpass Google advertising. In 2015, ad profits were $16.4 billion."

Silicon Valley Looks to Artificial Intelligence for the Next Big Thing - The New York Times

Learning from Tay’s introduction - The Official Microsoft Blog

Check the full post for more details and A Message from Phil Spencer (Xbox Wire) for last week's Microsoft public apology...

"As many of you know by now, on Wednesday we launched a chatbot called Tay. We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay. Tay is now offline and we’ll look to bring Tay back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values.

I want to share what we learned and how we’re taking these lessons forward."

Learning from Tay’s introduction - The Official Microsoft Blog

How Jeff Bezos Became a Power Beyond Amazon - Fortune

Excerpt from an overview of the Jeff Bezos (#1 in the latest Fortune ranking of the "world's greatest leaders") business empire

"It’s unnerving to hear the current “it” editor of American journalism waxing eloquent about outdoing the Huffington Post, pooh-poohing the need for far-flung staff correspondents, and describing how the Post employs the work of other sites. Is he really okay with all this newfangled, journalistically questionable fare? Says Baron: “I have no interest in dying gracefully.”

For his part, Bezos professes his belief in the Post’s democracy-­sustaining mission—if not its potential to increase his wealth. “I would not have bought the Washington Post if it had been a financially upside-down salty-snack-food company,” he says. Bezos describes being 10 years old, sprawled on the floor of his grandfather’s house, watching the Watergate hearings. The Post, of course, achieved its maximum renown covering that political scandal. “We need institutions that have the resources and the training and the skill, expertise, to find things,” Bezos says. “It’s pretty important who we elect as President, all those things, and we need to examine those people, try to understand them better.” (Bezos emphasizes he’s not looking to buy any other publications, though he is regularly solicited.)"

How Jeff Bezos Became a Power Beyond Amazon - Fortune

Report: Google is building an Amazon Echo clone, Nest has a security system | Ars Technica

Nest is looking a lot like a not-for-profit market research vehicle for Apple

"Drama aside, the report also contains a list of upcoming Google and Nest products. The most interesting is a "Google Voice Recognition device" that "competes with Amazon Echo." The Echo is basically a Wi-Fi speaker with voice recognition technology—think "Siri in a box." Google has all of the voice tech nailed down from its efforts on Android and Google.com, so it's easy to imagine building the existing Google app capabilities into a standalone device. Nest originally wanted a hand in the project but was denied by Google. As for the timing of such a device, the report says it's "unclear when Google will release the device and there’s still a chance it won't be released at all." Previously, the well-sourced Artem Russakovskii of Android Police briefly mentioned an Amazon Echo competitor in development at Google, codenamed "Chirp."
The report has a big rundown of an "Internet-connected security system" from Nest, consisting of several parts. The first is a wireless hub codenamed "Flintstone." The device uses Nest's "Thread" low-power communication standard and has reportedly been in development for three years. The Information says Alphabet has put pressure on Nest to release the hub this fall, but Flintstone "has been killed or changed so many times that one former employee jokingly called it 'Tombstone.'""

Report: Google is building an Amazon Echo clone, Nest has a security system | Ars Technica

Microsoft Tells Possible Yahoo Buyers It Would Consider Backing Bids | Re/code

On a related note, see Entire Yahoo Board Would Be Ousted if Starboard Value Gets Its Way (NYT)

"Preserving its current status is important to Microsoft, said sources, which is why it has been mulling the financing of possible Yahoo buyers, who will have to come up with billions of dollars in cash to be competitive. “If Microsoft put in a billion, it would cost them almost nothing,” said one investor who had spoken to the company. “It’s a minor thing and it buys them a lot.”

Yahoo’s market cap is currently $32.5 billion, but that includes its stakes in its Asian assets. After the spin-off of its Alibaba Group assets and minus-ing out its shares of Yahoo Japan, most peg the price of its core business at $6 billion to $8 billion.

But sources close to Yahoo’s board said it wants $10 billion in a sale. (By way of comparison, I want a pretty pony from Microsoft comms head Frank Shaw and have a better chance of getting it.)"

Microsoft Tells Possible Yahoo Buyers It Would Consider Backing Bids | Re/code

Oracle’s New Service Turns Cloud Computing ‘Inside-Out’ - The CIO Report - WSJ

Partly cloudy

"The service, called Oracle Cloud at Customer, allows companies to place an Oracle cloud server within their own data center, essentially turning one of the basic concepts of cloud computing inside-out, according to Thomas Kurian, president of Oracle product development, who spoke to CIO Journal in an interview. The company is expected to formally announce the product later Thursday at Oracle CloudWorld, a customer event in Washington, D.C.

The setup is a hybrid cloud structure that allows a company to run whatever workloads it chooses on premises or in the Oracle cloud, with a common set of tools, APIs, and experiences. The workloads can shift between the environments. Oracle says it would be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the server, just as it would be for customers of more standard, public cloud services."

Oracle’s New Service Turns Cloud Computing ‘Inside-Out’ - The CIO Report - WSJ

Microsoft Created a Twitter Bot to Learn From Users. It Quickly Became a Racist Jerk. - The New York Times

The only surprise is that the Microsoft Tay team apparently didn't anticipate this outcome; also see Why Microsoft’s racist Twitter bot should make us fear human nature, not A.I. (Washington Post) and Microsoft’s Tay is an Example of Bad Design (Medium)

"Microsoft set out to learn about “conversational understanding” by creating a bot designed to have automated discussions with Twitter users, mimicking the language they use.

What could go wrong?

If you guessed, “It will probably become really racist,” you’ve clearly spent time on the Internet. Less than 24 hours after the bot, @TayandYou, went online Wednesday, Microsoft halted posting from the account and deleted several of its most obscene statements."

Microsoft Created a Twitter Bot to Learn From Users. It Quickly Became a Racist Jerk. - The New York Times

Apple is selling Microsoft Office 365 as an accessory for the iPad Pro | The Verge

Also see Smaller iPad Pro can use Microsoft Office for free, while larger iPad can't (Macworld)

"Apple wants the iPad Pro to replace Windows, and to convince customers it's bringing in a familiar face or two: Microsoft's Office suite. As part of the ordering process for the new iPad Pro, buyers are given the option of adding a subscription for Office 365 — the only non-Apple accessory to appear in the order form. Office 365 bundles in the mobile apps and full Mac versions of a number of old standbys, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. (You can also choose between the Home, Personal, and University tiers, each of which offers different features.)"

Apple is selling Microsoft Office 365 as an accessory for the iPad Pro | The Verge

Google Cloud Platform Blog: Introducing Google Stackdriver: unified monitoring and logging for GCP and AWS

Embrace and extend, c2016?

