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Mon. 10/14 - Apple's Chinese Conundrum Oct 14, 2019

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More China related controversy for Apple, for gaming, for all of tech really… but why Apple suddenly finds itself in a unique bind. More iPhone SE 2 rumors, the latest installment of “Will We Actually Ever See Libra?” and why nobody can play Fortnite right now.

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How safe is Apple’s Safe Browsing? (Matthew Green)
Chinese app on Xi’s ideology allows data access to users’ phones, report says (The Washington Post)
Kuo: iPhone SE 2 Launching in Q1 2020 with A13 at $399 Price (MacRumors)
Facebook’s libra cryptocurrency coalition is falling apart as eBay, Visa, Mastercard and Stripe jump ship (CNBC)
SoftBank is reportedly seeking to take control of WeWork through a financing package (CNBC)
‘Fortnite’ Goes Dark: A Masterful Marketing Stroke by Epic Games (Variety)

Fri. 10/11 - Gruber Says Tim Cook's Email "Doesn't Add Up" Oct 11, 2019

Show notes

More on Apple’s China controversy, hands-on with Google’s Pixelbook Go laptop, Twitter returns to the Mac, Africa’s first homegrown smartphone, SpaceX and NASA kiss and make up, and of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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TIM COOK’S COMPANY-WIDE MEMO ON HKMAP.LIVE DOESN’T ADD UP (Daring Fireball)
Exclusive: This is the Google Pixelbook Go [Gallery] (9to5Google)
Twitter releases new Catalyst app for macOS Catalina (The Verge)
Rwanda just released the first smartphone made entirely in Africa (Fast Company)
NASA aims for first manned SpaceX mission in first-quarter 2020 (Reuters)
Apple Launches In-House Studio With 'Band of Brothers'/'The Pacific' Follow-Up (The Hollywood Reporter)

Weekend Longreads:

Is Amazon Unstoppable? (The New Yorker)
Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan (The Atlantic)
When GoFundMe Gets Ugly (The Atlantic)
Can a Machine Learn To Write For The New Yorker? (The New Yorker)
The Style-Quantifying Astrophysicists of Silicon Valley (Wired)
The State of Machine Learning Frameworks in 2019 (The Gradient)
Who Needs Moonshots? How Former Hollywood Mogul Barry Diller Built A $4.2 Billion Tech Fortune Out Of Underdog Assets (Forbes)

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Thu. 10/10 - Apple Removed the App Again... Oct 10, 2019

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Apple takes down the Hong Kong app that it reinstated after taking it down in the first place, Waymo will soon let real people into driverless cars, Grammarly is the newest unicorn, and why, if you live in the Bay Area, your house might be without power… but your work probably won’t be.

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Apple Removes App That Helps Hong Kong Protesters Track the Police (NYTimes)
APPLE REMOVES HKMAP.LIVE FROM APP STORE (Daring Fireball)
Apple, Google Pull Hong Kong Protest Apps After China Uproar (WSJ)
Tweetstorm (@Grummz)
Grammarly raises $90M at over $1B+ valuation for its AI-based grammar and writing tools (TechCrunch)
Splinter Shutting Down (Daily Beast)
Why the PG&E Blackouts Spared California's Big Tech HQs (Wired)
What Happens When Your Tweet Becomes a Subway Ad (One Zero)

Wed. 10/09 - Where Would We Be Without Lithium-Ion Batteries? Oct 09, 2019

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Twitter used your 2-Factor credentials to sell ads against you, the China/Hong Kong/tech controversies roll on, Mark Zuckerberg is going back to Washington, and the Nobel Prize for chemistry gives long overdue recognition to the most important technology innovation of our time.

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Tue. 10/08 - The PlayStation 5 Is Coming! Oct 08, 2019

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The PlayStation 5 is coming in about a year and Wired has the details, Hulu finally lets you download video, a gamer is banned for voicing support for Hong Kong protesters, how the Galaxy Fold was “fixed,” and Robinhood takes another crack at Cash Management.

