Linked List: December 28, 2016

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

The Talk Show: ‘Surface Curious’ 

New episode of America’s favorite 3-star podcast, with special guest Rene Ritchie. Topics include Siri vs. Alexa, and whether Wynn Las Vegas’s announcement that they’re putting Amazon Echos into their 4,700+ guest rooms is a sign that Amazon is building a meaningful long-term lead in the nascent voice assistant market; Mark Gurman’s week-ago piece for Bloomberg, “How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists”; Consumer Reports’s bizarre but widely-publicized battery test results for the new MacBook Pros; and a brief year in review look at our favorite new Apple products from 2016.

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‘No One Ever Went Broke Taking a Profit’ 

Andy Orin interview with Jason Fried, for Lifehacker’s “This Is How I Work” series:

What’s your favorite to-do list manager?

I don’t track to-dos. I have a small handful of things I know I need to do every day. If I can’t keep them in my head, I have too many things to do. Every day is a blank slate for what I need to do. If something I was supposed to get done yesterday didn’t get done yesterday, it’s not automatically on my mind for today. Today’s mind is a clear mind, not yesterday’s remnants.

That wouldn’t work for me — I literally need to write down the stuff I want to do every day, or I’ll forget something — but I love the mindset.

This is good advice too:

I’m a one-computer guy — a 12-inch MacBook, so I can work from anywhere. Years ago I used multiple monitors and had multiple computers. Then I jettisoned multiple computers but kept the multiple monitor setup. And a few years ago I tossed out the second monitor and have been a single computer, single screen person since then. I go full screen on nearly every app. I also hide my dock. I don’t want anything pulling my attention away. When I’m curious I’ll look. Otherwise, I’m looking at what I want, not what someone else might want me to see.

I can’t stress this enough — protect your attention like you protect your friends, family, money, etc. It’s among the most valuable things you have.

Police Seek Amazon Echo Data in Arkansas Murder Case 

Engadget:

Amazon’s Echo devices and its virtual assistant are meant to help find answers by listening for your voice commands. However, police in Arkansas want to know if one of the gadgets overheard something that can help with a murder case. According to The Information, authorities in Bentonville issued a warrant for Amazon to hand over any audio or records from an Echo belonging to James Andrew Bates. Bates is set to go to trial for first-degree murder for the death of Victor Collins next year.

Amazon declined to give police any of the information that the Echo logged on its servers, but it did hand over Bates’ account details and purchases. Police say they were able to pull data off of the speaker, but it’s unclear what info they were able to access. Due to the so-called always on nature of the connected device, the authorities are after any audio the speaker may have picked up that night. Sure, the Echo is activated by certain words, but it’s not uncommon for the IoT gadget to be alerted to listen by accident.

This was inevitable.