Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 10/16 - RIP Paul Allen (1953-2018)

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

Uber’s targeting a blockbuster IPO valuation, cops told to stop looking at iPhones, the Kindle Paperwhite is ready for the bath, the Pixel reviews are in, and remembering Paul Allen.Sponsors:DatadogHQ.com/RideHomeTiny.website99designs.com/techmeme Links:Uber Proposals Value Company at $120 Billion in a Possible IPO (WSJ)Cops Told ‘Don’t Look’ at New iPhones to Avoid Face ID Lock-Out (Motherboard)The Kindle Paperwhite is ready for the bath (Engadget)Google Pixel 3 review: improving on incredible (Charged)GOOGLE PIXEL 3 AND 3 XL REVIEW: THE BEST CAMERA GETS A BETTER PHONE (The Verge)The Google Pixel 3 XL review (TechCrunch)Google Pixel 3 Review: The Other Way to Make a Killer Phone (Gizmodo)Paul G. Allen, Microsoft’s Co-Founder, Is Dead at 65 (NyTimes) 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 Tech Meme Right Home for Tuesday, October 16th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Uber is targeting a blockbuster IPO valuation.

Cops are told to stop looking at iPhones. The Kindle Paperwhite is ready for the bath. The pixel reviews are in and remembering Paul Allen. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Uber has received proposals from a variety of Wall Street banks to help them go public. and the targeted valuation they're aiming for is as high as $120 billion. The IPO is still reportedly on track for 2019. Just two months ago, Uber was valued at just over half that $120 billion amount

during its most recent fundraising round. At the new figure, Uber is valued at quoting the journal here, more than General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler combined, end quote. So what's driving this huge valuation push? Well, most likely the most recent investors. Uber has backers who bought in over the years at valuations ranging from $50 million to $72 billion. But in order for those more recent investors to make a decent return on their money, Uber had better darn well be worth a lot come IPO day.

But then $100 billion has been the target for a long, long time now. Uber is also under pressure to go public by the end of 2019 due to an agreement with investor soft bank. If it doesn't IPO by that date, Masa Sons can sell his shares on the secondary market. This would complicate Uber's ability to set its own IPO price. Uber's side businesses and investments in ride-hailing firms in China and India help add to its valuation, and I found this tidbit from the journal surprising, quote, the bankers have valued the company's food delivery service Uber Eats at as much as $20 billion, according to one person. That is twice what Grubhub, the leading U.S. food delivery service trades at today on the public markets.

Uber Eats operates in nearly 500 cities globally and is expected to reach $6 billion in orders this year, from which the company takes a commission. While still a money loser, it is expected to become profitable much sooner than Uber's ride-hailing business, and so could help subsidize losses, end quote. On Twitter, Bloomberg Tech reporter Shirovide wrote, let's say Uber's net revenue doubles at this point in 2019. It won't. To, let's say, around $20 billion. At a $120 billion valuation, that's a not insane six times current year revenue.

But I have no idea if Uber's business model works. Do the bankers? does Uber? She followed up later posting a screenshot of the journal's story and writing, quote, huh, this seems to mean

Uber's growth is slowing sharply from the first half of 2018, unless its revenue calculations have changed or Uber is being conservative. Net revenue was $9.9 billion in the last 12 months, end quote. As someone on Twitter wrote this morning, and I forgot to note who it was, I'm sorry,

if the bankers can pull this off, they'll definitely be earning their fees on this one. I'm fascinated by the cat and mouse game between law enforcement and iPhones. We talked earlier this year about those devices that helped police hack into passcode-protected iPhones, and there have been stories, of course, of police trying to get suspects to put their fingers on phones to unlock them. But now with face ID, cops are being told something new. Don't look at the phones, or else you'll be locked out. Apple's face ID system for unlocking iPhones and soon iPads is posing new challenges for law enforcement.

