Dropbox finally brings its Google Docs competitor out of beta - The Verge

Also see Inside Dropbox’s Identity Overhaul (Backchannel) and This Is Dropbox’s Latest Plan to Challenge Google, Microsoft, and Box (Fortune)

"The biggest question now is whether Paper is the transformative product Dropbox wants it to be. Because many organizations do already pay for Office 365 or Google’s G Suite, Dropbox knows that it must play nice with competitors’ products or risk alienating workers who either enjoy using Microsoft Word or Google Sheets or do so out of necessity. To that end, Dropbox Paper isn’t focused solely on creation. It will let you import, edit, and collaborate on a number of other file types from Google, Microsoft, and others.

“We fully expect Paper to be used in environments where people are using Microsoft and Google products,” says Rob Baesman, Dropbox’s head of product. “That’s the rule, not the exception.” Still, it’s an open question whether Paper is substantive enough to fend off competition. Just last week, competitor Box revealed its own note-taking productivity software that accomplishes many of the same tasks."

Dropbox finally brings its Google Docs competitor out of beta - The Verge

Windows 10 Cloud is Microsoft’s fresh Chrome OS alternative - The Verge

Also see Microsoft's coming Windows 10 Cloud release may have nothing to do with the cloud (ZDNet)

"Microsoft has been trying to keep PC makers away from Chrome OS for years, and consumers far away from Apple’s iPad alternative. While Windows RT largely failed at going mainstream, and Windows 8.1 with Bing was never widely used, the software giant is experimenting with another low-cost version of its popular Windows operating system: Windows 10 Cloud.

References to the new variant have started appearing in recent Windows 10 test builds, and ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that Windows 10 Cloud will be another simplified version of Windows designed to run Microsoft’s Universal apps from the Windows Store. Such a simple version of Windows 10 is clearly designed to take on alternatives like Chrome OS, and Microsoft will be able to position it as low-cost or free to use for PC makers willing to build machines with the operating system."

Windows 10 Cloud is Microsoft’s fresh Chrome OS alternative - The Verge

Tesla Gives the California Power Grid a Battery Boost - The New York Times

Tesla's other business line is building momentum

"The installation, capable of powering roughly 15,000 homes over four hours, is part of an emergency response to projected energy shortages stemming from a huge leak at a natural gas storage facility.

The project, which officially came online Monday but began operating at the end of last year, is an important and surprising demonstration of how utilities can use enormous collections of batteries in place of conventional power plants.

It is also an indication of how rapidly Tesla is moving to transform itself from a maker of luxury electric cars into a multifaceted clean-energy company."

Tesla Gives the California Power Grid a Battery Boost - The New York Times

Lyft rides a wave of anger to the top of the App Store - The Washington Post

A difficult week for Uber's PR department; also see Tech Companies Fight Trump Immigration Order in Court (NYT)

"These days, everything is political: even your ride-hailing app.

This weekend, Uber and Lyft — in their reactions to the Trump administration’s immigration order — illustrated how important companies' political views have become to consumers. Lyft took a public stand against the order and, on Sunday, saw more downloads than Uber for the first time ever, according to analysis firm App Annie. Lyft's Sunday downloads also more than doubled its daily average over the previous two weeks.

Uber, on the other hand, had a bad weekend. Hundreds of people called for ride-sharers to ditch the company through the hashtag “#deleteUber” after it announced that it would drop surge pricing for John F. Kennedy Airport trips. Many saw Uber’s move as an attempt to undermine the strike that New York City cabdrivers organized to protest the immigration order and capitalize off the controversy — something Uber was quick to deny. It also didn't help Uber's standing among President Trump's critics that its chief executive is on the administration's business advisory committee."

Lyft rides a wave of anger to the top of the App Store - The Washington Post

The Alt-Majority: How Social Networks Empowered Mass Protests Against Trump - The New York Times

What happens when Facebook and Twitter are used for something more constructive than "fake news" distribution

"But if Mr. Trump has proved anything, it’s that everything is different now. We live in a culture ruled by social media streams, one in which most people are skeptical of what they see and read in the “mainstream media.”

This explains why Stephen K. Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News who is a close adviser to Mr. Trump, has been seeking to paint the news media as Mr. Trump’s primary opposition. The weakened news media is an easy mark for Mr. Trump. If the media is his only opponent, he’s got nothing to worry about.

Unlike the news media, though, protesters produce an undeniable reality. Protesters can’t easily be dismissed as “fake news.” They come to you unmediated — not from The New York Times, but from your friends and friends of friends on Facebook."

The Alt-Majority: How Social Networks Empowered Mass Protests Against Trump - The New York Times

Twitter security tips that we can learn from the Trump administration - The Washington Post

Some timely Twitter tips

"President Trump is arguably Twitter's most prominent user. But, as many outlets have reported over the past couple of days, the people operating his administration's Twitter accounts may not be using all their security options to the fullest. As CNN reported, a hacker specifically wrote to the president with tips on how to lock hackers out of his official Twitter account.

Although your own Twitter account may not be as sought-after as the president's, the hubbub over the security of the White House's accounts is a good reminder for all Twitter users to take a spin through their settings. Below are some tips."

Twitter security tips that we can learn from the Trump administration - The Washington Post

Silicon Valley’s Ambivalence Toward Trump Turns to Anger - The New York Times

Also see Airbnb, Salesforce and Etsy’s CEOs are the latest tech leaders to speak out against Trump's Muslim ban (Recode) and Apple, Google, Uber, Tesla, And Others React To Trump’s Refugee Ban (BuzzFeed); tangentially, see Google, in Post-Obama Era, Aggressively Woos Republicans (NYT, from Friday)

"On Friday morning, Silicon Valley was largely ambivalent about President Trump. The software programmers, marketing experts and chief executives might not have voted for him, but they were hopeful about finding common ground with the new administration.

By Saturday night, much of that optimism had yielded to anger and determination."

Silicon Valley’s Ambivalence Toward Trump Turns to Anger - The New York Times

LG’s G6 will reportedly be the first non-Pixel phone with Google Assistant - The Verge

Samsung is placing some very big bets in 2017

"We’ve already seen what LG’s upcoming flagship phone looks like, and now we’re hearing more about its capabilities. A report from CNET suggests the LG G6 will be the first handset outside of Google’s own Pixel range to come equipped with Google Assistant. This will give users all the usual voice command functionality expected from a digital assistant (setting alarms, making searches, and so on) but also access to Google’s chatbot-style interface.

It’s interesting to note that although these sorts of voice interfaces have been available in phones for a while, they’ve recently become a greater part of the pitch for high-end devices. Samsung’s next flagship handset, the S8, is rumored to have a “beefed-up virtual assistant“ that will incorporate tech from its acquisition of Viv Labs — a startup from the original creators of Siri. In LG’s case, though, rocky finances mean it’s better off borrowing Google’s expertise than trying to develop its own assistant."

LG’s G6 will reportedly be the first non-Pixel phone with Google Assistant - The Verge

Sharing meets collaboration - Box Notes vs Dropbox Paper (Diginomica)

Check the full post for a *Box content/collaboration comparison

"Will 2017 be the year that digital collaboration grows up? The year is certainly kicking off with a series of notable product enhancements by leading vendors in the space. This week Box launched a major update to its Notes collaboration canvas — more on that in a moment. Last week saw the launch of a major overhaul to teamwork tool Slack, including the long-awaited arrival of threaded conversations. Next week it’s expected to be the turn of Dropbox to unveil new functionality. Meanwhile the recently launched Microsoft Teams becomes generally available this quarter. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Suffice to say that digital technology offers more ways than ever for people to interact and share with colleagues, customers and stakeholders. These new patterns of collaboration are an essential success ingredient in a modern digital business. But despite (or more accurately, because of) this plethora of products jockeying for our attention, there’s no standard toolset or accepted methodology for making it work well. We’re all floundering in a digital ocean of uncharted collaboration options."

Sharing meets collaboration - Box Notes vs Dropbox Paper

Sundar Pichai makes the case for Google versus Alexa - Recode

On a related note, from Alphabet’s Profits Stay Predictably Good in a Volatile Industry (NYT), "Google’s market share on desktop search is around 78 percent, but it is above 90 percent on mobile devices, according to research from NetMarketShare.com."

"Google’s strategy, Pichai said, is to support voice search across different contexts, ranging from phones — where, we’d note, Google’s Android OS still dominates the global market — to homes, TVs, and cars.

