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

Snowden, Pussy Riot take over online ads to protest censorship - CNET

Creative ad space recycling

"People using ad-blockers will still get promotional messages when surfing the Web this weekend.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Russian punk band Pussy Riot and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will use the space created by blocked ads to protest online censorship on Saturday, according to Amnesty International.

The human rights group organized the takeover of the ad space with AdBlock, which makes a browser extension that prevents ads from appearing on Web pages. 

"Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded," says Snowden in one of the messages."

Snowden, Pussy Riot take over online ads to protest censorship - CNET

Google’s AlphaGo Finally Loses to Korean Lee Sedol | Re/code

It was a best-of-five match; the fourth and fifth games don't count

"The AlphaGo program, created by Google’s DeepMind division, includes much of the same technology the search giant uses for other products with human-like characteristics, such as photo recognition software and virtual assistant technology. Beating a human Go champion proves the company’s tech is very, very advanced but losing to a human go champion proves there’s still room for improvement.

Just how human is AlphaGo? DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis tweeted during the match that AlphaGo got “confused” and didn’t realize it had made a mistake until almost 10 moves later. Just like a human, the machine is expected to learn from its mistakes."

Google’s AlphaGo Finally Loses to Korean Lee Sedol | Re/code

Typo thwarts hackers in $1 billion cyber heist on Bangladesh central bank - The Washington Post

Oops

"Four transfers to accounts in the Philippines, totaling about $80 million, worked. But then a fifth request, for $20 million to be sent to an apparently fictitious Sri Lankan nonprofit group, was flagged as suspicious by a routing bank because of the “fandation” error.

Bangladesh’s central bank was able to stop that transaction after the routing bank asked for confirmation. “The Sri Lankan bank did not disburse it immediately, and we could recover the full amount,” the central bank told the Financial Times."

Typo thwarts hackers in $1 billion cyber heist on Bangladesh central bank - The Washington Post

Import content from Evernote to OneNote

Check this page for a new Evernote => OneNote migration utility and a competitive summary of reasons to consider switching to OneNote; more details here (the migration utility is currently Windows only but a Mac OS version is coming)

"OneNote and Evernote have a lot in common, but we think you're going to love OneNote's standout features. Dive into its free-form feel of pen to paper. You also get free offline note access and unlimited note creation."

Import content from Evernote to OneNote

Steve Ballmer, who once called Linux a 'cancer,' now says the potential threat is 'in the rearview mirror' | VentureBeat | Enterprise | by Reuters

In other rearview mirror insights, see Steve Ballmer: Twitter Taught Me That I Don't Want To Be An Investor (Fortune)

"Fifteen years after calling the open-source operating system Linux a “cancer,” former Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has softened his position.

Speaking on Wednesday night at a dinner hosted by Fortune magazine, Ballmer said the position was right for the time, but the threat from Linux was now “in the rearview mirror.”"

Steve Ballmer, who once called Linux a 'cancer,' now says the potential threat is 'in the rearview mirror' | VentureBeat | Enterprise | by Reuters

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis on how AI will shape the future | The Verge

Excerpt from a wide-ranging interview

"The main future uses of AI that you’ve brought up this week have been healthcare, smartphone assistants, and robotics. Let’s unpack some of those. To bring up healthcare, IBM with Watson has done some things with cancer diagnosis for example — what can DeepMind bring to the table?

Well, it’s early days in that. We announced a partnership with the NHS a couple of weeks ago but that was really just to start building a platform that machine learning can be used in. I think Watson’s very different than what we do, from what I understand of it — it’s more like an expert system, so it’s a very different style of AI. I think the sort of things you’ll see this kind of AI do is medical diagnosis of images and then maybe longitudinal tracking of vital signs or quantified self over time, and helping people have healthier lifestyles. I think that’ll be quite suitable for reinforcement learning."

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis on how AI will shape the future | The Verge

Apple and U.S. Bitterly Turn Up Volume in iPhone Privacy Fight - The New York Times

Defend different; also see Aaron Burr’s Clerk Gets Pulled Into Government’s Legal Duel With Apple (Re/code)

"He said such accusations showed that the Justice Department “is so desperate at this point that it has thrown all decorum to the winds.”

Mr. Sewell likened the Justice Department’s comments on China to Apple arguing that the F.B.I. cannot be trusted because there are rumors that the bureau was behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy and citing “conspiracytheory.com” as its source.

“Everyone should beware,” Mr. Sewell said, “because it seems that disagreeing with the Department of Justice means you must be evil and un-American.”"

Apple and U.S. Bitterly Turn Up Volume in iPhone Privacy Fight - The New York Times

Microsoft Offers Free Database Software to Lure Oracle Customers - Bloomberg Business

Great to see the SQL Server team unleashed

"Companies considering switching can apply to get Microsoft’s new SQL server software at no cost. Microsoft is even offering free training for database administrators accustomed to using Oracle. There are caveats, however: the offer doesn’t include hardware and customers have to sign up (and pay for) a three-year Software Assurance license, for support and services. Essentially, only the main SQL software is free.
“For every instance of Oracle you have, we’ll give you a free SQL Server license,” Judson Althoff, president of Microsoft North America, said at an event in New York Thursday to unveil SQL Server 2016. “We’ll help invest in migration costs, put engineers on the ground to help you migrate from Oracle.”"

Microsoft Offers Free Database Software to Lure Oracle Customers - Bloomberg Business

Hack Brief: ISIS Data Breach Identifies 22,000 Members | WIRED

Interesting times

"If the leaked ISIS information is as real and comprehensive as it appears to be, it could be a unexpected gift for security agencies and prosecutors trying to track ISIS’ members and prevent more recruits from joining, says Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The leaked questionnaires include a list of all countries visited by the ISIS applicants, which could help map out the routes of foreign fighters seeking to join the movement. And both prosecutors and law enforcement agencies will scour the data for clues as to the recruitment contacts that may be operating in the United States or Europe. “From a macro intelligence perspective, this type of information is a treasure trove for intelligence analysts,” says Levitt."

