Linked List: May 22, 2013

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Brad Stone feature for Businessweek, “Inside Google’s Secret Lab”:

While Teller runs the day-to-day operations at X, he reports to Brin. (“Sergey is Bruce Wayne, and I’m Lucius Fox,” Teller says.) Colleagues say that since Page became CEO in late 2011, Brin spends most of his time immersed in the technical details of several projects at Google X. Although he declined several requests to speak for this story, on a typically bucolic day at the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif., Brin happens by a reporter and two Google spokespeople eating lunch outside and spontaneously joins the group. “I think I’m going to spend most of my time now on cars,” he says, by way of introduction. Asked about Google Glass, a project he championed and which he has been photographed testing on the New York City subway, he points to the device perched on his nose and says, “You know, this is basically done.”

(a) Glass is “basically done”? Really?

(b) If Google X is so secret why are Businessweek reporters invited to tour it and profile members of the team?

Windows vs. iPad: Compare Tablets ★

Microsoft still loves their product comparison checklists.

Update: And there’s a TV ad too. It’s cute in a playing-for-second-place way. Microsoft is pitching Windows 8 tablets as the natural rival for the iPad; implicit in this is the dismissal of Android tablets from the equation. The message isn’t “Buy a Windows tablet instead of an iPad” so much as “If you want something other than an iPad, you should buy a Windows tablet.” Are iPad users, en masse, clamoring for multiple apps sharing the screen side-by-side? For PowerPoint? No. This is pitched at people who don’t like the iPad. That’s a play for second place, because most people do like the iPad.

Funny how the tables have turned since the “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” days.

Tim Bray on Glass ★

Tim Bray:

But people, and there are a lot of them, who are saying “Glass is doomed because it’s dorky-looking/privacy-invasive/anti-social” are pretty well wrong; it’s more complex than that.

‘Don’t Say GIF’ ★

Fun song by Gonathan Mann.

Steve Jobs/James Murdoch E-Book Negotiations ★

Zachary Seward, writing for Quartz:

The emails have mostly been viewed in the context of the lawsuit, but they also provide an extraordinary view of high-stakes negotiation between the leaders of two powerful firms, Apple and News Corp. They start far apart, but over the course of five days, Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs successfully pulls the son of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch over to his side.

Interesting too, that the negotiations came so close to the debut of the iPad.

Michael Gartenberg Joins Apple ★

Connie Guglielmo, reporting for Forbes:

Michael Gartenberg, a longtime industry analyst known for covering digital media technologies and companies including Microsoft and Apple, has left his post as an analyst at Gartner Inc. to take a job with Apple.

Gartenberg didn’t immediately reply to a voicemail message left at his office at Apple asking him to talk about his new role for the Cupertino, California-based company. He is working on the marketing team under Apple’s global marketing chief Phil Schiller, according to sources.

Smart hire. Going to be weird seeing him on the other side of the line at Apple press events.

Reuters Headline Yesterday: ‘Intel CEO Shakes Up Units, Creates “New Devices” Group’ ★

Reuters headline three weeks ago: “Intel Picks Insider as CEO, Dashing Hopes for Shakeup”.

Dashed, indeed.

Azure Is the Future of Microsoft ★

Paul Thurrott:

Microsoft is a devices and services company. The services part is the biggest part. Azure is the king of Microsoft services. Azure is the future of Microsoft.

Azure is so key to Microsoft’s future, in fact, that I’m starting to question the use of the name Windows on that brand. In many ways it doesn’t make sense to call such a thing Windows at all. Azure’s a nice name. (And Azure SQL Database rolls off the tongue a lot more easily than does Windows Azure SQL Database. Just saying.)

I wrote yesterday that “Xbox is Microsoft’s foothold in the post-PC world.” That’s really just thinking about the device side. The cloud side is every bit as important. There is no post-PC world without ubiquitous cloud storage and messaging.

The Verge: ‘HTC in Disarray’ ★

Chris Ziegler, reporting for The Verge:

The Verge has learned that HTC’s Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC’s overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One.

It’s not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession — most recently Jason Gordon, the company’s vice president of global communications. Other fresh departures include global retail marketing manager Rebecca Rowland, director of digital marketing John Starkweather, and product strategy manager Eric Lin.

Pew: 94 Percent of U.S. Teenagers Who Use Social Media Use Facebook ★

Greg Sterling, Marketing Land:

According to the report, 95 percent of teens (12-17) use the internet and 81 percent of them use social media sites. Facebook is by far the most heavily adopted social site, with 94 percent of social media teens reporting they have a profile there.

That’s rather astounding.

Howard Gleckman on Apple’s Taxes ★

Howard Gleckman, writing for the Tax Policy Center:

Because Apple is so profitable, the dollars involved will certainly attract attention (this is a Senate committee after all, so that is the point). The report alleges Apple reduced its U.S. corporate income tax by an average of $10 billion-a-year for the past four years. Since the corporate levy generated only about $240 billion in 2012, $10 billion foregone from one company is a very big number indeed.

But while it added a few interesting twists, Apple cut its taxes with the same tools multinationals have been using for years to minimize their worldwide tax liability. And if there is a scandal, I suppose it is the very ordinariness of these transactions. Apple’s tax avoidance shop, it seems, is a lot less innovative than its phone designers.