Microsoft's One Windows Vision | Windows content from Windows IT Pro

More Windows RT speculation

"I'm not sure this is the correct way to read the changes. I think a more accurate view is that Windows Phone and Windows RT will in effect be merged and that no matter what the resulting name of that products is—how about "Windows"?—it will simply be a single platform that runs on mobile computing devices from phones to phablets to tablets to hybrid PCs, with just software-based changes necessitated by differences in the form factor or mission of the devices on which it runs.
I'm looking forward to this change. Both RT and Phone offer some things that would benefit the others. And combined, this makes a new "Windows" all the more interesting."

Microsoft's One Windows Vision | Windows content from Windows IT Pro

Microsoft might be beating Google at retail. No, really. [Washington Post]

At my local mall, what Microsoft has probably learned about what people want is that they want Apple products rather than Microsoft products

"Microsoft declined to break out sales revenue generated by the stores, but it's at least been significant enough to justify the company's commitment; it opened 51 new stores in 2012 and is looking for more. Even if people don't walk out with computers, executives explain that the stores are more about revivifying a brand that's become more identified over the years with corporate enterprise software than objects of consumer adoration. And it also helps to learn what the consumer wants.
"The biggest single thing we've learned from the stores is it's helping us to transition from thinking about our customers to thinking like our customers," Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said in 2011."

Microsoft might be beating Google at retail. No, really

Microsoft's device chief sees a future without three versions of Windows | The Verge

count((Windows Phone + Windows RT) + full Windows) = 2

"Microsoft currently ships Windows RT, Windows 8, and Windows Phone software on a variety of devices, but it’s heading towards a future where just a single version of Windows will exist. Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference last week, Microsoft’s head of devices, Julie Larson-Green, hinted strongly that the software giant is finally working to merge its core operating systems. "We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full Windows. We're not going to have three," says Larson-Green."

Microsoft's device chief sees a future without three versions of Windows | The Verge

Render Unto Caesar, but Who Backs the Bitcoin? - NYTimes.com

So it's like gold, but without all that messy digging...

"In truth, the best bitcoin can hope for is to be a second-rate version of gold, if that. And Warren Buffett once described gold this way: “Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
That’s pretty much the way a Martian might think about bitcoin."

Render Unto Caesar, but Who Backs the Bitcoin? - NYTimes.com

Disruptions: If It Looks Like a Bubble and Floats Like a Bubble ... - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

"Such assurances aside, the numbers are sobering. Eight months ago, Snapchat was valued at $70 million. Today, it is valued at $4 billion, even though it has zero revenue. Six months ago, Pinterest was valued at $2.5 billion. Today, it is valued at $3.8 billion — and no revenue there, either. And last week news broke that Dropbox was said to be seeking a new round of funding that would value the company at $8 billion, up from $4 billion a year ago.
In Silicon Valley, pointing out this sort of thing is considered a bit impolite."

Disruptions: If It Looks Like a Bubble and Floats Like a Bubble ... - NYTimes.com

The Internet of Things: Look, It Must Work | Monday Note

Excerpt from a timely Jean-Louis Gassée "Internet of Things" reality check

"Does the concept need a Steve Jobs to coalesce the disparate components into a coherent, vibrant genre? Are important pieces still missing? Or, like Artificial Intelligence (rebranded as Machine Learning in an attempt to soothe the pain of repeated disappointments), are we looking at an ever-receding horizon?"

The Internet of Things: Look, It Must Work | Monday Note

Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto - NYTimes.com

Small cyber-world

"Two Israeli computer scientists say they may have uncovered a puzzling financial link between Ross William Ulbricht, the recently arrested operator of the Internet black market known as the Silk Road, and the secretive inventor of bitcoin, the anonymous online currency, used to make Silk Road purchases."

Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto - NYTimes.com

Which Should You Buy: Xbox One or PlayStation 4? Yes. | Game|Life | Wired.com

Excerpt from a refreshingly frank product review, despite its title

"If you’ve gotten to this point and you still aren’t sure whether you want a PS4 or an Xbox One, I think I know what advice to give you: Don’t buy either.
I’m not saying you should never buy either. I’m saying that if the cool new features of these boxes aren’t enough to sway you one way or the other, you might not be happy with either one at this point. I’ve been playing the exclusive launch games for both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and neither library is very good right now. Sony’s big launch game Knack is cute and pretty, but can get repetitive and a little boring. Microsoft’s Ryse: Son of Rome is a rushed mess."