Hack Brief: ISIS Data Breach Identifies 22,000 Members | WIRED

A Decade of Innovation | Perspectives [James Hamilton on the AWS S3 10th anniversary]

Check the full post for AWS S3 10th-anniversary highlights from James Hamilton, VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services

"This was so game changing that wrote it up, blogged it internally where I worked, and demoed it to company leadership including the CTO and CEO. My presentation included a picture of Al Vermeulen, one of the early developers on S3, showed some of how S3 worked and, to underline my point that this really was different, I included my two AWS bills. My key point was this wasn’t just a stunt or a fun little experiment by Amazon but was really a fundamental new way of delivering infrastructure services. Storage was first but compute was to follow shortly.

I got increasingly interested in AWS and by 2007 was attending user group meetings, doing presentations at Amazon, and eventually I just gave up and joined the team in late 2008.

As a member of the AWS engineering team, my first impressions are probably best summarized as fast. Decisions are made quickly. New ideas end up in code and available to customers at a speed that just makes the pace of enterprise IT look like continental drift. In a previous role, I remember (half) jokingly saying “we ship twice a decade whether customers need it or not.” Now new features are going out so frequently they are often hard to track."

A Decade of Innovation | Perspectives

The future of computing | The Economist

From this week's cover story in The Economist

"For companies, the end of Moore’s law will be disguised by the shift to cloud computing. Already, firms are upgrading PCs less often, and have stopped operating their own e-mail servers. This model depends, however, on fast and reliable connectivity. That will strengthen demand for improvements to broadband infrastructure: those with poor connectivity will be less able to benefit as improvements in computing increasingly happen inside cloud providers’ data centres.

For the technology industry itself, the decline of Moore’s law strengthens the logic for centralised cloud computing, already dominated by a few big firms: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. They are working hard to improve the performance of their cloud infrastructure. And they are hunting for startups touting new tricks: Google bought Deepmind, the British firm that built AlphaGo, in 2014."

The future of computing | The Economist

Google's DeepMind beats Lee Se-dol again to go 2-0 up in historic Go series | The Verge

Also see AlphaGo can't beat me, says Chinese Go grandmaster Ke Jie (Shanghai Daily)

""Yesterday I was surprised but today it's more than that — I am speechless," said Lee in the post-game press conference. "I admit that it was a very clear loss on my part. From the very beginning of the game I did not feel like there was a point that I was leading." DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis was "speechless" too. "I think it's testament to Lee Se-dol's incredible skills," he said. "We're very pleased that AlphaGo played some quite surprising and beautiful moves, according to the commentators, which was amazing to see."

The close nature of the game appears to offer validation of AlphaGo's evaluative ability, the main roadblock to proficiency for previous Go programs. Hassabis says that AlphaGo was confident in victory from the midway point of the game, even though the professional commentators couldn't tell which player was ahead."

Google's DeepMind beats Lee Se-dol again to go 2-0 up in historic Go series | The Verge

Box Shares Soar As Sales Rise 36 Percent On Shrinking Losses | Re/code

A+ for managing expectations

"Shares of cloud storage and collaboration company Box rose by 11 percent in after-hours trading as the company posted fourth quarter results that were better than what analysts expected.

Box shares rose $1.38 to $13.90 after posting a per-share loss of 26 cents on revenue of $87 million. Analysts had forecast a loss of 29 cents a share and sales of $81.8 million. The company also finished its fiscal year with revenue of $303 million, up 40 percent year-on-year, and an operating loss of $201 million which ballooned from a $166.6 million operating loss in 2015."

Box Shares Soar As Sales Rise 36 Percent On Shrinking Losses | Re/code

If Jack Dorsey Has a Problem Child Among His 2 Companies, It Isn’t Square - The New York Times

So things are going okay, on average... Also see Square Posts Mixed Q4 Results, but Promise of Future Profits Boosts Stock (Re/code)

"On Wednesday, Square posted a 49 percent increase in revenue in its first earnings report as a public company, with sales rising to $374 million in the fourth quarter and beating analysts’ expectations. And while Square’s net loss more than doubled from a year ago, the company, which is based in San Francisco, also highlighted growth in a number of its ancillary software businesses.

Contrast that to the difficulties facing Mr. Dorsey at Twitter. Twitter is struggling to attract more users, while fighting to keep its old ones from leaving. In recent weeks, Mr. Dorsey has also grappled with prominent departures from Twitter’s executive team. And the company must fight off huge competitors like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, which are nibbling away at features that make Twitter so delightful to more than 320 million people."

If Jack Dorsey Has a Problem Child Among His 2 Companies, It Isn’t Square - The New York Times

Facebook Signs Up Google for Open Compute Data-Center Initiative - Bloomberg Business

In other open source news, see Microsoft has released a Debian Linux switch OS. Repeat, a Debian Linux switch operating system (The Register)

"Facebook Inc. is gaining a powerful new ally -- Google -- in its quest to popularize low-cost systems to handle the massive amount of information flowing through corporate data centers.
Google said it joined the Open Compute Project, an initiative founded by the social-networking company five years ago to develop more affordable computer servers and standardize the technology. The effort has attracted Microsoft Corp. and other large data-center operators, manufacturers including Hyve Solutions Corp. and Wiwynn Corp., and cloud-computing providers such as Cumulus Networks Inc. and Rackspace Hosting Inc."

Facebook Signs Up Google for Open Compute Data-Center Initiative - Bloomberg Business

Macs and Malware: What You Can Do to Stay Safe - Digits - WSJ

An interesting contrast to the myriad melodramatic Mac attack headlines of the last couple days...

