Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 10/07 - macOS Catalina is Here!

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Tech meme right home for Monday, October 7th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, a Kindle Kids edition is here. Sonos speakers via subscription is here. MacOS Catalina is here, but the following tab is gone from Instagram, PayPal is ghosting Libra, and why investors think

Starting point is 00:00:54 the time to jump into quantum computing might be right now. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Amazon has debuted a $110-dollar Kindle Kids edition with a choice of four cases and one year of free time unlimited and reading rewards like achievement badges. Please note I am not talking about the kid-friendly versions of the Kindle Fire tablets. This is a new kid-friendly version of the E-Inc readers. The new Kindles are available for pre-order now, shipping on October 30th, and And if you wanted a version without the cases and the free time unlimited subscription, the device will run you only $70. Quoting C-net. Aside from its eye-catching case designs, the Kindle Kids Edition has some kid-friendly software features.

Starting point is 00:01:46 Here's a quick look at the full feature set according to Amazon. There are achievement badges. Kids can earn badges like Bookworm and Overachiever when they make progress toward predefined goals. There's easy discovery with enhanced browsing and search. kids can locate titles without the exact spelling. And with smart recommendations, kids can find books related to the genre's authors and characters they like. There's word-wise. Kids are automatically provided short and simple definitions above difficult words so they can keep reading with fewer interruptions. There's dictionary. If kids come across a difficult word, they can select the word to look up the definition via the built-in Kindle Dictionary.

Starting point is 00:02:23 There's vocabulary builder. Words looked up in dictionaries are automatically added to vocabulary builder and turned into of flashcards for future review and learning, and there's kid-friendly wallpaper, a unique set of lock-screen wallpapers designed specifically for kids, end quote. If you're not familiar with that free time unlimited subscription package, it has been around for a while now, it's sort of an all-encompassing subscription for kid-friendly books, movies, TV shows, audible books, and even apps and games for fire devices, Kindle devices, and even iOS and Android. has launched Sonos Flex. No, it's not a new smart speaker. It's actually a subscription service

Starting point is 00:03:10 for Sonos's smart speakers. With Sonos Flex, you can now rent Sonos speakers by the month, starting at around 15 euros per month. Well, you can, so long as you live in the Netherlands, because it's only available there at the moment, and it's currently restricted to just 500 Dutch homes. But hey, even hardware makers want a piece of that sweet subscription revenue right. Here are the Dietz from the Verge. 15 euros per month will get you two Sonos 1 smart speakers that can be paired together or use separately in different rooms. That would run you 458 euros if purchased at Sonos. For 25 euros a month, you get one Sonos Beam soundbar and two Sonos one speakers for TV audio.

Starting point is 00:03:55 That would be 907 euros if purchased at Sonos. 50 euros per month gets you the play bar, a subwulfer, and two. sonos one speakers for a more robust home theater setup. That would run you $2,026 euros if purchased separately. The speakers are available in either black or white and will be automatically replaced with the latest models as they're released. Subscribers can alter their subscriptions or cancel at any time. Orders take about four days to process and delivery is free with an option for free professional installation of the 50 euro system offered to Amsterdam, end quote.

Starting point is 00:04:32 So why trial only in the Netherlands for now? Well, Sonos is headquartered in the Netherlands. And I also find it interesting that this is not a rent-to-own situation. They don't want you to own stuff anymore. A lot of people don't. Again, this is subscription hardware as a service, which really seems to be the way that a lot of hardware is probably going to go in the very near future.

Starting point is 00:05:02 Instagram says it is removing the activity feeds following tab, which, until now, showed users what their friends were liking across the Instagram platform. Instagram's reasoning here, according to them, no one used the following tab. Now, I don't know about that. I mean, I feel like it was something people tended to do, to keep an eye on the creepy stuff that their friends were grocking on Instagram. But Insta does make a compelling argument, quoting Katie Natopoulos in BuzzFeed News. Instagram launched its following tab as an early feature back in 2011, long before its Explore tab debuted. At the time, following was the best way to discover new content since it would show you things your friends were liking.