“We want Google to be there for users when they need it.”

Pichai said that Google Home’s first quarter on the market was “very strong” — without disclosing any shipment numbers — and reiterated that it was “very early days” for voice search.

What’s more, he said there was still a lot of work ahead to make voice search a great experience for users — and that Google’s “years of progress” in areas like natural language processing were an advantage.

“I feel very comfortable about how this will play out in the future.”"

Sundar Pichai makes the case for Google versus Alexa - Recode

Microsoft’s Profit Rises 4 Percent, as Cloud Business Booms - The New York Times

Also see Microsoft's Azure cloud business almost doubled in the past year (Recode)

"For the quarter, Microsoft reported net income of $5.2 billion, or 66 cents a share, compared with $5.02 billion, or 62 cents a share, during the period a year earlier.

Revenue rose to $24.09 billion from $23.8 billion a year ago.

With adjustments to exclude results from LinkedIn and the impact of nearly $2 billion in deferred revenue related to its Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft earned 84 cents a share and revenue of $25.84 billion, exceeding the estimates of Wall Street analysts, who also excluded those items from their forecasts."

Microsoft’s Profit Rises 4 Percent, as Cloud Business Booms - The New York Times

Alphabet’s Profits Stay Predictably Good in a Volatile Industry - The New York Times

Also see Google shares are down after missing on fourth-quarter earnings (Recode)

"Alphabet’s revenue in the quarter rose 22 percent to $26.06 billion, beating analysts’ expectations. Net income was $5.33 billion, up from $4.92 billion a year earlier.

The heart of Alphabet’s consistent earnings remains the company’s search engine. While a consumer can delay an iPhone purchase or shop somewhere other than Amazon, Google’s search engine is an indispensable tool for anyone using the internet. The shift to mobile devices, once considered a threat to Google’s search business, has only strengthened it."

Alphabet’s Profits Stay Predictably Good in a Volatile Industry - The New York Times

Elon Musk Has Trump’s Ear, and Wall Street Takes Note - The New York Times

Read the full article for more details on Elon Musk's latest efforts to save humanity...

"Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk appear to have other areas of overlapping interest as well. Mr. Musk has broached the subject of the nation’s aging electricity transmission grid in conversations with Mr. Trump, according to an insider with knowledge of the discussions.

Mr. Musk has advocated a so-called smart grid and has said that eventually Tesla will offer grid services, such as batteries that can be added to the grid and paired with solar and wind farms. This is the kind of high-impact infrastructure project that Mr. Trump has supported.

And Tesla’s success could help fend off Chinese efforts to compete or even dominate in what could be an important piece of the car industry’s future.

But the ultimate bond between the two may simply be that they both like to think big."

Elon Musk Has Trump’s Ear, and Wall Street Takes Note - The New York Times

Slack to launch enterprise edition - Business Insider

A big event for Slack next Tuesday

"The new Slack for Enterprise edition carries a set of features designed to take that a step further: The company has previously shared that its key feature is "federation." Customers taking advantage of Slack federation would make it easier for multiple teams to all have their own customized installations of Slack, but still be able to talk to their coworkers on different teams.

In addition, Business Insider hears that Slack for Enterprise will boast a new and secure API, the "hook" that apps use to talk to each other, to feature deeper integration with common workplace apps. Plus, as has been shared previously, Slack for Enterprise will offer the IT department a deeper set of security and analytics tools.

Meanwhile, Slack has its work cut out for it. A survey of IT professionals performed by help desk software provider Spiceworks found that Microsoft Teams stands a solid chance of overcoming both Slack and Google Hangouts in the workplace by 2018."

Slack to launch enterprise edition - Business Insider

The $99 Billion Idea: How Uber and Airbnb Won (Bloomberg Businessweek)

From the latest Businessweek cover story, based on an extensive excerpt from Brad Stone's new book, The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World

"Both startups offered age-old ideas (share a vehicle, rent your home) with new twists and fostered a remarkable degree of openness among strangers. And both companies have been generating nearly nonstop controversy in every urban market they enter. They’ve come to represent, at least to some, the hubris of the techno-elite. Critics blame them for destroying the basic rules of employment, exacerbating traffic, ruining neighborhoods, worsening housing shortages, and generally bringing unrestrained capitalism into liberal cities. Airbnb and Uber didn’t anticipate this degree of pushback, which might have undone less zealous, more circumspect entrepreneurs.

So how did it all happen? How did each company maneuver past entrenched, politically savvy incumbents to succeed where others had failed? How much of their success was luck?

There are two little-known chapters in the histories of Uber and Airbnb, two pivotal moments when each discovered the secret weapon that would drive its rise. Both stories are at odds with the creation tales the founders like to tell, and both are crucial to understanding how these two companies defied odds, mayors, and city councils, and became widely admired, bitterly resented, and valued into the stratosphere."

The $99 Billion Idea: How Uber and Airbnb Won

Continuing Our Updates to Trending | Facebook Newsroom

Details on Facebook's latest trending tweaks

"Today we’re announcing three updates to Trending, a feature that shows people popular topics being discussed on Facebook that they might not see in their News Feed:

• Trending topics will now feature a publisher headline below each topic name
• An improved system to determine what is trending
• Everyone in the same region will see the same topics

These changes begin rolling out today and will be available to everyone in the US in the coming weeks. We’re listening to people’s feedback and will continue to make improvements in order to provide a valuable Trending experience."

Continuing Our Updates to Trending | Facebook Newsroom

In Race Against Fake News, Google and Facebook Stroll to the Starting Line - The New York Times

Final paragraphs below; also see The future of advertising is ‘fewer, better ads’ (Recode) for an interview with Ian Schafer

"Still, industry watchers remain skeptical about the efficacy of these moves.

“Nothing drives clicks better than when the headline is exactly what people want to hear or believe,” Ian Schafer, the chief executive and founder of Deep Focus, a digital advertising agency, referring specifically to Google. Mr. Schafer said that without significant changes to the economics and technology of online ads, banning individual sites would not produce change in the long run."

In Race Against Fake News, Google and Facebook Stroll to the Starting Line - The New York Times

Facebook’s Virtual Reality Business Gets a New Leader - The New York Times

In other Facebook virtual reality news, see Facebook takes aim at fake news with new ‘trending’ formula (AP)

"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said in a post on Wednesday that Hugo Barra, a former executive at Google and the Chinese phone maker Xiaomi, was joining Facebook to lead its virtual reality business. The move puts to rest questions about who would assume direction of the efforts after Oculus ran into several hurdles, including an intellectual property lawsuit and leadership changes.

“Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in the post. “Hugo is going to help build that future.”"

Facebook’s Virtual Reality Business Gets a New Leader - The New York Times

Cisco Buying AppDynamics for $3.7B | Light Reading

Check the full post for links; also see Cisco snaps up AppDynamics for $3.7B right before its IPO (TechCrunch)

"Cloud acquisitions are already hot in the new year. The Cisco-AppDynamics acquisition comes on the heels of Hewlett Packard Enterprise buying Cloud Cruiser, which offers analytics and software to measure, and bill for, services used by customers. (See HPE Expands Cloud Offerings With Cloud Cruiser Acquisition.)

Last week, Hewlett Packard Enterprise bought SimpliVity, a pioneer in hyperconverged cloud servers, for $650 million, opening the door to speculation that SimpliVity competitor Nutanix might also get snapped up. (See HPE Buys SimpliVity for $650M in Hyperconverged Cloud Play.)

And last month, VMware bought the technology and IP from PLUMgrid, a provider of software-defined networking for cloud computing. (See VMware Buys SDN Startup PLUMGrid's Assets."

Cisco Buying AppDynamics for $3.7B | Light Reading

Dell now has a Chromebook with a stylus too - The Verge

Also see Google doubles down on Chromebooks in education with two new devices (The Verge)

"The Chromebook 11 Convertible is destined for schools, so there’s nothing particularly catchy here aside from its form. It has a generation-old Intel Celeron processor; its keyboard and trackpad are “fully sealed” to protect against spills; and it has a “rubberized trim” to improve its shock resistance — it’s going to be in schools after all, so it better be able to take a fall.

A model running Windows 10 and including a newer processor will be available as well, but it’ll be known as the Latitude 11 Convertible. Both versions launch February 7th, with the Chrome OS model selling for $349 and the Windows model for $579."