"Before you freak out, you should know that the creator of the app says only about 6,500 people downloaded the software. Apple Inc. quickly disabled the certificate that allowed the software to be installed to a Mac computer. It’s likely that many hadn’t run it by that time. Apple confirmed to me that, to date, no one was impacted by the attack.

Still, it raises serious security concerns for many Mac users who believed they were immune to malware. Everyone should undertake my colleague Geoff’s series of steps to improve your personal digital security. For Mac owners, here are some specific to-dos to add to that checklist."

Macs and Malware: What You Can Do to Stay Safe - Digits - WSJ

Obama Seeks Broadband for 20 Million More Subscribers - The New York Times

Later in the article: "Connecting 20 million more people to broadband would push adoption rates to about 82 percent, up from 76 percent at the end of 2014, according to the White House."

"President Obama, backing a plan to connect low-income families to more affordable broadband services, on Wednesday set a goal to get 20 million people subscribed to high-speed Internet by 2020.

In a Facebook post, Mr. Obama said a lack of broadband at home took a particularly harsh toll on students caught in a “homework gap,” unable to complete school assignments because the work requires access to the web."

Obama Seeks Broadband for 20 Million More Subscribers - The New York Times

Microsoft joins the Eclipse Foundation and brings more tools to the community | The Visual Studio Blog

Probably a lot of very unhappy Microsoft competitors this week...

"This week, we’re attending EclipseCon to connect and advance our vision with the Eclipse community. We recognize the great work coming out of the Eclipse and Java developer community and appreciate that Eclipse developer tools are used by millions of developers worldwide. We have worked with the Eclipse Foundation for many years to improve the Java experience across our portfolio of application platform and development services, including Visual Studio Team Services and Microsoft Azure.

Today, I’m happy to share that Microsoft is taking its relationship with the Eclipse community to the next level by joining the Eclipse Foundation as a Solutions Member. Joining the Eclipse Foundation enables us to collaborate more closely with the Eclipse community, deliver a great set of tools and services for all development teams, and continuously improve our cloud services, SDKs and tools."

Microsoft joins the Eclipse Foundation and brings more tools to the community | The Visual Studio Blog

The Church Collection Plate Goes Digital - Bloomberg Business

Tithe different

"[...] Churches using tithing apps report they see more donations, more often, from more people. (Subscribing establishments either pay a monthly fee or allow the app to collect a cut of each gift. Tithe.ly lets donators cover this; Pushpay promises churches a 5 percent spike in donations or their money back.) But getting parishes with pastors and members older than 40 to sign on has been more Job-like. Tradition is hard to overcome. “In some churches, if you let the plate go by and you don’t put something in, you feel a little guilty,” says Brad Hill, who works in platform services at EasyTithe. To combat that, some congregations print out cards that say, “I gave online.”"

The Church Collection Plate Goes Digital - Bloomberg Business

Google AI Wins First Match Against Korean Go Game Champion - Bloomberg Business

Also see Google's DeepMind defeats legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in historic victory (The Verge)

"Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence system beat a top-ranked player of the board game Go in a televised match in South Korea, providing the first evidence that the company’s software has attained super-human status at a challenging 2,500-year-old strategy contest.
The Internet company is playing a five-match tournament against Lee Sedol, who Google said has been the top-ranked Go player of the past decade, to show off the capabilities of software developed by its London-based AI subsidiary DeepMind. Lee’s loss was announced by match organizers in Seoul."

Google AI Wins First Match Against Korean Go Game Champion - Bloomberg Business

Samsung Galaxy S7 Review: Head of the Smartphone Class - WSJ

And yet a net-positive spin; also see Mossberg: Samsung’s New Galaxy S7 Phones Are Beautiful (Re/code), which is similarly less positive than its headline suggests

"My concern: Samsung may have aced this year’s test—but only by memorizing last year’s study guide. That underwater trick? Samsung is just bringing back a feature from the Galaxy S5. There’s no versatile USB Type-C port or pressure-sensitive screen like Apple’s 3D Touch. There’s nothing surprising like the two cameras LG put on the back of its new G5. You can’t even expect fresh Android updates: Samsung takes months to deliver the capabilities that Google introduces each year."

Samsung Galaxy S7 Review: Head of the Smartphone Class - WSJ

The Echo From Amazon Brims With Groundbreaking Promise - The New York Times

For an update on another Jeff Bezos project, see Jeff Bezos Lifts Veil on His Rocket Company, Blue Origin (NYT)

"Yet at the moment, the most promising candidate for the Next Great Gadget isn’t made by Apple, Google, Facebook or Microsoft. Instead, it is the Echo, a screenless, voice-controlled household computer built by Amazon — a company whose last big foray into consumer electronics, the Fire Phone, was a humiliating flop. 

This time it may be different. A bit more than a year after its release, the Echo has morphed from a gimmicky experiment into a device that brims with profound possibility. The longer I use it, the more regularly it inspires the same sense of promise I felt when I used the first iPhone — a sense this machine is opening up a vast new realm in personal computing, and gently expanding the role that computers will play in our future."

The Echo From Amazon Brims With Groundbreaking Promise - The New York Times

Is group chat making you sweat? — Signal v. Noise — Medium

Excerpt from an extensive post by Basecamp's founder/CEO; the post lists 4 group chat positives and 17 negatives

"That said, I still think group chat is an important tool in the communications toolbox. I just don’t think it’s the go-to tool. I think it’s the exception tool. It’s far more useful for special cases than general cases. When used appropriately, sparingly, and in the right context at the right time, it’s great. You just really have to contain it, know when not to use it, and watch behavior and mood otherwise it can take over and mess up a really good thing.
And to be fair, these problems aren’t exclusive to group chat. However, the fundamentals of group chat (many people right now, one line at a time incomplete thoughts, fear of missing out (FOMO), low barriers to participation which leads to over-participation, incessant notifications, etc) tends to amplify the unintended negative consequences. You can’t separate effect from the cause."

