How soon until someone does something with this video from North...
Learn MoreMorgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas on March 31, 2011, explaining why he was upgrading Tesla stock to “overweight” status and projecting sales of $9.5 billion by 2020, and declaring Tesla to be “America’s Fourth Auto-maker”: The confluence of structural industry change, disruptive technology, changing consumer tastes and heightened national security creates an opportunity for significant new entrants in the global auto industry. California dreaming? We don’t think so. In our view, the conditions are ripe for a shake-up of a complacent, century-old industry heavily invested in the status quo of internal combustion. The risks are high. So is the opportunity. Enter Tesla. That was then. Today the same Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley slashed its estimate on Tesla and downgraded the stock to “underweight” status, saying electric vehicles are “not ready for prime time.” The stock is in a swoon. Yes, Morgan Stanley was an underwriter of the...
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Just a reminder that we’ll be doing a Newsweek Daily Beast Hangout on Google+ today at 4:30 Eastern time. Our guest will be Matias Duarte, the head of design for the Android project at Google. Matias is a really great guy with an interesting background — he studied fine arts in college, and aspired to become a painter — and if you’re an Android fan you’ll have a chance to talk to him directly. So please tune...
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I’m not talking about the abortion stuff, which was ridiculous. But I’m starting to see grumbling about the simple fact that Siri just doesn’t work all that well. In the latest pieces the writers aren’t willing to say, as Jordan Crook of TechCrunch did recently, that while Siri is disappointing, “in the end it’s my fault.” Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch lashes out at Siri in his piece explaining why he likes the Galaxy Nexus better than the iPhone 4S. He calls Siri “completely underwhelming” and refuses to accept the fanboy rationalization that “Siri is just a beta product.” Also: Beta, schmeta. Apple fans have repeatedly pointed out that Siri is being billed as a Beta by Apple, and so it shouldn’t be held to such high standards. In my mind Apple lost the ‘Beta’ fallback the moment it started running commercials promoting the feature — some people are buying an iPhone 4S exclusively because of Siri because it’s been so highly touted. Then comes blistering write-up by Mat Honan on Gizmodo where he refers to Siri as “Apple’s broken promise” and calls it “a half-baked product,” writing: Apple is the company that sells perfection. It’s a company that usually keeps its promises, and in its Siri ads, it promises far...
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My colleagues at Newsweek Daily Beast are trying to arrange some Google+ Hangouts with interesting tech industry folks. First one we’ve scheduled is this Wednesday, Dec. 7, at 4:30 p.m. East Coast time with Matias Duarte, a renowned computer interface designer who runs the user experience team for Android. I spoke with him recently during a visit to Google and hope to publish a Q&A from the talk very soon. He’s a fascinating guy who studied fine arts as an undergraduate and hoped to become a painter. Before joining Google he worked at Palm, Helio and Danger. I’m really excited about the chance to meet via Google+ and have others join the conversation, so I hope you will take a minute to drop in on our chat. We’ll be talking about Ice Cream Sandwich, of course, and about the new Galaxy Nexus phone. But I am hoping to get Matias talking about his approach to design and where human computer interfaces might evolve in the future. We have another exciting guest lined up for next week. Will tell you more about that...
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