Starting point is 00:05:48 But that's no longer true now that Explorer has established itself as the primary means of discovering new stuff on Instagram. Now that following has disappeared, it's likely few people will notice that it's gone. Vesal Shah, Instagram's head of product, told BuzzFeed News, it wasn't a feature that people used for, frequently and that the company suspected many users didn't know it existed. And for those that did, it was often a source of unwelcome surprises. Quote, people didn't always know that their activity is surfacing, Shaw said. So you have a case where it's not serving the use case you built it for, but it's also causing people to be surprised when their activity is showing up, end quote. As Natopoulos says in her piece, we're probably better off without the ability to passively

Starting point is 00:06:33 stock people's activity on social media, or as she puts it, quote, with the following tab gone, HPs, which she defines as horny people, will now be able to live their horny lives as they choose without showcasing their horniness on Maine. Carry on HPs, end quote. And from the you had to know this was coming eventually file, the Financial Times is reporting that Apple has recently begun approaching major music labels to discuss their ability to bundle Apple Music subscriptions together with Apple TV Plus subscriptions for one low monthly fee. But so far, and tell me where have we heard this before, the record labels are not so thrilled

Starting point is 00:07:20 about this idea, fearing that this would devalue their music libraries. Quote, while some labels are open to the idea, people at one big record company said they had concerns, and that the industry was growing more wary about its relationship with Apple, which strong-armed labels a decade ago into selling individual songs for 99 cents on iTunes. In recent years, the success of streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music has helped a recovery in the music business. But executives fear that margins may be hurt if Apple undercuts the $10 monthly price that Spotify, Apple Music, and others charge, end quote. Now, of course, Apple would own all of the rights to the Apple TV Plus material if they did a super bundle.

Starting point is 00:08:03 again, that's the whole point of funding your own content production. But for the other half, it would still need the okay from the record companies to change the terms of its music licenses. Now, in theory, Apple could just mash Apple Music and Apple TV Plus together for $13 a month, and that would be no discount, so no skin off the record company's noses. But if you do any kind of discounting, well, that's the problem. Somewhere, Steve Jobs is banging his head against a wall because nearly 20 years on from the birth of iTunes, Apple still has to fight the record company's tooth and nail every time it wants to do something new in digital media. Apple today officially launched MacOS Catalina with tons of new apps and features, of course. For example, the Find My app, the screen time app.

Starting point is 00:09:01 And Apple Music, TV, and podcast apps are all coming to the Mac to replace iTunes. And there's also a bunch more. As The Verge says, quote, Catalina marks the end of iTunes as a fixture on Macs, with the app now broken into separate apps for Apple Music, podcasts, and Apple TV. Everything iTunes did should be available across these new streamlined apps. Device syncing for iPhones and iPads has been moved to the Finder.

Starting point is 00:09:28 The new release also introduces support for iPad apps on MacOS, through what Apple calls Project Catalyst, which could kick off a wave of software coming over from Apple's tablets to its desktop and laptop computers. Speaking of the iPad, Catalina also includes a new Sidecar feature, which allows iPads to be used as secondary displays for your Mac, both wirelessly and when plugged in. Sidecar supports the Apple Pencil, letting you work in the Mac versions of apps like Photoshop while using the stylus.

Starting point is 00:09:57 You can also annotate screenshots or PDFs with the pencil, end quote. Now, as with any major OS update to any piece of hardware, there are the usual caveats of, you know, maybe don't install right away because there may be bugs or your favorite apps might not work right away. But because this marks the official transition to 64-bit for the Mac OS, that is especially true with Catalina. You would hope that all of your favorite apps have made the 64-bit transition. but, you know, the way the universe works, that one app that you probably will end up needing didn't make the transition, right? I know that I will be waiting months before I do this update. Something that Renee Richie mentions in IMO's official Catalina review, quote, For now, MacOS Catalina is one of the most important updates we've ever gotten.

Starting point is 00:10:53 It not only dismantles iTunes and sets up all of Apple's new services, but with Catalyst and Swift UI, it sets up the future of apps and ensures the Mac will continue to be a first-class part of that future. I love the technology, the vision, and the direction, but it's still unpolished in parts and frustrating in others, and that'll take continued time and effort to fix. If you're at all concerned about release version bugs or worried about app compatibility, by all means, wait and see, let the rest of us be your testers, and when the point releases start coming, choose whichever one makes you comfortable enough, to jump on, end quote. So when I've said before, I'm not a hundred percent sure what the odds are