Is group chat making you sweat? — Signal v. Noise — Medium

Celebrating half a billion users | | Dropbox Blog

Check the full post for more Dropbox accentuate-the-positive stats

"With 500 million signups under our belt, it’s exciting to see Dropbox connecting people around the world with everything that’s important to them. But this milestone hints at something much bigger—how much our users are working together.

Since we started, Dropbox users have created 3.3 billion connections by sharing with each other. That’s a 51% jump in just the last year. And as new people join, they’re bringing friends, family, and co-workers along. 44% of new accounts were opened when existing users introduced people to Dropbox. That’s making for an even more creative and collaborative community."

Celebrating half a billion users | | Dropbox Blog

Apple CEO Tim Cook attends secret meeting with tech and government elite to plot end to Trump presidential run, report says (Apple Insider)

More evidence of Trump's skills as a uniter ... of influential people against Trump

"Technology industry leaders including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page and Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk met with top GOP representatives at the secretive American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum this past weekend to discuss how to halt Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a report said Monday."

Apple CEO Tim Cook attends secret meeting with tech and government elite to plot end to Trump presidential run, report says

How Apple and Big Publishers Pushed E-Books Toward Failure - Bloomberg Business

Price different long-term consequences; also see You could be getting a few bucks from Apple soon (Washington Post)

"While Apple fought through the courts, the publishers all settled with the Justice Department. Meanwhile, Amazon decided that letting publishers set their own prices wasn't such a bad idea, after all. Its newest deals with the big publishers allow them to do so. If Apple hoped to gain an advantage over a rival, it failed. Amazon controls about three-quarters of the U.S. e-book market, according to Good e-Reader, a website that follows the industry. In 2010 it made up 54 percent of the market.

Once Amazon gave up on its goal of setting a $10 standard price for e-books, the prices began to rise. Today, three of the top five best-selling books on the New York Times list for fiction cost at least $12. It’s not unusual to be able to buy a paperback book for less than the cost of the digital version."

How Apple and Big Publishers Pushed E-Books Toward Failure - Bloomberg Business

Microsoft Plans Linux Database in Bid to Win Sales From Oracle - Bloomberg Business

More details on the new SQL Server hell-freezes-over edition; also see Microsoft doesn’t need Windows anymore (Computerworld)

"Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella is trying to boost Microsoft’s sales of databases, which help companies store and analyze data. Its goal is to take customers from top vendor Oracle, whose share of the market was twice that of Microsoft’s in 2014, according to IDC. Adding a Linux database also lets Microsoft target the most complicated, high-performance systems, and helps the company sell more to existing customers that use more than one operating system, Nadella said.
“Windows Server, for all our success, we never were big in high-end computing,” Nadella said. “Now, we get an opportunity to go after a big market that we never participated in.” The Linux and open-source database market generated 2014 revenue of $4.4 billion, according to IDC data. Windows databases brought in $6.9 billion that year."

Microsoft Plans Linux Database in Bid to Win Sales From Oracle - Bloomberg Business

How WeChat Is Extending China’s School Days Well into the Night (Technology Review)

Always-on education

"Since Tencent launched WeChat in 2011, the app has pervaded Chinese life. The company reported that it had 650 million monthly active users as of the end of last September. In a society that places paramount importance on academic success, WeChat has quickly become intertwined with education, tapping into a particularly Chinese cultural dynamic and in some cases exploiting it.

Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis of 30 million in southwestern China, has required all kindergartens, primary schools, and middle schools to open official WeChat accounts before the end of June this year to streamline communication with parents and students."

How WeChat Is Extending China’s School Days Well into the Night

Microsoft Opens Its Corporate Data Software to Linux - The New York Times

More on a development Oracle probably never expected to see

"“Data is the core asset now,” Mr. Nadella said. “Our most strategic asset is not the server operating system.”

The numbers bear that out. While Windows Server is still popular, Linux servers are gaining. According to the research firm Gartner, 3.6 million Linux servers were shipped in 2014, compared with 2.4 million in 2011. Windows servers fell to 6.2 million in that time, from 6.5 million.

In the old computing world, decoupling Windows and SQL would have been unthinkable to Microsoft executives. But with Linux servers trending up and Microsoft servers heading down, insisting that SQL has to run on Windows would mean turning away potential customers."

Microsoft Opens Its Corporate Data Software to Linux - The New York Times

Announcing SQL Server on Linux - The Official Microsoft Blog

Better late than never...

"Today I’m excited to announce our plans to bring SQL Server to Linux as well. This will enable SQL Server to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server and Linux, as well as on-premises and cloud. We are bringing the core relational database capabilities to preview today, and are targeting availability in mid-2017.

SQL Server on Linux will provide customers with even more flexibility in their data solution. One with mission-critical performance, industry-leading TCO, best-in-class security, and hybrid cloud innovations – like Stretch Database which lets customers access their data on-premises and in the cloud whenever they want at low cost – all built in."

Announcing SQL Server on Linux - The Official Microsoft Blog

'$5bn for Slack?! I refuse to pay!' You don't pay – and that's its biggest problem • The Register

From a Slack reality check

"Surely email can’t be the end point of workplace communication and collaboration? No. We’ve had IM: Wave from Google, Groove from Lotus genius Ray Ozzie (which was bought by Microsoft), and we’ve got Skype, owned by Microsoft, too. Before this lot, it was Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. In the background today is document sharing like Google Docs and DropBox.

It’s all “collaboration,” right? Each has been hailed as the next big thing and each went the way of its predecessor – surpassed by the next big thing.

The point should be crystal clear: workplace collaboration is waiting for that one big thing. The VC in on the ground floor of that next big thing can clean up. That’s the big-dog theory, anyway, and you can see why the moneymen are pitching in. The riddle here is why does Slack want more? It has taken $339m so far."

