Wednesday, October 02, 2019

About this blog: some updates

After nearly 20 years of weekday morning tech news scans and blogging1, I've decided it's time to change my daily routine. I've been dedicating 1 - 2 hours most weekday mornings to tech-related news foraging, and I've enjoyed sharing resources I've considered noteworthy (and/or snark-worthy)2, but I'm increasing my focus on conceptual data modeling3 and climate/political activism, and reducing my daily news-foraging time allocation4.

As a result, the frequency of posts on this blog will remain low for the foreseeable future. For now, here are some other resources (most available via email newsletters) you may find useful for daily news updates:

Tech and science

Political and general news

I'll post occasional updates as I run across other useful resources.

For now: thanks for reading over the years -- more to follow, but with fewer than 7 +/- 2 posts per weekday…

Notes:
1: My first Reality Check post was 19991027, but I changed hosting service providers a couple times before ending up on Blogspot in early 2002.

2: I may increase the post frequency again if I run across a browser extension or iOS/macOS sharing extension that significantly streamlines the posting process; Blogger has frankly been a bit of a nuisance since Google broke its BlogThis browser extension many months ago (without such an extension, every post requires several [error-prone…] copy/paste/format actions). Windows Live Writer (created by JJ Allaire and his Onfolio team) was by far the best blogging tool I've run across, but alas Microsoft acquired, eventually open-sourced, and effectively killed WLW many years ago.

3: I started a second blog on Medium several months ago -- https://medium.com/infoslob -- with a focus on everyday conceptual data models, but the response thus far has been less than encouraging (I would like to thank both of the readers who made it all the way through my Apple Podcasts post, for example; this blog has typically had 15 - 20K page views per month, but I've always assumed a lot of those were from Russian bots etc.). I'm going to resume model-related posts on Medium and will post links here as well, when I do.

4: The overall shift to social media (especially Facebook and Twitter) and apps/services such as Medium have also changed my news-foraging modus operandi over the years. I've also been mindful of the increasingly common use of paywalls, since I can't assume all readers have access to all sources (or to aggregators such as Apple News+).

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Light posts this week FYI

Back to my normal schedule 10/1

Friday, September 20, 2019

Apple’s location tracking Tags detailed in new leak | The Verge

Check the full article for an Apple Tag rumor roundup
"Details about Apple Tags, the company’s Tile-like location trackers you can attach to things like your keys, bag, or bike, have leaked again. The latest screenshots come courtesy of MacRumors, and show a new “Items” tab, that replaces the “Me” tab in the new Find My app that rolled out yesterday with the global release of iOS 13.

”Keep track of your everyday items,” reads the Items tab when clicking in. “Tag your everyday items with B389 and never lose them again.” B389 is the internal Apple codename for Apple Tags, first mentioned by 9to5Mac back in April. The screenshots were sourced from an internal build of iOS 13 released in early June, according to MacRumors."
Apple’s location tracking Tags detailed in new leak | The Verge

Maybe wait to install macOS Safari 13...

... if you use the Evernote Web Clipper; the OneNote macOS Safari extension was also disallowed (along with many others).

From an Evernote email message:

Startups still love Slack but big companies are bailing | Recode

A more constrained Slack (at least in the enterprise)
"The share of large organizations that use or plan to use Slack next quarter has declined slightly to 33 percent while Teams has increased to 65 percent, according to preliminary surveys of company chief information officers and other leaders from market research firm ETR. So far for next quarter, ETR has measured responses from 845 of the world’s biggest organizations, including those in the Forbes Global 2,000, Forbes’ list of the 225 biggest private companies, and the US government.

ETR data also showed that 13 percent of large companies plan to decrease their Slack spending next quarter compared with 1 percent that plan to do so on Teams.

The general consensus among these big companies is that Slack may be a better product, but not so much better that it warrants paying for extra software on top of Microsoft Office, which they already require for business staples like Excel, Word, and PowerPoint."
Startups still love Slack but big companies are bailing | Recode

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Amazon will order 100,000 electric delivery vans from EV startup Rivian, Jeff Bezos says | The Verge

For details on the overall Amazon climate strategy, see Jeff Bezos pledges that Amazon will swiftly combat climate change | The Verge
"Rivian is a relatively new name in the electric vehicle industry, having only debuted its pickup truck and SUV at the end of November 2018. But the company has been operating in stealth since 2009. Originally founded to make something that competed with Tesla’s first car, the Lotus-based Roadster, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe eventually pivoted the company toward a more action-adventure customer segment.

