Linked List: September 4, 2013

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Behind the Scenes of Microsoft’s Nokia Acquisition ★

Nick Wingfield, reporting for the NYT Bits blog:

Microsoft and Nokia decided to reconvene over Memorial Day weekend in May at the London offices of Simpson Thacher, one of Microsoft’s law firms, when a small disaster struck.

Mr. Ballmer and Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, were walking across the law firm’s lobby, when Mr. Ballmer — absorbed in reading a document from Nokia related to the deal — tripped on a glass coffee table. Letting out a loud shriek, Mr. Ballmer fell to floor, hit his head and began bleeding above his eyebrow.

Executives from Nokia sequestered in a conference room elsewhere in the offices were baffled by the sound, wondering whether Mr. Ballmer was reacting badly to a counter-proposal they had made. His security detail patched him up, and Mr. Ballmer resumed negotiations.

By the afternoon of the next day, participants in the discussions noticed the coffee table was gone.

A bloody mess, both literally and figuratively.

Another Nokia Explanation ★

Ben Thompson:

The problem for Microsoft in mobile is that Android has completely destroyed the value of a licensed OS; Microsoft’s traditional software model is broken.

And Microsoft doesn’t really know what to do.

‘The Hell With You, I’m Not Putting My Camera There’ ★

Ken Adam on working with Stanley Kubrick:

When Letizia, Sir Ken’s Italian-born wife, came out to Ireland she was shocked at his state of mind. She persuaded him to return to England and see a doctor for the sake of his health.

“So now I was in hospital in England with a breakdown. Stanley rang the hospital every day to see how I was doing and if I was still alive. The day I left he phoned me at home.

“He said: ‘Ken you were right: we’re going to change the way we’re making the film and you’ll love it. I’m sending a second unit to Potsdam in Germany to pick up extra material and I want you to direct it.”

Sir Ken laughs. “Well I found that idea such a huge shock I had to go straight back to the clinic and check in again.”

Google Play Services: Google’s Solution to Android Fragmentation ★

Ron Amadeo, writing for Ars Technica:

Calling Play Services an “app” doesn’t really tell the whole story. For starters, it has an insane amount of permissions. It’s basically a system-level process, and if the above list isn’t enough for whatever it needs to do next, it can actually give itself more permissions without the user’s consent. Play Services constantly runs in the background of every Android phone, and nearly every Google app relies on it to function. It’s updatable, but it doesn’t update through the Play Store like every other app. It has its own silent, automatic update mechanism that the user has no control over. In fact, most of the time the user never even knows an update has happened. The reason for the complete and absolute power this app has is simple: Google Play Services is Google’s new platform.

The big thing is that it’s available on 98.7 percent of active Android devices. So for Google’s own services, Android fragmentation is a solved problem. I don’t see how this helps third-party developers deal with Android fragmentation, though (other than integration between their apps and Google services). Google has solved their own fragmentation problem, and that’s it.

Qualcomm Announces $300 ‘Toq’ Smartwatch ★

Better than Samsung’s, because it has an always-on display:

The watch, which is pronounced “talk” and is expected to sell for around $300, uses Qualcomm’s Mirasol display — a screen technology that combines the long battery life of E-Ink-style displays with color and other features usually found on an LCD display. It also packs Qualcomm-backed WiPower LE wireless charging, and connects to an Android phone via Bluetooth.

But it’s not even a serious consumer product:

“We expect to make tens of thousands of these, not hundreds of thousands,” Qualcomm executive Rob Chandhok said in an interview. “A success, for us, looks like our partners picking up and running with this. Qualcomm isn’t turning into a consumer electronics company.”

Bottom line: if your “smartwatch” is no more elegant than a previous-generation iPod Nano snapped onto a watchband, don’t even bother.

‘Many Dear Friends Wish I Would Shut the Fuck Up Regarding the Gotham Filter.’ ★

Michael Lopp:

I have an opinion about Gotham. Yes, I’m spending my time obsessing about a retired, apparently unpopular Instagram filter, but my obsession is a gateway drug. It leads to the real addiction of building a defensible opinion.

‘A Little Bit of Dancing on Their Grave’ ★

My podcast, The Talk Show, returns from its summer hiatus. We’re easing back into things with a brief two-hour plus episode featuring special guest John Siracusa. We talk Microsoft, and we talk Nintendo. It’s a good one.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Gear Watch ★

Vlad Savov:

There are a couple of significant downsides that temper my enthusiasm for the new Gear. First and foremost is the speed and intuitiveness of the user interface — or rather, the lack thereof. There’s a tangible lag to anything you do with the Gear, while the swipe gestures are hard to figure out and do different things depending on where you are in the menus. […]

Also important will be the Galaxy Gear’s battery life. It does use the Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy standard to communicate, but at 315mAh its battery is decidedly small. Samsung promises “about a day” of endurance from the Gear, but by the end of our briefing with the company, the cameras on most of its demo units were refusing to turn on due to the watches running low on power.

About the best you could expect from Samsung without having anything to copy from Apple: overpriced, ugly, laggy UI, terrible battery life, dubious utility.