Linked List: April 4, 2018

Wednesday, 4 April 2018

Facebook Sharply Increases Estimate of How Many Users’ Information Was Harvested By Cambridge Analytica ★

Cecilia King, reporting for The New York Times:

Facebook on Wednesday said the personal information of up to 87 million people, most of them Americans, may have been improperly shared during the 2016 election with Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm connected to President Trump.

The new figure sharply increased the company’s previous estimate of how many users’ information was harvested by Cambridge Analytica. For weeks, Facebook had said that the data of about 50 million users was at issue.

Do you want to bet it’s actually a lot more than 87 million, and they’ll announce that bigger number in a few weeks? The drip-drip-drip PR strategy is an old trick, and Facebook utilizes it every time they have bad news involving a number of users. First they announce a low number, then a higher number, and then an even higher number. Notice that their mistakes always — always — start low and then go high. They never once announce that their original number was too high.

Update: The Washington Post:

Facebook said Wednesday that most of its 2 billion users likely have had their public profiles scraped by outsiders without the users’ explicit permission, dramatically raising the stakes in a privacy controversy that has dogged the company for weeks, spurred investigations in the United States and Europe, and sent the company’s stock price tumbling.

OK, that 2 billion number probably isn’t a lowball, because that’s everyone.

AirPods and the Three Stages of Apple Criticism ★

I found myself nodding my head in agreement reading this piece by Jonathan Kim:

I really wish I was exaggerating, but these seven reasons are the main ways Apple critics attempt to explain why someone would choose to buy products critics believe are both overpriced and inferior to their competition. Because if you’ve already come to the conclusion that Apple products are overpriced and inferior, but hundreds of millions of people still buy them, the only conclusion must be that there is something seriously wrong with the people who buy them.

Four Snappy New iPhone X Apple Pay Ads ★

It’s funny that these debuted the day after I called for Apple to release new Apple Pay commercials, and all four of these are very clever — they each tell a complete story in about 10 seconds. But I don’t think they solve the problem of educating about just what Apple Pay is, and especially why it’s more secure than using a credit or debit card.

What I’m thinking Apple ought to do to get Apple Pay skeptics on board is create a series of explain-it-to-me-like-I-have-no-idea-what-it-is spots like the original iPhone ads.

Update: This video on Apple’s YouTube channel is more along the lines of what I think they need to put on TV, at least content-wise.

Bradley Chambers on Apple’s Education Strategy ★

Bradley Chambers, in his summary of last week’s Apple education event:

Apple’s next book for education needs to be about reinventing everything. Part of the Tim Cook doctrine is this:

“We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.”

This doctrine should apply to education as well. If Apple believes they can make a significant contribution to schools, then they should go all in to change everything about school technology. They should buy major a textbook publisher and change the purchasing model for books when you deploy iPads. They should buy (or buy back) a student information system platform and integrate it with all of their new apps.

They should build a viable alternative to G-Suite that makes it easy for schools to manage communications. They should do all of this at a price where the least affluent districts can deploy it as easily as the most affluent ones.

‘On Apple, Love Letters, and Educators’ ★

Scott Yoshinaga:

Want to manage all that hardware you just bought? Get JAMF Casper to do your Mobile Device Management. Want a place to store all that content you’re creating on your Mac or iPad? Buy some Dropbox storage or use Google Drive because Managed Apple ID has no way to purchase more iCloud storage from Apple. Looking for a Learning Management System? Subscribe to an app like Showbie or SeeSaw. Do you see a pattern? This isn’t to disparage any of the third-parties mentioned as my school currently depends on each of them to fill in the gaps that Apple won’t. However, all of those services cost money and can quickly add up to a significant amount spent year-over-year. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to have choices in this space, but it’s hard to take Apple seriously when they don’t have any first-party solutions in these areas for the education market.

By comparison, Google with Chromebooks combined with GSuite for Education gives you an email account, unlimited file and media storage in Google Drive, a place for hosting student created web content in Google Sites, ability to use Google Accounts as a single sign-on for various services, constantly upgraded collaboration in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides and so much more for free. It’s a shame that schools that use Apple’s hardware need to depend on Google’s GSuite for many of the services Apple doesn’t provide. There are administrators that would love to go all in on Apple, especially because of their focus on privacy, but without integrated services, they need to lean on third parties which can render Apple’s strength in privacy moot.

My point is that even if my school wanted to go all-in with Apple, we simply can’t. It feels as if Apple has no desire to take care of the entire eco-system when it comes to education technology.