Dell now has a Chromebook with a stylus too - The Verge

Facebook, Snapchat Deals Produce Meager Results for News Outlets - Bloomberg

Not making it up on volume

"Digital Content Next found that 17 of its members generated an average of $7.7 million in the first half of 2016 from third-party platforms, or 14 percent of their total digital revenue. Publishers still “express deep ambivalence” about Facebook’s commitment to helping them make money on the social media platform, the report said.

“On the most basic level, publishers are being disintermediated, losing their relationship with their audiences, and they fear that Facebook will further encroach on their traditional businesses,” the report said."

Facebook, Snapchat Deals Produce Meager Results for News Outlets - Bloomberg

Apple releases Find My AirPods feature for locating lost earbuds in iOS 10.3 beta | 9to5Mac

Later in the post: "The app will also allow you to play a sound from the AirPods that will help you locate one that is out of sight"; also see What's New in iOS 10.3: Find My AirPods, APFS File System, New Apple ID Setting and More (MacRumors)

"Apple just released iOS 10.3 beta for developers and within has surprised with a new Find My AirPods feature that allows users to locate their missing cord-free Apple earbuds.

The feature lives inside Apple’s Find my iPhone app, which allows users to locate their missing iOS devices on a Map via iCloud and a standalone iOS app. But since the AirPods rely on Bluetooth connectivity, it will only be able to locate the AirPods if they are in range of your other Apple devices. So, if you happen to lose one and don’t realize until after, you’d have to walk back in range in order to get a hit on the map. With Bluetooth, you can potentially get up to 5-10 meters of range."

Apple releases Find My AirPods feature for locating lost earbuds in iOS 10.3 beta | 9to5Mac

How to Make America’s Robots Great Again - The New York Times

Final paragraphs from a timely automation/employment reality check

"“All of this robotics technology was invented in the U.S., but we basically let other companies take it from us and make it cheaper, and now we’re buying it from them,” Mr. Christensen said. “In some sense, we’re not being very good at making sure we remain competitive in areas that we’re leading.”

And that’s how huge government funding can help, the robot experts said. As in China, an infusion from Mr. Trump could turn some of the most far-out ideas in robotics into a structural advantage for the American economy.

“What we can learn from the Chinese example is that the government plays a nurturing and fostering role for developing the robotics industry,” Mr. Ernst said. “We can do the same. We must do the same.”"

How to Make America’s Robots Great Again - The New York Times

Peter Thiel, Trump Adviser, Has a Backup Country: New Zealand - The New York Times

I'm guessing this is related to yesterday's Silicon Valley billionaires are ‘prepping’ to survive in underground bunkers (Recode) post

"Peter Thiel is a billionaire, the biggest Donald J. Trump supporter in Trump-hating Silicon Valley and, above all, someone who prides himself on doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing.

So it makes perfect sense that right after President Trump proclaimed that “the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America,” Mr. Thiel was revealed to have become in 2011 a citizen of a small country on the other side of the world: New Zealand.

In these uncertain times, it may be smart to have a backup country. But the news that one of the richest citizens of New Zealand was a naturalized American who was born in Germany set off an immediate furor in the island nation, with questions being raised about whether being a billionaire gets you special treatment."

Peter Thiel, Trump Adviser, Has a Backup Country: New Zealand - The New York Times

The new Google Voice launches, bringing a modern look, group chat, photo sharing & more | TechCrunch

See this Google post for an update overview

"The update comes at a time when Google’s messaging strategy is in flux. While on the one hand, it’s trying to make its default Messenger app more iMessage-like with support for RCS, it also maintains Hangouts (but is now shifting its focus toward the enterprise), and it launched two new apps aimed at consumers, messaging app Allo and FaceTime rival Duo. But that means there’s also a lot of overlap in Google’s products today, which can be confusing.

That said, many Google Voice users had been disappointed to see this simple but useful calling app ignored, but didn’t want to shift to Hangouts. Google finally heeded those concerns, and decided to give Google Voice another shot.

In addition to the visual overhaul, the company has been investing in improvements to the underlying infrastructure, which means these new apps will also offer better voicemail transcriptions, better call quality and reliability, and other improvements."

The new Google Voice launches, bringing a modern look, group chat, photo sharing & more | TechCrunch

Oracle lays off more than 1,000 employees | ZDNet

In other alternative-fact workforce rebalancing news, see IBM Touts Trump-Pleasing Hiring Plans While Firing Thousands (Bloomberg)

"Those hardware employees appear to have been Oracle's failing SPARC hardware department staffers. In mid 2016, Oracle claimed its new SPARC S7 processor would be offered on Oracle Cloud. The cloud is Oracle's new revenue hope since its new software licensing revenue plummeted by 20 percent in its last quarter ended December 15. At the same time, Oracle's hardware revenue had fallen 13 percent.

While some of those being fired are management and staff, the majority are hardware and software developers. Rumors had been spreading for some time that SPARC and its Unix operating system Solaris were on the chopping block."

Oracle lays off more than 1,000 employees | ZDNet

As Yahoo moves closer to death, earnings beat expectations but the Verizon deal has been further delayed - Recode

Final chapter briefly postponed

"While still showing largely downward trends all over its advertising and search businesses, this was a small bit of good news for CEO Marissa Mayer. That is, except for a new government investigation into Yahoo’s massive data breach, a disaster of management which has slowed the closing of the sale of the company’s core assets to Verizon and could mean a discounted price in the $4.8 billion deal.

So it was no surprise that Yahoo said it anticipates that the Verizon deal would close in the second quarter, which is a delay from what was first announced last year.

“I'm very pleased with our Q4 results and incredibly proud of the team’s execution on our 2016 strategic plan, particularly given the uniquely eventful past year for Yahoo,” said Mayer, in a very big understatement. Yahoo, as most know, has been Silicon Valley's longest-running traffic accident, as a parade of execs have tried to revive its waning fortunes to no avail."

As Yahoo moves closer to death, earnings beat expectations but the Verizon deal has been further delayed - Recode

Silicon Valley billionaires are ‘prepping’ to survive in underground bunkers - Recode

Prepare different

"One of the more peculiar hobbies popular among the Silicon Valley elite is an obsession with preparing to survive for end times; its adherents are commonly called “preppers.”

It’s the topic of an essay in the New Yorker this week, “Survival of the Richest” by Evan Osnos, which delves into why tech billionaires are particularly attracted to the idea.

According to Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, the prepper movement among tech-made billionaires is largely inspired by fear that artificial intelligence will one day displace so many jobs that there will be a revolt against those behind the technology."

Silicon Valley billionaires are ‘prepping’ to survive in underground bunkers - Recode

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Makes Its First Acquisition, Meta - Bloomberg

Tangentially, see Startup Wants to Bring Uber Marketplace Model to Data Scientists (Bloomberg)

"Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic organization made its first acquisition, buying Meta, a website that makes it easier for scientists to find the latest academic research.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative intends to improve Meta’s product, which reads all scientific research and uses an algorithm to provide it to clients based on relevance. After taking some time to upgrade the search tool, the initiative will make it free to researchers, Cori Bargmann, the group’s president of science, and Brian Pinkerton, its president of technology, said Monday in a blog post."

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Makes Its First Acquisition, Meta - Bloomberg

Facebook Journalism Project is Nothing But A Much-Needed PR stunt

Check the full post for a detailed assessment; on a related note, see Snapchat Discover Takes a Hard Line on Misleading and Explicit Images (NYT)

"Facebook had to do something for the news ecosystem. But its freedom of movement is limited by the structure of its revenue stream. Hence a project that blends cynicism and naïveté."

Facebook Journalism Project is Nothing But A Much-Needed PR stunt

BA Insight podcast: Microsoft, Facebook & Slack — The Fight for Teams in 2017 with Peter O’Kelly

I had an opportunity to compare notes on Microsoft Teams and related market dynamics with BA Insight CTO Jeff Fried; check the link below (or the full description on the iTunes podcast page for some additional links and resources)

"Collaboration is the word for 2017, and the dominant tool for bringing modern collaboration and communication to your enterprise teams has yet to emerge. Between media darling Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Workplace by Facebook, the coming year is poised to bring a significant settling to this market, and you might find your users clamoring for a new environment as a result.
Peter O’Kelly of O’Kelly Associates joins BA Insight CTO Jeff Fried for a state of the union of collaboration tools. Peter has been working in this space since the early 1980s. He's been an industry analyst (including VP and research director at Burton Group) and also worked on enterprise collaboration solutions at Microsoft. Today, as an independent consultant, Peter helps software vendors with product and competitive strategies in communication, collaboration, and database tools."

