Linked List: May 11, 2015

Monday, 11 May 2015

Google Reveals Safety Record of Self-Driving Car Program 

Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving car program, for Medium’s Backchannel:

If you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you’re in a car or a self-driving car. Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.

Good numbers, but maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. “Safer than human drivers” is probably setting the bar way, way too low.

NBC News: ‘Pakistanis Knew Where Bin Laden Was, Say US Sources’ 

NBC News has a new report backing a significant part of Seymour Hersh’s blockbuster story:

Two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a “walk in” asset from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding - and these two sources plus a third say that the Pakistani government knew where bin Laden was hiding all along. […]

The NBC News sources who confirm that a Pakistani intelligence official became a “walk in” asset include the special operations officer and a CIA officer who had served in Pakistan. These two sources and a third source, a very senior former U.S. intelligence official, also say that elements of the ISI were aware of bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. The former official was emphatic about the ISI’s awareness, saying twice, “They knew.”

See Also: The Intercept points to R.J. Hillhouse, who posted this report back in August 2011 on her website, The Spy Who Billed Me. Her story, seemingly from different sources than Hersh’s, is largely in line with his report.

Update: NBC has retracted their original report. The story now claims:

While the Pakistani intelligence asset provided vital information in the hunt for bin Laden, he did not provide the location of the al Qaeda leader’s Abottabad, Pakistan compound, sources said.

Three sources also said that some officials in the Pakistani government knew where bin Laden was hiding all along.

iPhone Enterprise Share: 72 Percent 

Emil Protalinski, writing for VentureBeat:

Entering into 2015, Apple continues to rule the mobile enterprise space. iOS lost just 1 percentage point over the past quarter, dipping to 72 percent of global device activations in Q1 2015. Android device activations, meanwhile, gained the same amount to hit 26 percent of total activations last quarter.

The latest findings come from Good Technology’s Mobility Index Report, although because BlackBerry devices use BlackBerry Enterprise Server for corporate email access, Good Technology does not have insight into the Canadian company’s handset activations. Interestingly, the Windows desktop operating system appeared for the first time in the report this past quarter, registering 1 percent of activations.

Who would have predicted this sort of success for the iPhone in the corporate enterprise market back in 2007? Not me, that’s for sure.

Bob Mansfield’s Un-Retirement 

John Paczkowski, reporting back in November 2012:

Then, following Forstall’s ouster, Cook suddenly announced that Mansfield has agreed to stay with the company in his new position for another two years. As one source close to the company told AllThingsD, “The timing of Bob’s return is not coincidental.”

To begin with, Mansfield was not a fan of Forstall’s confrontational management style, and sources said he generally tried to avoid the iOS exec. Indeed, Bloomberg reported last year that Mansfield would meet with Forstall only if Cook were present to mediate. I’ve heard many similar stories.

“It wasn’t a him-or-me situation,” one source said of Mansfield’s return and Forstall’s departure. “But, put it this way, I think Bob was much more willing to commit to two more years once he knew Scott was on his way out.”

In short, Apple’s press release announcing Forstall’s departure was pretty much the straight dope: “Apple Announces Changes to Increase Collaboration Across Hardware, Software & Services”:

Apple today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams. As part of these changes, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.

‘A Fraught Relationship With Other Members of the Executive Team’ 

From Businessweek’s 2011 profile of Scott Forstall (a full year before his ouster):

Some former associates of Forstall, none of whom would comment on the record for fear of alienating Apple, say he routinely takes credit for collaborative successes, deflects blame for mistakes, and is maddeningly political. They say he has such a fraught relationship with other members of the executive team — including lead designer Jony Ive and Mac hardware chief Bob Mansfield — that they avoid meetings with him unless Tim Cook is present.

Later in the article:

Then there’s the other Forstall, the one former colleagues say wielded his relationship with Jobs as a bludgeon to expand his authority, and sent other talented execs packing. These include iPod chief Tony Fadell, who they say left Apple after clashing repeatedly with Forstall, and Jean-Marie Hullot. The CTO of Apple’s application division until 2005, Hullot, according to two people familiar with the situation but who weren’t authorized to speak on the record, left the company in part because he was unwilling to work with Forstall. Hullot, now CEO of Paris-based photo-sharing site Fotopedia, declined to comment on why he left Apple other than to say he was ready to try new things.

Forstall seems to engender one of two completely opposite emotions in people that have worked closely with him. Many rave that he works tirelessly, endures constant pressure, and has a comprehensive view of what’s happening in the industry. Others have a more visceral reaction to the mere mention of his name. Jon Rubinstein, a former iPod chief who left for Palm in 2006, chatted amiably at a Silicon Valley party last month, until Forstall’s name came up. Then he turned away abruptly. “Goodbye!” he said.

I’ll add this: I know a bunch of people who worked under Forstall on iOS — engineers, designers, and managers — who loved working for him.

Scott Forstall Emerges 

Stefanie Cohen of the WSJ landed the first post-Apple interview with Scott Forstall, in promotion of the Broadway musical he’s producing:

The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Forstall, who had a close relationship with Steve Jobs, was asked to leave Apple after the 2012 rollout of a new version of iPhone’s iOS contained a buggy new maps application — and after he refused to sign a public apology letter about its shortcomings.

Asked about the split, Mr. Forstall said he was “so proud of the thousands of people I worked with [at Apple] and with whom I remain friends. I am delighted that they continue to turn out great and beloved products.”

Gracious answer. Sounds like he’s having fun with the play.

(Worth repeating: My understanding of Forstall’s ouster is that it was about personality conflicts with other Apple executives, not Maps. The Maps launch certainly didn’t help, but if you want a short summary of why Tim Cook fired him, “because of Maps” or “because he wouldn’t sign the apology for Maps” isn’t it.)

The Problems With Seymour Hersh’s Osama bin Laden Story 

Now, the chaser — writing at Vox, Max Fisher dissects Seymour Hersh’s blockbuster report on the killing of bin Laden:

Why, for example, would the Pakistanis insist on a fake raid that would humiliate their country and the very military and intelligence leaders who supposedly instigated it?

A simpler question: why would Pakistan bother with the ostentatious fake raid at all, when anyone can imagine a dozen simpler, lower-risk, lower-cost ways to do this?

Why not just kill bin Laden, drive his body across the border into Afghanistan, and drop him off with the Americans? Or why not put him in a hut somewhere in Waziristan, blow it up with an F-16, pretend it was a US drone strike, and tell the Americans to go collect the body? (Indeed, when I first heard about Hersh’s bin Laden story a few years ago from a New Yorker editor — the magazine, the editor said, had rejected it repeatedly, to the point of creating bad blood between Hersh and editor-in-chief David Remnick — this was the version Hersh was said to favor.)

My first concern when I started reading Hersh’s story was why wasn’t it published by The New Yorker? That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but clearly it wasn’t up to their standards.