'$5bn for Slack?! I refuse to pay!' You don't pay – and that's its biggest problem • The Register

Apple VP: The FBI wants to roll back safeguards that keep us a step ahead of criminals - The Washington Post

Final paragraphs from a Craig Federighi op-ed

"I became an engineer because I believe in the power of technology to enrich our lives. Great software has seemingly limitless potential to solve human problems — and it can spread around the world in the blink of an eye. Malicious code moves just as quickly, and when software is created for the wrong reason, it has a huge and growing capacity to harm millions of people.

Security is an endless race — one that you can lead but never decisively win. Yesterday’s best defenses cannot fend off the attacks of today or tomorrow. Software innovations of the future will depend on the foundation of strong device security. We cannot afford to fall behind those who would exploit technology in order to cause chaos. To slow our pace, or reverse our progress, puts everyone at risk."

Apple VP: The FBI wants to roll back safeguards that keep us a step ahead of criminals - The Washington Post

Tech Companies, New and Old, Clamor to Entice Cloud Computing Experts - The New York Times

Cloud + big data employment dynamics

"In the Bay Area, $125,000 a year is not an uncommon salary for someone newly out of graduate school with the expertise to do cloud computing work. With five years of experience, $300,000 along with a range of stock or job opportunities that greatly inflate the value of those paychecks have become the norm.

“It’s an aggressive market,” said Corey Sanders, director of program management at Microsoft Azure. “We are all data engineers now, and we can convince people that this is the best place to learn that.”"

Tech Companies, New and Old, Clamor to Entice Cloud Computing Experts - The New York Times

Pentagon Hackers Are Waging America’s First Cyberwar (Technology Review)

A major military milestone

"Carter broke that silence in a briefing with reporters last week. He said that the U.S. Cyber Command was attacking ISIS communications networks in support of efforts to help local forces take back the cities of Mosul, in Iraq, and Raqqa, in Syria. Cyber Command was established in 2009 and is made up of groups from the various military branches.

Carter later offered more detail about the role of those operations at the world’s largest computer security event, the RSA Conference, in San Francisco. “We are using our cyber [attack capabilities] to interrupt their ability to command and control their forces, to make them doubt the reliability of their communications, [and] take away their ability to control the local populace,” he said. “We’re going to defeat ISIL [as ISIS is also called]. I’m looking for all the ways I can accelerate that defeat.”"

Pentagon Hackers Are Waging America’s First Cyberwar

Facebook at Work Means You Never Clock Out -- Following: How We Live Online (New York Magazine)

Check the full article for a Facebook at Work video and other details; also note that Slack is Internet software (Internet Relay Chat++), not traditional enterprise communication/collaboration software

"But there’s a large shadow looming over services like Facebook at Work and Slack that they generally don’t acknowledge. If you watched the above video (and it’s okay if you didn’t; it is very twee), you might have noticed that every scenario the service presents is in an office context. Facebook at Work never leaves the office in this conception. In reality, work-based social networks are tethers that keep you just keystrokes away from checking in with work wherever you are, at any hour of the day. This is especially true if the service supplies mobile apps (which Facebook and Slack do).

Already, Slack is becoming a hub for people who don't even work together, people who just hang out in friend Slacks, or family Slacks, or apartment building-specific Slacks. Slack is enterprise software made personal, while Facebook's is personal software turned enterprise. The unstated conclusion to services like these is a world in which people are accessible at any moment all the time, either fielding messages in real-time or letting their virtual inbox pile up. Regardless, the door is already partially open."

Facebook at Work Means You Never Clock Out -- Following: How We Live Online

Drumpf Twitterbot learns to imitate Trump via deep-learning algorithm - CNET

Inevitably...

"The Twitterbot DeepDrumpf takes its name from "Last Week Tonight" host and comedian John Oliver who lambasted Trump on his February 28 show when he revealed the politician's original family name is actually Drumpf -- encouraging the hashtag #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain.

The Trump Twitterbot was created by MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) postdoc candidate Bradley Hayes, who used artificial intelligence deep learning techniques such as neural networks that teach computers to find various patterns in data.

"Trump's language tends to be more simplistic, so I figured that, as a modeling problem, he would be the most manageable candidate to study," Hayes said on the CSAIL blog."

Drumpf Twitterbot learns to imitate Trump via deep-learning algorithm - CNET

San Bernardino DA claims Syed Farouk’s iPhone may house ‘cyber pathogen’ | TechCrunch

The saga continues...

"“Cyber pathogen” isn’t a common term. In fact, it’s a phrase that has never been used in conjunction with system threats.

Ramos, it seems, is referring to the possibility that there is dormant virus is on the device which, if released, could wreak havoc on San Bernardino’s IT network. The problem with that scenario — which we are paraphrasing because the term “cyber pathogen” is meaningless — is that it isn’t doesn’t make sense, as Jonathan Zdziarski, an iOS security researcher frequently cited in the FBI-Apple battle, explained in detail on his blog. If the device does contain malware, as the DA appears to be suggesting, that would mean that it has been jailbroken and therefore the authorities do not require Apple’s assistance to get inside it."

San Bernardino DA claims Syed Farouk’s iPhone may house ‘cyber pathogen’ | TechCrunch

Virtual-Reality Movies: Get Ready for the VR Revolution - WSJ

Likely to be at least as successful as 3D TV...

"We hear your objections: “There’s absolutely no way I’m going to wear one of those dorky-looking headsets. I won’t even be caught dead in 3-D glasses.” Even if you acknowledge that the motion-tracking technology VR systems employ is pretty cool, allowing users to look freely around a 360-degree environment, you’re perfectly content with real reality, thank you very much.

Behind the scenes, however, VR is rewriting the script for Hollywood. VR works are already popping up at prominent film festivals like Sundance and next month’s Tribeca Film Festival (where screenings take place in small rooms rather than large theaters). A-list directors such as Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg are working on top-secret VR projects. Even “Airplane!” director Jerry Zucker, not usually associated with the cutting edge, is developing an immersive comedy."