Which Should You Buy: Xbox One or PlayStation 4? Yes. | Game|Life | Wired.com

Xbox Is a Test for the One Microsoft ­Strategy - Businessweek

Substantive synergy or superfluous strategy tax tbd

"The Xbox One’s operating system includes Windows 8 and speeds switching between apps and games. Windows also means a broader range of apps for users, because it makes software development easier than on earlier Xbox systems. Windows 8’s snap feature lets users watch a football game while running a fantasy gridiron app alongside it. Users can pan and zoom during Skype calls, and cloud service SkyDrive allows them to view photos and videos they’ve uploaded from other devices. Say “Xbox, record,” and cloud service Azure will save the last 30 seconds of game play as a video clip that players can share with friends."

Xbox Is a Test for the One Microsoft ­Strategy - Businessweek

Spotify Raises $250 Million, Valued Above $4 Billion - John D. Stoll, Evelyn Rusli and Sven Grundberg - Media - AllThingsD

In related Bubble 2.0 news, see Pandora Media Posts Q3 Loss (AllThingsD)

"Swedish music-streaming company Spotify AB has secured nearly $250 million in new financing led by Silicon Valley firm Technology Crossover Ventures, valuing the company somewhere “north” of $4 billion dollars, according to multiple people familiar with the deal."

Spotify Raises $250 Million, Valued Above $4 Billion - John D. Stoll, Evelyn Rusli and Sven Grundberg - Media - AllThingsD

U.S. to Consider Cellphone Use on Planes - WSJ.com

Sign me up as a frequent flyer on the first airline that bans cell phone conversations, if this proposal is approved

"The Federal Communications Commission said it will soon propose allowing passengers to use their cellphones on airplanes, setting up a debate that will pit the technically possible against the socially tolerable.
While cellphone use would still be restricted during takeoff and landing, the proposal would lift an FCC ban on airborne calls and cellular-data use by passengers once a flight reaches 10,000 feet."

U.S. to Consider Cellphone Use on Planes - WSJ.com

Meet Pencil: The Best iPad Stylus Yet, From the Makers of 'Paper' | Wired Design | Wired.com

For another pointed review, see Livescribe 3, Jot Script and Pencil: Three “Smart” Pens for the Tablet Era

(AllThingsD)

"Here’s Pencil’s appeal in a nutshell: It’s the rare iPad stylus you can actually use like a pencil. One side draws, the other erases. It’s sophisticated enough to make sure your palm will never mark up your canvas or send your app going haywire. In other words, it’s just as easy to operate as the instrument it’s named after. That’s no small feat."

Meet Pencil: The Best iPad Stylus Yet, From the Makers of 'Paper' | Wired Design | Wired.com

TVs get smarter, but not smartersmart enough - Business - The Boston Globe

Final paragraph of a Hiawatha Bray smart TV market snapshot

"Smart TVs still haven’t caught fire with the public, and the new Samsung reminded me why. It doesn’t matter how smart a TV is, if it makes the user feel stupid."

''TVs get smarter, but not smartersmart enough - Business - The Boston Globe:

DNI, Patriot Act Section 215: Documents show how government inflated metadata definition. (Slate)

Final paragraph of a metadata + surveillance reality check

"It’s incredible how much of the way we think about surveillance continues to be governed by telephone technology. Even President Obama sought to reassure the public about the nature of the leaked surveillance programs by telling reporters in June that “nobody is listening to your telephone calls.” When it came to old-fashioned telephone technology, there was a clear-cut distinction between metadata and content, there were data irrelevant to a communication’s meaning, and we were reasonably well aware of the kinds of metadata we generated when we made calls. But now, none of those assumptions necessarily holds true, and we’re beginning to understand the extent to which the medium—and the metadata—really are the message."

DNI, Patriot Act Section 215: Documents show how government inflated metadata definition.