"We’re excited to introduce Google Stackdriver, a unified monitoring, logging and diagnostics service that makes ops easier, whether you’re running applications on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), or a combination of the two.
Stackdriver is the first service to include rich dashboards, uptime monitoring, alerting, log analysis, tracing, error reporting and production debugging, across GCP and AWS, in a single, unified offering. This combination significantly reduces the time that teams spend finding and fixing issues in production."

Google Cloud Platform Blog: Introducing Google Stackdriver: unified monitoring and logging for GCP and AWS

Thank You for Hacking iPhone, Now Tell Apple How You Did It - Bloomberg Business

Getting a bit deeply nested

"The FBI’s new tactic may be subject to a relatively new and little-known rule that would require the government to tell Apple about any vulnerability potentially affecting millions of iPhones unless it can show a group of administration officials that there’s a substantial national security need to keep the flaw secret. This process, known as an equities review, was created by the Obama administration to determine if new security flaws should be kept secret or disclosed, and gives the government a specific time frame for alerting companies to the flaws.
“I do think it should be subjected to an equities review,” said Chris Inglis, former National Security Agency deputy director. “The government cannot choose sides in the tension between individual and collective security so the equities process should be run to put both on a level playing field.”"

Thank You for Hacking iPhone, Now Tell Apple How You Did It - Bloomberg Business

Google’s Scalability Day – Platformonomics

Excerpt from a Charles Fitzgerald Google-in-the-enterprise reality check

"Google has many intangibles to overcome if it wants to be a serious enterprise player. They still seem to believe every potential customer wants to be like Google. The vast majority of companies aren’t Google, can’t ever be Google and don’t even want to be Google. SnapChat and Spotify are not exactly emblematic enterprises. Culturally, Google starts with even less experience with enterprise customers than Microsoft had at the time of Scalability Day and arguably an even more engineering-driven culture with even less appreciation for the cognitive foibles of the median human. Unlike a Microsoft that had building an enterprise business as its top priority, Google the advertising company and Alphabet the technology conglomerate have many other (and frankly way cooler) priorities. It isn’t clear that a mundane investment in say 5,000 enterprise sales and support people will get the nod over the moonshot de jour (Drones! Robots! Life Extension! Board Game Championships! Squirrel! Space Elevators!)."

Google’s Scalability Day – Platformonomics

iPhone SE Review: Smaller Gets Smarter With Better Battery Life to Boot - WSJ

For another perspective, see Mossberg: the iPhone 7 had better be spectacular (The Verge)

"On most important functions, the iPhone SE doesn’t disappoint. Its A9 processor, exactly the same one that’s in the iPhone 6s, zips through apps and the most graphically challenging mobile games. (By a test called GeekBench, it’s about 70% faster than the 5s.)

The 12-megapixel rear camera is capable of Apple’s Live Photos video trick, and performs admirably in most settings—though, like the iPhone 6s, it’s now bested in low-light shooting by Samsung’s new Galaxy S7. The iPhone SE even includes Apple Pay, so you can leave your wallet at home at least some of the time.

The standout news is battery life. Unlike many other recent Apple products, the iPhone SE’s is a significant improvement over its predecessors’."

iPhone SE Review: Smaller Gets Smarter With Better Battery Life to Boot - WSJ

The Tech Exec Who Wants the Cloud to Be Google’s Moneymaker | WIRED

Check the full Diane Greene interview for some DEC Western Research Lab => Google | VMware migration history; tangentially, see Google Is Sharing Its Powerful AI With Everyone in Its Cloud (Wired)

"BeBop was in stealth mode when you joined the Google cloud group and Google acquired the startup. Can you now say what BeBop aims to do and how it plays into Google’s ambitions?

Our hand was kind of forced by the acquisition. I hadn’t planned to talk about BeBop for a while. It’s a pretty ambitious project. But basically, we’re developing ways of quickly building very rich enterprise applications, which is what you want to do in the cloud. We’ve invested very heavily in design—human-centered design, how humans look at this. Eventually, we were able to build a real center for design excellence at BeBop, which I found really exciting. You have to recognize how important it is—and how powerful it is—to a have a good user experience."

The Tech Exec Who Wants the Cloud to Be Google’s Moneymaker | WIRED

F.B.I. Clash With Apple Loosed a Torrent of Possible Ways to Hack an iPhone - The New York Times

The FBI's plausible deniability reservoir in this context is looking a bit low

"Apple said it declined to speculate on the F.B.I.’s methods and actions. The Silicon Valley company has previously expressed doubts that the government could find no way to break into its iPhone, even as it constantly updates its security protocols.

“Given the past exploits that have bypassed the lock screen and the present-day reality of innumerable security firms, malicious actors, cybercriminals and potential adversaries of the United States constantly seeking vulnerabilities,” it seems improbable for the government to conclude that the only way into the phone was for Apple to write new code and weaken its security, Erik Neuenschwander, the company’s manager of user privacy said in a recent court filing."

F.B.I. Clash With Apple Loosed a Torrent of Possible Ways to Hack an iPhone - The New York Times

Evernote founder Phil Libin creating incubator for bots - Business Insider

You could have also seen the bot potential if you looked at, e.g., Internet Relay Chat bots or General Magic...

"But Libin thinks that chat apps like Facebook M, its virtual assistant, are just the beginning.

"It really feels like apps felt to me in '08. Back when we started Evernote, all the apps were like fart apps and flashlights and kind of stupid crap like that, but you could see the potential if you squinted," Libin said. "I think it's like that right now. It's super early days, but the world is going to get rewritten based on bots and conversational UIs soon."

Libin also told us he's already invested in one bot maker — he wouldn't spill the name as they're still "under the radar," and he's building a lab within General Catalyst, the venture capital firm where he's now a partner, to explore the idea."

Evernote founder Phil Libin creating incubator for bots - Business Insider

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Enterprise Communication — Medium

Excerpt from a timely enterprise communication reality check

"Finally, what everyone gets wrong about enterprise communication is that you will have one product, one vendor, or that that would even be desirable. Nothing is killing email any time soon, because synchronous tools don’t fit the user need, there’s no competing asynchronous protocol, and IT purchasing today stands in the way of consumer-like winner-take-all network effects. Nor is email enough with the proliferation of real-time tools in the hands of teams that have needed them for a long time."

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Enterprise Communication — Medium

The Uber Model, It Turns Out, Doesn’t Translate - The New York Times

Uneven on-demand demand

"But Uber’s success was in many ways unique. For one thing, it was attacking a vulnerable market. In many cities, the taxi business was a customer-unfriendly protectionist racket that artificially inflated prices and cared little about customer service. The opportunity for Uber to become a regular part of people’s lives was huge. People take cars every day, so hook them once and you have repeat customers. Finally, cars are the second-most-expensive things people buy, and the most frequent thing we do with them is park. That monumental inefficiency left Uber ample room to extract a profit even after undercutting what we now pay for cars.

