Linked List: March 7, 2017

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

Google’s ‘One True Answer’ Problem ★

Danny Sullivan:

Obama’s planning a coup? Women are evil? Several presidents were in the KKK? Republicans are Nazis? Google can go spectacularly wrong with some of its direct answers.

Here we are again. Google’s in hot water because of what I call its “One True Answer” feature, where it especially highlights one search listing over all others as if that’s the very best answer. It’s a problem because sometimes these answers are terribly wrong.

This feature is just nowhere near ready for actual use.

Fifth Indiana Jones Movie Is Official and Slated for 2019 ★

Jacob Hall, writing for Slashfilm:

According to an official statement on the Walt Disney Company’s website, the untitled fifth Indiana Jones movie will arrive on July 19, 2019 and the whole gang is getting back together. Harrison Ford will return as Indy, Steven Spielberg will step behind the camera once more, and Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will produce.

“The whole gang”, you say? I could have sworn there was someone else. Can’t quite put my finger on the name.

Google’s Algorithm Is Lying to You About Onions ★

Tom Scocca:

Not only does Google, the world’s preeminent index of information, tell its users that caramelizing onions takes “about 5 minutes” — it pulls that information from an article whose entire point was to tell people exactly the opposite. A block of text from the Times that I had published as a quote, to illustrate how it was a lie, had been extracted by the algorithm as the authoritative truth on the subject.

Just me, or is Google search starting to slip? They’ve got the right destination — the URL they’re pointing to is arguably the definitive article on how long it takes to caramelize onions, and at worst, it is indisputably a very good answer to the question. But by attempting to parse the article and provide the answer right there in an excerpt in the search results, Google’s algorithm chooses a passage that provides a completely wrong answer.

When Google search simply ranked articles, and happily sent you away to read them on their original website, they were nearly perfect. But the more they try to tell you the answer to your questions without leaving Google itself, the more they seem to providing embarrassingly bad answers.

Uber as a Black Mark on One’s Résumé ★

Julia Carrie Wong, writing for The Guardian:

Now the fallout from Uber’s terrible month is having an impact on another group: the company’s own former and current employees.

“People are looking to get out because they’re just sick of working for that company,” said a former Uber employee, who asked not to be identified. “A lot of them have told me that they’re having a hard time finding something new.”

At job interviews, the employee said, recruiters seem wary of Uber’s “hustle-oriented” workplace. “They have to defend themselves and say: ‘Oh, I’m not an asshole.’”

The “asshole” reputation stems from Uber’s corporate values, former employees and others in the tech industry said. For many, company “values” are the kind of corporate speak that rarely interferes with one’s day-to-day work environment. But at Uber, the emphasis on hustling, toe-stepping and meritocracy took on a more sinister aspect in the workplace.

Anecdotal, but it makes sense. I’d be suspicious of a job applicant who thrived at Uber.

Apple’s Market Share in Enterprise Is Rising ★

Jordan Kahn, writing for 9to5Mac on a new report from Jamf on Apple’s rising popularity in the enterprise:

For the increase in Mac and iOS adoption now at 91 and 99 percent, Jamf notes that 74% of organizations saw an increase in Mac adoption and 76% an increase in iPhone and iPad adoption in 2016 versus the year before. IBM has now almost reached its goal of deploying 100,000 Macs, the report confirms, making it the largest company Mac deployment. IBM, which uses Jamf software to manage its deployment, first announced the goal during the JAMF Nation User Conference (JNUC) last October. At the time, IBM said it was saving on average a minimum of $265 per Mac versus a comparable PC due the cost of device itself, OS, support, resale value and deployment.

So today in 2017, Apple is struggling in the education and creative pro markets, and thriving in the enterprise. Try telling that to a time-traveler from 20 years ago.

Apple’s Market Share in Education Is Falling ★

Interesting but unsurprising report by Natasha Singer for The New York Times:

Over the last three years, Apple’s iPads and Mac notebooks — which accounted for about half of the mobile devices shipped to schools in the United States in 2013 — have steadily lost ground to Chromebooks, inexpensive laptops that run on Google’s Chrome operating system and are produced by Samsung, Acer and other computer makers.

Mobile devices that run on Apple’s iOS and MacOS operating systems have now reached a new low, falling to third place behind both Google-powered laptops and Microsoft Windows devices, according to a report released on Thursday by Futuresource Consulting, a research company.

Of the 12.6 million mobile devices shipped to primary and secondary schools in the United States in 2016, Chromebooks accounted for 58 percent of the market, up from 50 percent in 2015, according to the report. School shipments of iPads and Mac laptops fell to 19 percent, from about 25 percent, over the same period. Microsoft Windows laptops and tablets remained relatively stable at about 22 percent, Futuresource said.

If you look at The Times’s chart, you can see that in gross numbers, Apple’s education sales are down from their peak in 2013, but not drastically. Windows machines are up from their nadir in 2013, but not drastically. What’s drastic is the sharp rise in the sale of Chromebooks. Schools haven’t switched so much as they’ve increased the number of machines they’re buying, and most of those new machines are Chromebooks.

The shift toward Google-powered devices is hurting Apple’s revenue. Of the $7.35 billion that schools, colleges and universities spent on mobile and desktop computers in 2016, sales of Apple devices fell to $2.8 billion in 2016, from about $3.2 billion in 2015, according to IDC, a market research firm. Windows devices generated $2.5 billion in 2016, up from $2.1 billion in 2015, while Chrome devices reached $1.9 billion, up from $1.4 billion.

Apple still leads in revenue, but that’s because iPads and MacBooks are more expensive — and part of the reason for Chromebooks’ success in education is that the machines are so much cheaper. And it helps that Chromebooks are fundamentally designed as dumb terminals — any kid can grab any Chromebook and just sign in. Apple does offer solutions for iPads and MacOS, but fundamentally, iPads and Macs are designed as personal devices.