On 31 July 2018, the planet Mars will be closer to Earth than it has been in 15 years. Technically, it’s called opposition, and the distance will be 35.7 million miles (57.6 million kilometers.) Look south in the late evening, west of the constellation Sagittarius, to see the dazzling red planet. Even a small telescope will bring out some detail, polar cap, etc. And check with your local planetarium for a special observing event. This NASA doc has the details.

Have we reached peaked smart home? Craig Lloyd writes that we have, and there are a couple of things holding the industry back, like competing standards, expensive devices, and problems with voice control.

There’s a problem with the smarthome industry—multiple problems, actually. And after experiencing a huge boom over the last few years, smarthome as a whole has reached a plateau of sorts.

Don’t get us wrong; smarthome technology is a really exciting market, and it’s become so popular that big players like Amazon and Google have dived head first into offering comprehensive smarthome product lines. The thing is, smarthome in general still has a long way to go.

Jaron Lanier is a VR pioneer, musician and author and he’s been around Silicon Valley for most of his life. He has a new book called Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now and he takes a look at social media that was supposed to «connect humanity» but instead divides us. His argument is to delete social media accounts.

“If info-consumers see the world through agent’s eyes, then advertising will transform into the art of controlling agents, through bribing, hacking, whatever,” Lanier wrote, presciently. “You can imagine an arms race” between armor-plated agents and hacker-laden ad agencies. Lovely . . . An agent’s model of what you are interested in will be a cartoon model, and you will see a cartoon version of the world through the agent’s eyes.”

Why did Planet of the Apps tank? It’s not because it wasn’t compelling or that it was poorly edited; it’s because Apple sucked at marketing the series. Or at least that’s what Gary Vaynerchuk says. Business Insider caught his comments from an Ask Gary Vee video. Vaynerchuk, who was one of the celebrity business mentors on the show, said,

I was on an Apple show, ‘Planet of the Apps,’ Gwyneth [Paltrow], Will[.i.am], Jessica Alba, and me. And Apple didn’t use me or Vayner to do the marketing, and did everything wrong. Apple!

He goes on to say he was frustrated during Apple’s marketing meetings, Apple did «everything wrong» with its marketing, and Jimmy Iovine should’ve been more involved. Considering how flat the show was, it’s hard to imagine any level of marketing would’ve helped make the show a success.

Laurene Powell Jobs invested some of her immense fortune in The Atlantic magazine in 2017. If you’ve been wondering what she’s been up to since, Politico (via Philip Elmer-DeWitt) reported a major expansion of The Atlantic’s political coverage, including 10 new job openings. From Politico:

The Atlantic is posting 10 new jobs today, including three White House reporters and two Pentagon reporters. There are also new openings to cover the State Department, intelligence, immigration and politics. The Washington hiring spree is part of a broader expansion announced in February under new majority owner Laurene Powell Jobs and Atlantic Media chairman David Bradley.