Virtual-Reality Movies: Get Ready for the VR Revolution - WSJ

Revive Your Old Laptop Without Spending a Dime - WSJ

Tempting...

"Here’s what the PC makers don’t want you to know: Many aged laptops have the horsepower to accomplish most Web-based tasks. In fact, many of them have more raw power than $200 Chromebooks. They’ve just been bogged down by bloated, gunked-up operating systems. Note: Your revived laptop won’t technically be a Chromebook, but the software experience is almost indistinguishable from one. 

The catch? Using the Chrome-centric software is dead simple but installing it isn’t. It can be a bit of a project, albeit a fun one, especially with a child who is eager to get a computer and learn how they work. Once you’re through, you’ll have saved an old computer’s life—and some money."

Revive Your Old Laptop Without Spending a Dime - WSJ

Amazon Introduces 2 Alexa Voice-Controlled Devices - The New York Times

But can they talk to each other? Also see Nest and Alexa working together (Inside Nest blog) and It’s Amazon Echo’s World, Now Alphabet’s Nest Just Lives in It (Re/code)

"Amazon, the Internet retailer, on Thursday announced two new siblings for the Echo, the voice-controlled household assistant that people address as “Alexa” and that became a surprise hit for the company last year.

One new product, Amazon Tap, is a slimmer, shorter, portable version of the Echo. Rather than requiring an electrical wall connection, the Tap runs off a rechargeable battery. It connects with phones and the Internet through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. [...]

Amazon also announced the Echo Dot, essentially an Echo without that device’s powerful speaker. The Dot, which will sell for about $90, looks like a hockey puck, and is meant to provide Alexa’s voice functions for existing speaker systems. The Dot connects to those speakers either through a wire or over Bluetooth; after that, it functions as another Echo "

Amazon Introduces 2 Alexa Voice-Controlled Devices - The New York Times

Why Barnes & Noble Isn’t Going Away Yet - The New York Times

The agency pricing model for e-books is apparently working as the publishers probably intended

"The company’s results come at a time when bookstores may be making a comeback and e-books, which have been perceived as print killers, are losing popularity.

In the first 10 months of 2015, according to data gathered by the Association of American Publishers:

• E-book sales in the country fell 12.3 percent.

• Paperback book sales grew 12.4 percent."

Why Barnes & Noble Isn’t Going Away Yet - The New York Times

Facebook’s Trojan Horse Commerce Strategy | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Check the full post for a compelling commerce case

"If you were to ask the question, “what is Facebook?”, you might get a variety of different answers: a social network, a communication platform, a content aggregator, and so on. Yet one thing Facebook isn’t – yet – is an e-commerce player. But it’s arguable that much of what Facebook has been building over the last several years amounts to a Trojan horse strategy to become one. Rather than entering Amazon’s market directly, Facebook has been building the scaffolding around its e-commerce business and doing everything but actually introducing ways to buy things across Facebook. Given how Amazon tends to respond to direct threats to its business, this may be one of the smartest things Facebook has done in its history."

Facebook’s Trojan Horse Commerce Strategy | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Bitcoin's nightmare scenario has come to pass | The Verge

Resisting change

"Over the last year and a half a number of prominent voices in the Bitcoin community have been warning that the system needed to make fundamental changes to its core software code to avoid being overwhelmed by the continued growth of Bitcoin transactions. There was strong disagreement within the community, however, about how to solve this problem, or if the problem would ever materialize.

This week the dire predictions came to pass, as the network reached its capacity, causing transactions around the world to be massively delayed, and in some cases to fail completely. The average time to confirm a transaction has ballooned from 10 minutes to 43 minutes. Users are left confused and shops that once accepted Bitcoin are dropping out."

Bitcoin's nightmare scenario has come to pass | The Verge

Defense Secretary Takes Position Against a Data ‘Back Door’ - The New York Times

Also see Pentagon Taps Eric Schmidt to Make Itself More Google-ish (Wired) and Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on DoD’s “Hack the Pentagon” Cybersecurity Initiative (DoD news release)

"Also on Wednesday, Secretary Carter said Alphabet’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, would head a new Defense Innovation Board to help connect tech companies and entrepreneurs with various Pentagon initiatives. And he announced a Hack the Pentagon initiative, which would reward hackers who find and turn over vulnerabilities in the Pentagon’s computer systems.

“I don’t think we ought to let one case drive a single solution,” Secretary Carter said, referring to the F.B.I.-Apple dispute. “We have to innovate our way to a sensible result. And we need to do that because you can easily think of alternatives. One is a law written by people who don’t have the technical expertise, one written in anger or grief, and that’s not likely to work.”"

Defense Secretary Takes Position Against a Data ‘Back Door’ - The New York Times

Tech Site CNET Tries Something Completely Different: Publishing Fiction - The New York Times

First in the Technically Literate series: The Last Taco Truck in Silicon Valley

"In an era when many general interest magazines have abandoned publishing short fiction, CNET is entering the literary arena with a new monthly series, Technically Literate, which will feature short stories about technology and how it shapes our lives. For its first stories, CNET has recruited several prominent Bay Area authors, including Ms. Richmond, the novelist Nayomi Munaweera; Cristina Garcia, author of “Dreaming in Cuban”; and Anthony Marra, author of “The Tsar of Love and Techno.”

The fiction series grew out of an effort to attract new audiences to CNET, which has more than 33 million monthly visitors. When the site was introduced about 20 years ago, technology was still a niche subject. Now, technology saturates practically every facet of daily life and takes center stage in movies, television and fiction, including in the HBO show “Silicon Valley” and recent novels by Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen and Joshua Cohen."

