Press – Silicon Valley + more

2 minutes estimated reading time

Press – Silicon Valley – Nieman Reports – interesting, smart read. I thought that coverage in the press  – Silicon Valley has been sycophantic for decades. There were some noticeable exceptions like InfoWorld’s Notes from the Field in the early 1990s. More on Silicon Valley here.

This Is How The Majority Of The World Will Get Online, Google Hopes – BuzzFeed News – “My relationship to Google is like I’m forced to be married to someone,” said Rudiantara, who noted that his government eventually spoke to Google, who created the technology behind the maps and accounts that make the insanely popular game possible and had made sure the game was being played away from sensitive military sites. “We can’t say go to hell to Google or to technology. But we also cannot allow them to do everything they want to do.”

Microsoft helps Mac users ditch Evernote for OneNote with new tool | TechCrunch – never been a big Evernote fan, but this doesn’t look good for them

Chicago’s predictive policing tool just failed a major test | The Verge – this also has implications for the adoption of big data

The stuff we really need is getting more expensive. Other stuff is getting cheaper. – The Washington Post – really interesting paradox of western society

It looks like Watch battery life is still a problem Apple can’t easily fix | BGR – battery technology hasn’t really evolved significantly since lithium ion technology

Why Japan has more music stores than the rest of the world — Quartz – It’s not uncommon for a CD to be released in five different versions, featuring different covers, B-sides, or bonus DVDs.This speaks to a love of physical objects that’s characteristic of Japanese and also German culture, says Mulligan. These two countries have a shared preference for cash over credit cards, and also the strongest sales of physical music in the world. – It reminds me of the UK before chart regulations redefined what length a single could be way before digital formats

China rings up US$32.4b sales of smartphones in second-quarter | SCMP – huge volumes, not so huge margins

Nationwide looks to appeal to A-level audience with Snapchat Geofilter and Lens campaign | Social Media | The Drum – desperately trying to be down with the kids

0.13.0 Binary Safety Warning | Bitcoin.org – this is their equivalent of a warrant canary. Shit is about to sideways in cryptocurrency and all those fintech startups looking at blockchain will also be tainted by concerns. For the US cracking bitcoin allows them to attack the deep web and tax evasion. It also allows economic warfare against China which currently dominates bitcoin. From China’s perspective cracking bitcoin could help on tigers-and-flies investigations and capital flight