Ged Carroll

Category: gadget | 小工具 | 가제트 | ガジェット

What constitutes a gadget? The dictionary definition would be a small mechanical or electronic device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one.

When I started writing this blog the gadget section focused on personal digital assistants such as the Palm PDA and Sony’s Clie devices. Or the Anoto digital pen that allowed you to record digitally what had been written on a specially marked out paper page, giving the best of both experiences.

Some of the ideas I shared weren’t so small like a Panasonic sleeping room for sleep starved, but well heeled Japanese.

When cutting edge technology failed me, I periodically went back to older technology such as the Nokia 8850 cellphone or my love of the Nokia E90 Communicator.

I also started looking back to discontinued products like the Sony Walkman WM-D6C Pro, one of the best cassette decks ever made of any size. I knew people who used it in their hi-fi systems as well as for portable audio.

Some of the technology that I looked at were products that marked a particular point in my life such as my college days with the Apple StyleWriter II. While my college peers were worried about getting on laser printers to submit assignments, I had a stack of cartridges cotton buds and isopropyl alcohol to deal with any non catastrophic printer issues and so could print during the evening in the comfort of my lodgings.

Alongside the demise in prominence of the gadget, there has been a rise in the trend of everyday carry or EDC.

  • iPhone X launch + more things

    iPhone X launch

    In terms of the news agenda, the iPhone X launch dominated the news. I wrote about it here and here.  This image from the Chinese internet summed everything about the iPhone X launch up for me.

    Chinese reaction to iPhone X

    We’re in a place of innovation stuckness at the moment – we’re celebrating incremental improvements in user experiences on smartphones as transformational, they aren’t. This is a category challenge, not a vendor-specific one. Even infrastructure and component vendor Qualcomm is struggling to envision ways to move things on.

    I have been mostly listening to this playlist from this years Love International Festival

    And FIP Radio

    Japanese group meforyouforme combining traditional Japanese culture and dance with modern tap dancing FTW


    Hong Kong stars Donnie Yen and Andy Lau go back to the 1970s with Chasing the Dragon – a thriller based on real characters involved in drug smuggling and organised crime in the turbulent go-go economic boom of Hong Kong – Lee Rock (Lui Lok) was a corrupt policeman nicknamed 500 million dollar Inspector, who avoided corruption charges by moving to Canada and then Hong Kong. Crippled (or Limpy) Ho was a triad called Ng Sek-ho who rivalled the 14K triad group.  It is against the backdrop of the post-1967 riots economic boom which saw Hong Kong blow up in manufacturing and financial services. This brought rich pickings in corruption which led to the formation of the ICAC – the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

  • FaceID

    @ WWDC

    Apple’s facial recognition aka FaceID has spurred a number of discussions about the privacy trade-offs in the iPhone X.

    Experts Weigh Pros, Cons of FaceID Authentication in iPhone X | Dark Reading – One concern about FaceID is in its current implementation, only one face can be used per device, says Pepijn Bruienne, senior R&D engineer at Duo Security. TouchID lets users register up to five fingerprints. If a third party obtains a user’s fingerprint and reproduces it, and the user is aware, they could register a different unique fingerprint.

    Can Cops Force You to Unlock Your Phone With Your Face? | The Atlantic – Even if Face ID is advanced enough to keep pranksters out, many wondered Tuesday if it would actually make it easier for police to get in. Could officers force someone they’ve arrested to look into their phone to unlock it?

    How Secure Is The iPhone X’s FaceID? Here’s What We Know | Wired – Marc Rogers, a security researcher at Cloudflare who was one of the first to demonstrate spoofing a fake fingerprint to defeat TouchID. Rogers says he has no doubt that he—or at least someone—will crack FaceID. In an interview ahead of Apple’s FaceID announcement, Rogers suggested that 3-D printing a target victim’s head and showing it to their phone might be all it takes. “The moment someone can reproduce your face in a way that can be played back to the computer, you’ve got a problem,” Roger says. “I’d love to start by 3-D-printing my own head and seeing if I can use that to unlock it.” 

    Now lets talk about the Apple Watch, which I consider to present more serious issues.
     
    The Apple Watch 3 is interesting from a legislative point-of-view. The software SIM in the Apple Watch clones the number of your iPhone. The security services of the major powers generally don’t broadcast their capabilities. Politicians are generally untroubled by knowledge of what is possible. Giving politicians an inkling is likely to result in broad sweeping authoritarian power. 
    Imagine what will happen when Amber Rudd goes into parliament looking for real-time access to everyone’s phones. She now can point to the Apple Watch 3 as evidence that LTE and 3G connections can be cloned. What kind of legislation will her special advisers start cooking up then?

    Secondly, it will only be a matter of time before criminals either work out how to do it themselves, or co-opt mobile carrier staff. Two factor authentication that depends on SMS is already compromised. This allows it to be compromised and undetectable.