Tech Site CNET Tries Something Completely Different: Publishing Fiction - The New York Times

Messaging Startup Slack Seeks Up to $4 Billion Valuation in Funding Round - Bloomberg Business

No cutting Slack

"Slack Technologies Inc., which runs a messaging service for businesses, is seeking an investment that would value the company at $3.5 billion to $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
Slack is looking to raise $150 million to $300 million as part of the round, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the terms aren't finalized. The talks are ongoing, and a lead investor has not been selected, the people said."

Messaging Startup Slack Seeks Up to $4 Billion Valuation in Funding Round - Bloomberg Business

IBM Starts Undisclosed Number of Job Cuts Among U.S. Workers - Bloomberg Business

Also see IBM added 70,000 people to its ranks in 2015, and lost that many, too (Business Insider)

"The company currently has more than 25,000 open positions, and the “workforce rebalancing” is part of a continued push to add staff with cloud- and cognitive-related skills, IBM said, declining to disclose specific numbers for the cuts. International Business Machines Corp. reduced its workforce by less than 1 percent overall in 2015, ending the year with 377,757 employees. [...]

Since 2006, Armonk, New York-based IBM has cut 90,000 to 100,000 workers, according to estimates from Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co."

IBM Starts Undisclosed Number of Job Cuts Among U.S. Workers - Bloomberg Business

Tech Rallies to Apple’s Defense, but Not Without Some Hand-Wringing - The New York Times

Probably not what the FBI anticipated; also see Apple Digs In for Long Fight: 'There Is No Middle Ground' (Bloomberg Business)

"Those misgivings ultimately did not win the day. About 40 companies and organizations are expected to file court briefs on Thursday backing Apple as it fights a judge’s order to help law enforcement break into an iPhone used by a gunman in the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack last year. 

Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Snapchat and Yahoo are among the tech companies expected to sign on to briefs in the case, according to people with knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More than 40 individuals, including prominent security experts and academics, are also planning to sign briefs, which will focus on themes like free speech, the importance of encryption and concerns about government overreach."

Tech Rallies to Apple’s Defense, but Not Without Some Hand-Wringing - The New York Times

A Plan in Case Robots Take the Jobs: Give Everyone a Paycheck - The New York Times

The case for universal basic income; also see Robots will take your job (Boston Globe)

"These supporters argue machine intelligence will produce so much economic surplus that we could collectively afford to liberate much of humanity from both labor and suffering.

The most idealistic thinkers see the plan as a way to foster the sort of quasi-utopian future we’ve only encountered in science fiction universes like that of “Star Trek.” As computers perform more of our work, we’d all be free to become artists, scholars, entrepreneurs or otherwise engage our passions in a society no longer centered on the drudgery of daily labor."

A Plan in Case Robots Take the Jobs: Give Everyone a Paycheck - The New York Times

Financial Times to launch on Facebook at Work | About us | FT.com

Likely to constrain Slack; also see Telenor launches Facebook at Work to more than 35,000 employees worldwide

"“We want to provide our employees with a place to interact with each other securely and easily, anywhere in the world. We hope Facebook at Work will help further foster a culture of collaboration and a sense of community across our global workforce”, said Darcy Keller, SVP of communications and marketing at the FT.

Facebook at Work will allow FT staff to create internal groups and events, publish and discuss company announcements, and follow or message coworkers. In addition to the desktop version, employees on the move will be able to access Facebook at Work via mobile and tablet. Like Facebook itself, Facebook at Work offers the same familiar features such as newsfeed, messaging, groups, events, video and VoIP calling, and auto-translation."

Financial Times to launch on Facebook at Work | About us | FT.com

Fidelity Writes Down Value of Corporate Software Startups - Bloomberg Business

Actual results may vary...

"Fidelity's markdowns of corporate software startups came after a brutal month for their publicly traded peers. International Business Machines Corp. and VMware Inc. reported disappointing earnings forecasts in January. Many technology companies said they expected a tough IT climate for 2016 and often cited a deteriorating macroeconomic environment as a factor.
The Standard and Poor's 500 Index was down 5.1 percent in January, but several enterprise software companies were well below that. Box Inc., a Dropbox rival, plunged 23 percent. Workday Inc. fell 21 percent. Salesforce.com Inc. dropped 13 percent."

Fidelity Writes Down Value of Corporate Software Startups - Bloomberg Business

Google Thinks Self-Driving Cars Will Be Great for Stranded Seniors - Bloomberg Business

A long-term perspective

"Florence Swanson has lived through every American car from the Ford Model T to the Tesla Model S. Now, at 94, she has stepped into what Google hopes will be the automotive future: self-driving vehicles.
After her painting of a guitar player won a Google contest, she became the oldest person yet to ride in a model with the company’s autonomous technology.
“You haven’t lived until you get in one of those cars,” the Austin, Texas, resident said of her half-hour excursion. “I couldn’t believe that the car could talk. I felt completely safe.”"

Google Thinks Self-Driving Cars Will Be Great for Stranded Seniors - Bloomberg Business

White House Officials Soften Approach at RSA Conference - The New York Times

Also see F.B.I. Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker’s iPhone (NYT)

"The director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael S. Rogers, also attempted a conciliatory tone at the RSA event. Admiral Rogers did not speak to the Apple case, or even mention the word encryption, but repeatedly emphasized the need for partnership and dialogue to fight cyberthreats. “I implore all of us to be part of that constructive dialogue,” he said. “It’s time to stop talking past each other.”

In a speech made nearby at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter acknowledged that encryption had been a “hot topic here in the Bay Area,” but said he could not address the Apple case because of the ongoing litigation. Instead, he noted that the Pentagon had a vested interest in strong encryption and that the Defense Department is “the largest user of encryption in the world.”"