Podcasts also available on iTunes | BA Insight

Collaboration pays: Atlassian highlights expanding customer base in solid Q2 earnings (SiliconANGLE)

Maybe this collaboration stuff will be big someday...

"However, the biggest highlight was Atlassian’s increased customer count for those with active subscriptions and maintenance agreements, which climbed 27 percent, to 68,837. “We added 3,164 net new customers during the quarter, including online home-furnishings retailer Wayfair, the U.S. subsidiary of auto-manufacturer Porsche, Japanese life insurance company Mitsui Life, Australian financial services provider Latitude Financial Services, aerospace manufacturer Goodrich, travel IT solutions provider TravelSky, digital design consulting services provider Fjordnet, online travel agency Kiwi.com, and the city government of Buenos Aires,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.

Atlassian’s earnings call comes 10 days after it announced its intention to buy task management software company Trello Inc. in a deal valued at $425 million. Most analysts agree that Trello, whose software allows workers to organize their to-do items on a customizable board using the digital equivalent of Post-it notes, is a good buy for Atlassian. Indeed, Vik Singh, chief executive of the predictive sales and marketing company Infer Inc., recently went as far as to predict the deal would propel Atlassian to a $50 billion market cap in the next years."

SiliconANGLE

Google's Big Marketing Push Pays Off for its Pixel Phone Over Holiday - Bloomberg

Off to a strong start; tangentially, see Ads for Google products topped Google search results 91 percent of the time (Recode)

"Pixel devices accounted for 12.3 percent of phone activations with Verizon Communications Inc., the device's initial wireless carrier in the U.S., according to a survey of fifty Verizon stores by telecommunications research firm Wave7.  There weren't enough devices at several outlets, the survey also found. Verizon declined to comment.

Investment bank Evercore ISI patched together the Wave7 data to estimate that Google shipped 552,000 Pixel phones in the fourth quarter. Evercore pegged revenue from those sales at $386 million for the quarter. The bank also estimated initial sales of 500,000 units for Google Home, the $129 intelligent speaker meant to rival Amazon.com Inc.'s Echo."

Google's Big Marketing Push Pays Off for its Pixel Phone Over Holiday - Bloomberg

IBM Posts Earnings Beat In Q4 And Raises Guidance For 2017, But Stock Plunges (Forbes)

Also see IBM Still Hopeful After 19 Consecutive Quarters Of Declining Revenue (Fortune) and IBM Margins Narrow While It Struggles to End Sales Slide (Bloomberg)

"The company reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $5.01 compared to analyst consensus of $4.88. Revenue for the quarter came in at $21.77 billion, up from expectations of $21.66 billion. Because of the strong quarterly earnings, IBM also beat full-year estimates, posting $13.59 in earnings per share.

IBM’s stock was on the move in after hours trading, up more than $4 or about 2.4% in the minutes after reporting. But by 4:30 pm ET, sellers had their say, with the stock down about the same amount at $4.08, or 2.45%, as of 4:45 pm ET.

In a statement about the earnings, chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty claimed that the results of the past year established IBM as “the industry’s leading cognitive solutions and cloud platform company.” She credited IBM Watson and IBM Blockchain as two areas for growth. “More and more clients are choosing the IBM Cloud because of its differentiated capabilities, which are helping to transform industries, such as financial services, airlines and retail,” Rometty added."

IBM Posts Earnings Beat In Q4 And Raises Guidance For 2017, But Stock Plunges

Two Possible Futures for Amazon’s Alexa | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Check the full post for a timely Alexa reality check

"Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant was clearly the star of CES this year. No single consumer electronics device dominated coverage but lots of individual devices incorporated Alexa as their voice assistant of choice. The announcements ranged from Echo clones to home robots to cars and smartphones. It was clear Amazon had entirely captured the market for voice platforms. Only one or two integrations of the Google Assistant were announced and those are both future rather than present integrations.
It would be easy off the back of all this to say Amazon had won the voice assistant battle once and for all but I actually see two possible futures for Alexa, with very different outcomes for Amazon and its many partners."

Two Possible Futures for Amazon’s Alexa | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Donald Trump is getting a second Twitter account Friday: @POTUS - Recode

In other tech transition topics, see The Final Days of Obama’s Tech Surge (Steve Levy in Backchannel)

"That means that if you currently follow @POTUS under the Obama administration, you’ll continue to follow the account as it moves under Trump’s control. The stream of tweets will be wiped clean so Trump and his team can start fresh.

Twitter will also automatically follow a new account for you — @POTUS44 — where Obama’s stream of tweets live. The same process will take place for a number of other high-profile accounts, like @FLOTUS (First Lady Michelle Obama) and @WhiteHouse.

So we know how the accounts will change hands, but we don’t know how Trump will use @POTUS, if at all. Earlier this week, Trump suggested he’d continue to use his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, which has more followers (more than 20.3 million at last count)."

Donald Trump is getting a second Twitter account Friday: @POTUS - Recode

Clearing Out the App Stores: Government Censorship Made Easier - The New York Times

The politics of app stores

"Blocking a website is like trying to stop lots of trucks from delivering a banned book; it requires an infrastructure of technical tools (things like China’s “Great Firewall”), and enterprising users can often find a way around it. Banning an app from an app store, by contrast, is like shutting down the printing press before the book is ever published. If the app isn’t in a country’s app store, it effectively doesn’t exist. The censorship is nearly total and inescapable.

But that’s not the end of this story. The banning of apps highlights a deeper flaw in our modern communications architecture: It’s the centralization of information, stupid."

Clearing Out the App Stores: Government Censorship Made Easier - The New York Times

Google acquires Fabric developer platform and team from Twitter | TechCrunch

Ongoing tumultuous transition times for Twitter

"Google is taking over Twitter’s mobile app developer platform Fabric, as well as its Crashlytics crash reporting system, Answers mobile app analytics, Digits SMS login system and FastLane development automation system. Twitter launched Fabric as a modular SDK in 2014 to allow developers to pick and choose different tools to improve their apps, and it now serves apps reaching 2.5 billion users built by 580,000 developers.

But as Twitter tries to get into better financial shape, it’s cutting non-essential divisions. By passing the platform off to Google, it can remove the costs of running Fabric without screwing over its developers by suddenly shutting it down. Google will continue to operate Fabric and its related tools, and developers shouldn’t have to do anything to support the transition.

It begs the question, is Twitter trying to slim down to take another swing at getting acquired?"

Google acquires Fabric developer platform and team from Twitter | TechCrunch

Netflix Profit Rises 56 Percent, to $67 Million - The New York Times

Content rules; also see Why Netflix isn’t worried about GOP plans to weaken Net neutrality (The Washington Post)

"A year ago, Netflix boldly declared that it planned to conquer the global market for streaming television, adding more than 130 countries to its service map. It also promised to start delivering material profits in 2017 after operating at break-even profitability for several quarters.

On Wednesday, the company released business results showing that it is on its way to reaching those targets, even as competition accelerates from services like Amazon and Hulu.

Netflix added a record 7.05 million streaming members in the three months that ended Dec. 31, up from the 5.59 million net additions in the same period of 2015. That growth, in domestic and international markets, beat its forecast of 5.2 million new members for the quarter. Netflix now has a total of 93.8 million members."

Netflix Profit Rises 56 Percent, to $67 Million - The New York Times

US Sues Oracle, Says It Pays White Men More Than Others - The New York Times

Probably not the NYT tech news headline Oracle was hoping for this week; in other Oracle news, see Oracle Joins Cloud Data Center Expansion Race (Fortune)

"The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against Oracle, claiming that the technology giant has a "systemic practice" of paying white male workers more than their non-white and female counterparts with the same job titles.

The suit also says that the company favors Asian workers in its recruiting and hiring practices for product development and other technical roles, which resulted in hiring discrimination against non-Asian applicants."

US Sues Oracle, Says It Pays White Men More Than Others - The New York Times

Weaving Threads (Slack Several People Are Coding blog)

Check the full post for an overview Slack's conversation threading model; also see Threaded messaging comes to Slack (Slack Several People Are Typing blog)

"If you use Slack to work with your team, you might notice a new feature — Threads. You can use Threads to reply to messages, organize discussions, and manage the many conversations that happen in Slack. As one of our most requested features, Threads has been in development for some time, and I wanted to share a little bit about our design process and what we learned."

