- China’s Science Revolution – The telescope is amazing. Nice presentation form the BBC too.
- This iPhone-only professional photographer is the future of sports photography
- Augmented Cognition: not science fiction, just smarts on our phones
- The Fraudulent Claims Made By Ibm About Watson And Ai.
- Machine Bias
- HYPER-REALITY – Amazing video of what the future could look like
- The End of the Office Dress Code
- Archiving a Website for Ten Thousand Years – How do you backup data?
- On Steve Rogers #1, Antisemitism, And Publicity Stunts
- Suddenly, national newspapers are heading for that print cliff fall – Oh oh
- New migraine drugs promise relief — but at a steep price – Interesting
- Uncharted 4 Game play in REAL LIFE
- Drone Star Wars – Drones really are changing whats possible for amateur moviemakers
- The whole Star Wars Episode IV in one picture
- Radiohead at the Roundhouse, London
Month: May 2016
Placing Bets
We seem to be approaching a crossroads. Most of the big tech companies are focussing efforts on AI and bots. Just last week Google unveiled a raft of products, all currently unavailable but here in the fall, which are focussed on their AI technology and the amount of data amassed about their users. Google Home and Allo with Google Assistant at their core offer a compelling look at a voice or text driven future focussed on helping you do things easily or get to information without launching an app or taking much time.
Another key aspect is that you can do this on any mobile platform. For Google it’s not locked to Android and for Facebook and Microsoft they don’t have their own mobile hardware platform…sorry Microsoft.
So what next for Apple?
Marco Arment had a great post last week – If Google’s right about AI, that’s a problem for Apple. Could Apple really be the next Blackberry?
In some ways I fear it’s heading that way. They seem far behind with AI. Siri was fine when it first launched but it’s stagnated, many of it’s founders have left Apple and launched a new voice driven product with AI at it’s core, and as Marco’s post highlighted you just can’t simply catch up in a year or buy your way out of a hole. In many ways the focus on security and privacy puts Apple at a disadvantage compared to it’s rivals. Opening up Siri to third parties would help somewhat but it still feels flawed as a service to me.
Using voice feels awkward, especially in public. There are some things that I don’t want to say out loud or are easier just to type. Using voice in private is something completely different and I’ve wanted to try an Amazon Echo for a while although will probably end up picking up a Google Home when it releases. Could Apple release a similar product? Of course. Would it integrate with third parties as quickly or openly as Amazon has allowed?
These are challenging questions for Apple that it has to address. The phone and tablet market has matured and while it’s still an incredible revenue generator for Apple it won’t last forever. Just ask Blackberry.
Apple also seems to be out of the AR/VR loop. It’s computer hardware can’t drive an Oculus although on the mobile side it could easily launch AR support as the hardware in the iPhone is extremely capable.
The niggle in my head is that it looks like Apple is playing catchup and it’s in the area’s of the business which it’s softer in – services and software.
WWDC is just over two weeks away and I can’t wait to see what Apple do and the future bets it’s placing. It feels like this years announcements are more critical than ever.
Backpocket
- Confessions of a former bike thief
- Racism is the bogeyman
- The Flying Scotsman – Forth Bridge 15.5.16
- Persuading Britain to spend billions on Trident is like convincing a tramp to buy a bazooka
- How Your Gut Affects Your Mood
- The Golden Age of x86 Gaming
- Project Ara Lives: Google’s Modular Phone Is Ready for You Now – The phone that no one needs.
- The Fierce Triumph of Loneliness
- The days slip away
- Face recognition app taking Russia by storm may bring end to public anonymity – only a matter of time before apps like this hit the UK
- How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist
- Monument Valley in Numbers: Year 2
- Moby: ‘There were bags of drugs, I was having sex with a stranger’ – Shocker!
- Post-it Note War Erupts On Canal Street
- The Maker of Things
- Bridges Mark Zuckerberg Destroyed
- Its the simple joys in life – hilarious!