This is a long excerpt, but Yoshinga has many other interesting observations about the state of Apple and education. But this bit above gets to the heart of it. Back in 2012 (when Apple last held an education-focused event), Apple announced new hardware and software. That’s what Apple had always done to thrive in the education market. But what Apple clearly missed then was that what educators needed were thorough device and student account management systems. Apple didn’t and still doesn’t have that. Google does.

Agenda: New Mac Notes App That Lets You Attach Notes to Calendar Events ★

Khoi Vinh, on a killer feature in the new Mac notes app Agenda:

Unlike those competing apps, though, Agenda also gives me the option of associating any given note to a specific event on my calendar. The screenshot below shows how clicking on the calendar icon lets me find a date, view the events on that date, and then link that event with the current note. Even more powerfully, I can also view my calendar in a right-hand pane, click on an event there and initiate a new, linked note that automatically copies over the event’s title, attendees and description. Brilliant.

I just tried this and it’s really simple, obvious, and clever. When you attach an Agenda note to an event, it simply puts an agenda://note/<unique-identifier> URL in the event’s note field. Simple.

Scott Galloway on Trump Targeting Jeff Bezos: ‘He Comes Across as Uninformed’ ★

“One of them is acting presidential, the other is president.”

Trump on Jeff Bezos: ‘How Can I Fuck With Him?’ ★

Gabriel Sherman, writing for Vanity Fair:

Now, according to four sources close to the White House, Trump is discussing ways to escalate his Twitter attacks on Amazon to further damage the company. “He’s off the hook on this. It’s war,” one source told me. “He gets obsessed with something, and now he’s obsessed with Bezos,” said another source. “Trump is like, how can I fuck with him?” […]

Even Trump’s allies acknowledge that much of what’s fueling Trump’s rage toward Amazon is that Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, sources said. “Trump doesn’t like The New York Times, but he reveres it because it’s his hometown paper. The Washington Post, he has zero respect for,” the Republican close to the White House said. While the Post says that Bezos has no involvement in newsroom decisions, Trump has told advisers he believes Bezos uses the paper as a political weapon. One former White House official said Trump looks at the Post the same way he looks at the National Enquirer. “When Bezos says he has no involvement, Trump doesn’t believe him. His experience is with the David Peckers of the world. Whether it’s right or wrong, he knows it can be done.”

Josh Marshall, earlier this week, in an excellent column at Talking Points Memo:

Having a sitting President launching scathing personal attacks on a federal law enforcement officer and demanding his firing or imprisonment for personal and political motives is wildly outside the norms that govern the American system. Similarly, a President who routinely threatens prosecutorial or regulatory vengeance against private companies because they are not sufficiently politically subservient to him personally is entirely outside of our system of governance. At present, Donald Trump is an autocrat without an autocracy.

Can you even imagine the reaction from Republicans if Barack Obama had gone after, say, Rupert Murdoch in this way? And of course, Trump’s main beef with Amazon, that the U.S. Post Office is losing $1.47 on every package they deliver for Amazon, is complete bullshit. How anyone supports this president at this point is beyond my comprehension.

Amazon’s stock is taking a hit as a result of Trump’s rhetoric, but if I were an Amazon investor, I wouldn’t worry. Jeff Bezos is very, very smart. Donald Trump is not.

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Immersive Art Exhibit at The Smithsonian ★

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum:

Did you know that 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered 50 years ago at Washington, DC’s Uptown Theater, just a few miles from the National Air and Space Museum? To celebrate the film’s impact on culture and technology, we’re opening a special temporary exhibition of the immersive art installation The Barmecide Feast. In this exhibit, walk into a fully realized, full-scale reflection of the iconic, neo-classical hotel room from the penultimate scene of the film.

The installation will be open to the public from April 8 to May 28, 2018.

Groups of six will be allowed in the room for two minutes.

First thought: This is amazing, can’t wait to see it. Second thought: Two minutes?

HAL’s Early-Draft Sibling ★

Lucy Orr, writing for The Register:

Tucked in a downstairs corner of the maze that is the London College of Communication is the Stanley Kubrick Archives. It’s open to the public for pre-booked visits and on a recent nose-around, though initially distracted by the first-edition Robert Crumb comics, I managed to get to grips (touch gently with gloved fingers) with one of the first draft scripts of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Bound in black and looking very much like the monolith from the film, I was surprised by the extent to which this script differs from what we see and hear in the finished film. One of the most striking divergences is the presence of a benevolent second HAL, determined to thwart his evil twin.