The devices are actively looking for faces in certain modes like when they are picked up. If an iPhone sees the wrong face looking at it five times in a row, face ID goes into a locked mode requiring the user to enter a passcode. So what's the problem? Well, as I said, legal cases in the U.S. have set precedent that law enforcement can force suspects to give up fingerprints to unlock fingerprint-enabled devices, and show their faces to unlock face-lock-enabled devices. But in the U.S. at least, police still can't force you to divulge a passcode. You can thank the Fifth Amendment for that one. New guidelines that motherboard

obtained from forensics company Elcomsoft say in part, quote, iPhone 10, don't look at the screen or else. The same thing will occur as happened on Apple's event. smiley face emoticon, end quote. They're referring to an incident late last year when Apple Software Engineering Senior Vice President Craig Federigi tried to unlock a brand new iPhone 10 using Face ID live on stage and it didn't work. He ended up having to put in a numeric passcode,

causing many viewers to question how good Face ID really was. Later, Apple figured out that the iPhones on stage had been handled by the crew setting up the demo area and had gone into lockout mode because so many people had been picking them up polishing them and otherwise ensuring that they were ready for the demo. Apple changed its demo procedure to deal with this new reality, and now ElcomSoft encourages law enforcement agencies to do the same.

The leaked ElcomSoft guidelines also note that Face ID goes into lockout mode under a bunch of other circumstances, like if the device isn't used for 48 hours. Elcomsoft encourages law enforcement to use the sleep-wake button to check on a device to see if it's in lockout mode, and how many unsuccessful attempts to unlock it have been made. Plus, when pressing that button, you'd better not have your face anywhere near the face ID camera. Does this mean detectives?

We'll have to start wearing face masks to avoid confusing their suspect's phones. Maybe not yet, but file that one away for your next dystopian sci-fi script, screenwriters. Amazon announced a new Kindle paperweight this morning, which has long been the best Kindle for most people. The new model's banner feature is water resistance, similar to the most recent high-end Kindle Oasis, but there's a lot more to the device as well. The new paperweight has a brighter screen,

a 6-inch 300-PPI screen, a thinner and lighter design, and some new software to help you read easily in different scenarios, like the gym, the bath, wherever. The standard 8-gigabyte Kindle paperweight costs 129, 99 with special offers, which are ads that show up on the lock screen. But there's also a 32-gigabyte version designed to store tons of audiobooks from Audible. You can listen to audiobooks using Bluetooth headphones. That larger storage model costs just 30 bucks more at 15999.

All the new models come with six months of Kindle Unlimited for free. The new paperweight ships November 7 and is available for pre-order today. If you're in the market for a new Kindle or just have never had a Kindle before, this is probably the one you'll want to get. Just make sure you remember to cancel that Kindle Unlimited subscription if you end up not using it. The reviews for the new Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are out, and they're pretty uniformly great, except for some complaints about the notch on the XL and some scuffing on the textured back glass.

Let's round up some of the opinions to give you. an idea of what Google's top-of-the-line Android phone delivers. Owen Williams, writing for charged, gives us the broad view. Quote, Google has taken its hardware efforts from geek-focused experiments to a powerhouse of innovative design and high-quality smartphones in just three years. And another pearl from Owen focusing on the new key charging ability. Quote, I didn't really get wireless charging in the past, particularly given that fast charging allowed the device to get a full charge in less than an hour. Oh my God, I was so wrong.

Wireless charging is magical, and pixel stand transforms the phone into the perfect nightstand while still offering the quick charging experience, end quote. And here's Dieter Bonn over at the Verge. The single biggest improvement this year on both sizes is the quality of the screens. The screens are great. And as for the camera, quote, in any given photo you might prefer another phone, but on the whole, that the pixel 3 is just more consistent. It gets confused by complicated lighting less often and puts more detail into the shot without overdoing it on HDR effects. Most of all, I trust the pixel 3 more.

The pixel 2 was the best phone camera for all of last year, and it seems like the pixel 3 will be the best camera for all of this year, end quote. From Brian Heater at TechCrunch. Up front, you'll find that word of the Pixel 3 Xcel's notch was in fact not exaggerated. It's the stuff of legend. Turns out this is because of those dual front-facing cameras. Google is really committed to helping users up their selfie game here. And later on in his review, the pixel stand, meanwhile, is a smart little accessory. At $79, it's one I'd consider strongly if picking up the handset. Granted, it lacks the ambition of Apple's three product

charging air power, but among its other clear advantages is the fact that I've held it in my hand and can confirm. It's a real thing. actually exists." And, quote. And last, here's Sam Rutherford writing for Gizmodo. Clean and unfettered by add-ons or extra BS, Android on the Pixel 3 feels fast and snappy, unlike anything else. Though it's difficult to say if that's simply the result of speedier animations or superior