White House Officials Soften Approach at RSA Conference - The New York Times

Slack will soon start testing voice and video chat | TechCrunch

Check the full post for additional details, e.g., on shared channels, which Slack partner Slackline is probably not thrilled with; looks like Slack is hitting its inevitable partner ecosystem coopetition crunch phase

"Slack is gunning for Skype and Google Hangouts with the 2016 product roadmap it revealed today. The biggest change coming: the ability to seamlessly turn a text chat into a voice or video chat will begin testing “very soon”. This builds on Slack’s January 2015 acquisition of Screenhero, when it said these features would eventually be released.

At its customer conference in San Francisco, the company outlined what it plans to do to stay ahead of its workplace chat competitors. It already has 2.3 million daily active users, up from 2 million in December, and wants to give them more options to be productive, collaborative, and transparent."

Slack will soon start testing voice and video chat | TechCrunch

Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award - The New York Times

A nicely-timed recognition of the primacy of privacy

"Named for Alan Turing, the British mathematician and computer scientist, the award is particularly noteworthy because it comes at a time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is locked in a bitter feud with Apple over the agency’s inability to unlock the cryptographic system that protects digital information stored in the company’s iPhones.

While private information can be protected with a so-called “symmetric” key, or a single digital code, that is used to mathematically scramble the data, the problem becomes much more difficult when two parties who have not met physically wish to have a secret interaction.

The privacy protection technology that is now used extensively to protect modern electronic communications is based on Mr. Diffie’s and Mr. Hellman’s original research that led to the creation of “public-key cryptography” technology."

Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award - The New York Times

Resilient Systems News: IBM to Buy Resilient Systems - Schneier on Security

Bruce Schneier joins IBM via acquisition

"We're still working out what I'll be doing at IBM; these months focused more on the company than on me personally. I know they want me to be involved in all of IBM Security. The people I'll be working with know I'll continue to blog and write books. (They also know that my website is way more popular than theirs.) They know I'll continue to talk about politically sensitive topics. They know they won't be able to edit or constrain my writings and speaking. At least, they say they know it; we'll see what actually happens. But I'm optimistic. There are other IBM people whose public writings do not represent the views of IBM -- so there's precedent."

Resilient Systems News: IBM to Buy Resilient Systems - Schneier on Security

Snapchat Hires Exec Who Ran Facebook’s Ad Network | Re/code

Evidently even strategic hires are ephemeral at Snapchat

"Now they’ve hired an experienced ad tech expert from a company that has figured out how to make a ton of money from mobile advertising. Krishnan helped build an ad network, but he also has experience building app-install ads, which have been incredibly lucrative for Facebook in the past.

It’s likely that Snapchat, with a $16 billion valuation and IPO aspirations, is interested in both of those options.

Krishnan is the latest in a number of high profile Snapchat hires to come from Facebook. Few of them have stuck around, though, including former COO Emily White, HR head Sara Sperling and revenue boss Mike Randall."

Snapchat Hires Exec Who Ran Facebook’s Ad Network | Re/code

Google Self-driving Car Strikes Bus on California Street - Bloomberg Business

Surprising that bus-related rule wasn't part of the system from day 1

"Google cars have been involved in nearly a dozen collisions in or around Mountain View since starting to test on city streets in the spring of 2014. In most cases, Google's cars were rear-ended. No one has been seriously injured.
Google's written statement called the Feb. 14 collision "a classic example of the negotiation that's a normal part of driving — we're all trying to predict each other's movements."
Google said its computers have reviewed the incident and engineers changed the software that governs the cars to understand that buses may not be as inclined to yield as other vehicles."

Google Self-driving Car Strikes Bus on California Street - Bloomberg Business

Google’s Computers Paint Like Van Gogh, and the Art Sells for Thousands - Digits - WSJ

State-of-the-art Google research

"Alphabet Inc.'s Google put on an art show and auction in San Francisco on Friday, displaying works created by computers, with some guidance from humans. The images on display included psychedelic seascapes, van Gogh-inspired forests and fantastical landscapes of castles and dogs. A professional auctioneer hawked the six largest works for as much as $8,000.

“I used to think art was some peculiar thing that humans do,” said Blaise Aguera y Arcas, head of Google’s machine intelligence group in Seattle, who helped organize the art event. “But now I think when we meet the aliens, they’ll have something just like it.”"

Google’s Computers Paint Like Van Gogh, and the Art Sells for Thousands - Digits - WSJ

Utilities Cautioned About Potential for a Cyberattack After Ukraine’s - The New York Times

Sign of the times; also see ‘Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War,’ by Fred Kaplan (NYT review)

"Investigators say that in the end, the Ukrainians may have been saved by the fact that their country relies on old technology and is still not as fully wired as many Western nations — meaning they were able to restore power by manually flipping old-style circuit breakers.

“The bad news for the United States is that we can’t do the same thing,” said Ted Koppel, the former ABC News anchor who published a best seller last year, entitled “Lights Out,” about the vulnerability of the American electric grid.

“We have 3,200 power companies, and we need a precise balance between the amount of electricity that is generated and the amount that is used,” he said. “And that can only be done over a system run on the Internet. The Ukrainians were lucky to have antiquated systems.”"

Utilities Cautioned About Potential for a Cyberattack After Ukraine’s - The New York Times

Apple Wins Ruling in New York iPhone Hacking Order - The New York Times

A timely precedent

"A federal magistrate judge on Monday denied the United States government’s request that Apple extract data from an iPhone in a drug case in New York, giving the company’s pro-privacy stance a boost as it battles law enforcement officials over opening up the device in other cases.

The ruling, from Judge James Orenstein in New York’s Eastern District, is the first time that the government’s legal argument for opening up devices like the iPhone has been put to the test. The denial could influence other cases where law enforcement officials are trying to compel Apple to help unlock iPhones, including the standoff between Apple and the F.B.I. over the iPhone used by one of the attackers in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., last year."

Apple Wins Ruling in New York iPhone Hacking Order - The New York Times