WeChat is more than a messaging app, it might be a mobile OS

WeChat is more than a messaging app, it might be a mobile OS: "China's WeChat is a messaging app tha offers just about everything, from text messaging to instant payments. It's a monster, with mote than 1 billion registered users. "

His kung fu is very strong.

In China, you pay with cash or Alipay

In China, you pay with cash or Alipay: "App name: Alipay (Zhifubao) What it is: Almost-universal Paypal Owned by: Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma What it does: Allows you to pay for anything, anywhere. Special sauce: No transaction fees and an escrow service to verify goods before you pay"

This escrow "business" is the future of ecommerce.

The Windows Phone story: From hope to dusty abandonware • The Register

The Windows Phone story: From hope to dusty abandonware • The Register: "Spring cleaning the other day, my wife found a Windows wristband. It was in a box where ten year old 4MB MMC cards went to die, along with paperclips, odd screws and a lot of dust. Keep or chuck? Chuck, I said, before looking closer, and realising that it was a time capsule buried in another era: a USB drive with press materials on it.">

Windows Phone is dead, you know, just like how Apple was pronounced dead by Rolling Stone back in the late 1990s. Not only does Microsoft now have a Phone OS and a phone hardware division, they also have the best cross-platform mobile tools in existence: Xamarin. Windows Phone is dead, long live Windows Phone.

Anticipating WWDC 2016: What's in store for Apple's Macs and OS X

Anticipating WWDC 2016: What's in store for Apple's Macs and OS X: "Apple has sold far more iOS devices than Macs over the past several years, but as a $20 billion business, the Mac platform remains extremely important to the company. "

More importantly, it's important to me. This is all about me, me, me!

Op-ed: Oracle attorney says Google’s court victory might kill the GPL | Ars Technica

Op-ed: Oracle attorney says Google’s court victory might kill the GPL | Ars Technica: "If that narrative becomes the law of the land, you can kiss GPL (general public license) goodbye. "

No wait, I'm the defender of the GPL! This was a pro-bono case from top to bottom.

Google staves off Oracle code copyright claim

Google staves off Oracle code copyright claim: "Putting an end to a contentious trial, a jury on Thursday found that Google's implementation of 37 Java APIs in Android represented fair use — rebuffing complaints by Java's nominal owner, Oracle."

Giving a tentative yay for this but not because I like Java. Without the ability to re-implement declared APIs, there would be no Mono Project, no GNU LIBC and a whole host of other reimplementaions of pre-existing library code.

Apple supplier Foxconn replaces 60,000 workers with robots

Apple supplier Foxconn replaces 60,000 workers with robots: "Apple's primary manufacturing partner, Foxconn, has replaced 60,000 people with robots at a single factory in Kunshan, China, a report said on Wednesday."

Hello Skynet! Robots building always-connected UNIX devices. Need I say more?

Adonit ships new Pixel stylus to compete with Apple Pencil

Adonit ships new Pixel stylus to compete with Apple Pencil: "One of the most important improvements is predictive touch, which should boost accuracy and reduce latency, two of the main perks of choosing Apple's stylus. The Pixel also has 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, offset correction, and palm rejection in supported apps. Full feature support must be implemented by app developers using a provided SDK — compatible apps so far include titles like Astropad and Autodesk SketchBook."

Tough sailing ahead, good luck guys!

Touch ID, OLED touch bar to highlight thinner MacBook Pro models in Q4

Touch ID, OLED touch bar to highlight thinner MacBook Pro models in Q4: "Specifically, Kuo believes Apple plans to introduce a Touch ID fingerprint reader into the new MacBook Pro chassis, which if true will be the first non-iOS implementation of the biometric security system."

More of the worst design; when ideas that are great concepts for mobile are incredulously stapled onto the Mac. Among the worst iOS features ever introduced on the Desktop: notifications which interrupt your train of thought to tell you some irrelevant and highly distracting "information" that you never asked for. My favorite feature of 10.8 is that notifications can only be disabled by removing the appropriate framework from the /System/Library folder. That works quite well.

Apple, Maine Department of Education working to swap 'toy' iPads for MacBooks

Apple, Maine Department of Education working to swap 'toy' iPads for MacBooks: "The Maine Department of Education is working with Apple to give some schools the option of trading in classroom-based iPads for new MacBooks at no cost, as teachers have found the tablets "provide no educational function in the classroom.""

OTOH, a MacBook could change your life by raising your IQ.

To halt smartphone slide, Samsung rewrites playbook

Cover Stories on Flipboard: "We've now gotten to a point where we can secure a baseline profit even if the market stagnates, so long as we don't make a bad mistake," said Kim Gae-youn, vice president in charge of Samsung's smartphone product planning. "I'm confident we can hold our ground."

It's adapt or die and they adapted.

Fresh on Designspiration

Fresh on Designspiration: "Artist Nick Smith Presents NSFW Modern"

So original and inside baseball on the Pantone front.

