Linked List: May 17, 2016

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

NYT: Google to Introduce Voice-Activated Home Device Tomorrow at I/O 

David Streitfeld, reporting for the NYT from San Francisco, on the eve of Google I/O:

Google will introduce its much-anticipated entry into the voice-activated home device market on Wednesday, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Named Google Home, the device is a virtual agent that answers simple questions and carries out basic tasks. It is to be announced at Google’s annual developers’ conference in Silicon Valley.

Google Home will come to market in the fall — a long time away, given the speed of technology, but Google needed to plant a stake in the ground now. The device will compete with Amazon’s Echo, which was introduced less than two years ago.

Google has the speech recognition and back-end performance down. But is this going to be a Google-branded device, or a platform for OEMs like Android? The Times’s report makes it sound like a Google-branded device — none of which have done well. Update: I forgot about Chromecast, which is doing well. And Google Home might be the same sort of “just plug it in” low-cost device.

Amazon has already sold an estimated three million units.

Estimated by whom? How?

Intel Culture Just Ate 12,000 Jobs 

Jean-Louis Gassée:

But Intel had a justification, a story that it kept telling the world and, more perniciously, itself:

‘Just you wait. Yes, today’s x86 are too big, consume too much power, and cost more than our ARM competitors, but tomorrow… Tomorrow, our proven manufacturing technology will nullify ARM’s advantage and bring the full computing power and immense software heritage of the x86 to emerging mobile applications.’

Year after year (after year), Intel has repeated the promise. There are some variations in the story, such as the prospect of the 3D transistor, but mobile device manufacturers don’t seem to be listening.

Marvel Product Placement Run Amok: Tony Stark Using a Vivo Phone 

Dave Gonzales, writing for Geek:

Called a “Futurist” by Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye in the film, Stark is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s genius on the forefront of speculative technology. If Banner knows human mutation, Stark knows the machines. That’s why it’s so shocking to see Tony using a Vivo cell phone in Civil War, a cell phone that would absolutely be condemned by the US government if it were being used like it is in the film. It makes absolutely no thematic sense within the context of the film, but there’s a big reason why Marvel would endanger the theme of its most popular on-screen character.

Tony Stark using a Vivo phone is another of Marvel Studios’ ongoing attempts to make more money in the Chinese box office, which — for better or worse — has become noticeable to the American and English audiences.

Vivo doesn’t even sell phones in the U.S. They’re a mid-market Chinese brand. It’s not just gratuitous product placement — it’s simply incompatible with Tony Stark’s character. No phone would satisfy Tony Stark but his own, from Stark Industries. Stark’s phone in Iron Man 2 had subtle LG branding (bad enough), but also a prominent “Stark Industries” label on screen. But Vivo? If Marvel wants to sell out to the highest bidder for the other Avengers’ phones, that’s one thing. But not Stark.

See also: Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes’s ultimately futile resistance against James Bond using a Sony or Samsung phone, on the grounds that “Bond only uses the ‘best’, and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the ‘best’.”

(This post is proof that I’m concerned only with truly important matters in life.)

TSA Is Falling Apart 

Alan Levin, reporting for Bloomberg:

Reports filed over the time it took U.S. Transportation Security Administration to screen passengers grew more than 10-fold, to 513 this past March from 48 in March 2015. Concern about lack of courtesy by TSA screeners increased more than three-fold, to 1,012 in March from 294 a year ago. […]

The TSA is trying to get 500 new airport screeners through training and onto the job by the end of June as a growth in travelers has led to longer lines at airports. Almost 6,800 people traveling on American Airlines missed flights in March due to delays at TSA checkpoints, airline spokesman Casey Norton said in an interview earlier this month.

Almost 7,000 people in a single month, just on American. That’s unacceptable. TSA has never been competent at conducting airport screening — but this year the whole thing is collapsing upon itself.

AnandTech Reviews the iPhone SE 

Speaking of the iPhone SE and the complete dearth of similarly-sized Android phones:

As I said earlier in the review, Android manufacturers have essentially given up on making small smartphones, and most of them haven’t actually made a top tier smartphone at the 4-inch size in about four years. By 2012 things had moved to 4.5 inches or more, with Samsung also introducing the original 5.3-inch Galaxy Note near the end of 2011. Today’s idea of a compact Android phone is something like the Xperia Z5 compact, where the screen has a size of 4.6 inches, which is just a bit smaller than the screen on the iPhone 6s. Getting an even smaller screen means moving to truly low end smartphones like the Moto E, and at that point you’re discussing two entirely different parts of the market.

Even when you consider the smallest high-end devices from the Android manufacturers, it’s not hard to see that the iPhone SE comes out on top. Apple’s A9 SoC is still one of the fastest chips you’ll find in a smartphone, and it goes without saying that the Snapdragon 810 SoC in a smartphone like the Xperia Z5 Compact really isn’t comparable in the slightest. Based on my experience, the camera is also unmatched at this size and price. It’s certainly a step behind the best Android phones and the iPhone 6s Plus, but bringing the sensor from the iPhone 6s to the SE allows for some really great photos, and the best 4K recording video you’ll get on a phone.