But how many other markets are there like that? Not many. Some services were used frequently by consumers, but weren’t that valuable — things related to food, for instance, offered low margins. Other businesses funded in low-frequency and low-value areas “were a trap,” Mr. Walk said."

The Uber Model, It Turns Out, Doesn’t Translate - The New York Times

How Tesla Model 3 Can Complete Its Take Over of the U.S. Luxury Market - Bloomberg Business

The Model 3, the latest Tesla bad news for Mercedes, BMW, and other luxury brands, will be unveiled next week

"What happens when the price of electric cars falls lower than the gasoline-powered competition? That's the question Tesla Motors Inc. wants to answer with its Model 3, which will carry a $35,000 price tag at its unveiling on March 31. But we don't need to wait until the Model 3 goes on sale, because Tesla already has an inexpensive electric vehicle to learn from: the Model S. 

Sure, you might not think of a $70,000 sedan as cheap. The sticker price doesn't even even include the thousands in add-ons purchased by most Tesla shoppers. But within the class of competitors—premium, large-sized luxury vehicles—the Model S is a bargain. It's faster, safer, and by many measures more convenient than its fancy, gas-chugging peers. In less than four years it has become the top-selling large-luxury vehicle in the U.S., already outselling high-end options from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi."

How Tesla Model 3 Can Complete Its Take Over of the U.S. Luxury Market - Bloomberg Business

Apple's ITunes Overtaken by Streaming Music Services in Sales - Bloomberg Business

Apple iTunes store surpassed by ... Apple Music

"Streaming generated $2.4 billion in U.S. music sales last year, surpassing digital downloads as the recording industry’s single biggest source of revenue and propelling the business to its first year of growth since 2011.
The listening format contributed 34.3 percent of sales, edging past digital downloads, which contributed 34 percent, according to a report by the Recording Industry Association of America released Tuesday. Overall sales climbed 0.9 percent to $7 billion."

Apple's ITunes Overtaken by Streaming Music Services in Sales - Bloomberg Business

Medium spins off Matter into new company owned by Ev Williams | POLITICO

See Meet Matter Studios (Medium) for more details

"The self-publishing service and social network Medium is spinning off a prominent web publication that it has owned and hosted for the past three years.

Matter, which publishes long-form, magazine-style articles, announced Monday that it is leaving Medium to become a standalone company called Matter Studios that will be wholly owned and funded by Ev Williams, the web entrepreneur who created Medium in 2012 following his success as a co-founder of Twitter.

As Matter Studios, the brand will produce content that can be distributed across a variety of platforms, like websites (Medium, for instance), magazines, digital video channels and podcasts."

Medium spins off Matter into new company owned by Ev Williams | POLITICO

Apple 'privacy czars' grapple with internal conflicts over user data | Reuters

Check the full article for more details

"Inside Apple, the trio of experts known among employees as the privacy czars are both admired and feared.

Jane Horvath, a lawyer who previously served as global privacy counsel at Google, is the group's legal and policy wonk, often channeling the views of Apple's board and citing regulatory requirements, said former employees who have worked with her.

She was hired to formalize privacy practices after the 2011 "locationgate" scandal, in which iPhones were found to be gathering information about users' whereabouts.

Horvath works alongside Guy "Bud" Tribble, a member of the original Macintosh team who is venerated by employees as one of the few who "had been to the mountain with Moses," as one former employee put it, referring to Tribble's ties to the late Steve Jobs."

Apple 'privacy czars' grapple with internal conflicts over user data | Reuters

The Future of Twitter: Q&A with Jack Dorsey (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Tracking Twitter at ten; also see Twitter at 10: a people’s history  (The Verge)

"[...] But Dorsey has a clearer message about what he wants to change and how he wants to change it. As investors speculate about who will buy Twitter and when, Dorsey has allowed himself to think years down the road. In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, he hints at that future. Will Twitter, currently tasked with showing you what's happening right now, be able to predict for you what's going to happen next? Is it the killer app for augmented reality?

Dorsey says Twitter's role in the world still centers around bringing people together to watch live events in the place where information comes the fastest. A decade after Twitter's founding, he has faith in the crowd and its ability to bring forth a range of opinions—balancing Donald Trump's inaccuracies, for instance—but he also talks about the importance of making Twitter a safer place to speak without fear of being attacked or harassed. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation."

The Future of Twitter: Q&A with Jack Dorsey

Apple delivers a 'significant' update with iOS 9.3 | Computerworld

In other Apple *OS news, see tvOS 9.2 now available for Apple TV with features like folders, voice improvements & more (AppleInsider) and Apple releases finished OS X 10.11.4 with Live Photos, Notes & iBooks improvements (AppleInsider)

"iOS 9, the mobile OS that powers Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, got a significant update Monday (when Apple also unveiled a new 4-in. iPhone and a 9.7-in. iPad Pro) with the arrival of iOS 9.3. The updated OS introduces several new features, including new 3D Touch shortcuts for existing system apps, Wi-Fi call support for Verizon customers, the ability to encrypt individual Notes, and -- most prominently -- a new Night Shift mode that automatically shifts the white balance on newer iPads and iPhones to a warmer color spectrum to help reduce eye strain and improve sleep. iOS 9.3 also brings updates to CarPlay, as well as enhancements to make the iPad a better tool for educational use."

Apple delivers a 'significant' update with iOS 9.3 | Computerworld

Google's Greene Hastens Cloud Expansion in Race With Amazon - Bloomberg Business

Google searches for a better way to connect with enterprise customers

"Greene is also changing the way Google sells and markets. She’s hiring across the board and demanding staff work more closely together and talk to customers more often. That includes creating a team that meets with enterprise customers to ensure Google is building what they need. That’s normal for traditional enterprise companies like Salesforce.com Inc. and Oracle Corp., but new territory for Google which specializes in self-service Web offerings. The West coast cloud sales team doubled to almost 50 people over the last few months, while the Google Apps team that works with independent IT vendors like startup Avere has grown substantially, say people familiar with the company.
Google is also spending more on marketing to compete against enterprise-focused rivals like Microsoft. Google’s pioneering, Web-based suite of work apps now trails Microsoft Office365 in revenue, Forrester Research estimates. "We have, like, the best office productivity suite, but people don’t know it," said Greene, who is hiring a chief marketing officer. Google is splashing out on billboards around San Francisco ahead of a conference this week for cloud customers."

