Linked List: December 3, 2020

Thursday, 3 December 2020

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Relocating Headquarters From Silicon Valley to Texas ★

CNBC:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the latest tech company to shift its focus away from Silicon Valley, announcing Tuesday that it will relocate its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas.

The real HP has been gone for a long while, but still, moving their headquarters out of Silicon Valley is a sad postscript. HP was Silicon Valley just a few decades ago. I mean that’s where Woz worked as an engineer because of course Woz worked at HP because all the best engineers worked at HP and Woz was the best engineer.

You know how Vincent D’Onofrio’s character in Men In Black was an alien bug who killed a farmer and then wore the guy’s skin as a creepy disguise? That’s what Hewlett Packard Enterprise is to the real Hewlett Packard.

Time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister.

Warner Bros. to Stream Entire 2021 Slate of Feature Films on HBO Max, Simultaneously With Theatrical Releases ★

Rebecca Rubin and Matt Donnelly, reporting for Variety:

When Warner Bros. announced that “Wonder Woman 1984” would land on the streaming service HBO Max on Christmas, the same time it debuts in theaters, many expected it to be an isolated experiment in response to an unprecedented pandemic.

Instead, the studio will deploy a similar release strategy for the next 12 months. In a surprising break from industry standards, Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate — a list of films that includes “The Matrix 4,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” remake, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation of “In the Heights,” the “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark” and “The Suicide Squad” — will debut both on HBO Max and in theaters on their respective release dates. The shocking move to release movies day-and-date underscores the crisis facing movie theaters and the rising importance of streaming services in the wake of a global health crisis that’s decimated the film exhibition community.

Compare and contrast with Disney, which debuted Mulan on Disney+ but made you pay $30 — on top of your monthly subscription — to see it when debuted. This sure makes HBO Max seem like a must-have.

Updated for MacOS 11 and Apple Silicon: Fantastical ★

Joe Rossignol, a few weeks ago at MacRumors:

Flexibits today announced the release of version 3.3 of its popular calendar app Fantastical for Mac, with key new features including full compatibility with macOS Big Sur, native support for Apple Silicon, and a new design.

Fantastical version 3.3 also supports macOS Big Sur’s revamped Notification Center widgets with customizable themes and sizes, displays sunrise and sunset times in the weather forecast, provides severe weather alerts, adds support for adding Microsoft Teams meetings to events on Office 365, and more.

Truly a Mac-assed Mac app, and a well-deserving winner of the App Store’s Mac app of the year.

Update: Nice post on the new Flexibits blog, including photos of the new award.

App Store’s Best Apps and Games of 2020 ★

Among the winners: Zoom for best iPad app. I’ve given Zoom a fair amount of grief for their sketchy Mac app and its installer, but credit where credit belongs, their iPad app is pretty good. When people ask me what I do when I need to use Zoom — and like everyone in 2020, I need to use Zoom — I tell them I use it on my iPad. (I get a better camera there than on my Mac, too.)

Boo-hiss, though, for awarding Genshin Impact iPhone game of the year. It does look like a beautiful Breath of the Wild-esque game — but it’s a free-to-play gacha game financially. It’s a gambling mechanic, and I wish Apple wouldn’t hold one up as their iPhone game of the year. Estimates peg Genshin Impact’s revenue at $400 million and counting after just two months. Their App Store top in-app purchases currently list (1) a $5 “Blessings Bundle”, (2) a $5 pack of 300 “Genesis Crystals”, and (3) a $100 pack of 6,480 of those crystals, presumably intended for those who like to buy in bulk, not for those who have a gambling problem.

Qualcomm Exec Feels ‘Validated’ by Having His Pants Stolen ★

Sascha Segan, writing for PCMag:

Qualcomm executives brushed off a question about Apple’s new M1-based Macs during a question-and-answer session at the company’s Snapdragon Summit today, where Qualcomm announced a new flagship smartphone chipset but no upgrades to its year-old chips for PCs.

“We invested early in Windows on Snapdragon, and we’ve been on a journey to build this ecosystem together with Microsoft,” Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon said. “What we have seen in the past month is a broader validation that was the right bet.”

This is like the CEO of an electric motor company whose best model powers a golf cart saying he feels validated by the performance of cars from Tesla.