Linked List: June 17, 2015

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Chance Miller, writing for 9to5Mac:

Speaking in an interview with CNBC, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg said that the company’s traffic has grown 600 percent over the past two years. A variety of factors likely played a role in this explosion of growth, but it is mainly attributable to the NSA’s surveillance program, which was revealed two years ago, and Apple adding it as a default search option with iOS 8 and Safari 7.1 on the Mac.

Would be fascinating to see how usage would spike if Apple set it as the default search engine.

Jim Dalrymple on Apple Watch, HealthKit, and Fitness ★

Solid review of the overall Apple Watch experience, with a very personal twist:

If Apple Watch says stand, I stand. I still don’t know why. Maybe I just want to complete those rings every day and feel good about that. Maybe standing every hour really is good for me. I don’t know, but I’ll indulge this little device on my wrist and stand.

I work out every day now. I have incorporated a two-mile, 3.5 mph treadmill walk, a two-mile outdoor walk, and some light interval training, with eating better. […]

As of this writing, and using the exercises I talked about, I have lost 42.4 pounds.

I saw Jim a few times last week, and he really does look like a new man.

Stephen Elop Out as Microsoft Merges Windows and Devices Groups ★

Peter Bright, reporting for Ars Technica:

Stephen Elop, the one-time Microsoft exec who left the company to become CEO of Nokia and then returned after overseeing the sale of Nokia’s devices division to Redmond, is to leave Microsoft as a result of a reorganization.

Headline from just 18 months ago: “Mulally Out, Elop Now Frontrunner for Top Microsoft Job”.