Google's Greene Hastens Cloud Expansion in Race With Amazon - Bloomberg Business

CrowdSignals Aims to Create a Marketplace for Smartphone Sensor Data - The New York Times

Tangentially, see Apple Advances Health Apps with CareKit (Apple Press Info) and Apple’s CareKit Is the Best Argument Yet for Strong Encryption (Wired)

"Data from a personal device — a smartphone or smartwatch — is also sensitive, raising issues of data use and privacy, which complicates the collection of sensor data.

The development of software models using mobile sensor data has been hindered, said Deborah Estrin, a professor of computer science at Cornell Tech, because of “the absence of labeled data sets. And the reason for that is the lack of a community effort to do that in an ethical, efficient way.”

Ms. Estrin is one of several computer scientists from universities around the world who are advisers to CrowdSignals, as are researchers at companies like Microsoft and Intel."

CrowdSignals Aims to Create a Marketplace for Smartphone Sensor Data - The New York Times

Apple stuns world with Donald Trump iPhone • The Register

Maybe he'll end his hypocritical Apple boycott now...

"Shy and modest Apple today unveiled a pair of small iPhones and iPads for people with itty-bitty hands.

The Cupertino slinger of iStuffs summoned hacks to a brief hour-long conference in California to unveil the four-inch iPhone SE handset as well as a 9.7-inch iPad Pro slab. Both are powered by the now-available iOS 9.3 firmware."

Apple stuns world with Donald Trump iPhone • The Register

The FBI Now Says It May Crack That iPhone Without Apple’s Help | WIRED

More perspectives on the FBI's last-minute undo attempt

"Shortly after the government’s filing, the court approved the motion, canceling tomorrow’s hearing. Instead, the Justice Department has asked for two more weeks to determine whether the method developed by that unnamed “outside party” is truly capable of unlocking Farook’s locked phone without altering its internal data. But the government’s move is already being interpreted as a decision to retreat from using the San Bernardino iPhone as the test case for whether tech companies can in fact be forced to help crack their own security measures.

If the Justice Department were to continue to press for Apple’s cooperation after filing this motion, “they’ll have lost a ton of credibility with the court,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Nate Cardozo. “I think this is a good indication that this San Bernardino fight is over…Chalk this one up as a win for Apple.”"

The FBI Now Says It May Crack That iPhone Without Apple’s Help | WIRED

U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone - The New York Times

An "an outside party" demonstrated a possible method for unlocking -- perhaps the NSA got the memo after all...

"The Justice Department moved to cancel a Tuesday hearing over whether Apple should be forced to help investigators break into an iPhone used by a gunman in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting. 

In a new filing on Monday, the Justice Department said it might no longer need Apple’s assistance to extract data from the phone used in the attack."

U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone - The New York Times

Facebook wants to be everywhere, except BlackBerry - CNET

Going full circle -- unitasking with email...

"After heady days as the phone of choice for the likes of Hillary Clinton, BlackBerry has faced a decline in recent years. While Android and Apple account for 58 percent and 39 percent of smartphone sales in the US (based on recent figures from Kantar Worldpanel) BlackBerry falls under the unfortunate "other" category, which accounts for 0.1 percent of sales.

With sales growth at rock bottom, one of the few things going for BlackBerry is its existing user base of faithful customers. But now that support for the world's most popular social media and messaging apps is gone (like WhatsApp, Facebook also has the over-the-top messaging app, Messenger), there are fewer reasons for rusted-on users to stay."

Facebook wants to be everywhere, except BlackBerry - CNET

Geoffrey Hinton, the 'godfather' of deep learning, on AlphaGo (Macleans)

Excerpt from a wide-ranging interview

"Q: Beyond games, then—what might come next for AI?
A: It depends who you talk to. My belief is that we’re not going to get human-level abilities until we have systems that have the same number of parameters in them as the brain. So in the brain, you have connections between the neurons called synapses, and they can change. All your knowledge is stored in those synapses. You have about 1,000-trillion synapses—10 to the 15, it’s a very big number. So that’s quite unlike the neural networks we have right now. They’re far, far smaller, the biggest ones we have right now have about a billion synapses. That’s about a million times smaller than the brain.

Q: Do you dare predict a timeline for that?
A: More than five years. I refuse to say anything beyond five years because I don’t think we can see much beyond five years. And you look at these past predictions like there’s only a market in the world for five computers [as allegedly said by IBM founder Thomas Watson] and you realize it’s not a good idea to predict too far into the future."

(p.s. there's an argument that Watson Sr. was right, if he actually did make the "... world market for maybe five computers" assertion in 1943; the five computers are today known as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the NSA...)

Geoffrey Hinton, the 'godfather' of deep learning, on AlphaGo

One year later, Apple's 12-inch MacBook has become my favorite laptop - CNET

One topic that's unlikely to figure prominently on the agenda at Apple's event later today -- we probably won't see updated Macs until >= June

"That's why, despite testing and using nearly every new laptop or 2-in-1 hybrid released over the past year, I find myself returning again and again to the 12-inch MacBook. It's become my default go-to for those times when I need a laptop that's quick and easy to pick up and use. The MacBook has that same magic quality as the iPad did, which is that it makes for a perfect living room couch device, as it's lightweight, springs to life the moment I lift the lid, and is small enough that it doesn't get in the way.

Those same qualities also make it the first system I reach for when running out for a coffee shop writing session, where I can easily tap out thousands of words per week. The highest compliment I can pay the MacBook is that I usually forget any of the hardware limitations once I get into the writing zone, where the system does what every productivity machine should do, fade into the background."

One year later, Apple's 12-inch MacBook has become my favorite laptop - CNET

The Behind-the-Scenes Fight Between Apple and the FBI - Bloomberg Business

Final paragraphs of a recap on the privacy path to the Supreme Court

"A battle that had been simmering beneath the surface for almost two years was now very public.

The fight shows no signs of ending soon. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, has come out in support of the FBI, calling Apple's view "absolutist." Meanwhile, technology companies including Apple are taking steps to make it even harder to penetrate digital communication. According to Edgar, the former White House official, there isn't much common ground between those points of view.

"Lawyers think privacy is you can't listen to my conversation without a warrant; technologists think privacy is you can't listen to my conversation, period," Edgar said. "It's hard to reconcile those two points of view.""