Weaving Threads

What “Hidden Figures” Can Teach Us about AI | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Accentuating the positive potential; also see IBM CEO: Jobs of the future won't be blue or white collar, they'll be 'new collar' (CNBC)

"Change came in 1962 for the segregated West Area Computer Division of Langley Research Center in Virginia where the three women who are the main protagonists of the story worked. Mathematician Katherine Goble and de facto supervisor Dorothy Vaughan are both directly affected by new tech rolling into the facility in the form of the IBM 7090. If you are not familiar with the IBM 7090 (I was not before this weekend), it was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series of computers designed for large-scale scientific and technological applications. In layman terms, the 7090 would be able to perform in a blink of an eye all the calculations that took the computer division hours. Dorothy understood the threat and, armed with her wit and a book on programming languages, was able to help program the IBM 7090, taught her team to do the same, shifted their skills and saved their jobs.
I realize part of this story might be for the benefit of the screenplay and the world is much more complicated. However, I do think that what is at the core is very relevant — the creation of new skill sets.
Although AI has the potential to affect not only manual jobs that can be automated but also, theoretically, jobs that require learning and decision making, the immediate threat is certainly on the former."

What “Hidden Figures” Can Teach Us about AI | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Making Google+ work better for you (The Keyword)

Not dead yet

"Listening to your feedback inspired us to introduce a new Google+ focused on helping you connect around shared interests a little over a year ago. Your feedback led us to launch more than 50 updates across Android, iOS and web to ensure the new experience serves you even better than the previous one. Big changes like powerful tools for Community moderators, image comments and joining the G Suite family were all thanks to your input.
After all of these updates, more people are discovering vibrant Communities and creating inspiring Collections than ever before. So it’s in this same spirit that we’re pleased to add three new much requested updates, rolling out over the next couple of weeks, to Google+."

Making Google+ work better for you

Mark Zuckerberg, in Suit, Testifies in Oculus Intellectual Property Trial - The New York Times

A ways to go before VR mainstreaming

"But Mr. Zuckerberg also spent much of his time on the stand talking about his broader vision for virtual reality and how it has not arrived yet. He said that Facebook was conceived as a way to share people’s experiences through text and photographs and that virtual reality could come closer to a “perfect representation” of what is happening in people’s lives.

“From my perspective, nothing, other than VR, can capture this best,” he said.

Yet virtual reality still has a long way to go before it gets to that point, Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I don’t think that good virtual reality is fully there yet,” he said. “It’s going to take five or 10 more years of development before we get to where we all want to go.”"

Mark Zuckerberg, in Suit, Testifies in Oculus Intellectual Property Trial - The New York Times

Evernote 8.0 Is More Than an Update—It's a Reboot | WIRED

Speaking of reboots, I had to delete and reinstall Evernote on my iPad to get the new version out of a crash cycle. Also see Evernote is still dead to me, but the iOS app looks better than ever (TNW)

"But you’d be wrong to think this isn’t a hugely important upgrade to Evernote. In fact, this random Tuesday is one of the most significant moments in the nine-year history of the company. Version 8.0 brings with it an entirely new design, a bunch of refinements to what had become a hopelessly overwrought service, and a renewed focus on what Evernote is actually for. It’s the fastest, cleanest app the company has ever released. It’s the culmination of more than a year of overdue under-the-hood work to make Evernote reliable, consistent, and future-proof. And it represents the beginning of a new era for the company, in which it will try to make the transition from a note-taking app to being the place you do your best thinking. And thanks to the latest in machine learning and artificial intelligence, a place that does some of the thinking for you.

Version 8.0 of an iOS app may not mean much to you, but it sure means a lot to Evernote."

Evernote 8.0 Is More Than an Update—It's a Reboot | WIRED

Google and Oracle refine their cloud pitches to take on Amazon | VentureBeat | Cloud | by Barb Darrow, Fortune

Check the full post for an assessment of Oracle and Google public cloud trajectories

"The reheated cloud talk will start Tuesday morning at Oracle Cloud World in New York, headlined by Oracle co-chief executive Mark Hurd and president Thomas Kurian. Here, the company’s brain trust needs to show that when it comes to running Oracle databases or financial software, Oracle can out-Amazon Amazon.

Oracle has long relationships with the bulk of Fortune 1000 accounts, most of which rely on its database and business applications to run their accounts and transactions. But for more than a year, Amazon has made a concerted effort to woo these same accounts, as AWS CEO Andy Jassy noted in a recent tweet.

Amazon can do this by persuading the customer to run its Oracle databases on Amazon’s infrastructure or get the customer to move its data out of Oracle databases altogether and funnel it over to Amazon’s Aurora database services."

Google and Oracle refine their cloud pitches to take on Amazon | VentureBeat | Cloud | by Barb Darrow, Fortune

What history teaches about Apple's windows of opportunity for 2017 (AppleInsider)

Summary from an extensive Apple market dynamics reality check

"If you listen to groupthink critics on Apple, you'll hear that the company is deeply troubled by too much reliance on iPhone sales, aging Mac Pro and Mini offerings that haven't been updated in years and a stagnating market for iPads that has fallen precipitously since Peak iPad occurred in 2014. They're wrong, here's why."

What history teaches about Apple's windows of opportunity for 2017

Former Microsoft executive and noted AI expert Qi Lu joins Baidu as COO | TechCrunch

Evidently recovered from his bike accident

"Baidu is best known for its search engine, which dominates in China, but over the past two years it has put focus on developing artificial intelligence, which includes self-driving cars and more. In that respect, the hiring of Lu — who exited Microsoft last year on medical grounds — is a major coup.

Lu most recently ran Microsoft’s applications and services business, and previously headed up the Redmond-based company’s search division having joined in 2009 following an 11-year stint with Yahoo. Fun fact: While with Microsoft, he championed a bid for Slack, but ultimately CEO Satya Nadella and co-founder Bill Gates decided against it.

At Baidu, Lu will be responsible for products, technology, sales, marketing and operations, and particularly lend his expertise to the company’s AI push."

Former Microsoft executive and noted AI expert Qi Lu joins Baidu as COO | TechCrunch

Facebook rolls out fake news filter in Germany - The Verge

Also see After Government Threatens Fines, Facebook Will Test Out Fake News Filtering in Germany (Gizmodo)

"German politicians have warned of the effect that fake news could have on federal elections slated for this fall, following a spate of fabricated articles and hoaxes during the US presidential election. Lawmakers have considered imposing fines on Facebook and other social media companies that allow fake news to spread, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned of Russian interference through propaganda or cyberattacks. It was reported last week that the German government has opened an investigation into the spread of fake news, after Breitbart published a false story claiming that a mob set fire to a church on New Year’s Eve.

Under Facebook’s fact-checking system, stories reported as fake by users will be sent to Correctiv, a nonprofit news organization based in Berlin. If an item is deemed false, it will be marked as “disputed,” along with a justification for the label, and the site will warn users before they share it. Disputed items will also show up lower in Facebook’s algorithmically-determined News Feeds."

Facebook rolls out fake news filter in Germany - The Verge

SpaceX nailed its first launch since last year’s big explosion - Recode

Also see SpaceX Launches Rocket, Its First Since Explosion on Launchpad (NYT)

"Saturday’s unblemished execution — from launch, to completing the mission of deploying the satellites, to landing back on its drone ship — is a good sign for the company, particularly after one of its $60 million rockets exploded with a $200 million satellite on it last August.

About those Mars flights: During a presentation in September, Musk said he planned to begin sending unmanned rockets to Mars in 2018, and if all goes well, send rockets with humans in them to Mars by 2024. But he conceded that his contracts with NASA, Iridium and others won’t sufficiently pay for the company’s interplanetary ambitions.

Instead, it will require massive public-private partnerships, he said."

SpaceX nailed its first launch since last year’s big explosion - Recode

Andy Rubin Nears His Comeback, Complete With an ‘Essential’ Phone - Bloomberg

Apparently missed the Peter Thiel observation about smartphone innovation being over

"A platform company designed to tie multiple devices together, Essential is working on a suite of consumer hardware products, including ones for the mobile and smart home markets, one of the people said. 

The centerpiece of the system is a high-end smartphone with a large edge-to-edge screen that lacks a surrounding bezel. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, Rubin discussed the smartphone with mobile carrier executives, including some from Sprint Corp., people familiar with the talks said."

