Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 05/04 - Usable Keyboards Return to the 13-inch MacBook Pro

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Usable keyboards return to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. What is going on at Amazon? Jio Platforms gets another huge investment. Another potential blockbuster acquisition in the Israeli transport-tech space. And can the Apple watch help with Covid-19? Sort of. Let me explain. Sponsors: DoubleUp.agency Kiwico.com/ride Links: Apple announces new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard (The Verge) Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers (Vice) Bye, Amazon (Tim Bray) Silver Lake to invest $747M in India's Jio Platforms (TechCrunch) Exclusive: Uber will soon require drivers and riders to wear face coverings in the US (CNN Business) Intel set to buy Israeli co Moovit for $1b (Globes) European Heart Journal: Apple Watch ECG detects signs of coronary ischemia missed by hospital ECG (9to5Mac) Apple Watch blood oxygen detection feature found in iOS 14 code snippet (9to5Mac) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme ride home for Fake Star Wars Holiday 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Usable keyboards return to the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

What the heck is going on at Amazon? Geo Platforms gets another huge investment. There's another potential blockbuster acquisition in the Israeli transport tech space. And can Apple watch help with COVID-19? Sort of. Let me explain. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Apple has updated.

It's 13-inch MacBook Pro line with the magic keyboard. So you can now safely buy a 13-inch MacBook Pro again and actually be able to use it. They also refresh the internals with 10th-gen CPUs, double the SSD storage, and faster RAM, all available today starting at $1,29. Though it is going to cost you more to get all of the actual updates I just mentioned. It's complicated. I'm going to pick the Verge to quote from here, quote, Apple has moved relatively quickly to cycle out the butterfly keyboard from its lineup.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro was announced in November 2019, followed by a refreshed MacBook Air with Magic Keyboard this past March. In the span of six months, Apple has completely swapped out its entire laptop lineup with models that use better scissors-switch keyboards. Compare that to the five years it spent trying to make the butterfly keyboard mechanism work since the 2015 MacBook now discontinued. As with the last MacBook Pro, Apple is sticking with Thunderbolt 3 slash USBC connectors,

two or four of them in total, plus a headphone jack. The touch bar also remains, for better or worse, alongside a touch ID fingerprint sensor and, praise B, a real physical escape key. The RAM can be upgraded to 32 gigabytes and the storage can be specced all the way up to 4 terabytes. Apple says that 10th-gen-Intel processors have a turbo boost up to 4.1 gigahertz and that the new Intel Iris graphics support the Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution.

The base $1,299 model comes with 256 gigabytes of storage up from the 128 gigabytes and prior models, but it lacks the 10th-gen- processor and starts with 8 gigabytes of RAM. An upgrade to 16 gigabytes of RAM is available, end quote. actually though let's go into a little bit of detail in terms of the actual pricing and the configurations that you have to do to get what you want here's slash gear it's worth noting there are some caveats while it's a quad core cp u. Not a dual core it's actually Intel's eighth generation core i5 not the latest 10th generation if you want the latest 10th generation you'll need to step up to the $1,799 configuration Indeed, Apple's only processor upgrade option on those two entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro models

is the 1.7 gigahertz quad-core core I-7 for $300 more. That gets you up to 4.5 gigahertz of turbo boost, but it's still the eighth-generation processor. The other consideration to bear in mind is the memory type. In the cheaper models, Apple is still using the 2133 megahertz LPDR3 memory. again, there's an upgrade option for 16 gigabytes of it for $100, but if you want the newer, faster memory, you'll still need to step up to the more expensive base configuration first. That configuration is the $1,799 model. While it looks outwardly like the cheaper versions, it gets a 2 gigahertz quad-core 10th generation

Core I5 processor. That has up to 3.8 gigahertz turbo boost and Intel Iris Plus graphics, not Iris Plus graphics 645 as in the other notebooks, end quote. And actually, it goes on and on. If you want to max out to the 4 terabytes of SSD, it's going to cost you $1,200 extra, which is essentially the cost of an entire second machine. And if you need this thing to support external displays, you do need to pick the more expensive configurations in order to get the four Thunderbolt 3 ports, as well as chips that can actually handle 4K and 5K displays. Apple apparently had to do. some serious contortions to hit the price points here. And indeed, there is some snark on Twitter

about how reverting to a five-year-old keyboard design is actually considered progress. But in this case, it is. Getting rid of the butterfly keyboard finally is indeed progress. I've mentioned this several times on the show now about how, just anecdotally, I keep hearing people, shall we say, being shocked about Amazon's behavior lately, how the personality of the company has seemingly changed of late, how they've become like crazy cowboys, how they've become so aggressive, almost agro-aggressive. I've even asked people explicitly about this on some weekend bonus episodes, but I've never gotten a clear answer as to what is actually going on. Well, this is kind of anecdotal as well, but more signs that this seems to be a well-known issue in

