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HomeKit

Apple has finally found someone to support HomeKit • The Register – there have been smart home standards before HomeKit. I can also understand why there is a wider leeriness around Internet of Things due to the privacy implications, built in obsolescence and dependence on the cloud. But HomeKit does provide a more secure solution that seems to be less dependent on the cloud than Google and Amazon options out there. More related content here.

Business

Discounting Snapchat | L2 – really nice analysis of SnapChat

Magellan’s Hamish Douglass says Uber is a ‘Ponzi scheme’ | Sydney Morning Herald – I can see the point that Mr Douglass is making. More rose tinted observations might point to the similarity with Amazon; however even Amazon is relying on constant investment of profits from mature units in international and service expansion – Uber seems to be nowhere near breakeven

WSJ City – The Rise of the Amateur Oil Sleuths – interesting move to improve information

Legal

Chinese companies are working hard to overcome the copycat stigma | Quartz – actually this isn’t an overnight thing but has been going on for the best part of ten years. It is also worthwhile giving a shoutout to Naomi Wu who has been educating Chinese businesses on GPL licences and helping get compliance from companies in Shenzhen.

Marketing

Kantar Worldpanel’s most chosen brands in the UK 2017 – Kantar UK Insights – Kantar – what’s really a British brand? Modern supply chains pull things back and forth across Europe

Media

With its Special Projects Desk, Univision is keeping Gawker’s spirit alive at Gizmodo Media Group » Nieman Journalism Lab

Partnering Your Way Out Of The Gravitational Pull | Media Post – Richard Schwartz op-ed

Online

In2Summit: Q&A with Colin Byrne on the Digital Revolution | The Holmes Report – five years ago would you have seen major PR agencies in London talking about WeChat as the way forward?

How He Used Facebook to Win | by Sue Halpern | The New York Review of BooksFacebook did turn out to be essential to Trump’s victory, but not in the way Grassegger, Krogerus, and Schwartz suggest. Though there is little doubt that Cambridge Analytica exploited members of the social network, Facebook’s real influence came from the campaign’s strategic and perfectly legal use of Facebook’s suite of marketing tools

Security

Privacy threats through ultrasonic side channels on mobile devices by Arp, Quiring, Wressnegger & Rieck – great article on the privacy implications of ultrasonic beacons and mobile devices (PDF)

Software

Communities Dominate Brands: We Can Now Estimate Global Android Forked Installed Base ie AOSP Devices vs ‘full Google’ Android

Technology

Huawei missed memo that PC’s dead – so here are three new notebooks • The Register – interesting move for a company whose chairman said that they have to increase margins, model specs also interesting – looks like an attempt to try and surround Apple – it is more important 5 iterations from now

Hitachi exits mainframe hardware but will collab with IBM on z Systems • The Register – end of an era, I wonder what this will mean for Hitachi Data System’s storage business over time?

Telecoms

Inside Facebook’s Telecom Infrastructure Project – Business Insider – really interesting move that could hit the likes of Huawei and Cisco. Facebook is building white box software switches

Web of no web

Google now knows when its users go to the store and buy stuff – The Washington Post – which is one more thing to be concerned about.

Wireless

Apple Begs Android Users to Switch to iPhone | Makeuseof – beg is the wrong word, but this looks like the start of an effort to promote platform switching which is another indicator of smartphone market maturity and saturation

Apple is testing 5G millimeter wave wireless technology: FCC filing – Business Insider – I get why they are experimenting with it, but at the moment commercial 5G looks problematic