Andy Rubin Nears His Comeback, Complete With an ‘Essential’ Phone - Bloomberg

Will Mark Zuckerberg Be Our Next President? | Vanity Fair

Excerpt from a timely political reality check; in other political speculation, see Peter Thiel considering bid for California governor (Politico)

"Of course, these are just a series of hints. In a funny way, and as insane as it sounds to say out loud, Zuckerberg is one of the few people for whom becoming president of the United States might be a step down. As the chief of Facebook, he is already the true leader of the free world. Zuckerberg commands a company that touches a quarter of the Earth’s population, some 1.8 billion monthly active users. There is no one alive who can affect more people with the touch of a button. He has more power and influence than most world leaders and, as is evident with the real fake-news problem (not the fake fake-news issue that Republicans have adopted as a deflection), Facebook can surely sway public opinion in incomparable ways."

Will Mark Zuckerberg Be Our Next President? | Vanity Fair

Consumer Reports Now Recommends MacBook Pros - Consumer Reports

A recharged review

"Consumer Reports has now finished retesting the battery life on Apple's new MacBook Pro laptops, and our results show that a software update released by Apple on January 9 fixed problems we’d encountered in earlier testing.

With the updated software, the three MacBook Pros in our labs all performed well, with one model running 18.75 hours on a charge. We tested each model multiple times using the new software, following the same protocol we apply to hundreds of laptops every year."

Consumer Reports Now Recommends MacBook Pros - Consumer Reports

PC shipments have now declined for 5 years in a row - The Verge

Also see Mac sales stabilize in Q4 amid worldwide PC shipment decline (AppleInsider)

"The PC industry has been declining for years, but it just hit a big milestone. PC shipments have now declined for 5 years in a row, with between 260 and 270 million machines shipped during 2016 according to Gartner and IDC. Both firms' estimates vary due to how they count convertibles and other form factors, but the overall message is that the market has hit five years of decline."

PC shipments have now declined for 5 years in a row - The Verge

Amazon says it will create 100,000 full-time jobs over the next 18 months - The Washington Post

Tangentially, see Macy’s delivers disappointing holiday season, plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs (The Washington Post) and Sorry, Wal-Mart. Amazon Wants Your Food Stamp Customers As Well (Bloomberg)

"Amazon.com on Thursday announced plans to create more than 100,000 full-time jobs over the next 18 months, a massive hiring spree that suggests the e-commerce company expects a run of breakneck growth in its retailing operations and lucrative cloud computing division.

Amazon, whose chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post, said the hiring would include a broad range of positions, including engineers and software developers and employees in its growing network of fulfillment centers."

Amazon says it will create 100,000 full-time jobs over the next 18 months - The Washington Post

Robots Will Take Jobs, but Not as Fast as Some Fear, New Report Says - The New York Times

Also see A Darker Theme in Obama’s Farewell: Automation Can Divide Us (NYT)

"The report, which was released Thursday, breaks jobs down by work tasks — more than 2,000 activities across 800 occupations, from stock clerk to company boss. The institute, the research arm of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, concludes that many tasks can be automated and that most jobs have activities ripe for automation. But the near-term impact, the report says, will be to transform work more than to eliminate jobs.

Globally, the McKinsey researchers calculated that 49 percent of time spent on work activities could be automated with “currently demonstrated technology” either already in the marketplace or being developed in labs. That, the report says, translates into $15.8 trillion in wages and the equivalent of 1.1 billion workers worldwide. But only 5 percent of jobs can be entirely automated."

Robots Will Take Jobs, but Not as Fast as Some Fear, New Report Says - The New York Times

The First Trillion Dollars is Always the Hardest | Asymco

Check the full post for more details and charts; meanwhile, from an interview with Trump advisor Peter Thiel in the New York Times: "The age of Apple is over. Confirm. We know what a smartphone looks like and does. It’s not the fault of Tim Cook, but it’s not an area where there will be any more innovation."

"In its first 10 years, the iPhone will have sold at least 1.2 billion units,[1] making it the most successful product of all time. The iPhone also enabled the iOS empire which includes the iPod touch, the iPad, the Apple Watch and Apple TV whose combined total unit sales will reach 1.75 billion units over 10 years. This total is likely to top 2 billion units by the end of 2018.

The revenues from iOS product sales will reach $980 billion by middle of this year. In addition to hardware Apple also books iOS services revenues (including content) which have totaled more than $100 billion to date.

This means that iOS will have generated over $1 trillion in revenues for Apple sometime this year.

In addition, developers building apps for iOS have been paid $60 billion. The rate of payments has now reached $20 billion/yr."

The First Trillion Dollars is Always the Hardest | Asymco

Facebook is working on ways to read thoughts, job adverts suggest (The Telegraph)

Some thoughtful research

"The vacancies at Facebook's secretive "Building 8" division include PhD-level roles for a "brain-computer interface engineer" and a "neural imaging engineer", for a two-year project that will "accomplish bold things".

Another advert for the same two-year period describes building a "communication and computing platform of the future". The roles include analysis of "neuroimaging and electrophysiological data" and "developing novel non-invasive neuroimaging technologies".

The idea of Facebook being able to read minds may sound like a science-fiction fantasy, and could potentially be the ultimate privacy nightmare. But it is not the first indication the company has given that it wants to make telepathy a reality."

Facebook is working on ways to read thoughts, job adverts suggest

Apple is already winning the wireless headphones market with AirPods | TechCrunch

Listen different

"Despite delays, Apple’s AirPods had a great holiday season according to a new report on wireless headphone online spending over the past several weeks.

The report from Slice Intelligence–which collects its data from hundreds of millions of anonymized e-receipts–found that the $159 AirPods have accounted for more than a quarter of all online wireless headphones revenue since pre-orders for the product launched on December 13.

The report also finds that the AirPods pre-order launch was the biggest day for online headphone sales of the year, outpacing sales on Cyber Monday and Black Friday. A major part of this is no doubt related to the fact that the headphones had a pretty limited launch in retail stores due to low supply caused by manufacturing delays."

Apple is already winning the wireless headphones market with AirPods | TechCrunch

This Day in History: The Fictional HAL 9000 Computer Becomes Operational

Happy 20th anniversary, HAL; on a related note, see Artificial Intelligence: Think Again (Jerry Kaplan in Communications of the ACM)

"The fictional HAL 9000 computer becomes operational, according to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the 1968 movie adaptation, the computer's statement, "I am a HAL 9000 computer, Production Number 3. I became operational at the HAL Plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997," put his birthdate in 1992. Both dates have now passed with no super-intelligent, human-like HAL computer in sight."

This Day in History: January 12 | Computer History Museum

Google’s parent has given up on one of its big, futuristic projects - The Washington Post

Loony economics

"Dozens of employees in the group, known as Titan, have been reassigned to work on other projects. They include Project Wing, Alphabet's effort to develop a drone delivery service, and Project Loon, which seeks to deliver Internet around the world via floating balloons. That project is still going strong, Alphabet says.

Many of the Titan workers came from drone maker Titan Aerospace, which Google purchased in 2014. Titan was folded into X, Alphabet's moonshot lab, in late 2015.

“We ended our exploration of high altitude UAVs for internet access shortly after,” an X spokesman said in a statement. "… at this stage the economics and technical feasibility of Project Loon present a much more promising way to connect rural and remote parts of the world.”"

Google’s parent has given up on one of its big, futuristic projects - The Washington Post

Facebook, Nodding to Its Role in Media, Starts a Journalism Project - The New York Times

Also see Introducing: The Facebook Journalism Project (Facebook Media blog)

"Facebook is increasingly owning up to its role as one of the world’s largest distributors of information by taking more responsibility for the millions of stories that flow through its site.

On Wednesday, the social network made its latest move to acknowledge that role by announcing the Facebook Journalism Project.

The effort calls for the company to forge deeper ties with publishers by collaborating on publishing tools and features before they are released. Facebook will also develop training programs and tools for journalists to teach them how to better search its site to report on news and events. And Facebook wants to help train members of the public to find news sources they trust, while fighting the spread of fake news across its site."

Facebook, Nodding to Its Role in Media, Starts a Journalism Project - The New York Times

Do Alexa and other Internet of Things devices mean the end of privacy? - The Boston Globe

No more "in the privacy of your own home"

"We’re accustomed to the privacy challenges of personal computers and smartphones. My wife switches off her phone’s location-tracking feature; I run a program to delete tracking cookies from my Web browsers.

But what to do when everything in the house keeps tabs on you?

IoT devices turns mundane activities into data events to record, from turning on the radio to running hot water for a bath. And just like those Web searches on your laptop, they are subject to scrutiny by marketing experts — or to subpoenas from the police."