From drone racers to pinball: Maker Faire Bay Area 2016 doesn’t disappoint | Ars Technica

From drone racers to pinball: Maker Faire Bay Area 2016 doesn’t disappoint | Ars Technica: "SAN MATEO, Calif.—Maker Faire never gets old. While we only scratched the surface after a 90 minute walk through the fairgrounds, the drone racing was the coolest thing that we saw on Friday afternoon. Every 10 minutes, a few drone pilots would sit with headsets and zoom their aircraft through a netted raceway, replete with an illuminated track. (Check the video below!)"

Lord of the things!

iFixit 64 Bit Driver Kit | StackSocial

iFixit 64 Bit Driver Kit | StackSocial: "Constantly taking your favorite gadgets in for quick repairs can get pricey. With 64 purpose-driven screwdriver bits curated from thousands of repair guides, you can take quick repairs into your own hands and save major cash. Armed with an Ergonomic Aluminum Handle, this is the all-encompassing kit to solve all "

Torx on that!

I/O 2016: Google launches Android N beta with speed boosts, VR hooks & iOS-drawn improvements

I/O 2016: Google launches Android N beta with speed boosts, VR hooks & iOS-drawn improvements: "Borrowing from iOS, users will be able to quick-reply to messages from notifications. "

Does this mean that iOS' haptic feedback is drawn from Microsoft? I, too, can butcher the language for my own Machiavellian purposes.

Sun’s head of Java sales: Android was “devastating” | Ars Technica

Sun’s head of Java sales: Android was “devastating” | Ars Technica: "'Java's not an operating system,' Civjan answered. 'Java's a platform.'

Civjan also acknowledged that despite the declining revenue, he was able to hit all his revenue targets while at Sun."

Another way of looking at Java: a crappy interpreted language with a bunch of class libraries loosely based on the designs of practically everything that came before it.

Java ME is best described as a hilarious joke.

3 IT skills that boost pay 22 percent - Business Insider

3 IT skills that boost pay 22 percent - Business Insider: "Scala, worth a 21.8% pay boost: Scala is a programming language that stands for 'scalable language' that has been experiencing a surge in popularity recently."

I wonder what the pay boost is for finding bugs in the Scala compiler that make Scala unsuitable for production work?

42 launches in the US - Business Insider

42 launches in the US - Business Insider: "A radical French technology school funded by $100 million from billionaire entrepreneur Xavier Niel is coming to Silicon Valley, and has plans to grow to 10,000 students in the next five years."

Here's the latest trend in paternalistic white ageism!

IBM's optical storage is 50 times faster than flash

IBM's optical storage is 50 times faster than flash: "Flash storage is too slow for your device's main memory, but RAM is expensive and volatile. Thanks to a breakthrough from IBM, phase-change memory (PCM) might one day replace them both."

Coming any day now. Like when I first heard about flash storage in 1983.

Microsoft releases Windows 10 preview for Raspberry Pi 3 • The Register

Microsoft releases Windows 10 preview for Raspberry Pi 3 • The Register: "Microsoft's keen to be associated with the Pi mission of teaching computing to kiddies. But Redmond also has its own interests to advance, namely that that Windows 10 IoT Core provides hooks a-plenty to Azure, with the cloudy service offering all sorts of as-a-services that thing-makers can use to collect and crunch data."

Strategic thinking at it's best.

The unreal price of old Apple tech and our Lust List of the gadgets we covet on The CultCast | Cult of Mac

The unreal price of old Apple tech and our Lust List of the gadgets we covet on The CultCast | Cult of Mac: "This week, on The CultCast: Apple aims to end music downloads; you can now live stream your aerial drone flights to iDevices worldwide; staggering facts about who’s making money in the app store; creators of Siri demo an even smarter AI; the ridiculous resale value of old Apple tech; and we reveal our Lust List of the gadgets we’re currently coveting."

20 years from now, the most significant thing about the "mint condition iPad2 for sale on craiglist" will be the nag screens for iOS 9. I guess that'll be nostalgia for the millennials. To think that Apple once lampooned Microsoft for annoying popup boxes. I guess one man's annoying is another man's timely reminder.

Unfortunately, despite the nags, iOS 9 won't install correctly then because the Apple servers will no longer be around to certify the OS upgrade. The good news is there will be a Linux distro that runs perfectly and includes a GPL iOS 8 emulator written by a disgruntled Apple employee.

When the EMP pulse takes out all the Silicon Valley data centers, I'll be running my collection of Snow Leopard-era MacBook Pros from a CD hardcopy. The dystopian futurist in me is waiting for the OTA upgrade that bricks every mobile device at once and the resultant class action lawsuit(s).

Despite Q2 sales dip, Apple's Macs, iPad and iPhone continue to outperform the industry

Despite Q2 sales dip, Apple's Macs, iPad and iPhone continue to outperform the industry: "Over the past quarter, reports from all over have been belaboring the idea that Apple is on the edge of crisis because its iPhone sales—which represent the majority of its business—declined year-over-year and because China—its brightest growth territory—similarly turned in disappointing sales numbers across the board."

Three percent of a big number is still a big number.

