Reverse engineering the brain
Great story from Wired about Andrew Ng and the quest to reverse engineer the human brain. Google is going after this in a big way — I suspect it’s what Larry Page really wanted to do all along. But others are in the hunt.
read moreStay off the Twitter and get some damn work done!
That was the lesson I took from reading this really interesting piece by Brian Lam. I often feel guilty because I’m not very “active” on Twitter and I feel like this makes me a bad person somehow. It’s inspiring to hear someone I respect and admire say you’re better off taking a quick look then hunkering down and doing some real work. For those of you who don’t know him, Brian was once the editor of Gizmodo, got burned out on the hamster-wheel-spinning life of a tech blogger, and decided to change. He lives in Hawaii, surfs a lot, goes diving, writes about the ocean, and makes a living by running a gadget site called The Wirecutter. And this money quote from Brian blew my mind: I just like getting away from blogs almost entirely—any place with a clicking agenda. I just know they’re trying to make noise to make traffic. I don’t want to use up my time getting involved in that. Amen. Amen....
read moreI’ve moved to a new home, and hope you will come with me
Just a heads up that I’m starting a new job as editor-in-chief of ReadWrite, a tech site formerly known as ReadWriteWeb. We have rebranded the site as ReadWrite and launched it yesterday with a new design and a new approach to covering tech news. Meaning: more personality, more engagement, more fun. This is not going to be Fake Steve 2.0 because, alas, Fake Steve has left the building. But it will give me a place where I can write the kind of stuff I want to write, with loads of freedom and with a small group of like-minded souls. ReadWrite has a really good staff of writers, and we’re going to be adding more voices to the mix. I’m looking for interesting, thought-provoking ideas, so send them along. My idea is that journalism needs to become more about conversation than publication. As Arianna Huffington likes to say (in her strange accent) “Self-expression is the new entertainment.” So look — come along with me on this adventure and express yourselves. Become part of ReadWrite. Add your voice to the conversation. For those of you who are still hanging around from the Fake Steve days, first of all, Namaste, and second of all, Let’s put the band back together. We have a platform where we can do some of the things we did on Fake Steve, like create a sense of community and add a touch of irreverence to the world of tech. Now more than ever the Valley is in need of a bracing, no-bullshit shot of truth, and we are the ones to deliver it. Especially now that Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, the herpes of tech journalism (they keep going away and coming back) are now returning to TechCrunch, which is going to raise the bullshit barrage and general douchebaggery of tech coverage. As for me, I’ve been cooped up in dying newsweekly for the last four years, and I’ve been miserable. But now I feel like I’ve been sprung from prison and given permission to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world. I can’t wait. I hope you’ll come along and have some...
read moreApple’s new maps miraculously now work perfectly thanks to Tim Cook’s apology
That’s what I’m hearing. People around the world who were having problems with the new maps say that within hours of Tim Cook’s apology the software miraculously started working perfectly. Customers are happy, Apple has won, Google is screwed, and, in a tiny church in a remote village in Portugal, a painting of Steve Jobs (above) has started weeping real tears, all thanks to that simple, miracle-working apology. Oh, the power of contrition! By lying, but then apologizing for lying, Apple now has become stronger than before. The story is spreading like wildfire, told by Farhad Manjoo on Pando and Drew Olanoff on TechCrunch. See, in the new “perception economy,” the core deliverable is no longer the product itself, it’s the way you talk about the product. The message is the product. They are one and the same. Ergo, a company doesn’t need to make a good product; it just needs to persuade customers that the product is good. See the difference? Even when you ship a bad product, if you apologize for it, now it’s good. It’s all about perception. Or persuasion. Or how your attempts at persuasion are perceived. Something like...
read moreThe real issue about Apple maps
The key thing in the maps situation is what this move says about Apple and the kind of company it has become. As Roger Kay points out on Forbes: Does Apple care that its naked self interest is showing? Not at all, near as I can tell. Apple has always had disdain for what others think, even — no, especially — customers. However, for a potential customer on the cusp of deciding whether to buy an Apple or an Android phone, this blatantly dishonorable move — to take away from consumers something that they liked and put in its place a home-grown but inferior substitute — is likely to push them definitively into the Google camp. Speaking of “blatantly dishonorable,” there’s also the price gouging, the threats to cut back on retail, the shoddy treatment of workers at Foxconn which is driven by Apple’s relentless squeeze on its suppliers, and — finally — the patent trolling. Instead of competing in the marketplace, Apple is using lame patents and deep legal pockets to try to diminish competition. Apple doesn’t want to collect royalties. Apple wants to eliminate competition. This also hurts customers, including the Apple faithful, who benefit when Apple is forced to keep up with hungry rivals. All’s fair in love and war, as Jethro Tull once said. But is this the kind of company you want to support with your dollars? Sure, most Apple customers are regular folks who sleepwalk into the Apple store and ask for the WiFis and the bigger gee-bees. They’re not even aware of any of this stuff. But if you’re reading this, you’re not one of those people. Why support this kind of behavior? Why spend money to take a step backward? Why do business with an organization that holds you in such...