some circles at this point. Tim Bray is a well-known engineer in good standing for many years, who was until recently a senior engineer in good standing and vice president at Amazon. Tim Bray has resigned from Amazon after nearly six years and has taken to his personal blog to criticize the company for firing workers who have been protesting working conditions. I'm going to quote from vice first, quote, in an open letter on his website, Bray, who has worked at the company for nearly six years called the company chicken shit for firing and disparaging employees who have organized protests. He also said the

firings are, quote, designed to create a climate of fear, end quote. Amazon's strategy throughout the coronavirus crisis has been to fire dissenters and disparage them both in the press and behind closed doors. There have been dozens of confirmed coronavirus cases at warehouses around the country, and workers have repeatedly said the company isn't doing enough to

protect them. Last week, Amazon ended a that allowed workers to take unlimited, unpaid time off if they fear getting sick from the coronavirus. Last Friday, Amazon workers, together with Target, FedEx, Instacart, and Whole Foods workers went on strike to protest their working conditions. In statements to motherboard, Amazon has said its own protesting workers are, quote, spreading misinformation and making false claims about Amazon, end quote, and that it, quote, objects to the irresponsible actions of labor groups, end quote. Last month, Amazon fired Chris Smalls, an Amazon worker in New York City. In a meeting, Amazon executives said they believe Smalls is, quote, not smart or articulate, end quote, and that publicly they would focus on, quote, laying out the case for why the organizer's conduct was immoral, unacceptable, and arguably illegal, end quote, according to leaked notes from that meeting obtained by Vice News, end quote.

and now I'm going to quote from Bray's blog post where he references all of this and I'm just going to leave it there for you to draw your own conclusions. But please read his post in its entirety. Bray says he has actually gone through proper channels to voice his concerns internally before taking this step. But as he put it, he reached a breaking point. He snapped. VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue so escalated through the proper chance. channels and by the book, I'm not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people. That done,

remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised, so I resigned, end quote. And from later in his piece, at the end of the day, the big problem isn't the specifics of COVID-19 response. It's that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick and pack potential. Only that's not just Amazon. It's how 21st century capitalism is done. Firing whistleblowers isn't just a side effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets. It's evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison, end quote. Remember when Facebook invested $5.7 billion in geo platforms that commerce play in India?

I think it was just last week, I guess. Well, geo platforms came to play, and it's beefing up even more for a major commerce battle on the subcontinent. Private equity firm Silver Lake has announced it will invest $747 million for just a 1.15% stake in the Indian telecom giant. geo-platforms giving it a valuation of $65 billion, quoting TechCrunch. Silver Lake has made several investments this year. Last month, it invested in Expedia and Airbnb. In March, it invested $1 billion in Twitter and co-led a round in Waymo. This is the second investment Silver Lake is making in an Indian firm. In 2013, it invested in Bangalore-based commodity trading and risk management software startup, ICA.

A reminder of the Facebook investment now, quote, Facebook said that other than offering the capital to geo platforms for a 9.99% stake in the firm, it would work with the Indian giant on a number of areas starting with e-commerce. Days later, GeoMart, an e-commerce subventure run by India's most valued firm, began testing an ordering system on WhatsApp, the most popular smartphone app in India with over 400 million active users in the world's second largest internet market, end quote. Uber is apparently going to require masks and or face coverings for drivers and passengers in certain markets that it operates in, which again seems obvious. And Uber's already been tinkering around with this in various places.

But also, Uber is apparently developing technology to detect driver's usage of face coverings so that it can enforce this policy, quoting CNN business. The company already has face verification capabilities as part of its. real-time ID check feature used to verify the identity of drivers. Uber is also looking into ways to hold writers accountable, the person said. Uber confirmed to CNN business that the company plans to introduce a policy around requiring masks or face coverings in certain markets and that it is developing technology to detect drivers' usage of face coverings. Quote, as countries reopen, Uber is focused on safety and proceeding with caution. Today, we continue to ask writers to stay home if they can while shipping safety supplies to drivers who are providing essential trips.

At the same time, our teams are preparing for the next phase of recovery, where we will all have a role to play, said Uber's head of safety communications, Andrew Hasbin, in a statement to CNN business, end quote. Rumors of an interesting possible acquisition, interesting for a number of reasons, including the space it's in, the company in question, as well as the potential acquirer in question. Sources are telling globes that Intel is in talks to acquire Israeli startup MoveIt, which makes a journey planner app, as well as provides transit data APIs to cities and companies. The rumored acquisition price is around a billion dollars.