    The Apple Watch 3 may have royally screwed us all.

  • Apple retail special Event outtakes

    Key takeouts from the Apple special event with a little bit of analysis on Apple Retail.
     
    Apple Retail
    First presentation by Angela Ahrendts. There is a question of why she hadn’t presented at previous keynotes.  My read on it is that that the revenue per square foot metric beloved of retail analysts will tumble. Apple seems to be taking the mall companies idea of shopping as entertainment and doing it for their individual stores.
    Town hall – what they call the stores internally, bigger focus on engagement rather than transactions – is this an effort to try and recapture cool?
    Store features
      • Plaza – public private spaces outside the store if possible, interesting implications on future store placements – probably less in malls
      • Forum – open plan internal space
      • Boardroom – private space focused on developer relations, was probably the most interesting push. Stores are being given a stronger push as embassies for developer relations. 
      • Creative Pro – Apple genius for the creative apps, probable mix of amateur and professional audiences addressed
      • Today at Apple – driven by Creative Pro staff to focus on creating more usuage of key offerings i.e. photo walks – think Nike Running Club. Also includes teacher outreach
      • Genius grove – the genius bar but with plants presumably to try and break up the overall store noise
    • Avenues  – wider aisles that products are on
    Continued retail expansion in the US including Chicago – interesting that international expansion wasn’t mentioned. 
     
    Apple Watch
      • 50% yearly growth – the series 2 fixed many of the hygiene factors wrong with the first version
    • 97% customer satisfaction – health seems to be driving this
    Health features: focus on heart rate monitor and getting proactive about flagging elevated heart rate. Also focusing on heart rhythm changes as well.
     
    watchOS 4 out September 19 available to all customers. Interesting that they didn’t drill into some of interesting features on watchOS 4 using Siri
     
    Series 3 Apple Watch with cellular built in. Your Dick Tracy fantasies are alive. Apple thinks that people will leave their phones at home and bring their Apple Watch. They also see it as killing the iPod Nano with wireless music playback. I am yet to be convinced.
    Apple added a barometric sensor; usage example was focused on health and fitness rather then locative apps. Not a great surprise given that these sensors have been in premium G-Shocks for a good while. 
     
    Apple used specially designed lower power wifi and Bluetooth silicon. But no news about who is making the cellular modem. The SIM is embedded on the motherboard and presumably a software update? These changes could have interesting implications for future phones?
     
    Interesting carrier partnerships, in particular all three of China’s mobile carriers, but only EE in the UK?
     
    Apple TV
     
      • Apple TV now supports 4K, unsurprising hardware upgrade and includes high dynamic range – Apple is following the TV set industry’s lead
      • More interesting is the amount of content deals Apple has done with studios, in particular keeping the price point of 4K HDR content the same as was previously charged for HD content.
      • Interesting TV partnerships but no major UK TV stations only Mubi
      • Emphasis on easy access to sports on the Apple TV would wind up cable companies further
    • Apple TV was also positioned as the control interface for HomeKit smarthome products. There was no further  update on HomeKit in the presentation 
    iPhone 8 incremental changes
     
      • Wireless charging with glass back. The steel and copper reinforcement of the glass is probably to help with the induction charging
    • Incremental improvements in picture quality. Bigger focus on AR including new sensors.
    iPhone X
     
      • Positioned as future direction for iPhones. Biometric face ID is clever but has issues. I wonder how it will work with facial hair or weight gain – Apple claims that it will adapt. Apple also claims to be able to detect photos and masks. It’s also used for face tracking in AR applications with some SnapChat lens demos.
      • As with Touch ID, there is a PIN code if your face doesn’t work. I have found that Touch ID doesn’t work all the time so you need that PIN back up.
      • The notch at the top poses some UX / design issues and the industrial design implies case free usage which will be a step away from usual iPhone usage.
    • What isn’t immediately apparent to me is the user case for the iPhone X versus the iPhone 8 plus?
    What was lacking in the iPhone presentation was a celebration of all in the changes in iOS 11 under the hood.
    A11 – Bionic chip in the iPhone 8 and X
      • Includes new integrated GPU for machine learning and graphics. This explains why Imagination Technologies are in trouble
    • New image sensor processingThe A11 processor has a hardware neural network on the chip for the iPhone X – unsure if its also usable on the 8
    Apple’s moves to embrace, co-opt Qi wireless charging and build a super-standard on top of it will likely wind up members like Qualcomm and Huawei. How much of this is down to user experience and how much is down to the desire to get Apple IP in the technology stack?
    Apple is left with a large product line of iPhones: SE, 6 series, 7 series, 8 series and the X

  • Qualcomms new chipset + more things

    Qualcomms new chipset allows cars to communicate with each other | SiliconAngle – Qualcomms new chipset shows an ambition that isn’t written in stone. Qualcomm has a serious partnership problem and the auto industry should consider carefully before letting them inside their supply chain. More on Qualcomm here