Dell Venue 8 Pro review: A Windows 8.1 tablet for the rest of us - Computerworld

Summary of another net-positive Dell Windows tablet review

"With the new Dell Venue 8 Pro, we're finally seeing a full-blown Windows 8.1 tablet for the masses. And when I mean the masses, I don't mean people willing to pay $900 and up for a tablet, or $1,000 and up for a combo tablet-ultrabook device. I mean people who can afford $300 for a well-made 8-in. device with a very good screen, a surprisingly powerful processor, and Office as part of the package."

Dell Venue 8 Pro review: A Windows 8.1 tablet for the rest of us - Computerworld

Strava Creates New App for Google Glass | Singletracks Mountain Bike Blog

Somehow I suspect many lawyers are gainfully employed writing user license agreements for this type of app, but I look forward to it going mainstream

"Strava recently demo’d an app for Google Glass that promises to turn every ride–and possibly even your daily walk from the car into the office–into a competition. The app is said to include alerts to let riders know when they’re approaching a segment during a ride and it makes key stats like speed and distance visible at a glance. But perhaps more importantly (for the company’s lawyers anyway), Strava’s Google Glass app is designed to allow riders to remain more “situationally aware” during the ride."

Strava Creates New App for Google Glass | Singletracks Mountain Bike Blog

Here’s the scariest part about the Internet of Things [Washington Post]

What happens in your dishwasher should stay in your dishwasher (or at most on your home network)

"One difference between data-hungry businesses like Google and your future home network of Internet-enabled objects is that some of those devices may not need to talk to each other over the public Internet, said the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Lee Tien. If they're connected to the same Wi-Fi network, maybe those devices won't need to transmit data across the Web.
"Utilize but keep the data within the home boundary," Tien suggested. "Keep the interesting variations within the home boundary. How much detail do we need and how much data needs to leave the home, actually?""

Here’s the scariest part about the Internet of Things

The Great Snapchat Mirage [BuzzFeed]

Still tbd where Snapchat is on the PointCast ... Instagram continuum

"This is not to say that Snapchat isn’t popular. It certainly is, by many reasonable, anecdotal definitions! And the fact that Facebook, which presumably did some due diligence, thought the company was worth three Instagrams, should not be ignored (though it should also be understood as an attempt made by a company that desperately wants, and needs, to stay relevant, and that once tried to rip off Snapchat when the service was very young).
But Snapchat is a startup. It’s a startup that is courting buyers, or at least humoring them, and that may be in the process of raising an enormous amount of money. It is clearly in Snapchat’s interest to share its most impressive numbers, but it is in everyone else’s interest to demand to know more, and to take these numbers — these context-free numbers — with a wheelbarrow of salt."

The Great Snapchat Mirage

Salesforce.com and HP Buck Common Wisdom of Cloud Computing - NYTimes.com

More "Salesforce Superpod" details

"A cynic could say Salesforce, which counts HP among its largest clients, is doing HP a favor — with HP’s gear given key placement by a company that pioneered cloud computing. Indeed, Ms. Whitman said that her company had 27,000 sales executives using Salesforce and would be putting 100,000 of its affiliated resellers on the system.
Even with those kinds of numbers, however, Mr. Benioff is unlikely to be making this deal just as a favor. He does seem to agree that dedicating some hardware will win clients (who could probably get just as much security with software that partitioned their data within a regular public cloud, but who said sales were always rational?)"

Salesforce.com and HP Buck Common Wisdom of Cloud Computing - NYTimes.com

Quora Will Push Its Most Link-Baity Content to BuzzFeed - Liz Gannes - Media - AllThingsD

The question of Quora's ultimate business model remains unanswered

"In fact, BuzzFeed is the latest of seven content distribution partners for Quora. Others are Forbes, Slate and the BBC. Quora exec Marc Bodnick sees the media deals as a win-win, where Quora writers get more distribution, and media partners get good content.
It might seem a little self-defeating for a social site to concede that a media player has wider reach than it does. But Bodnick said the deal serves Quora’s goal of sharing and growing the world’s knowledge. “If you keep the quality high, the quality attracts readers,” he said. “It’s not GIFs, it’s not porn, it’s not link bait.”"

Quora Will Push Its Most Link-Baity Content to BuzzFeed - Liz Gannes - Media - AllThingsD