The results of their battery life test are simply astounding. The iPhone SE beat the iPhone 6S by nearly two hours: 9.27 vs 7.45. Goes to show just how much more power larger displays consume.

The Tiny Hands Review of the iPhone SE 

Nice piece by Adrianne Jeffries for Motherboard, on the history of phone sizes:

For the past three weeks, I’ve been using an iPhone SE.

I’m an Android user. I like my widgets and my Google apps, and I always felt the iPhone was too fancy and breakable for me. This was my first experience using an iPhone as my everyday device.

The phone, which has the same processor as the iPhone 6s, is certainly fast. The camera is crisp and good in low light. The battery has remarkable stamina.

The iPhone SE is also cheaper than other iPhones, starting at $399 as compared to $649 for the 6s.

But there’s really only one thing that would make me break for an iPhone: size.

The iPhone SE’s popularity clearly suggests that a significant number of people prefer a smaller phone. But so why aren’t there any top-tier Android phones with 4-inch displays? I’m genuinely confounded by that.

Jason Snell Reviews the 2016 MacBook 

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

What’s less reasonable is transmuting last year’s fair criticism into outrage that Apple hasn’t given the MacBook an immediate rethink. Given the lead time it takes to redesign hardware, the cramped space inside the MacBook shell, and Apple’s track record in keeping product designs around for at least two years, changing the MacBook design now would have been tantamount to Apple admitting that the statement it was making with the MacBook was misguided.

While I’m sure that Apple has heard the criticism and possibly even agreed with some of it, do I think that Apple regrets the overall statement that the MacBook makes? Not on your life. The MacBook is inhabiting the role that the MacBook Air used to fill in Apple’s product line — it’s the future, the cutting edge, a product that seems outlandish today but will appear commonplace tomorrow. (I’ll remind you that the MacBook Air also debuted as an impractical low-powered laptop with a single USB port — and it was nearly three years before Apple redesigned the Air hardware.)

I’m also not entirely sure why Apple would regret it. Does every computer need to offer every feature to appeal to every user? We heap our expectation and desire on every new Apple product, and the MacBook’s design pushes back. It is unabashedly a product that is not created to check all the boxes. In fact, it checks some you didn’t know existed and ignores the existence of ones you considered givens.

The outrage is coming from people who want Apple to update the MacBook Airs with retina displays. That’s not going to happen. The Airs are now Apple’s low-priced models. The Pros will get thinner (and thus more Air-like) and the new MacBook will get faster (and thus more Air-like). But the MacBook Air as we know it serves only one purpose: to hit the $899/999 price points.

MacRumors: ‘iOS 9.3.2 Bricking Some 9.7-Inch iPad Pro Devices With “Error 56” Message’ 

Juli Clover, writing at MacRumors:

While not all 9.7-inch iPad Pro users have reported problems, there have been a number of reports on the MacRumors forums and on social networks, suggesting the problem is widespread. Attempting to restore through iTunes doesn’t appear to resolve the issue. From MacRumors user NewtypeCJ:

Mine is bricked. Says it needs to be plugged into iTunes, won’t restore or update, just a big loop. Fantastic. :/

Proceed with caution, if you’ve got a 9.7-inch iPad Pro that hasn’t yet been updated to iOS 9.3.2. I have a friend whose company tried upgrading two 9.7-inch iPad Pros to iOS 9.3.2, and both of them hit this error. (They understandably left their third one running 9.3.1.) I know a bunch of people have updated their iPad Pros successfully, so it’s not universal, but it still seems dangerously common.

‘I Love “Barry Lyndon”, Because There Is No Swearing, It’s Very Nice, Picturesque’ 

Vice has a nice interview with Emilio D’Alessandro, Stanley Kubrick’s personal assistant for three decades:

Why are people so fascinated by Kubrick?

People who had never met him would always be terrified before meeting him. But he was so private, so he fed off this mystery. He would make me say that I do work for him, never that I work with him. People would ask and I would have to lie! But as I worked for this company for so long, I would see people go in scared but come out smiling. People just did not know him. They did so much to make him feel like somebody who never wanted to meet people, but it’s not true at all.

Were you a big fan of his films prior to working with him on A Clockwork Orange?

I didn’t have any interest in film, I was just interested in racing. After about two months of working for his company, I still didn’t know who Stanley Kubrick was. When [we were finally introduced], I saw this person who looked like Fidel Castro and didn’t realize who he was. I thought, “Oh dear, here we go.” I expected him to smell like perfume or be more put together. When he came towards me and introduced himself as Stanley Kubrick, I nearly fainted.

D’Alessandro has a new book out, Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side. Just ordered my copy.