    Tech companies spend more on R&D than any other companies in the U.S. – Recode – not particularly surprising in a world of shareholder value, whether that money well spent is another topic

    If Unilever Can’t Make Feel-Good Capitalism Work, Who Can? – Bloomberg – good if uncritical view of Unilever

    America needs its unions more than ever – Interesting op-ed by Larry Summers. Never thought I would see this argued by him

    Google is losing allies across the political spectrum | Ars Technica – not terribly surprising

    Huawei to unveil new smartphone with AI-powered chipset ‘Kirin 970’ | South China Morning Post – interesting more for the design choices Huawei has to make. It needed something that would work with Google’s Android and the Chinese home-brew distribution. Imagine trust and cloud services influenced it. Finally networks just aren’t as ubiquitous as we’d like either

    There is only one winner when start-ups advertise on Facebook | Business | The Times & The Sunday Times – every day at Jam Jar, our angel investing fund that backs UK entrepreneurs, we sit through pitch after pitch, for every conceivable type of start-up, from dog food to posh watches, and everyone — and I do mean literally everyone — is selling their equity and raising millions and millions of pounds seemingly for one reason — to pay for ads on Facebook. It is a phenomenon so consistent across the companies we see, the money being raised is so big and the faith in the strategy so absolute, that at the end of every pitch, we are always left with the same conclusion: we should just buy shares in Facebook

    How to handle an HireVue interview with an investment bank – “There are over 15,000 traits that can be used to identify top performers,” says Clark. These include your choice of language, the breadth of your vocabulary, your eye movements, the speed of your delivery, the level of stress in your voice, your ability to retain information, your ‘valence’ (emotion), and 14,993 others. With a HireVue interview, it’s not just about running through your work history and academic achievements, or using the S.T.A.R. technique to answer questions. It’s about your delivery, and what’s going on beneath the surface.

    Three’s Smarty: Pants or Tops, Dude? – Three UK launches a low cost MVNO – how low can it go?

  • China Inc. + other news

    Xi’s Sign-Off Deals Blow to China Inc.’s Global Spending Spree – WSJ – China Inc. a mix of brands from those that aren’t known in the property development space to the owners of House of Fraser or Weetabix. I was speaking to a technology start-up who talked about raising their funds and getting them in just in time from investors representing a large China Inc. name, right before ‘the door shut’ (paywall)

    Consumer behaviour

    One Family, Many Revolutions: From Black Panthers, to Silicon Valley, to Trump – NYTimes.com – interesting reading (paywall)

    Design

    The Dark Side Of “Friendly” Design | Fast Co. Design

    Economics

    In China, Herd of ‘Gray Rhinos’ Threatens Economy – NYTimes.com – Chinese conglomerates who have grown based on cheap bank loans. It hasn’t been said yet, but there must be similar implications for Chinese businesses who have benefited from state bank supported vendor financing to win customers abroad (paywall). More related content here.

    Gadget

    Apple’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus Are More Popular Than Older Models | Fortune.com

    Hong Kong

    Twenty years,20 visualisations | SCMP – great step back to pre-internet living

    Japan

    In conversation with Japan’s 82-year-old porn star | This Week In Asia | South China Morning Post  – What motivates you to continue this work? Tokuda: It’s very simple; I feel very grateful when I get a request to work on a particular film and when a director requests me to be the male lead. I take pride in my work and whenever I have an offer for a part I try my best to make sure I am available and to give a good performance. It is very nice to feel wanted for my skills and I will continue to work for as long as I am wanted

    Korea

    Korean Broadcasters Launch U.S. Streaming Service, Taking on Warner Bros.’ DramaFever | Variety – and Netflix is running great K-drama like Secret Forest aka Stranger

    Legal

    The government should fight ‘corporate villainy’ in tech, Senator Cory Booker says | Recode – this isn’t the Silicon Valley that I grew up with and supported through the early part of my career

    Media

    Why Vinyl’s Boom Is Over – WSJ – not exactly but it does go into the foibles of mastering vinyl and overcompression of mastering for Spotify et al

    Retailing

    Three Reasons Abercrombie Has (Finally) Jumped on E-Commerce in China | AdAge – paywall

    Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture – The Agency Review – interesting and disturbing read

    Software

    Inside Andy Rubin’s Quest to Create an OS for Everything | Wired  – wasn’t that a historical Windows vision, there is a tension between general purpose and specialist

    A Privacy Choice | Rands In Repose – on browsers

    Marcel Is Just a Baby Compared to JWT’s Pangaea | Agency News – AdAge – narrow usage case versus Marcel’s ambitious general purpose platform. It also provides an idea of the steep ramp that Publicis will have to climb from the development perspective, let alone the degree of culture change required