software optimization. Then you add on things like Google's living wallpapers, which are endlessly entertaining, features from previous pixels like Google's now playing song ID feature, and the new stuff like call screen, you end up with one of, if not the most considered out-of-the-box smartphone experiences, no customizing required. In fact, Google's call screen feature, which lets the Google Assistant Intercept phone spam, may be the most important development since caller ID, end quote. So, to sum up the stuff people like, the industrial design and build quality, the better screen, the better rear camera, the grippy textured glass back, the key charging, the extra wide

selfie camera, the haptic feedback, and on and on and on. The stuff that people don't like, the textured part of the back can get scuffed or scratch pretty easily. There's no second or third camera on the back, and oh yeah, there's still no headphone jack, but I think that ship has officially sailed. And yes, the X-L has a tall, sort of narrow notch that Dieterbone described as doofy, which, funny story, the TechMem editors originally posted the headline correcting that word until Dieter said over Twitter, no, I meant doofy. And indeed, we looked it up on Urban Dictionary. Doofy, description of and pertaining to acts or behaviors that come across in a somewhat off-kilter or awkward way that can be seen as any combination of clumsy,

uncoordinated, silly, strange, ditsy, dizzy, loopy, nerdy, geeky, odd. And lastly today, Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, has died. He suffered a recurrence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and the internet has been a buzz with remembrances of his pioneering work with Microsoft. Also, as the owner of various sports teams, as the visionary behind Seattle's Experience Music Project, as a guitarist, as a researcher, as a mariner, you name it. If you're not familiar with the man, take a cruise through his Wikipedia entry.

He met Bill Gates when they were kids. They got computer obsessed together. It was Paul who convinced Bill to drop out of Harvard and start Microsoft. I thought we'd do a quick roundup of tweets exploring some of the lesser-known projects of Paul Allen's. Kirk Bourne tweeted, maybe his greatest legacy will be a positive SETI signal from the Allen Telescope array utilized by the SETI Institute to search for extraterrestrial life. He then linked to SETIQuest. Info, a website that tracks the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California. The U.S. Naval Institute tweeted RIP Paul Allen, 1953 to 2018. The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist made significant contributions to naval heritage by funding the expeditions that discovered the wrecks of the USS Indianapolis, USS Lexington, USS Juno, and several other historic ships, end quote.

A Twitter user replied saying, Thank him for finding IJN Musashi, RIP, end quote. The Musashi was one of only two Yamato-class battleships ever built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and it played a part in many naval battles in World War II. Paul Allen and his research team located the wreck in 2015. Dylan Matthews tweeted, My favorite Paul Allen fact is that he built both a spaceship that took a man to space and a giant yacht, and the yacht, named Oursons.

Octopus cost about eight times as much as the spaceship. Spaceship one was estimated at $25 million. Octopus costs about $200 million, by most estimates I've seen. It includes two submarines, a full-size basketball court, and a recording studio, end quote. Athalia Christie tweeted, I am sorry to hear about the passing of Paul Allen, his creation of a fund to pick up the costs of evacuation, not covered by insurance for American medical personnel in the West African Ebola, outbreak made many less hesitant to deploy.

My thoughts are with his family and friends, end quote. Ben Gross tweeted, lots of people will mention Paul Allen's involvement with Microsoft, the Seattle Seahawks, or the Portland Trailblazers in the days ahead. But don't forget that he also founded Living Computers, one of the most important collections of vintage computing equipment in the USA. You can visit Living Computers next time you're in Seattle. My own comment on Twitter last night was illness kept taking Paul away from Microsoft at crucial times, which is true. He first left day-to-day operations at Microsoft in the early 1980s when a different bout of cancer first appeared, which he beat.

His absences were unfortunate, though, because in many ways he could have been Microsoft's conscience at important stages. Godspeed. That's all for today. helped me out with the writing once more, which was super needed because the previously mentioned book promos began today. I'm off right now to record the Hidden Forces podcast. And I was on a bunch of radio shows this morning, including Good Day Greenbrier in West Virginia, formerly home to, and you know me, who was genuinely fascinated to learn this, formerly home to the bunker where members of Congress were supposed to go in the event of a nuclear war back in the 1950s.

So, if the stuff really hits the fan, you now know where to find me, the Greenbrier Valley in West Virginia. Talk to you all tomorrow.