Linked List: August 11, 2014

Monday, 11 August 2014

Robin Williams, Beloved Genius, Dies at 63 ★

Portrait of Robin Williams in 2011

Mat Honan Liked Everything He Saw on Facebook for Two Days ★

Mat Honan:

Likewise, content mills rose to the top. Nearly my entire feed was given over to Upworthy and the Huffington Post. As I went to bed that first night and scrolled through my News Feed, the updates I saw were (in order): Huffington Post, Upworthy, Huffington Post, Upworthy, a Levi’s ad, Space.com, Huffington Post, Upworthy, The Verge, Huffington Post, Space.com, Upworthy, Space.com.

If a corporation could have a wet dream, this would be Facebook’s.

Inside Apple University ★

Brian X. Chen, writing for the NYT:

Randy Nelson, who came from the animation studio Pixar, co-founded by Mr. Jobs, is one of the teachers of “Communicating at Apple.” This course, open to various levels of employees, focuses on clear communication, not just for making products intuitive, but also for sharing ideas with peers and marketing products.

In a version of the class taught last year, Mr. Nelson showed a slide of “The Bull,” a series of 11 lithographs of a bull that Picasso created over about a month, starting in late 1945. In the early stages, the bull has a snout, shoulder shanks and hooves, but over the iterations, those details vanish. The last image is a curvy stick figure that is still unmistakably a bull.

“You go through more iterations until you can simply deliver your message in a very concise way, and that is true to the Apple brand and everything we do,” recalled one person who took the course.

Kudos for Chen for getting a few sources to speak about Apple University. Pretty sure no other company has anything like it. (Well, except Pixar.)

Christopher Wright on the Amazon vs. Hachette Fight ★

Christopher Wright:

Here is the secret to understanding my take on Amazon: they’re not part of the publishing industry, although the things they do certainly affect it. They’re not a service and retail company, though that is the way they make all their money. At its core, Amazon is and always has been part of the computer industry, and if you view them from that perspective their business practices should scare the shit out of you.

Chinese Regulation/Censorship of Social Media ★

Lily Kuo, writing for Quartz:

For the past four years, China’s government and its far-reaching bureaucracy have embarked on a campaign to take back China’s weibo microblog scene from the masses, who have been using social media services to expose corrupt officials, circulate news, and air their opinions.

And it’s working. According to a new study by media researchers based in China and the US, the government’s 176,000 microblogs are trying to control much of the discussion online, by offering official interpretations of public events, while contrary views are ruthlessly deleted by Great Firewall censors.

In the latest government maneuver, China released new restrictive regulations today seemingly aimed at Tencent’s popular WeChat chat service, which has also become a de facto town square where current events are discussed. According to the People’s Daily, only the public accounts of media agencies can post or re-post political news on instant messaging apps like WeChat. New users will also have to provide their real names and sign a contract promising they will “obey the law and respect the socialist system.”

We in the U.S. are fortunate that our most popular social media site has a completely transparent and open system for what people see in their news feeds. Wait, what.

New Microsoft Surface Ads Take on MacBooks (and iPads) Directly ★

I think these are pretty good ads. They make the case for Surface — one device that serves both as a traditional laptop PC and an iPad-style tablet — succinctly.

What’s more interesting to me is how by mocking Apple’s products by name, these spots illustrate how clearly the tables have turned in the last decade. Apple could run the “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” campaign a decade ago because they were the underdog. It’s nearly impossible for the market leader to belittle its competition by name without appearing small, defensive, bullying — or all of the above. Pepsi makes fun of Coke, but Coke never even mentions Pepsi.

It’s another pillar of the Church of Market Share crumbling. MacBooks don’t have even close to a market share lead in laptops, and the iPad doesn’t have one in tablets, either — but Apple is the clear leader in both markets because they dominate the profitable high-end in both.

Apple Maps vs. Google Maps Usage Data From U.K. Carrier EE ★

EE:

EE, the UK’s most advanced digital communications company, today released the latest 4GEE Mobile Living Index. The Index, which has analysed mobile data use and 4G customer trends since early 2013, reveals that although the amount of time people spend on mobile internet has remained stable, customers are doing more on their devices. Average data usage has also increased by 66% in the last 12 months, outstripping 3G customers on both Orange and T-Mobile plans. […]

Traffic on the new Apple Maps now represents 70% of mapping traffic on the 4G network, from 60% in the second half of 2013, taking market share from Google maps, which is down 7ppts. This difference is even more marked over 3G where Apple Maps is up 19ppts and Google Maps is down 15ppts.

That’s just one carrier, in one country, and presumably EE mobile usage skews heavily toward the iPhone over Android, given the above maps usage stats. But interesting nonetheless.

(Via Tom Watson.)

First-Person Hyperlapse Videos ★

Very impressive work from Microsoft Research:

We present a method for converting first-person videos, for example, captured with a helmet camera during activities such as rock climbing or bicycling, into hyperlapse videos: time-lapse videos with a smoothly moving camera.

The difference between the before and after footage is astounding.

Throw Like a Girl ★

Awesome local news:

Female pitcher Mo’Ne Davis led her team into the Little League World Series, throwing a three-hitter Sunday to lead Taney Youth Baseball Association Little League of Philadelphia to an 8-0 victory over a squad from Delaware.

Davis struck out six in the six-inning game in the Mid-Atlantic Regional championship game.

The 13-year-old will become only the 17th girl to play in the Little League World Series in 68 years. It starts Thursday in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

More on the game here, from Max Cohen of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Taney is the league my son plays in and I’ve coached for; it’s a great league. Mo’Ne has been the talk of the league all year: “You’ve got to see this girl pitching for the 12/13 travel team.” She throws a 70 MPH fastball and a mean curveball that just drops.

Now we can all watch her — on ESPN.