Do Alexa and other Internet of Things devices mean the end of privacy? - The Boston Globe

Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckberg hires David Plouffe and Ken Mehlman to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — Quartz

Also see Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Builds Political Muscle for Philanthropic Work (NYT)

"Former Obama campaign manager and Uber board member David Plouffe is joining the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as president of policy and advocacy. So is Ken Mehlman, a former George W. Bush campaign manager and Republican National Committee chairman, who will lead the group’s board.
The move, announced by Plouffe and Zuckerberg in a pair of Facebook posts, will give the former political operatives a pivotal role in shaping how the Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla Chan, deploy their vast fortune toward philanthropic causes. The couple set up the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative when their daughter Max was born in December 2015, pledging to donate 99% of their Facebook shares—then worth about $45 billion—to “promote equality for all children in the next generation.”"

Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckberg hires David Plouffe and Ken Mehlman to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — Quartz

Google Voice is getting an upgrade | TechCrunch

Also see The Google Voice website is hinting at a big redesign (The Verge)

"After the flood of reports, Google confirmed that it’s working on some updates to Google Voice, but declined to give us further details ahead of the launch.

Google’s strategy with regards to its communications apps has been messy, so it will be interesting to see what the new Google Voice entails. The company has a number of communication products, which seem to be in a constant state of flux.

Hangouts, for example, has just seen its API shut down, which will effectively shutter the app ecosystem on the platform for most developers. The apps that were allowed to remain have an enterprise focus instead, as Google explained to developers in an email that it’s moving away from its consumer focus."

Google Voice is getting an upgrade | TechCrunch

The creator of Swift, Apple’s new programming language, is leaving for Tesla - Recode

Tbd if Tesla will be migrating its platform to Swift...

"The head of Apple’s Swift programming language is leaving the company, according to an email he posted to a community forum.

Chris Lattner said that he was stepping aside as project lead for Swift as he prepares to leave the company later this month for an unspecified new venture. Ted Kremenek will take over his duties, Lattner said.

(Update: Tesla announced Tuesday afternoon that Lattner was joining to head its autopilot software efforts.)"

The creator of Swift, Apple’s new programming language, is leaving for Tesla - Recode

Apple convinced Consumer Reports to retest the MacBook Pro’s battery after uncovering an ‘obscure’ bug - Recode

Test different

"Here’s Apple’s full statement on the issue:

“We appreciate the opportunity to work with Consumer Reports over the holidays to understand their battery test results. We learned that when testing battery life on Mac notebooks, Consumer Reports uses a hidden Safari setting for developing web sites which turns off the browser cache. This is not a setting used by customers and does not reflect real-world usage. Their use of this developer setting also triggered an obscure and intermittent bug reloading icons which created inconsistent results in their lab. After we asked Consumer Reports to run the same test using normal user settings, they told us their MacBook Pro systems consistently delivered the expected battery life. We have also fixed the bug uncovered in this test. This is the best pro notebook we’ve ever made, we respect Consumer Reports and we’re glad they decided to revisit their findings on the MacBook Pro.”"

Apple convinced Consumer Reports to retest the MacBook Pro’s battery after uncovering an ‘obscure’ bug - Recode

Medicaid’s Data Gets an Internet-Era Makeover - The New York Times

Earlier in the article: "The data set will be stripped of identifying information before it is released to researchers."

"But the new cloud-based technology, using internet-era software, is flexible and interactive. It opens the door to real-time monitoring of emerging disease clusters, billing patterns and program effects. For example, did the percentage of low birth-weight babies decline after a Medicaid program was put in place? If so, how much?

“This kind of data can help move health care policy from a partisan ideological debate to one informed by knowing who the people affected are and what will likely happen to Medicaid recipients,” said Drew Altman, president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health policy research organization.

Though young, Ms. Kim has spent years learning hard-earned lessons about health care. At Google, she was a product manager on Google Health, a failed effort to attract millions of people to use its free, online personal health records."

Medicaid’s Data Gets an Internet-Era Makeover - The New York Times

If a Best Buy technician is a paid FBI informant, are his computer searches legal? - The Washington Post

Moonlighting Geeks

"The existence of the small cadre of informants within one of the country’s most popular computer repair services was revealed in the case of a California doctor who is facing federal charges after his hard drive was flagged by a technician. The doctor’s lawyers found that the FBI had cultivated eight “confidential human sources” in the Geek Squad over a four-year period, according to a judge’s order in the case, with all of them receiving some payment.

The case raises issues about privacy and the government use of informants. If a customer turns over their computer for repair, do they forfeit their expectation of privacy, and their Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches? And if an informant is paid, does it compromise their credibility or effectively convert them into an agent of the government?"

If a Best Buy technician is a paid FBI informant, are his computer searches legal? - The Washington Post

Facebook’s Virtual Reality Foray Derided as ‘Fanciful Story’ - Bloomberg

Tbd if ZeniMax management will seek advice from Eduardo Saverin; on a related note, see Sticker Shock, and Maybe Nausea, Hamper Sales of Virtual Reality Gear (NYT)

"What started as a falling out between tech geeks has become a messy $2 billion dispute that may drag Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg onto the witness stand in a Dallas courtroom. The social media giant is accused of completing its acquisition of Oculus in 2014 with “full awareness” that the “holy grail” know-how behind one of Silicon Valley’s most promising consumer devices was misappropriated from another company.

ZeniMax Media Inc. is trying to show that it did the heavy lifting to develop the software and hardware for the virtual reality goggles, alleging a star employee recruited by Oculus purloined its intellectual property. Facebook and the Oculus executives named in the lawsuit deny wrongdoing and say it’s ZeniMax that’s spinning revisionist history."

Facebook’s Virtual Reality Foray Derided as ‘Fanciful Story’ - Bloomberg

Yahoo Would Become ‘Altaba’ After Selling Its Internet Business - The New York Times

No exclamation point required; also see How Yahoo came up with its new name: Altaba (The Washington Post) and Yahoo isn't really going away (at least, not yet) (The Verge)

"Why Altaba?

It is essentially a play on the single biggest asset that would remain of Yahoo if and when the deal with Verizon closes: a 15 percent stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Altaba would also own a 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan. (A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment.)

Still, Altaba is certainly an unusual name — and it also happens to be close to “Al-Taba,” apparently a manufacturer of scissors based in Pakistan."

Yahoo Would Become ‘Altaba’ After Selling Its Internet Business - The New York Times

Atlassian + Trello: changing the way teams work | Atlassian Blogs

This is a big deal in the communication/collaboration/coordination/content domain; also see Atlassian acquires Trello for $425M (TechCrunch)

"Fast forward to today and there are still surprisingly few companies building software for teams. One company that has had breakout success is Trello. Over the past five years, Trello has grown to over 19 million registered users by solving an important problem: capturing and adding structure to fluid, fast-forming work.

Trello’s pioneering use of an intuitive visual system has been embraced by all kinds of teams to do everything from managing marketing campaigns to tracking action items from team meetings. Organizations in nearly every country and as varied as the Red Cross and Google have adopted Trello to get work done.

Today, I am thrilled to announce that we have entered into an agreement to acquire Trello and add their amazing product to our growing family."

Atlassian + Trello: changing the way teams work | Atlassian Blogs

A New Model for Medium (Monday Note)

Final paragraph from an extensive Medium reality check

"I remain confident in Medium for several reasons: quality will inevitably monetize at some point; between fake stories and the failure of the ad model for news, winds are blowing in favor of good, paid-for, quality contents. Publishers, small and mid-size, will become more attracted to a clever, transparent, friction-free model, as opposed to Facebook which acts as an opaque and arbitrary editor capturing about 70% of the value created by others."

A New Model for Medium

The Humans Working Behind the AI Curtain (Harvard Business Review)

Excerpt from a timely AI reality check:

"We call this ever-moving frontier of AI’s development, the paradox of automation’s last mile: as AI makes progress, it also results in the rapid creation and destruction of temporary labor markets for new types of humans-in-the-loop tasks. By 2033, economists predict that tech innovation could convert 30% of today’s full-time occupations into augmented services completed “on demand” through a mix of automation and human labor. In short, AI will eliminate some work as it opens up opportunities for redefining what work humans do best. These AI-assisted augmented services, delivered by people quietly working in concert with bots, are poised to enhance our daily productivity but they also introduce new social challenges.