The Behind-the-Scenes Fight Between Apple and the FBI - Bloomberg Business

Barack Obama’s Careful Encryption Stance | Monday Note

Final paragraphs from a Jean-Louis Gassée assessment of President Obama's South by Southwest talk

"I believe our President understands all of this, that he believes unbreakable cryptography is the lesser of two bad choices…but he must weigh what he says. Can we really expect him to say that the FBI is wrong? Instead, he lets the FBI push hard, absorbs some of the reflected Law and Order sunshine, and allows the San Bernardino case to take the long, arduous road to the Supreme Court. And Backdoor legislation will be introduced, discussed and discussed, with the Tech Industry up in arms – and dollars – against it.
By then, Barack Obama will be a former President, Free At Last to say what he really thinks. I can’t wait."

Barack Obama’s Careful Encryption Stance | Monday Note

Apple’s Engineers, if Defiant, Would be in Sync With Ethics Code - The New York Times

Check this page for more about the ACM, which was founded in 1947

"If Apple employees refused to perform the software engineering tasks that would be necessary to provide the F.B.I. with access to the contents of an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December mass killing in San Bernardino, Calif., their decision would be explicitly supported by the code of ethics of a professional organization called the Association for Computing Machinery.

The group urges computer professionals to obey existing laws unless they raise ethical issues that come into play around privacy and technological systems that have the ability to harm the public."

Apple’s Engineers, if Defiant, Would be in Sync With Ethics Code - The New York Times

Here’s the Full Transcript of TIME’s Interview With Apple CEO Tim Cook | TIME

Excerpt from an extensive interview

"And you know, it wasn’t very long ago that all this stuff was being debated. It’s not like it hasn’t been discussed. So this seemed like a back door of the back door. You know, trying to force someone to put a back door in, making people more vulnerable. Clearly trampling on civil liberties. I mean, I think it’s hard to debate these things. I think these things are unequivocally what is going on.

And if they are to go on, they should go on out in the open, in the Congress, and the Congress should pass a law. Because those are the people that we vote on to represent us. You know we don’t elect people in government in appointed positions, and for the most part we don’t elect judges, and so forth.

And courts can have different views, and I think they would. We know that. It’s our system, and it’s the great thing about our system. But in something so fundamental, this should be talked about."

Here’s the Full Transcript of TIME’s Interview With Apple CEO Tim Cook | TIME

A Government Error Just Revealed Snowden Was the Target in the Lavabit Case | WIRED

A big week for inadvertent transparency

"Ladar Levison, owner of the now defunct email service, has been forbidden since then, under threat of contempt and possibly jail time, from identifying who the government was investigating. In court documents from the case unsealed in late 2013, all information that could identify the customer was redacted.

But federal authorities recently screwed up and revealed the secret themselves when they published a cache of case documents but failed to redact one identifying piece of information about the target: his email address, Ed_Snowden@lavabit.com. With that, the very authorities holding the threat of jail time over Levison’s head if he said anything have confirmed what everyone had long ago presumed: that the target account was Snowden’s."

A Government Error Just Revealed Snowden Was the Target in the Lavabit Case | WIRED

“The Zuck-up.” Who is Facebook boss trying to impress by running in Beijing’s poisoned air? - The Washington Post

A political exercise?

"It is an open secret that Mark Zuckerberg is pretty keen to get Facebook unblocked in China. But is he taking things just a tiny bit too far?

On Thursday, the Facebook boss posted a picture of himself running through Tiananmen Square and telling his followers how much he enjoyed being back in the Chinese capital.
What he failed to mention was the air was a poisonous shade of grey, officially hazardous to human health. And he wasn’t wearing a mask."

“The Zuck-up.” Who is Facebook boss trying to impress by running in Beijing’s poisoned air? - The Washington Post

Cities to Untangle Traffic Snarls, With Help From Alphabet Unit - The New York Times

Perhaps a future problem domain for AlphaGo...

"“We’re taking everything from anonymized smartphone data from billions of miles of trips, sensor data, and bringing that into a platform that will give both the public and private parties and government the capacity to actually understand the data in ways they haven’t before,” said Daniel L. Doctoroff, Sidewalk’s chief executive, who is a former deputy mayor of New York City and former chief executive of Bloomberg.

Sidewalk was hatched out of Google last June as an independent company that will use technology to solve urban problems — yet another example of how the Internet giant has strayed far and wide from its initial mission in online search. The company is based in New York and was conceived by Mr. Doctoroff, along with a team of Google employees led by Larry Page, one of Google’s founders and now Alphabet’s chief executive."

Cities to Untangle Traffic Snarls, With Help From Alphabet Unit - The New York Times

Google Puts Boston Dynamics Up for Sale in Robotics Retreat - Bloomberg Business

An inadvertent transparency case study

"Tensions between Boston Dynamics and the rest of the Replicant group spilled into open view within Google, when written minutes of a Nov. 11 meeting and several subsequent e-mails were inadvertently published to an online forum that was accessible to other Google workers. These documents were made available to Bloomberg News by a Google employee who spotted them.
The November meeting was run by Jonathan Rosenberg, an adviser to Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Larry Page and former Google senior vice president, who was temporarily in charge of the Replicant group. In the meeting, Rosenberg said, “we as a startup of our size cannot spend 30-plus percent of our resources on things that take ten years," and that "there’s some time frame that we need to be generating an amount of revenue that covers expenses and (that) needs to be a few years.""

Google Puts Boston Dynamics Up for Sale in Robotics Retreat - Bloomberg Business

ULA executive admits company cannot compete with SpaceX on launch costs | Ars Technica

Rapid unscheduled retirement; also see ULA executive resigns after committing the gravest sin: speaking his mind (Washington Post)

"The most reliable US rocket company, United Launch Alliance, could not compete with upstart provider SpaceX during a competition in late 2015 for an Air Force payload, a senior engineer with the company said Wednesday. SpaceX was able to offer launch capabilities for as little as one-third the price of what United Launch Alliance could, said Brett Tobey, vice president of engineering for the Colorado-based rocket company.

It does not appear Tobey knew his remarks at a University of Colorado-Boulder seminar were being recorded. But Space News obtained a copy of the audio and posted the revealing, nearly hour-long recording on its website. By Wednesday night Reuters reported that Tobey had resigned from his position at United Launch Alliance, effective immediately."

ULA executive admits company cannot compete with SpaceX on launch costs | Ars Technica

Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist - The New York Times

Later in the article: "“It’s an independent culture and a rebellious one,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, a venture capitalist who was once an engineering manager at Apple. “If the government tries to compel testimony or action from these engineers, good luck with that.”"

"If the F.B.I. wins its court fight to force Apple’s help in unlocking an iPhone, the agency may run into yet another roadblock: Apple’s engineers.

Apple employees are already discussing what they will do if ordered to help law enforcement authorities. Some say they may balk at the work, while others may even quit their high-paying jobs rather than undermine the security of the software they have already created, according to more than a half-dozen current and former Apple employees."

Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist - The New York Times

The Emerging Virtual Reality Product Parade | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Check the full post for a VR market dynamics reality check

"With the announcement this week of Sony’s PlayStation VR system, we now have a fairly good sense of what the offerings from most of the major consumer virtual reality players will look like. The picture that emerges is a fascinating one, with a lot of variety in the design, product focus, and pricing among the products on offer. This panoply should be an excellent testing ground for a number of possible applications for VR and we can already make some observations about the potential for some of what’s been announced."

The Emerging Virtual Reality Product Parade | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack | WIRED

The IRC++ race expands; tangentially, see No salespeople for us, says CEO of $4 billion startup Slack (Business Insider)

"Slack’s growth has shown that even seemingly ancient technologies like chat can still be improved, particularly when it comes to using instant messaging for work. But Slack has the limitations that all proprietary cloud apps do. Your data lives on someone else’s servers. Customization is limited. You have to trust that Slack the company will make the changes you want to Slack the app and not make changes you don’t want. 

That’s why the open source community has been racing to build better versions of Slack, even though countless open source chat apps exist already. In fact, Slack alternative Mattermost and Rocket.chat topped the Black Duck Rookies of the Year report, an annual list of new open source projects that attract the most developers and produce the most code. Along with other open source chat apps such as Friends and Let’s Chat, these projects are hoping to provide not just a more open alternative to Slack, but beat the company at its own game by providing features Slack doesn’t yet have."

Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack | WIRED

Google Adds Apple iCloud Storage to Cloud Platform | Re/code

Supply chain different

"For Apple, though, the deal might portend a move to cut costs ahead of creating its own cloud storage system. Google’s cloud team is in deal-making mode, aggressively seeking to bring in new customers to use its cloud services, and may have sweetened the deal — or been more willing than AWS and Azure to concede to Apple’s demands. (And Apple, if anything, is good at aggressive demand-making.)

Then there’s Apple’s next step. Morgan Stanley, in a note last month, laid out the tea leaves: Apple has announced three data centers opening soon, and spent an estimated $1 billion last year on AWS. It’s a logical move for Apple if it wants more independence from its tech rivals. And it’s one Apple should make to store the growing media libraries from its mobile, TV and TBD products."

Google Adds Apple iCloud Storage to Cloud Platform | Re/code

FedEx CEO Smith Calls Amazon Challenge Reports `Fantastical' - Bloomberg Business

Absolutely positively not worried about an Amazon coopetition shift

"“We’re not delivering from 50 fulfillment centers or 100 stores,” Smith said. “We have the capability to pick up, transport and deliver an item from 95 percent of the human beings on the planet, much less every business in the world, within one to two business days, door to door, customs cleared.”
Amazon has been a FedEx customer for years, and the shipping company expects that to remain the case “for many years to come,” said Mike Glenn, a FedEx executive vice president. The two companies are in constant dialogue, he said, and FedEx is well aware of Amazon’s desire for more capacity to manage inventory. Other major retailers have long held that ability, he said."

FedEx CEO Smith Calls Amazon Challenge Reports `Fantastical' - Bloomberg Business

Samsung’s Smartphones Aren’t the Problem (Just Prune the Bad Apps) - The New York Times

Another vote for the Google Nexus approach -- perhaps it would be better if Samsung and the wireless companies simply stopped making and bundling awful apps, however...

"Since the company’s Galaxy smartphones were introduced seven years ago, Samsung has tried its mightiest to make the devices stand out. The company has invested an enormous amount to market the phones, and it has innovated on Google’s Android operating system used in the devices by adding quirky software features. Many Galaxy phones have sold briskly, catapulting Samsung to the top spot in the worldwide handset market.

But try as Samsung might, its smartphones always run into the same criticisms. The gadgets are inferior to Apple’s iPhones, which work seamlessly with the iOS mobile software, some critics say. And while the hardware design of the Galaxy phones — featuring large, vivid screens and high-quality cameras — wins plaudits, the devices keep getting thumbs down for some of their junky software."

Samsung’s Smartphones Aren’t the Problem (Just Prune the Bad Apps) - The New York Times

Apple’s Brief Hits the FBI With a Withering Fact Check | WIRED

Not a great week for the FBI thus far; also see The Law is Clear: The FBI Cannot Make Apple Rewrite its OS (Medium Backchannel)

"Apple appeared to sum up its assessment of the government’s incorrect understanding of the legal and technical issues in the case in a quote at the end of its brief yesterday:

“Almost 90 years ago, Justice Louis Brandeis, reflecting on the ‘progress of science’ beyond wiretapping famously warned that ‘[t]he greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding’.”"

Apple’s Brief Hits the FBI With a Withering Fact Check | WIRED

Oracle Rises as Q3 Results Beat Street, $10 Billion Share Buyback | Re/code

Perhaps time for Salesforce to reconsider the rumored Microsoft acquisition offer; also see Larry Ellison explains why Microsoft and Amazon are going for Oracle's throat (Business Insider)

"Revenue from cloud services — both software as a service and a computing platform as a service — rose 57 percent year on year to reach $583 million, or 61 percent on a constant currency basis. Cloud infrastructure sales at $152 million were down slightly, but would have risen without the effect of currencies.

Sales of old-school on-premise software fell 4 percent to $6.3 billion and would have been flat year on year without the currencies.

In a statement, CEO Safra Catz said the accelerating growth in Oracle’s still relatively new cloud business pushed its gross margin to 51 percent, up from 43 percent in the prior year. The target, she said, is 80 percent. “Our cloud business is now in a hyper-growth phase,” she said."

Oracle Rises as Q3 Results Beat Street, $10 Billion Share Buyback | Re/code

Inside Search: The campaign trail continues with Google

Also see On the road to the 2016 elections with Google Search (Google Inside Search)

"Finding information on campaign funding can be difficult, if not seemingly impossible. Today, working with one of the most respected data sources in the industry, the Center for Responsive Politics, we’re making presidential campaign finance information easy to access and understand, right from Google Search. So when you search for donald trump or clinton campaign finance, you’ll see a snapshot of their campaigns’ finance breakdown and be able to dig into interesting insights, like the percentage of funds coming from SuperPACs versus individual donations, or which industries have donated the most to a given candidate."

