Andrew Orr and Charlotte Henry join host Kelly Guimont for a discussion of Apple’s current modem situation and why buying Roku makes sense.
For Years, Google Sabotaged Firefox
In the latest news of anticompetitive corporate behavior, a former Mozilla executive said Google sabotaged Firefox for years.
«When Chrome launched things got complicated, but not in the way you might expect. They had a competing product now, but they didn’t cut ties, break our search deal – nothing like that. In fact, the story we kept hearing was, ‘We’re on the same side. We want the same things’,» the former Mozilla exec said.
I encourage everyone to read the Twitter thread.
Apple Should Be Buying Roku
Apple TV+ is on its way, but should the company actually be buying Roku? Tim Beyers on Motley Fool thinks it should. He said it should remake its streaming service as the Roku Channel. It’s certainly an idea…
Now imagine Apple acquiring Roku and making Apple TV+ with its original content a featured channel and selling access as part of the hardware bundle. («Buy an Apple Roku player and get both Apple TV+ and the Roku Channel, free,» they might say.) Netflix, which has long been available through Roku, could remain on the platform without streaming its data through Apple servers. Everyone wins. Even better, Apple would be putting its service out in the wild — i.e., unbundling the service from the device — just as Roku is getting traction for being the most widely used TV operating system.
AI's Serious Diversity Problem
Diversity, or lack thereof, is a big issue in the tech industry. The problem has particularly serious ramifications in AI. The Verge looked at a new report on the topic, and what the industry can do about it.
Diversity, while a hurdle across the tech industry, presents specific dangers in AI, where potentially biased technology, like facial recognition, can disproportionately affect historically marginalized groups. Tools like a program that scans faces to determine sexuality, introduced in 2017, echo injustices of the past, the researchers write. Rigorous testing is needed. But more than that, the makers of AI tools have to be willing to not build the riskiest projects. “We need to know that these systems are safe as well as fair,” AI Now Institute co-director Kate Crawford says.
Tim Cook is a Better CEO of Apple Than Steve Jobs
Leander Kahney’s biography of Tim Cook hit stores Tuesday. In a piece for Wired, the author explained why he believes Mr. Cook is a better CEO of Apple than Steve Jobs. The proof, he said, is in the numbers.
Apple is the world’s first trillion-dollar company, a milestone reached under Cook’s watch. Apple reached this landmark valuation on August 2, 2018, when Apple’s stock hit $207.05. By comparison, when Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, Apple’s stock was $50.53 (split adjusted), which valued the company at about two-thirds less: $300 billion. During his tenure, Cook has almost tripled Apple’s revenue. In 2018 Apple earned $265.6 billion, the highest annual revenue in the company’s history.
Another Creepy Facebook Story: Scanning Your Photos For Profit
FastCompany writes:
Facebook has just been awarded a patent for technology that could let the social network scan through your photos, see what products you like, and then send that data to advertisers in the hopes of selling you more of the product.
So every photo a user posts to Facebook may, someday, be used to manipulate that user. But it’s just a patent award, right?
6th London Apple Store Set for Prestigious Location
LONDON – Apple could be on its way to one of the most prestigious parts of London. The London Evening Standard reported that a new Apple Store will open in the Knightsbridge area, which is best known for Harrods. If it comes to fruition, the new location will be the firm’s 6th retail outlet in the UK’s capital.
Property sources said the iPhones maker has agreed to open a 20,000 square feet Knightsbridge store between high-end department stores Harrods and Harvey Nichols. It is understood to have signed a deal with Chelsfield, the property asset manager overseeing the makeover of The Knightsbridge Estate on behalf of its owner, Saudi Arabia’s Olayan Group. Agents CWM and CBRE are retail letting agents on the building.
Tragedy and Mutiny at HQ Trivia
In May 2018, I reported for TMO on a popular new quiz app. HQ Trivia raked in users and soared up the App Store chart. Since then, tragedy has struck. CEO Colin Kroll was found dead, aged just 34. Techcrunch reported that current CEO, Mr. Kroll’s co-founder Rus Yusupov, is battling plummeting ratings and a staff mutiny.
By February 2019, HQ’s staff was fed up. Two sources confirm that 20 of the roughly 35 employees signed a letter asking the board to remove Yusupov and establish a new CEO. With HQ’s download rate continuing to sink, they feared he’d run the startup into the ground. One source suggested Yusupov might rather have seen the whole startup come crashing down with the blame placed on the product than have it come to light that he played a large hand in the fall. The tone of the letter, which was never formally delivered but sources believe the board knew of, wasn’t accusatory but a plea for transparency about the company’s future and the staff’s job security.
macOS 10.15 Will Allow Users to Have iPad as External Display
macOS 10.15 will have a new feature allowing users to send a window to an external display. That display could be an iPad, as well as a standard external display, reported 9to5Mac. The reported feature, nicknamed ‘Sidecar’, seems to be Apple’s version of Luna Display. The new version of macOS is expected to be unveiled at WWDC in June.
According to people familiar with the development of macOS 10.15 – the next major version of Apple’s desktop OS – the new system will have a feature that allows users to send any window of any app to an external display. The external display can be an actual external display connected to the Mac or even an iPad. The new feature – called “Sidecar” internally – can be accessed via a simple menu. This new menu will be opened by hovering over the green “maximize” button in a Mac app window for a split second.
New Leica Ad Celebrates Photojournalism
Leica is a well-known camera brand, and today it released a five minute ad that celebrates photojournalism. Called ‘The Hunt’ it shows all of the stress, fear, drive, and life-threatening situations photojournalists face as they tell their stories. It was created by Brazilian agency F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi. We see scenes of an oppressive regime in China, an African warlord, conflict in the Middle East, and more. Although the photographers in the ad aren’t real, they do represent conditions that can happen in the real world.







