Linked List: April 1, 2016

Friday, 1 April 2016

Bloomberg Identifies FBI’s iPhone-Cracking Partner: Cellebrite 

Yaacov Benmeleh, reporting for Bloomberg:

The FBI was already a Cellebrite client before this project, the people said, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private. Cellebrite, founded in 1999, is a unit of Japan’s Sun Corporation. Sun Corp.’s shares are up almost 40 percent since March 21 when U.S. authorities said a third party had demonstrated a way to get into the iPhone.

Interesting that their share price would move so much on this.

Apple Flies Original Mac Team’s Pirate Flag for Company’s 40th Anniversary 

Apple Insider:

The flag resembles a stereotypical pirate flag, with the notable difference of a rainbow Apple “eyepatch”. It was originally hoisted by the Mac team in 1983, sewn together by programmer Steve Capps with an emblem painted by graphic designer Susan Kare.

The gesture was a reference to a quote by Jobs, “It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy,” and also marked the Mac team’s arrival in a new office building.

Update: Andy Hertzfeld on the story behind the flag.

Google Takes Internet Jackass Day to New Low With Gmail ‘Mic Drop’ Button 

You would think that the people who run Gmail understand that you can’t fuck around with people’s email. A terrible idea poorly executed. Exemplifies everything that’s wrong with Google’s company culture — they are institutionally socially inept.

Harry McCracken:

I am NEVER going to get in a Google self-driving car on April Fools’ Day.

Tesla Unveils Model 3 

A few notes and observations:

  • This car looks impressive, and with a starting price of just $35,000, it’s built to sell. As Musk explains on stage, this is the car they’ve been working toward — one for the mass market.
  • Tesla really has a great story.
  • “At Tesla we don’t make slow cars” — great line from Musk, on the quality of the baseline model.
  • At just 22 minutes, the event was wonderfully succinct. If you haven’t watched the whole event, I recommend it.
  • I thought Musk was a little under-rehearsed.
  • The crowd enthusiasm was palpable. Tesla took over 115,000 pre-orders before anyone had even seen the car. That is trust — and rather incredible for a car that they don’t intend to ship until the end of next year.
  • I think the car looks a little weird from the front, because it lacks a grill. But perhaps that’s just skating to where the puck is going to be in the EV world.

Extremely impressive overall. Tesla has a lot to do between now and putting hundreds of thousands of these Model 3s on the road, but it certainly looks like they’re building something amazing.