read moreHere comes the map spin from Cupertino
The rule of thumb for following Apple is that if you want to know what Apple PR’s official line is, you just need to read the top-tier Apple apologists like John Gruber and MG Siegler. They’re pretty much operating as unpaid Apple spokesbots. Apple briefs these guys, but instead of having the balls to do it on the record, Apple feeds them some spin with the condition that they will write it up while attributing their info to “sources who are familiar with the situation.” It’s a bit like being a Kremlinologist and reading Pravda and Izvestia. And, sure enough, in the wake of the Mapocalypse, today come Gruber and Siegler with Apple’s spin. Gruber pens “On the Timing of Apple’s Map Switch” and Siegler provides “Ripping Off The Bloody Band-Aid.” Both fail to discuss the suckiness of the maps app itself and instead spin the story to one about timing. Meaning, why did Apple do this now? Why not wait and switch later? And, of course, in this version of events, Apple is doing the right thing. And, of course, the villain is Google. So this is the best Apple can do. They can’t try to pretend that their maps app isn’t a huge step backward. They can’t try to pretend that they aren’t putting their own squabble ahead of the needs of their customers. They can’t try to pretend that they’ve actually devoted sufficient resources to solving a very difficult problem. What’s left? Stories about Band-Aids, and timing. Yes, by all means, let’s all talk about timing. Timing timing timing. Let’s talk about why this happened now instead of next year. It’s called misdirection, and it’s mostly used by magicians and PR people. Remember when Bill Clinton was on the ropes with the Lewinsky mess, and every day some Clinton shill like Lanny Davis would come on TV and raise a stink about Ken Starr’s law firm having some kind of conflict of interest, and try to spin the story to be about Ken Starr rather than about whether Clinton was lying or not? Don’t look here, look there. Oh, hey, up over the hill — is that a flying saucer? This is pure Apple. They knew — had to know — when they first showed off the new maps earlier this year that the app was a piece of shit. How could they not know? So they did what Apple always does, which is to go out full-blast saying that this new maps app was the bestest, smartest, superduperest maps app ever created in the history of mankind. Oh, and Flyover! Wow! Look at how amazing Flyover is! Why it’s so amazing that TechCrunch said it made Google Maps look antiquated! “Are you listening Mountain View?” is how they put it, saying Apple had just released its own “stunning” maps app. Remember that now? Apple’s new maps were going to kill Google. This was the death blow. Same for Garmin and others who, the Telegraph noted, were stubbornly “not conceding defeat.” (Fools!) See, this is how it works. When you’re foisting a turd off on your customers, you don’t call it a turd. You cover it with shiny sparkly fake jewels and call it a tiara. If it’s FaceTime, the videoconferencing that nobody uses and that...
read morePogue goes rogue!
The brainwashed brown-noser pens a vicious critique of Apple’s new maps app. Apparently he just noticed that the software is terrible: In short, Maps is an appalling first release. It may be the most embarrassing, least usable piece of software Apple has ever unleashed. Question remains: How did Pogue not notice this when he was preparing his original glowing review? The one in which he said the new maps app was one of the “chief attractions” of the new phone? Did Pogue write his original review without even looking at the maps app? Or did he know how bad it was and just neglect to mention it for fear of pissing off Apple? It’s hard to believe any reviewer could not look at the maps app at all. The new maps app was a big deal. It was the kind of thing a reviewer would have high on his or her list of things to check out. It’s also the kind of thing that an editor at the Times might get pissed about when he sees that everyone is ranting about these messed-up maps and the situation is so bad that someone has even created a Tumblr to mock them and yet his own world-famous and notoriously Apple-conflicted reviewer failed to notice any problem. So, maybe...
read moreHere’s the song that the RIM BlackBerry band should have covered
To hell with the weird remake of REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Lovin You.” Here’s the song that captures the essence of RIM. http://youtu.be/ZDN9y2vTdUs
read moreKiller app?
Much is being about the problems with the new maps issue on iOS 6. The best piece I’ve seen so far is this one on The Verge. The key angle to this story, the one that might resonant with customers, is this: “Apple’s decision to swap out Google Maps is a rare example of the company openly placing its own interests above those of its customers,” write Nilay Patel and Adi Robertson. I’m not sure how rare that is, but anyway. I don’t expect to see anyone getting out of line at the Apple store just because the maps app has some flaws. But the Mapocalypse does raise a question: If the new maps app is truly this bad, how come none of those glowing first-round reviews made any mention of this fact? Thousands of words were devoted to the thinness, the lightness, the wonderful way it feels when you hold it in your hand, but there was hardly a quibble about maps. Mossberg did the best job of covering his ass, writing that maps was the “biggest drawback” and “in other ways a step backward” — but he also pointed out that the new maps app “has one big advantage” over its predecessor, meaning turn-by-turn navigation. Scott Stein of CNET also quibbled a bit wasn’t too upset, saying, “Odds are, you’ll own a couple of maps apps and swap back and forth.” Pogue called the new maps app one of the “chief attractions” of the new iOS. MG Siegler of TechCrunch wrote, “Testing the maps these last few days, I’ve come away impressed.” Jim Dalrymple of Loop Insight wrote, “I really should mention Maps, Apple’s new turn-by-turn direction app on the iPhone. I love it. I used in Cupertino and I used it at home — it worked equally well in both places.” Ed Baig of USA Today touted the new turn-by-turn navigation, saying “Apple has generally done a very good job with its own turn-by-turn feature,” and made no mention of any problems with maps. Gruber’s review ran several thousand words but made no mention of maps at all. (Though yesterday, after people started howling, Gruber conceded that, ahem, the new maps app is “a downgrade.” This is weird, isn’t it? How could all of these top reviewers have early access to the device, test it thoroughly, and not notice anything wrong with the maps app? I’m sure there’s a good...
read moreApple adds Samsung GS3, Galaxy Note to list of targeted devices
Hell, why not throw in TVs, refrigerators and microwave ovens? Sue everybody, right? Punitive damages.
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