Backpocket
Finally some decent weather this week…and we’re about to enter tech news nirvana – I/O, WWDC and E3.
- Jeremy Corbyn A ‘Scruffy Worzel Gummidge,’ Say Voters Of Nuneaton – Unelectable
- Why White People Don’t Use White Emoji
- Designing a New Look for Instagram, Inspired by the Community
- The Panic Sign – I love Panic.
- Lionhead: The inside story
- ‘I’m living the dream’: Sadiq Khan on his first week as London mayor
- Could Different Borders Have Saved the Middle East?
- I have never wanted a baby. Yesterday, my dream came true: Woman, 30, is sterilised on the NHS – and she says ‘To hell with the trolls’
- Revealed: ‘Glasgow effect’ mortality rate blamed on Westminster social engineering
- Ranking: Every Radiohead Album From Worst to Best
- Ranking: Every Radiohead Song From Worst to Best – I’d tweak the top ten but a solid list
- Star Wars – Episode V “The Empire Strikes Back” Homage (Title Sequence) – Stunning and uses Spectre by Radiohead.
Backpocket
- Why the media will lift Trump up and tear Clinton down
- This Is How The World Reacted To Sadiq Khan Becoming London Mayor
- The BBC deserves better than a chump’s charter
- How The Global Elite Have Spent Eight Decades Being Injected With Sheep Foetuses – Wow
- Why I Hate Security, Computers, and the Entire Modern Banking System
- I fly 747s for a living. Here are the amazing things I see every day.
- Kung Fu Motion Visualization – Stunning
- Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. – Is it a bug, is it user error? No one really knows and thats the problem for Apple.
- No, Apple Music is not deleting tracks off your hard drive — unless you tell it to
- tvOS at 6 Months: Where Are the Apps? – There’s not many that are any good but I do enjoy Plex and Youtube not he Apple TV. Good not great.
- Apple’s actual role in podcasting: be careful what you wish for
- Captain America: Civil War And The Superhero (In)Security State
- After incredible win, Leicester City is still a complicated place
- Dear Adobe, Please buy Flickr – Somebody, anybody apart from the Daily Mail. I’m trying 500px but I’ve so much invested in Flickr that I don’t want to leave or see the site/community fail.
- How Music Taste Evolved – Stunning site
- A Moon Shaped Pool – New Radiohead Album! Go on, run and download.
- Radiohead – Daydreaming – Paul Thomas Anderson directs the new Radiohead video. Stunning.
Backpocket
A week off work. Rested and ready….for a bank holiday tomorrow 🙂
- Hillsborough inquests jury rules 96 victims were unlawfully killed
- Hillsborough disaster: deadly mistakes and lies that lasted decades – Justice at last for the families that suffered over the last 26 years.
- Hillsborough verdict: Andy Burnham demands South Yorkshire police chief resigns in extraordinary speech
- James Takes Aim At Kelvin MacKenzie Over Hillsborough – A must watch
- My plea to the left: treat Jews the same way you’d treat any other minority – What an awful week for Labour…and Ken Livingstone is for the right wing media the gift that keeps on giving.
- Zac Goldsmith: your London mayoral campaign is a disgrace
- Searching for Ground Truth in the Kunduz Hospital Bombing
- What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?
- Pseudoscience in the Witness Box – Jawdropping
- State Of The Gadget Union – Hard to argue with much of this
- Inside One of the World’s Most Secretive iPhone Factories
- I installed Windows 95 on my Apple Watch – took 2 hours to boot much like the other Apple Watch apps
- Why you shouldn’t exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies
- The real reasons you procrastinate — and how to stop
- How Neuroscientists Explain the Mind-Clearing Magic of Running – I miss my runs
- Bodyhackers are all around you, they’re called women
- Toddler vs. CEO – So true
- How Uber conquered London – Great article on how Uber conquered London
- Aerial views of London – Some of these photos are great
- President Obama at White House Correspondents’ Dinner – Obama’s last roast and he couldn’t not rip into The Donald.