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Castro
Vistaprint.com promo code Ride

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Exclusive: A Deeper Look at the PlayStation 5 (Wired)
Hulu finally launches support for downloads, initially to ad-free viewers (TechCrunch)
Group Nine to Acquire PopSugar, Continuing Wave of Digital Media Tie-Ups (The WSJ)
Blizzard Bans Gamer, Rescinds Money, on Hong Kong Protest Support (Bloomberg)
Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments (Hacker News)
Samsung Galaxy Fold Teardown (iFixit)
Robinhood revives checking with new debit card & 2% interest (TechCrunch)
Researchers “Translate” Bat Talk. Turns Out, They Argue—A Lot (Smithsonian.com)

Mon. 10/07 - macOS Catalina is Here! Oct 07, 2019

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A Kindle Kids Edition is here, Sonos speakers via subscription is here, macOS Catalina is here, but the following tab is gone from Instagram, PayPal is ghosting Libra, and why investors think the time to jump into Quantum Computing is now.

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Amazon debuts its first ever Kindle Kids Edition (CNET)
New Sonos service lets you rent its speakers (The Verge)
Instagram’s Following Activity Tab Is Going Away (BuzzFeed News)
Music labels wary as Apple tries to bundle subscriptions (Financial Times)
Apple’s macOS Catalina update is coming today (The Verge)
macOS Catalina Review (iMore)
PayPal Bails on Facebook-Led Libra Cryptocurrency Dream (Bloomberg)
PayPal withdraws from Facebook’s libra cryptocurrency (CNBC)
Quantum gold rush: the private funding pouring into quantum start-ups (Nature)

(Bonus) Waymo's Head of Hardware, Satish Jeyachandran Oct 05, 2019

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Satish Jeyachandran is the Head of Hardware at Waymo. Before that he lead the self-driving team at Tesla, so he was in charge of the Autopilot team, and his job change lead to headlines at the time. Today Satish gives us a history lesson on Waymo, tells us what the future holds for self-driving tech generally, and most importantly for me, answers a question I’ve always wondered. Why go for full autonomy? If you can give me the ability to let the car drive itself on highways, why not give me that now? Why try to solve the full 99.99% of the problem? It turns out, that Waymo learned you can’t do half measures. You have to do full autonomy or you do nothing. Very interesting conversation.

Fri. 10/04 - BAD Android Zero-Day Out There... Oct 04, 2019

Show notes

Really bad Android zero-day discovered, is the scooter space back? Apple makes an interesting acquisition, an exoskeleton allows a paralyzed man to walk again and of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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Attackers exploit 0-day vulnerability that gives full control of Android phones (ArsTechnica)
Bird raises $275 million Series D round at a $2.5 billion valuation (TechCrunch)
Apple May Have Acquired Motion Capture Company IKinema [Update: Confirmed] (MacRumors)
Apple’s AR plans may come to life after acquiring iKinema motion tech (VentureBeat)
A brain-controlled exoskeleton has let a paralyzed man walk in the lab (MIT Technology Review)

Weekend Longreads Suggestions:

The Off-the-Radar Baseball League That’s Trying to Reboot the Game (GEN)
Inside Disney’s New York Stream Factory (Variety)
My Time at Snap (@marko_tupper)
Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300 million to unleash growth. Then things got messy (CNN Business)
Where Toxic Masculinity Goes to Die (The Atlantic)
The Fallen Worlds of Philip Pullman (The New Yorker)

Thu. 10/03 - These Two Content Recommendation Companies Merged… You Won’t Believe What Happened Next! Oct 03, 2019

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Instagram launches Threads, the iPhone SE might ride again, the biggest content recommendation players have merged, Vice Media and Refinery 29 have merged, and why has Apple banned an app for users in Hong Kong?

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PixelUnion.net
Manscaped.com, code: "ride"

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Wed. 10/02 - Microsoft Is Back In The Smartphone Business Oct 02, 2019

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All the news from Microsoft’s Surface event… they’re making smartphones again! Anti-trust scrutiny gets results again as Apple says Siri will soon play nice with others, the Galaxy Fold reviews are in and might the other members of the Libra consortium be having second thoughts?

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