Rivian’s main push this year has been a massive fundraising effort, with the company securing enormous investments from a host of major players, Amazon included. Bezos’ company led a $700 million funding round last February, but it did not disclose the exact amount it was contributing. In April, Ford announced a $500 million investment in Rivian that the companies said would result in a new electric vehicle to be sold by the auto giant. Most recently, Rivian landed a $350 million investment from Cox Automotive, a big name in the retail and logistics space."
Amazon will order 100,000 electric delivery vans from EV startup Rivian, Jeff Bezos says | The Verge

Obama offers a thinly veiled critique of Trump’s penchant for social media and TV news | Washington Post

On a related note, see Are Democrats ready for the coming disinformation tsunami? | Washington Post
"Speaking at a private event hosted by data company Splunk, Obama explained how he had approached the job, including some 3,000 political appointments, before offering this advice: “The other thing that is helpful is not watching TV or reading social media."
“Those are two things I would advise, if you're our president, not to do,” he said. “It creates a lot of noise and clouds your judgment.”"
Obama offers a thinly veiled critique of Trump’s penchant for social media and TV news | Washington Post

WeWork’s Adam Neumann wants to live forever, be king of the world and the first trillionaire, says report | CNBC

Also see I got a contact high just reading this bananas profile of WeWork’s founder | The Verge; the full WSJ article may also be available without a subscription
"WeWork has attracted scrutiny over its unusual business model and governance structure, but the company’s strangeness seems to start at the top with CEO and co-founder Adam Neumann, according to a remarkable profile in The Wall Street Journal.

Neumann has expressed interest in becoming Israel’s prime minister and the president of the world, living forever, and becoming the world’s first trillionaire, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation. He is also said to have told employees that the company could one day end world hunger."
WeWork’s Adam Neumann wants to live forever, be king of the world and the first trillionaire, says report | CNBC

“We Could Say Anything to Each Other”: Bob Iger Remembers Steve Jobs | Vanity Fair

From an excerpt of Bob Iger's new book, The Ride of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company; on a related note, see Disney CEO Bob Iger has resigned from Apple’s board | The Verge
"With every success the company has had since Steve’s death, there’s always a moment in the midst of my excitement when I think, I wish Steve could be here for this. It’s impossible not to have the conversation with him in my head that I wish I could be having in real life. More than that, I believe that if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies, or at least discussed the possibility very seriously."
“We Could Say Anything to Each Other”: Bob Iger Remembers Steve Jobs | Vanity Fair

GM’s Mary Barra Bets Big on an Electric, Self-Driving Future | Bloomberg

From a GM transformation strategy reality check
"Taking vast resources from businesses that make money and moving them toward businesses that (so far) lose mountains of it is obviously a large and risky bet. But the gamble isn’t the decision itself. It’s the timing. GM, which is pushing hard into electrics and racing into autonomy faster than any other carmaker, could be blowing cash for years before there’s any payoff. Already, its Cruise Automation unit has postponed plans to deploy autonomous cars this year. If driverless and electric vehicles take off more slowly than Barra expects, then GM will have prematurely jettisoned thousands of skilled veterans and killed off its smaller gasoline models, leaving the company even more vulnerable to a spike in fuel prices than it is now. Worse, it could cede a chunk of profits from the remaining decades of the internal combustion era to others.

Barra is adamant that GM will sell a million electrics a year in the very near future, while lowering costs and gaining an economy-of-scale edge that Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. would envy. In autonomous driving, Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise Automation, believes a small group of companies will divide a trillion-dollar market. That’s the potential that has Barra risking so much."
GM’s Mary Barra Bets Big on an Electric, Self-Driving Future | Bloomberg

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

The Game of Life: Visualizing China’s Social Credit System | Visual Capitalist

Final paragraphs:
"In 2018, people with a low score were prohibited from buying plane tickets almost 18 million times, while high-speed train ticket transactions were blocked 5.5 million times. A further 128 people were prohibited from leaving China, due to unpaid taxes.