Much of the crowdwork done on contract today covers for AI when it can’t do something on its own. The dirty little secret of many services — from FacebookM to the “automatic” removal of heinous videos on YouTube, as well as many others — is that real live human beings clean up much of the web, behind the scenes. Those magical bots responding to your tweets complaining about your delayed pizza delivery or the service on your flight back to Boston? They are the new world of contract labor hidden underneath a layer of AI. A hybrid of humans and AI is remaking retail, marketing, and customer service. It turns out that AI, just like humans, struggles to make tough decisions about what content should and should not be included in our daily diets of social media, depending on what criteria or values we want to impose."

The Humans Working Behind the AI Curtain

iPhone at ten: the revolution continues - Apple

Also see Phil Schiller on iPhone’s Launch, How It Changed Apple, and Why It Will Keep Going for 50 Years (Backchannel) and 'Sweating bullets' - The inside story of the first iPhone (BBC)

"January 9 marks the tenth anniversary of iPhone’s blockbuster debut. At Macworld 2007 in San Francisco, Steve Jobs introduced the world to iPhone as three products in one — “a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device.” In the ten years since, iPhone has enriched the lives of people around the world with over one billion units sold. It quickly grew into a revolutionary platform for hardware, software and services integration, and inspired new products, including iPad and Apple Watch, along with millions of apps that have become essential to people’s daily lives."

iPhone at ten: the revolution continues - Apple

Detroit Show Reveals a Google-Designed Van That Could Steer the Car Industry - The New York Times

Also see Alphabet’s Waymo Cuts Cost of Key Self-Driving Sensor by 90% (Bloomberg)

The chief executive of Waymo, John Krafcik, said on Sunday that the company had sharply reduced the cost of producing the radars and other high-tech components needed to achieve fully autonomous driving.

“We’ve brought all of our self-driving sensors in-house,” Mr. Krafcik said. “It’s all designed and built from the ground up by Waymo, with every part manufactured with one goal in mind: to safely handle the complex task of full autonomy.”

By doing so, Waymo is positioning itself as a mega-supplier to the industry, and a turnkey solution to transforming conventional cars into driverless models."

Detroit Show Reveals a Google-Designed Van That Could Steer the Car Industry - The New York Times

Data Could Be the Next Tech Hot Button for Regulators - The New York Times

On a related note, see Uber Extends an Olive Branch to Local Governments: Its Data (NYT)

"Now data — gathered in those immense pools of information that are at the heart of everything from artificial intelligence to online shopping recommendations — is increasingly a focus of technology competition. And academics and some policy makers, especially in Europe, are considering whether big internet companies like Google and Facebook might use their data resources as a barrier to new entrants and innovation.

In recent years, Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft have all been targets of tax evasion, privacy or antitrust investigations. But in the coming years, who controls what data could be the next worldwide regulatory focus as governments strain to understand and sometimes rein in American tech giants."

Data Could Be the Next Tech Hot Button for Regulators - The New York Times

WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances - The Washington Post

How to win friends and influence people, Assange-style; tangentially, see In Election Hacking, Julian Assange’s Years-Old Vision Becomes Reality (NYT)

"Asked by journalist Kevin Collier why it needed to build a database of dossiers, WikiLeaks replied that the database would be used as a “metric to understand influence networks based on proximity graphs.”

But the proposal faced a sharp and swift backlash as technologists, journalists and security researchers slammed the idea as a “sinister” and dangerous abuse of power and privacy.

“This is a good plan. If you're Darth Vader,”  Matthew Green, a professor who teaches cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, tweeted.

Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, compared the WikiLeaks proposal to a piece of British legislation that has been criticized as a massive boon to the surveillance industry.

“Don't.even.think.about.it,” he tweeted."

WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances - The Washington Post

Tim Wu: ‘The internet is like the classic story of the party that went sour’ | Technology | The Guardian

Excerpt from an insightful book review (along with a brief Tim Wu Q&A); on a related note, see How to Destroy the Business Model of Breitbart and Fake News (NYT)

"The Attention Merchants chronicles the attempts that publishers and entrepreneurs have made to capture and resell human attention over nearly two centuries, from Day in 1833 to BuzzFeed, Instagram, Google and Facebook today, with a major detour into state propaganda (Britain during the first world war, Goebbels during the second) along the way.

In large measure, this is a story of communication technologies, starting with print, moving on to broadcast media (radio, television) and winding up with the internet and the technologies it has spawned (email, blogging, search engines, social media). But the striking feature of the book is the way it interweaves this story of technological development with two other strands. The first is an account of how the human subjects whose attention is being sought eventually rebel, giving rise to outbreaks of resistance that sometimes lead to regulatory intervention, but more often to changes of tack by the attention merchants. The second strand is a series of meditations on the cultural implications of the attention merchants’ success."

Tim Wu: ‘The internet is like the classic story of the party that went sour’ | Technology | The Guardian

Amazon’s Alexa started ordering people dollhouses after hearing its name on TV - The Verge

Oops...

"One recent instance occurred in Dallas, Texas earlier this week, when a six-year-old asked her family’s new Amazon Echo “can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?” The device readily complied, ordering a KidKraft Sparkle mansion dollhouse, in addition to “four pounds of sugar cookies.” The parents quickly realized what had happened and have since added a code for purchases. They have also donated the dollhouse a local children’s hospital.

The story could have stopped there, had it not ended up on a local morning show on San Diego’s CW6 News. At the end of the story, Anchor Jim Patton remarked: “I love the little girl, saying ‘Alexa ordered me a dollhouse,’” According to CW6 News, Echo owners who were watching the broadcast found that the remark triggered orders on their own devices."

Amazon’s Alexa started ordering people dollhouses after hearing its name on TV - The Verge

Mattel and Microsoft reveal Aristotle, a tabletop digital nanny for kids | PCWorld

More Aristotle details

"Through a partnership with Microsoft (which will lend its Cortana digital assistance technology to the project), the $249 Aristotle straddles the line between a digital nanny for parents and a teaching companion for kids. Though it all might sound a bit hokey, the hardware’s pedigree is sound: Aristotle is the brainchild of of Mattel's nabi team, which use to be known as Fubu, the tablet company that Mattel bought in 2016.

Aristotle consists of two components: a webcam (think baby monitor) and a cylindrical speaker that chats back and forth with kids. Evoking the design of Google Home, the speaker also has colored LEDs embedded deep within. These lights can perform night light duties, as well as change colors in response to questions, or as parts of games. 

Aristotle uses three artificial intelligence engines: Mattel’s own, Microsoft Cognitive Services (and soon, Cortana), and a third developed by Silk Labs. There’s a lot going on under the hood: Not only is Aristotle designed to identify different children by their voices, but it can also instruct them, and interact with them, as they grow from a toddler to pre-teen."

Mattel and Microsoft reveal Aristotle, a tabletop digital nanny for kids | PCWorld

Welcoming more devices to the Daydream-ready family (The Keyword)

Check the full post for new Daydream (and Tango) compatible devices

"In November, we launched Daydream with the goal of bringing high quality, mobile VR to everyone. With the Daydream View headset and controller, and a Daydream-ready phone like the Pixel or Moto Z, you can explore new worlds, kick back in your personal VR cinema and play games that put you in the center of the action.

Daydream-ready phones are built for VR with high-resolution displays, ultra smooth graphics, and high-fidelity sensors for precise head tracking. To give you even more choices to enjoy Daydream, today we’re welcoming new devices that will soon join the Daydream-ready family."

Welcoming more devices to the Daydream-ready family

FTC takes D-Link to court citing lax product security, privacy perils | Network World

See this Wikipedia article for a D-Link company overview

"According to the FTC’s complaint, D-Link promoted the security of its routers on the company’s website, which included materials headlined “Easy to secure” and “Advance network security.” But despite the claims made by D-Link, the FTC alleged, the company failed to take steps to address well-known and easily preventable security flaws, such as:

• “Hard-coded” login credentials integrated into D-Link camera software -- such as the username “guest” and the password “guest” -- that could allow unauthorized access to the cameras’ live feed; 

• A software flaw known as “command injection” that could enable remote attackers to take control of consumers’ routers by sending them unauthorized commands over the Internet; 

• The mishandling of a private key code used to sign into D-Link software, such that it was openly available on a public website for six months; and 

• Leaving users’ login credentials for D-Link’s mobile app unsecured in clear, readable text on their mobile devices, even though there is free software available to secure the information."

FTC takes D-Link to court citing lax product security, privacy perils | Network World