Linked List: April 20, 2016

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

European Commission Charges Google With Abuse of Android’s ‘Dominant Position’ 

Mark Scott, reporting for the NYT:

Google has long stressed that Android, its popular mobile software, is open for anyone to use, including its rivals.

But the company’s claims are now under threat after Europe’s antitrust authorities on Wednesday charged the company with unfairly using Android to promote its own services — like mobile search — over those of its rivals. In doing so, regulators brought particular scrutiny to Google’s relationships with some of the world’s biggest cellphone makers, which have helped expand the reach of Android.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust chief, said Google had required some of the cellphone manufacturers to preinstall the company’s services, including its Google Play smartphone application store, and had given them unfair financial incentives to favor Google’s services on their mobile devices. Those practices undermined competition and consumer choice, she said.

Does Google play hardball? Yes. That’s the game. This seems like a bunch of bullshit. I agree with Nilay Patel here: “The EU’s idea of ‘potentially superior versions of Android’ is some real magical thinking.”

Researchers: Dyson Hand Dryers Spread Viral Germs 

Beth Mole, reporting for Ars Technica:

By far, the jet dryer was the biggest viral spreader in all measurements.

Clumping the data from all six heights together, the Dyson produced 60 times more plaques than the warm air dryer and 1,300 times more than paper towels. Of the viruses launched by the jet dryer, 70 percent were at the height of a small child’s face.

Looking across the distances tested, most of the jet dryer-launched viruses landed about 0.25 meters away. But at three meters, the number of plaque-forming viruses spread by the jet dryer was 500-fold greater than that from the warm air dryer (paper towels launched zero to this distance). In total across the distances, the jet dryer spread 20 times more viruses than the warm dryer and more than 190 times more than the paper towels.

It’s just one research project, but it seems pretty compelling. I’ve always preferred paper towels to any sort of air dryer. Speaking of which, from the DF archive: “How to Use a Paper Towel” — one of my favorite links ever.

Jason Snell on the Speed-Bump Update to the MacBook 

It’s faster, but the biggest change is that it’s now available in rose gold. Still just one port, and that port is USB-C, not Thunderbolt 3.

‘Humanae’ — A Color Palette of Human Skin Tones 

Photographer Angélica Dass’s Humanae is an ongoing project, matching portrait photos with Pantone colors of their skin tones. Perhaps someone should show this wide range of colors to Samsung’s marketing department. (Via Kottke.)

Manton Reece: Don’t Give Up on WWDC 

Manton Reece:

I think it’s possible to go out to WWDC without spending a fortune. You can attend AltConf, find an Airbnb room for $150/night, and stay a few days instead of all week. I downgraded my expectations for WWDC and booked a cheaper hotel room a couple of months ago. It’s about how much you want to be there.

In fact, I’d still argue that it’s less expensive to “attend” WWDC now because it has been proven how much you can get out of AltConf and other events without the $1600 conference ticket. When I went to my first WWDC back when it was held in San Jose (and the same could be said for the early years in San Francisco), hotels and flights were cheaper but it was pointless to attend without a ticket.

The problem with Manton’s idea is that there aren’t many Airbnb options within a walkable distance of Moscone. (Even if you don’t have a conference ticket, most of the social stuff you might want to attend is in the general area of SOMA or Union Square.) I count 83 results at this moment, and some of them are “shared rooms” (gross) and others are just as expensive as a decent hotel room.

WWDC as Community Hub, in the Face of San Francisco’s Hotel Prices 

Joe Cieplinski:

Folks say that WWDC is the one time where everyone in our community can get together, but frankly, the price of hotels in San Francisco has made that statement a bit disingenuous. Many — if not most — of us can’t afford to make it to this party, so maybe this is no longer the party for “everyone.” Maybe it’s time we acknowledged that WWDC has become a bit of a luxury, as much as that pains me to say.

