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Showing posts from February, 2019

Apple self-driving car layoffs give hints to division's direction

Apple self-driving car layoffs give hints to division's direction : Apple operates the car project on a "need-to-know" basis, with only about 5,000 of Apple's 140,000 full-time workers included, according to court documents in a theft of trade secrets criminal case filed this year against an ex-Apple employee. About 1,200 of those are "core" employees that are "directly working on the development of the project," according to the complaint, which was unsealed in January. Despite the headcount changes, the company appears to have ramped up its testing on California roads. In a filing with regulators earlier this month, Apple said it had logged nearly 80,000 miles of testing in its home state in 2018, far surpassing the less than 1,000 miles it had logged the year before. It was, however, far fewer than Alphabet Inc's Waymo unit, which logged 1.2 million miles in California last year.
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Think at a Glance: Marketing lessons from the modern traveler

You can also view this email as a   webpage .   Think at a Glance     Shoppers have the world at their fingertips. You can help them navigate it.       PREDICTIONS & TRENDS   The paradox of choice — and what you can do about it     A decade or two ago, planning a vacation was a complex affair. For most of us, it involved a visit to a travel agent who presented us with a set of limited options: a handful of destinations, restricted departure and return dates, and few opportunities to adapt the trip to our own tastes. Fast forward to today, and thanks to the internet, we quite literally have the world at our fingertips.   This is true across many industries, from travel to automotive to homebuying and beyond.   But while technology has democratized the act of researching and purchasing, it's also created what psychologists call the paradox of choice. The more options we have, the more anxious and undecided we feel. And that's exactly what plays out in the travel data. For exa
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Ballmer bleeds Microsoft, but goes with Amazon for Clippers | Tech - Ad Age

Ballmer bleeds Microsoft, but goes with Amazon for Clippers | Tech - Ad Age : Ballmer said, yes, it was awkward cutting a deal with Microsoft's biggest rival. He went with Amazon Web Services because it provides the computing power behind CourtVision, a video technology the Clippers are using to develop a mobile app that may "transform the consumer experience." "Do I bleed Microsoft? Of course I bleed Microsoft," Ballmer said in an interview. "But Amazon has done a nice job."
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Trump's Bizarre Speech Announcing a National Emergency - The Atlantic

Trump's Bizarre Speech Announcing a National Emergency - The Atlantic : It was one of the least coherent appearances Trump has made in a presidency noted for its incoherence. Yet the circus in the Rose Garden threatened to distract from a major policy announcement. During a briefing Friday morning, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said that Trump would take $600 million from a Treasury Department forfeiture fund, $2.5 billion from a Defense Department counter-drug fund, and another $3.6 billion from Pentagon military-construction money. Only the construction funds require an emergency declaration. Trump will not take money from disaster-relief funds, an idea that had been discussed.
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US Army wants Steve Jobs and iPhone-style design process for next-generation rifles

US Army wants Steve Jobs and iPhone-style design process for next-generation rifles : "Imagine that Steve Jobs and his engineers were trying to convert the iPod Touch to the first 3G iPhone," suggested Army Col. Elliott Caggins, project manager for the new weapons. "There are a thousand technologies they could have put in the first iPhone but they were looking to mature the platform before they could actually go onto the system." While the statement offers a questionable understanding of events regarding Apple's product releases, the rest of Caggins' commentary is clear in its intent, that the project is meant to create a new platform rather than to simply bolt on additions to an existing and older framework, such as with the M4A1 improvement program.
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India Targets Facebook `Evil' in Backlash Against U.S. Giants - Bloomberg

India Targets Facebook `Evil' in Backlash Against U.S. Giants - Bloomberg : India’s government dealt retail giants Amazon.com and Walmart a devastating blow this year with new policies undermining their growth plans. Now U.S. social media pioneers Facebook and Twitter are in danger of suffering similar setbacks in what is perhaps the world’s most important emerging technology market. In the latest skirmish, the government is targeting Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp, the popular messaging service increasingly important to its parent’s bottom line. Frustrated that the service has been used to incite violence and spread pornography, the government is pressing WhatsApp to allow more official oversight of online discussions, even if that means giving officials access to protected, or encrypted, messages. Facebook has refused, risking punitive measures or even the possibility of a shutdown in its biggest market. “For six months, we’ve been telling them to bring more accountability to their
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