Who Will Debunk The Debunkers? | FiveThirtyEight

Who Will Debunk The Debunkers? | FiveThirtyEight: "In 2012, network scientist and data theorist Samuel Arbesman published a disturbing thesis: What we think of as established knowledge decays over time. According to his book ‘The Half-Life of Facts,’ certain kinds of propositions that may seem bulletproof today will be forgotten by next Tuesday; one’s reality can end up out of date. Take, for example, the story of Popeye and his spinach."

Nothing succeeds like bad science. The PR industry has known that for at least 75 years.

After three weeks in China, it's clear Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor - Recode

After three weeks in China, it's clear Beijing is Silicon Valley's only true competitor - Recode: "Beijing will be the only true competitor to Silicon Valley in the next 10 years."

Bye-bye god complex. And "Ethics? What does that mean?"

Uber drivers waiting in villages near Heathrow cause 'huge distress' | Technology | The Guardian

Uber drivers waiting in villages near Heathrow cause 'huge distress' | Technology | The Guardian: "Instead, Heathrow has announced it is planning to build a waiting area capable of holding about 800 private hire vehicles on the airport’s northern perimeter road."

As the world turns.

Lower MacBook sales push Apple down to sixth place in laptop marketshare

Lower MacBook sales push Apple down to sixth place in laptop marketshare: "A drop in MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air shipments year-over-year likewise resulted in Apple losing share in the world's declining laptop market, according to March-quarter research data."

Maybe it's time to rethink that strategy of making jewelry and go back to making computers. I like that new rose gold model, it'll make a great gift for a Silicon Valley trophy wife. That's a market of at least 100. Hmmm, add the oligopolists. Now we're up to 500. Let's call it a Facebook appliance and be done with it.

Star pupil finds lost Mayan city by studying ancient charts of the night sky from his bedroom

Star pupil finds lost Mayan city by studying ancient charts of the night sky from his bedroom: "‘I was really surprised and excited when I realised that the most brilliant stars of the constellations matched the largest Maya cities,’ he told the Journal de Montréal."

A more interesting question is how a "primitive culture" could lay out geometrically precise arrangements of buildings (mapping star positions) across uneven terrain. Maybe they had help with an aerial view.

Amazon makes jump into self-published videos with Amazon Video Direct

Amazon makes jump into self-published videos with Amazon Video Direct: "Some of the partners already enrolled in Video Direct include Conde Nast, HowStuffWorks, The Guardian, Mattel, Machinima, Samuel Goldwyn Films, and Journeyman Pictures."

The advantage that YouTube has is that it's everywhere. Prime Video isn't even in Canada.

Apple remains no. 1 PC maker, despite falling Mac sales

Apple remains no. 1 PC maker, despite falling Mac sales: "Apple has once again been named the No. 1 seller of PCs, based on shipments of just over 14 million units in the first three months of 2016."

If only there weren't so many vendors.

Atom Text Editor, Hackable and Portable

Atom: " Atom is a text editor that's modern, approachable, yet hackable to the core—a tool you can customize to do anything but also use productively without ever touching a config file."

The intro video is hilarious.

A Cult of Mac exclusive deal on an amazing light field camera.

A Cult of Mac exclusive deal on an amazing light field camera.
Thanks to the Illum, we may need to reconsider what the word “picture” means. Lytro’s game-changing camera takes “living images” that can be refocused and explored in 3-D, like some kind of precursor to a hologram.

Hot Deal.

Snopes declares Apple Music deletion fears 'mostly false'

Snopes declares Apple Music deletion fears 'mostly false': "According to Snopes, the rumors we’ve heard are ‘Mostly False.’ But here’s what that means."

Unfortunately, "mostly false" is a self-contradictory statement. It only needs to be true once to suck. And if it's true under some conditions, it's probably true for a lot of people. Because a small percentage of a very large number is still a large number.

I, Cringely Equity crowdfunding finally arrives May 15th: curb your enthusiasm - I, Cringely

I, Cringely Equity crowdfunding finally arrives May 15th: curb your enthusiasm - I, Cringely: "But equity crowd funding under Title III of the Act — crowd funding for regular investors — was controversial from the start, which may help explain why it has taken so long to happen. Once the Act was signed into law in April, 2012 the issue of potential fraud took center stage. Equity crowd funding with its necessarily relaxed reporting and investor qualification requirements looked to some people like a scam in the making. Having barely survived the financial crisis of 2008 promulgated by huge financial institutions, were we ready to do it all over again but this time at the mercy of Internet-based scam artists? "

It's imperative that Wall Street continues to dominate the market for securities fraud.

From Paintbox to PC: How London became the home of Hollywood VFX | Ars Technica

From Paintbox to PC: How London became the home of Hollywood VFX | Ars Technica: "For 12 years, McGee worked out of this room, painting onto the screen, his eyes left bloodshot and burning from the smoke as runners dashed in and out to empty overflowing ashtrays. It was a painstaking process; the Quantel Paintbox and its pressure-sensitive stylus were groundbreaking pieces of technology when they were released in 1981, but they had their limitations. "

Kickin' it old school in London.