San Francisco hotels have gotten really expensive. Looking at Priceline, four-star hotels in the general vicinity of Moscone are double — if not more — the price they were just a few years ago. To name just one example, the Parc 55 cost me around $250/night in June 2013. In 2011, I booked a room at the Parc 55 through Hotwire for $115/night. That seems downright comical today. This year, rooms at the Parc 55 are running over $400/night. That’s a lot of money for the whole week — particularly considering that the Parc 55 really stretches the definition of “4-star”.

It costs more to book a decent hotel in San Francisco now than it does in Manhattan.

Update: San Francisco hotels aren’t just expensive — according to Bloomberg they are now the most expensive in the entire world. Thanks to Chris Mohajer.

Ken Auletta on Bill Campbell 

Ken Auletta, writing for The New Yorker:

In the world capital of engineering, where per-capita income can seem inversely related to social skills, Campbell was the man who taught founders to look up from their computer screens. He was known throughout the Valley as “the Coach,” the experienced executive who added a touch of humanity as he quietly instructed Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, the founders of Twitter, Sheryl Sandberg, and countless other entrepreneurs on the human dimensions of management, on the importance of listening to employees and customers, of partnering with others. His obituary was not featured on the front of most newspapers, or at the top of most technology news sites, but it should have been.

San Francisco Mono 

Apple’s WWDC 2016 website is sporting a “source code” theme, and is typeset using what appears to be a monospaced variant of San Francisco. Looks pretty good — I hope this is something they’re going to release at WWDC. I’d wager that it is.

(The parentheses should be rounder, and thus more distinctive, though. Compare the relatively flat parentheses on the WWDC 2016 site with the parentheses in a few of my favorite monospaced fonts. I wonder if this is simply a decorative decision made by the designers of the site. I wouldn’t be surprised if, at smaller sizes typically used by developers while actually editing code, the parentheses are rounder.)

Harriet Tubman to Replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 Bill 

Jackie Calmes, reporting for the NYT:

The Treasury Department will announce on Wednesday afternoon that Harriet Tubman, an African-American who ferried hundreds of slaves to freedom, will replace the slaveholding Andrew Jackson on the center of a new $20 note, according to a Treasury official, while newly popular Alexander Hamilton will remain on the face of the $10 bill.

Other depictions of women and civil rights leaders will also be part of new currency designs.

The new designs, from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, would be made public in 2020 in time for the centennial of woman’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. None of the bills, including a new $5 note, would reach circulation until the next decade.

The Hamilton musical is so wildly popular that it changed the course of this decision — the original plan was to put Tubman on the $10 bill, not the $20. Whatever the reason, this is a much better outcome — Jackson was opposed to paper currency. Good riddance to a terrible “great President”.

1986 in Photos 

Great collection of photos from 1986. Check out the watch on Woz in photo 6.

I’m more sports-minded than most, but it seems almost criminal not to include a shot of 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus tearing up the back nine at Augusta, en route to winning The Masters for the sixth time. Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics should have been in there too. Update: And Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of god” goal in the World Cup.

Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight 

Ian King, reporting for Bloomberg:

Intel Corp. will eliminate 12,000 jobs, or 11 percent of its workforce, embarking on the deepest cutbacks in a decade to gird for a fifth year of declines in the personal-computer market.

The world’s biggest maker of semiconductors said it’s shifting focus to higher-growth areas, such as chips for data center machines and Internet-connected devices. Intel also posted disappointing first-quarter revenue and gave a second-quarter sales forecast that fell short of analysts’ estimates.

Shipments of PCs, a market that provides Intel with more than half of its sales, fell to their lowest level in a decade in the first three months of 2016.

Intel’s decline has been rapid. They missed the boat on the mobile revolution. Microsoft — Intel’s partner during the go-go “Wintel” years — has missed the mobile boat, too, but has thrived by diversifying into areas such as cloud services. Intel can only thrive by selling chips, and they still don’t make the chips that device makers want for mobile devices.

I’m not counting them out yet, but this is ominous. Intel needs something new, because PCs have entered a permanent decline.