Starting point is 00:11:38 that Libra will ever see the light of day. I'm not entirely being flippant. Late on Friday, PayPal announced that it would become the first founding member of the Libra Association to withdraw from the association and thus the Libra Cryptocurrency Project. This is especially notable since David Marcus, who leads the Libra Project for Facebook, was once the president of PayPal. So if there was any of the Libra partners you would think Facebook would have an in with, quoting CNBC, PayPal has made the decision to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved

Starting point is 00:12:25 populations, PayPal said in a statement. Dante Disparte, head of policy and community communications for the Libra Association said in an emailed statement, we recognize that change is hard and that each organization that started this journey will have to make its own assessments of risks and rewards of being committed to seeing through the change that Libre promises, end quote. If you'll recall, the Libre Association had 28 pledged corporate backers who are all expected to pony up a minimum of $10 million to get the project off the ground. PayPal was one of those, and earlier last week, the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Visa and MasterCard, among other unnamed partners, were, quote, reconsidering their involvement as well. Why the cold feat? Well, quoting Bloomberg, several founding members of the Facebook-led project have been wavering over whether to fully embrace the effort because they're concerned about maintaining positive relationships with regulators who have reservations about the initiative, people familiar with the, matter told Bloomberg earlier this week, concerns that PayPal might back away from the project intensified on Thursday when the company was mysteriously absent from a meeting of association

Starting point is 00:13:37 members in Washington. All of the other original partners were in attendance, according to people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified discussing a private meeting, end quote. So is it that the partners are worried about jeopardizing existing regulatory relationships that allow their current businesses to operate? That would be reasonable. or are they worried that Libra is real and threatening and could eat their lunch and supplant their existing businesses? I've seen chatter online that argues both sides. And to be honest, it always did feel a bit weird to me that all of these banks and payment players would sign up to participate in something that by definition was designed to disrupt the payment space by cutting into the existing fat fees. it always did feel a bit like, you know, keep your enemies close sort of thing.

Starting point is 00:14:32 Finally, today it was interesting to see this, a look at an up-and-coming tech sector from the journal of nature of all places. According to nature, in an analysis of data, in 2017 and 2018, quantum computing startups received at least $450 million in private funding, more than four times the $104 million they in the previous two years. Quote, few doubt that quantum technologies will eventually yield useful and potentially revolutionary products. Alongside government investments, hundreds of firms are rushing to invest in the field with big names such as IBM, Google, Alibaba, Hewlett-Packard, Tencent, Baidu, and Huawei all doing their own research. Google has reportedly now created a quantum

Starting point is 00:15:20 computer that can solve specialized problems that would stump even the best classical computer, a landmark known as quantum supremacy. Secure encryption using quantum technology is already a commercial product, as are some quantum-enabled technologies that sense, image, or measure at exquisitely precise scales. One firm, D-Wave systems in Burnaby, Canada, even sells computers that exploit quantum effects, although these machines specialize in particular tasks known as optimization problems. But venture capitalists tend to invest in what they hope will be game changers, such as a multi-purpose quantum computer that could handle many

Starting point is 00:15:59 kinds of otherwise unfeasible calculations. From the perspective of investors, the cash dumped into the field annually represents a small outlay so far on a par with VC investments in AI firms before 2010, for instance. By 2018, US VC investments in AI had bloomed to $9.3 billion. Still, these numbers are substantial for an immature field that doesn't yet have much to sell. Despite this, some software firms are already marketing their work on quantum algorithms, which are written for hardware that does not yet exist, end quote. One note of caution about that term I just used, quantum enabled technologies. This is a tweet from physicist Mark Fromhold, who tweeted, quote, it is unfortunate that quantum technologies are being presented as synonymous with quantum computing.

Starting point is 00:16:53 They are not. Quantum sensors are already here and leading to real technological and commercial advances, end quote. With the implication there being, I guess, that quantum computing is not quite here, at least not yet. So I did finally get all caught up with succession over the weekend, so I was current as of last night's episode. I do get why some people don't like that show for political reasons or even for not being able to find a character you can root for. But if you can look past that stuff, I don't know, y'all. It's the highest level comedic tragedy. The writing is so, so smart.

Starting point is 00:17:37 And even if every single character is hateful, if you can be objective about that, man, the plot machinations on that show are just brilliant. My favorite quote from my weekend of binging and catching up, quote, Is there any booze in here? No. There's only Emily Dickinson and low thread count sheets. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 10/07 - macOS Catalina is Here!

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