Summary of this week:

Apple raises the song limit to 100,000
Government of China blocks Wikipedia again
Apple introduces an iPhone case with a battery
Google Fiber going to Chicago and Los Angeles
Microsoft Cortana goes to all mobile platforms
More ignorant calls for encryption backdoors
Facebook makes it AI hardware open source

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday December 7, 2015

How narrow-casting enter grocery shopping and reduces human interaction. But it makes some of us feel really important to have all these people catering to our whims.

Apple raises the limit on songs from 25K to 100K. Can you listen to that many songs in your lifetime?

Orbital Sciences has its first successful launch in a year.

ComputerWorld's top ten tech skills for now. Lie about your age is not one of them, but it should be on the list.

Hillary Clinton, the tech community, ISIS, and how it all adds up to silliness.

Our President hints that private industry can do some things better than government. That is quite a stretch for him. Perhaps there is hope for the man, but it comes too late in his life to benefit the US.

Excellent paper on addition by subtraction—replacing a toxic worker is better than adding a great worker.

The $70 Remix Android PC. There is now a crowd of much-less-expensive alternatives to a computer you connect to the televisor.

The battle over who uses the unlicensed parts of the RF spectrum.

Some are hailing this as a triumph in that Hollywood is doing a better job of portraying computer programmers. Gone is the mystique.

Censys.io—a search engine for searchers and researchers.

A look at the Google for Entrepreneurs campuses.

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Tuesday December 8, 2015

What eats all that broadband bandwidth? Streaming video—70%.

oooops, those Silicon Valley startups are making a few fortunes, but not creating jobs. Starting a software company doesn't mean you are trying to create jobs. It means you are trying to make money for the few who work at the company. The computer does a lot of the work.

The San Jose, a ship filled with gold that sank in 1708, has been found. $$$

Nike signs LeBron James to a lifetime contract. No one knows how many $hundreds-millions.

The government of China blocks Wikipedia from its subjects once again.

Google renames its Life Sciences as Verily.

Facebook closes its Creative Labs due to lack of success.

The call to use Clang as a pre-compiler for C/C++ code. Good information here and here.

An analysis of Wikipedia provides a list of the world's most-influential universities.

Out of no where, Apple introduces a iPhone case with a battery and 25 hours of power.

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Wednesday December 9, 2015

A look at Google's Pixel C Android-based tablet.

Apple updates iOS to version 9.2.

Google testing shows that quantum computing actually works—now.

At least on iOS, Apple Maps is now more popular that Google Maps.

Google Fiber is moving on to Chicago and Los Angeles. So much for small cities.

Mozilla finally gives up on Firefox OS smartphones.

Estimates are that 1-in-3 health records will be hacked this year. I sure am glad that Health Care dot Gov is safe (not). Is everyone ready for national electronic health records? Is this something I have written hundreds of times and won't stop repeating? (yes)

San Jose gets "smartpoles." Combine light poles with cell phone towers and other cool stuff.

Early rumors of a March Apple event with a new Watch and iPhone.

If you live in polluted China, you might as well get cute with your smog mask.

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Thursday December 10, 2015

"Lie to everyone but me," ignorant calls for backdoors to encryption.

Coming, autonomous cars with Apple and Google brand names. GM? Ford? What were those things?

Samsung creates its own driverless car team.

"The Associated Press is using Automated Insights’ software to produce thousands of articles about corporate earnings each year, freeing up staff for other reporting. Humans expand and polish a few of the most important articles." Welcome to the age of non-work.

Yahoo pays its Editor-in-Chief $5million a year.

Putin drops a little hint about nuclear weapons and ISIS. The man knows how to drop hints.

Microsoft brings its Cortana assistant to all the mobile platforms.

The Linux Documentation Project.

All sorts of good information on writing documents at Write the Docs.

I hate this as writers should be paid. A hyperlocal news site doesn't pay its writers, but got $3million in funding to build its business.

Zuckerburg tells Muslims worldwide that they are welcome on Facebook. Of course he isn't being altruistic here as more users means more ad dollars and all that.

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Friday December 11, 2015

Now, 1 in 8 American kids have "recurring hyperactivity and/or inattentiveness that hinders work, play, and school activities." Perhaps many of those kids are bored.

More on encryption from politicians. Stay in your lane, folks. Ask instead of declare.

Walmart, Star Wars, toys, photos, and lawsuits and such silliness.

Marissa Mayer gives birth to twin girls. All are well.

Facebook makes its AI hardware—Big Sur—open source.

The world has completed its turn upside down as Microsoft offers a Linux certification.

Some persons are upset because Ted Cruz is using Facebook as a poll of voter preferences. Again, it is the same thing as a poll. It is marketing. It is market research. Why is everyone upset?

A list of little-known but excellent software packages for the Mac.

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Saturday December 12, 2015

Going to a protest? Here is a kit that helps you battle surveillance.

Coming to Tokyo, big drones that carry nets to capture small drones. There is always a bigger drone.

The battle is on: does Donald Trump have enough money to fight off attacks from Anonymous?

A new Federal law puts Computer Science among standard courses. Be careful what we wish—especially when the gift giver is the Federal government by way of government-run schools.

OpenAI: a new non-profit AI research center for the "benefit of humanity" (as opposed to prior AI research which has all been dastardly and evil (not)).

A Senator proposes a minimum wage of $110,000 for H-1B workers to end practice of scamming the laws.

Microsoft changes its mind on how much free storage you get with OneDrive.

Robert Scoble revives his blog to review the past 15 years and maybe really revive his blog.

How non-Google researchers are using Google's TensorFlow.

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Sunday December 13, 2015

The political implications of computer science and especially information theory with its cousin cryptography. The nerd researchers control the flow of information in the world, so pay attention to them. And please, researchers, pay attention to the world about you.

Don't believe what you see on video—ever. Disney shows FaceDirector software that bends reality. They showed it at ICCV, so there is some serious study and money behind this.

In the UK, you will need to pay a fee to photograph your own property. I guess some people will tax anything so they can spend someone else's money.

Many people want stores open on Christmas Day so they can shop. Why not?

How people in developing countries spend a lot of their own money on educating their kids. In America, we depend on the government to spend our taxes wisely and educate our kids. Hmmm, perhaps we might reconsider.

The technology testbeds that are college campuses.

Time to do retrospectives of 2015. This is a pretty good one with 13 stories.

Our Federal government deployed a spy plane over San Bernardino after the shootings to spy on all citizens. I guess they can suspend the Constitution whenever they want. Who are these citizens who feel that it is just fine to spy on other citizens? What are people telling them to justify this?

Yahoo removed QA and Test from its development teams and improved quality and productivity.

How one writer helps herself work from home or at the library which is sort of like working from home.

You don't get creative once everything is okay. In fact, we are creative because everything isn't okay (yet).—Seth Godin.

On writing a book in your spare time, "There are seven days in a week, but someday isn’t one of them."

A tutorial on using Scrivener on a first draft.

How one writer benefits from travelling alone. The solitude and the discomfort force writing from some people.

One writer's key to finding time to write: no other people in the life and all the time they require. Could be lonely.

One writer's experience with writing six books in two years. This is all possible and doesn't require the person to be some sort of genius or something mystical like that.

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