And also worth noting here, Intel Capital, the venture investment arm of Intel is already a shareholder in Moveit. Quote, Movitt was founded in 2011 and has raised $134 million. shareholders include Gemini, the Barkat Brothers, BMW, vintage, Sequoia, and Waze founder Uri Levin, who also serves as Movitt's chairman. In February 2018, after Intel Capital invested in Movitt's $50 million financing round, co-founder and CEO Near Erez said, quote, Moveit expects to surpass 1 billion users by 2021 and to expand significantly the number of cities that use Movitt's data analytics to improve urban mobility. We are especially thrilled about our plans to collaborate. with mobile eye. It's a synergistic relationship at an exciting time to be shaping the future of urban mobility, end quote. Susha said, quote, with significant investments in automated driving, mobility

management platforms, and smart infrastructure, Intel is at the forefront of a fundamental transformation of urban mobility. We're working with some of the most innovative transit companies, municipalities, and transit authorities to build critical foundational technologies for this transformation. Moveit is one of the world's leaders in public transit data and analytics. The combination of Mobile Eyes and move its technology and data will be instrumental in making cities ready for autonomous vehicles, end quote. This would be the second major acquisition in Israel by Intel in recent months after it purchased Chipmaker Habana Labs for $2 billion at the end of 2019.

Amnon Shoshusha, the founder and CEO of Mobile Eye, which was acquired by Intel for $15.3 billion in 2017, the largest ever acquisition in Israel, sits on the board of directors of MoveIt, end quote. So I'm flagging this as interesting because, as C-Tech said on Twitter, quote, with a Move-It acquisition, Mobile Eye and Intel would be securing a precious supply of data that's necessary for self-driving cars to be able to hit Main Street, end quote. And also, folks keep calling Movet the Waze of Mass Transit. You'll note that Waze was another Israeli startup up that sold for the same $1 billion price tag, but it's sold to Google, not Intel. Finally today, an article in the journal, European Heart Journal, argues that in addition to

atrial defibrillation, Apple Watch's ECG function might also be able to detect something called myocardial ischemia. The article in question describes an 80-year-old woman in Germany, whose Apple Watch detected an issue with her heart that an ECG scan had missed, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. The patient showed doctors the results of ECG tests that she took with her Apple Watch, which included tracings with marked ST segment depression. In these results, the doctors did see evidence of myocardial is chemia. The patient was transferred to the catheterization lab, which showed a left main stem stenosis and a left anterior descending diagonal bifurcation lesion.

Thus, the patient was treated with coronary artery stenting and left the hospital the next day. The Mayo Clinic described myocardio ischemia as this, quote, myocardial is chemia occurs when blood flow to your heart is reduced, preventing the heart muscle from receiving enough oxygen. The reduced blood flow is usually the result of a partial or complete blockage of your heart's arteries. The article from the European Health Journal concludes that the Apple Watch may be used to detect myocardial ishemia, end quote. Yes, but the Apple Watch is not officially able to do this yet, and clearly Apple would have to do plenty more testing on something like this before it could

roll it out as officially a feature in the Apple Watch. And also one has to imagine that a main priority right now, inside Apple for the Apple Watch, would be blood-upyed. oxygen level testing. I know I just got the blood oxymeter device that I ordered at the very start of the whole COVID crisis. It's a thing that you wear on your finger to detect oxygen levels in your blood, and people with COVID have been using it to determine if they need to go to the hospital or not. You'd have to imagine that if Apple could roll something like that out now, they certainly would love to. And Google around, guess what? Here's 9 to 5 Mac first. from March 8th, quote, Apple Watch will add the ability to detect blood oxygen levels for the first

time 9 to 5 Mac has learned based on an exclusive look at iOS 14 code snippets. Blood oxygen levels between 95 and 100% are considered healthy. Blood oxygen levels below 80% may lead to compromised heart and brain functionality. Risk of respiratory or cardiac arrest is common after continued low blood oxygen saturation. To that end, Apple is developing a new health notification based on the vital measurement. When Apple Watch detects low blood oxygen saturation below a certain threshold, a notification will trigger alerting the user similar to current heart rate notifications, end quote. What's crazy about reading that article now is that there's not a single mention of COVID-19 or

coronavirus in there. Again, it was published all the way back in the before times of March 8th. here's a special episode of what Brian watched this weekend. Uncut Gems. Crazy good movie. Also, I tried out and I'm not done with yet Normal People, the TV show that premiered on Hulu last week. Holy cow. I'm obsessed with that.

In fact, even though I'm not done with the show, I bought the book, Normal People on Saturday morning, and read the entire thing in 36 hours. So, so good. it up, normal people. Talk to you tomorrow.