The system could have major implications for foreign business practices—as preference could be given to companies already ranked in the system. Companies with higher scores will be rewarded with incentives which include lower tax rates and better credit conditions, with their behavior being judged in areas such as:
  • Paid taxes
  • Customs regulation
  • Environmental protection
Despite the complexities of gathering vast amounts of data, the system is certainly making an impact. While there are benefits to having a standardized scoring system, and encouraging positive behavior—will it be worth the social cost of gamifying human life?"
One of several visualizations in the post:
The Game of Life: Visualizing China’s Social Credit System | Visual Capitalist

Facebook unveils charter for its ‘Supreme Court,’ where users can go to contest the company’s decisions | Washington Post

On a related note, see Why Facebook’s 'Values' Update Matters | Lawfare
"Facebook on Tuesday unveiled its blueprint for an independent oversight board to review the company’s decisions about the posts, photos and videos it takes down or leaves online, responding to a wave of criticism that inconsistent policies have undermined the platform.
The roughly 40-person panel is supposed to function as the social media giant’s version of a “Supreme Court,” serving as the final word for Facebook users who want to appeal the company’s moderation decisions. It will also offer recommendations for how the tech giant should tackle problematic content in the future.
“We are responsible for enforcing our policies every day and we make millions of content decisions every week,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post. “But ultimately I don’t believe private companies like ours should be making so many important decisions about speech on our own.”"
Facebook unveils charter for its ‘Supreme Court,’ where users can go to contest the company’s decisions | Washington Post

Review: Edward Snowden and the Rise of Whistle-Blower Culture in “Permanent Record” | The New Yorker

From a review by Jill Lepore; on a related note, see United States Files Civil Lawsuit against Edward Snowden for Publishing a Book in Violation of CIA and NSA Non-Disclosure Agreements | U.S. Department of Justice
"The patriot-traitor divide should be less a matter of opinion than a matter of law, but the law here is murky. On the one hand, you might think, if Snowden is a patriot who did what he did for the good of the country, then he deserves not only the protection of First Amendment freedom of speech but also the legal shelter afforded whistle-blowers, under legislation that includes the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act—except that Snowden signed an oath not to disclose government secrets, and neither the Whistleblower Protection Act nor its many revisions and amendments extend its protections to people who disclose classified intelligence. On the other hand, you might think, if Snowden is a traitor whose actions put his country at risk, the Justice Department was right to charge him under the Espionage Act—except that it doesn’t sound as though he were a spy. (Unlike Julian Assange, Snowden has criticized Putin, and the F.B.I. believes that Snowden acted alone.) “Permanent Record” doesn’t settle any of these questions, or even evince much concern about them. Instead, Snowden appears to have other worries. “Forgive me if I come off like a dick,” he writes, knowingly."
Review: Edward Snowden and the Rise of Whistle-Blower Culture in “Permanent Record” | The New Yorker

Opinion: UC investments are going fossil free. But not exactly for the reasons you may think | LA Times

A timely and encouraging milestone from Jagdeep Singh Bachher (the University of California’s chief investment officer and treasurer) and Richard Sherman (chairman of the UC Board of Regents’ Investments Committee); on a related note, see Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns [Bill McKibben] | The New Yorker
"We are investors and fiduciaries for what is widely considered the best public research university in the world. That makes us fiscally conservative by nature and by policy — “Risk rules” is one of the 10 pillars of what we call the UC Investments Way. We want to ensure that the more than 320,000 people currently receiving a UC pension actually get paid, that we can continue to fund research and scholarships throughout the UC system, and that our campuses and medical centers earn the best possible return on their investments.

We believe hanging on to fossil fuel assets is a financial risk. That’s why we will have made our $13.4-billion endowment “fossil free” as of the end of this month, and why our $70-billion pension will soon be that way as well."
Opinion: UC investments are going fossil free. But not exactly for the reasons you may think | LA Times

Facebook working on smart glasses with Ray-Ban, code-named ‘Orion’ | CNBC

For a related perspective, see Why Apple Owns The AR Industry Even Without Owning AR Glasses (Comment Of The Week) | New World Notes
"Facebook has been working to develop augmented reality glasses out of its Facebook Reality Labs in Redmond, Washington, for the past couple of years, but struggles with the development of the project have led the company to seek help. Now, Facebook is hoping a partnership with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica will get them completed and ready for consumers between 2023 and 2025, according to people familiar.

The glasses are internally codenamed Orion, and they are designed to replace smartphones, the people said. The glasses would allow users to take calls, show information to users in a small display and live-stream their vantage point to their social media friends and followers."
Facebook working on smart glasses with Ray-Ban, code-named ‘Orion’ | CNBC