Inside Search: The campaign trail continues with Google

Why Messaging Startup Slack Keeps Raising Money It Doesn’t Need - Bloomberg Business

Also see Here's Why Stewart Butterfield Thinks Slack's Success Is a 'Historical Accident' (Fortune)

"Slack competes with other high-flying startups and major tech companies like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. when trying to lure top talent. When job candidates ask why they should place their bets on Slack's stock instead of Google's, a soaring valuation helps answer the question. "Getting a valuation tick would be the only rationale for raising money," Butterfield said. "The reality is that over the last two years, compensation has gone crazy—especially in the last six months."
After an investment valuing the company at $2.8 billion less than a year ago, Slack is looking to increase that to as much as $4 billion with the current fundraising round. It's an unusual case in a cooling startup fundraising environment. Most companies can no longer treat venture capitalists like ATMs. Butterfield said raising money is generally harder now. Investors are skittish about an imminent plunge in the public markets, which could drag down the private markets, he said."

Why Messaging Startup Slack Keeps Raising Money It Doesn’t Need - Bloomberg Business

How to Make Twitter Actually Useful - WSJ

Check the full article for useful Twitter tips; also see Sean Parker Q&A on Twitter’s Biggest Weakness and What’s Next for Facebook (Bloomberg Business)

"I’d blame my own boring tweets, but they’re certainly not the cause of Twitter’s most recent business woes. Not only is the company failing to attract new users, but it reported a decline in monthly active users last quarter. As a result, Twitter has been desperately releasing features to address everyone’s issues.

To find out if these features knock down the biggest roadblocks, I tracked down and interrogated dozens of my followers who have abandoned the network. It turns out, Twitter does deserve a second chance. Still, it has a long way to go in fixing its biggest problem: explaining why you’d add it to your already packed social media repertoire of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn."

How to Make Twitter Actually Useful - WSJ

Couchbase Takes $30 Million in Down Round Despite Customer Gains - Digits - WSJ

The latest endangered species: NoSQL unicorns

"He also declined to comment on Couchbase’s revenue or valuation. Couchbase’s valuation has dropped since its last round, according to documents filed with the funding–its share price is down to $4.64, a 41% drop from its last round in June 2014, according to industry tracker PitchBook Data. It is slightly above August 2013 levels.

The valuation decline comes despite the company’s disclosure that it has seen a 30% uptick in paying customers since last year.

Competitor MongoDB Inc. was valued privately in December 2014 at $1.6 billion but has also had shares written down, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Startup Stock Tracker–since the fourth quarter of 2013 MongoDB’s shares are down an average of 30.38%, although the company is reported to have doubled revenue last year to about $100 million."

Couchbase Takes $30 Million in Down Round Despite Customer Gains - Digits - WSJ

Moneyball for Book Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read - The New York Times

Check the full article for some stark stats for writers and publishers

"While e-books retailers like Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble can collect troves of data on their customers’ reading behavior, publishers and writers are still in the dark about what actually happens when readers pick up a book. Do most people devour it in a single sitting, or do half of readers give up after Chapter 2? Are women over 50 more likely to finish the book than young men? Which passages do they highlight, and which do they skip? 

Mr. Rhomberg’s company is offering publishers the tantalizing prospect of peering over readers’ shoulders. Jellybooks tracks reading behavior the same way Netflix knows what shows you binge-watch and Spotify knows what songs you skip."

Moneyball for Book Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read - The New York Times

White House Begins To Realize It May Have Made A Huge Mistake In Going After Apple Over iPhone Encryption | Techdirt

Also see Help crowdfund better journalism on encryption (Dan Gillmor) and Apple's Response To DOJ: Your Filing Is Full Of Blatantly Misleading Claims And Outright Falsehoods (Techdirt)

"While the various public polling on the issue has led to very mixed results, it's pretty clear that the public did not universally swing to the government's position on this. In fact, it appears that the more accurately the situation is described to the public, the more likely they are to side with Apple over the FBI. Given that, John Oliver's recent video on the subject certainly isn't good news for the DOJ.

Either way, the DOJ and FBI insisted they wanted a conversation on this, and now they're getting it. Perhaps they should have been more careful what they wished for."

White House Begins To Realize It May Have Made A Huge Mistake In Going After Apple Over iPhone Encryption | Techdirt

Anonymous declares 'total war' on Donald Trump (Engadget)

Not a great time to be working in cybersecurity in any Trump-related organization; check Anonymous goes negative on Trump... again (CNet) for more details

"Donald Trump is in the sights of hacktivist collective Anonymous again. On March 4 the group, posted a video declaring "total war" on the presidential candidate. It hopes to not only bring down many of Trump's sites, but also halt his presidential bid by uncovering and exposing embarrassing information. "We need you to shut down his campaign and sabotage his brand," said a Guy Fawkes-masked individual in the video.

Trump has been targeted because according to the masked activist, "your inconsistent and hateful campaign has not only shocked the United States America, you have shocked the entire planet with your appalling actions and ideas.""

Anonymous declares 'total war' on Donald Trump

The Amazon Tax - Stratechery by Ben Thompson

An interesting Amazon strategy scenario

"What is worth considering, though, is the possibility that just as AWS’ effect on developers spread out into the broader startup ecosystem, it increasingly seems that AWS’ impact on Amazon itself goes far beyond its already substantial contribution to the bottom line. Amazon may have started as, to use Stone’s title, “The Everything Store,” but its future is to be a tax collector for a whole host of industries that benefit from the economies of scale, and AWS is the model."

The Amazon Tax - Stratechery by Ben Thompson

Google’s Computer Program Beats Lee Se-dol in Go Tournament - The New York Times

Just getting started... Also see Where Computers Defeat Humans, and Where They Can’t (NYT)

"During a postmatch ceremony, Hong Seok-hyun, head of the Korean national Go association, awarded the AlphaGo team the certificate of an honorary Go degree of Nine Dan, the highest granted. Mr. Lee also holds that degree.

Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google DeepMind, said playing Mr. Lee had exposed several weaknesses of AlphaGo that his team would try to address. Computer algorithms used for AlphaGo “one day can be used in all sorts of problems, from health care to science,” he said."

Google’s Computer Program Beats Lee Se-dol in Go Tournament - The New York Times

Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism, Clarke Says : NPR

Another timely encryption/back door/etc. reality check

"GREENE: What do you know about the debate within the Obama administration? It's been reported that there really is a fierce debate over how to handle this.

CLARKE: Well, I don't think it's a fierce debate. I think the Justice Department and the FBI are on their own here. You know, the secretary of defense has said how important encryption is when asked about this case. The National Security Agency director and three past National Security Agency directors, a former CIA director, a former Homeland Security secretary have all said that they're much more sympathetic with Apple in this case. You really have to understand that the FBI director is exaggerating the need for this and is trying to build it up as an emotional case, organizing the families of the victims and all of that. And it's Jim Comey and the attorney general is letting him get away with it."

Later in the interview:

"CLARKE: Every expert I know believes that NSA could crack this phone. They want the precedent that the government can compel a computer device manufacturer to allow the government in."

Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism, Clarke Says : NPR

Official Google for Work Blog: Google Apps identity, easy and secure single sign on for popular work apps

Also see Google Brings Easier Identity Management to Non-Google Apps (Fortune), which notes "Microsoft already offered similar single cross-vendor login schemes via its Azure Active Directory service. Thus, Google’s latest move looks to be another shot in a continuing battle for the desktops of business users, with Microsoft Office leading among big companies but Google Apps for Work making a strong play with smaller businesses."

"Last year, we announced support for SAML 2.0 where Google is the identity provider. Today, we're adding pre-configured support for Microsoft Office 365, Facebook at Work, Panorama9, New Relic, Concur, Coupa, Box, Slack and more. This adds to the hundreds of apps we already support through the Google Apps Marketplace and OpenID Connect.

Google's identity services provide even more security on mobile when combined with Google Apps enterprise mobile management controls like password strength, lock screen requirements and app management. These can work in tandem with the increasing number of mobile security options, from hardware such as fingerprint readers, to software such as Google’s Smart Lock. Our Google Smart Lock features are available to all Google Accounts, including those used at work, and we provide identity services and enterprise mobility management (EMM) as part of Google Apps for Work at no additional cost."

Official Google for Work Blog: Google Apps identity, easy and secure single sign on for popular work apps

Take a stand against the Obama/FBI anti-encryption charm offensive (AppleInsider)

Check the full post for "What you can do about it" suggestions and a lively conversation thread

"Over the weekend, President Obama appeared at SXSW to gain support for the FBI's case, stating outright that citizens' expectation that encryption should actually work is "incorrect" and "absolutist."

He actually stated that, "If your argument is 'strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should in fact create black boxes,' that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years. And it's fetishizing our phone above every other value, and that can't be the right answer."

That's simply technically incorrect. There's no "balance" possible in the debate on encryption. Either we have access to real encryption or we don't. It very much is an issue of absolutes. Real encryption means that the data is absolutely scrambled, the same way that a paper shredder absolutely obliterates documents. If you have a route to defeat encryption on a device or between two devices, it's a backdoor, whether the government wants to play a deceptive word game or not."

Take a stand against the Obama/FBI anti-encryption charm offensive

Why the Final Game Between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol Is Such a Big Deal for Humanity | WIRED

Also see Google DeepMind AI wins final Go match for 4-1 series win (Engadget)

"For Game Five, under the official rules of the match, the two opponents were set to randomly choose who would play first and who would play second. But then came that moment at the end of the press conference following his victory in Game Four. Lee Sedol turned towards Hassabis and Silver and asked if he could play black in Game Five. To wit, he was asking for the bigger challenge. He was asking for the hurdle he still hasn’t cleared. “I really do hope I can win with black,” he said, “because winning with black is much more valuable.” Hassabis and Silver conferred—ever so briefly—and then granted his wish."

Why the Final Game Between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol Is Such a Big Deal for Humanity | WIRED

Why the government can’t actually stop terrorists from using encryption - The Washington Post

A timely encryption reality check; also see Why Are We Fighting the Crypto Wars Again? (Steven Levy on Medium Backchannel)

"That's because so many encrypted products are made by developers working in foreign countries or as part of open source projects, putting them outside the federal government's reach. For example, instant messaging service Telegram — which offers users encrypted "secret chats" — is headquartered in Germany while encrypted voice call and text-messaging service Silent Phone is based out of Switzerland. And Signal, a popular app for encrypted voice calls and text messaging, is open source.

"Trying to put a mandate on encryption software is really pretty hopeless," said Matt Blaze, a computer science professor and cryptography researcher at the University of Pennsylvania."

Why the government can’t actually stop terrorists from using encryption - The Washington Post

GM Offers Rentals to Lyft Drivers Accelerating Challenge to Uber - Bloomberg Business

Getting aggressive -- and/or perhaps in need of a Chevy Equinox inventory reduction

"Got a jalopy or don’t even have a car? You can still be a driver for ride-sharing service Lyft Inc.
General Motors Co. is rolling out a program called Express Drive starting in Chicago and expanding to Baltimore, Boston and Washington, D.C., that lets Lyft drivers rent a Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle for $99 a week. Renters also pay 40 cents a mile, but if the driver completes 40 rides in a week, the mileage is free, and if she handles 65, then all fees are waived, John Zimmer, Lyft president and co-founder, said in a telephone interview."

GM Offers Rentals to Lyft Drivers Accelerating Challenge to Uber - Bloomberg Business

Wall Street Tours the Tesla Factory—and Loves What It Sees - Bloomberg Business

Check the full article for major manufacturing changes

"Tesla spent some $1.6 billion on major upgrades last year as it prepares to launch its first attempt at a mass-market car—the Model 3—on March 31. The transformation is striking, according to auto analysts at Stifel Financial Corp., Credit Suisse Group AG, and Baird. The firms are telling investors that Tesla is learning from the mistakes that delayed its previous launches and is on track to make the shift from producing tens of thousands of $80,000 cars to hundreds of thousands of $35,000 cars—assuming the Model 3 proves a success with drivers."

Wall Street Tours the Tesla Factory—and Loves What It Sees - Bloomberg Business

The Epic Story of Dropbox’s Exodus From the Amazon Cloud Empire | WIRED

Final paragraph from an extensive overview of the Dropbox decision to dump AWS

"Whether it creates the kind of business Dropbox is hoping to build, or it just ends up as a huge engineering high, the company now has its own invention. Dropbox has built its own box. This represents an attitude that began with Google and has gradually spread across Silicon Valley. Google was so successful not just because it built a pretty good Internet search engine, but because it built the underlying technology needed to run that search engine—and so many other services—at an enormous scale. Facebook, which recruited countless ex-Googlers, did much the same. And so did Twitter and its ex-Googlers. And, now, so has Dropbox. To become a giant, you may have to stand on the shoulders of others. But once you become your own giant, you start to feel like you need to build a home that’s just right for you."

The Epic Story of Dropbox’s Exodus From the Amazon Cloud Empire | WIRED

TV's 'Mr. Robot' will take on encryption as Apple's battle with the FBI rages on | PCWorld

Interesting times

"“We talked to our FBI consultants about [depicting the Apple-FBI issue], and their view is that encryption should allow for this sort of third-party side-door thing,” Esmail added. “But I’m on Tim Cook’s side.”

This response drew a cheer from the crowd, but Esmail clarified that the second season of Mr. Robot will depict both sides so that the audience can better understand the debate. It will be a conversation-starter, not a critique, according to Esmail."

TV's 'Mr. Robot' will take on encryption as Apple's battle with the FBI rages on | PCWorld