Linked List: May 30, 2017

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski 

Mike Isaac and Daisuke Wakabayashi, reporting for The New York Times:

Uber said Tuesday that it had fired Anthony Levandowski, a star engineer brought in to lead the company’s self-driving automobile efforts who was accused of stealing trade secrets when he left a job at Google. […]

That was certainly the case for Mr. Levandowski. Last August, when Uber announced it had bought Otto, Mr. Kalanick described Mr. Levandowski as “one of the world’s leading autonomous engineers,” a prolific entrepreneur with “a real sense of urgency.”

“A real sense of urgency” is one way to put it.

The New Glif Is Out 

Speaking of the iPhone-as-a-camera, Studio Neat’s all-new Glif tripod mount is out. I just got one as a backer of their Kickstarter campaign, and it’s every bit as good as I’d hoped. It works with any size phone, in both portrait and landscape, and has additional mounts for things like microphones and hand grips.

Lovely little intro video, too, narrated by Adam Lisagor.

Update: Fixed the link, sorry about that.

Apple to Provide Podcasting Studio On-Site at WWDC 

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5Mac:

The schedule for WWDC 2017 has just been announced and includes a new “Podcast Studio”. From Tuesday, podcasters will be able to reserve one hour slots and record in a specially-made recording studio inside the McEnery Convention Center.

Apple says that the “fully outfitted studio” allows for the creation of audio podcasts with up to four guests per show. Apple experts are on hand to provide support and podcasters are given a copy of their session to distribute freely how they see fit.

This is a great idea. I’d be all over this if I weren’t having my show in front of a live audience — recording podcasts while traveling is hard, even if you just consider the equipment you need to pack. Not sure the 60-minute limit would work for me, though.

Also, speaking of my live show, the first round of tickets should be available later today will go on sale tomorrow at 12n ET / 9a PT.

Cast Adds Experimental JSON Feed Support 

Julian Lepinski, creator of Cast:

So I sunk my teeth in, and in about half a day I’d added experimental JSON Feed support to podcasts published with Cast.

Half a day. If you’re wondering whether JSON Feed publishing is straightforward to implement, that’s your answer right there.

That half a day includes some custom extensions specific to podcasting (iTunes-style categories and sub-categories, and an “explicit” flag).

All the regular experimental caveats apply — JSON Feed support is experimental, and could change (or disappear) at some point in future. We’re not yet seeing widespread client support for JSON Feed, but someone has to be the first in the pool to get this party started, and I’m happy for that to be Cast.

Bootstrapping something new like JSON Feed often feels like it requires magic. Clients tend not to support a new format until publishers are generating it, and publishers tend not to support a new format until client software supports it. That’s why it matters that JSON Feed is so easy and fun to support. Being easy and fun is a path around the bootstrapping problem.

If you haven’t heard of Cast before, it’s a rather remarkable all-in-one web-based creative platform for recording, editing, and publishing podcasts. You literally don’t need anything other than Cast to record a podcast (with multiple guests, none of whom need anything other than a web browser and microphone), edit it, and publish it.