Microsoft and Walgreens Boots Alliance partner to transform healthcare delivery, as well as migrate most of WBA’s IT infrastructure to Azure. Read my article on https://www.lightreading.com/enterprise-cloud/digital-transformation/microsoft-and-walgreens-fend-off-amazon-with-7-year-healthcare-partnership/d/d-id/748830?
“Before the internet was consolidated into centralized information silos, RSS imagined a better way to let users control their online personas.” [Sinclair Target] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mm4z/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss
RSS is a standard that lets people take bits and pieces of websites, news sites, and personal blogs, and essentially assemble their own Facebook news feed. Likewise, it lets publishers connect directly with consumers — and individuals connect with their friends and family — without having to get permission from Facebook or some other company. RSS is intimidating at first, but easy to use once you get the hang of it. And hopefully it’ll make a comeback.
Blogging and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash: “Marc Andreessen famously said that ‘software is eating the world,’ but it’s far more accurate to say that the neoliberal values of software tycoons are eating the world.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lupS5SkSk0
IBM hit a milestone with the first integrated, commercial quantum computer. But don’t expect to be running quantum apps in your business anytime soon. My article on https://www.lightreading.com/enterprise-cloud/infrastructure-and-platform/ibm-makes-a-long-bet-on-quantum-computing-/d/d-id/748770
Digitization promises to make medical care easier and more efficient. But screens are coming between doctors and their patients. [Atul Gawande] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers
Thoughtful article about problems that ensue when digitization imposes top-down centralized command on front-line workers.
Books have been unchanged for a century or more. Even ebooks are just print books digitized. But digital technology has transformed the entire ecosystem around them: Print-on-demand, Kickstarter, social media, email newsletters, audiobooks, podcasting, and more. [Craig Mod] https://www.wired.com/story/future-book-is-here-but-not-what-we-expected/
I can think of two reasons why books themselves have been unchanged, despite breathless 1990s predictions to the contrary — and yeah these reasons are contradictory:
Computer scientist Karen Sparck Jones wrote a pioneering paper in 1972 about natural language recognition that led to the development of Internet search engines. Her work from the 1960s-80s is still groundbreaking today. [Nellie Bowles] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/obituaries/karen-sparck-jones-overlooked.html
For 10 years, Lauren Hough was a cable tech in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. She writes about her experiences in a brilliant essay that’s funny, exasperating, frustrating, infuriating and occasionally sad. “A glimpse of the suburban grotesque, featuring Russian mobsters, Fox News rage addicts, a caged man in a sex dungeon, and Dick Cheney.” https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cable-tech-dick-cheney-sex-dungeon_us_5c0ea571e4b06484c9fd4c21
Enterprises are still mostly open source consumers rather than contributors to the community. My article on https://www.lightreading.com/open-source/taking-it-slow-enterprises-use-open-source-but-are-cautious-about-contributing/d/d-id/748631
Technology didn’t kill RSS — regulatory capture did, says Cory Doctorow. “… thanks to generations of antitrust malpractice and financialization, we now live in an era of five massive services filled with screenshots from the other four.” Also, blaming feuding among RSS developers for its demise is “like blaming rhino conservationists’ internal disputes — rather than climate change — for the decline in rhinos’ numbers.” https://boingboing.net/2019/01/09/triplets-be-damned.html
I love RSS. I still use it every day, several times a day on workdays. I’m about to do another sweep in my chosen RSS reader, http://inoreader.com, now. It’s very disappointing that RSS never took off. People complained that it’s difficult to use and understand, but it’s easier than Facebook.
Without open source, you don’t get the cloud, and a plethora of other changes driving the software industry. Read my article. https://www.lightreading.com/open-source/how-open-source-has-turned-the-software-industry-upside-down/d/d-id/748603
And at the end, one of the researchers creates a video of his partner dancing. That’s chilling — imagine what our friends the Russians could do with that technology for fake news.
A Japanese billionaire who offered to pay for retweets has stolen the retweet record from a kid who wanted free chicken nuggets. https://www.fastcompany.com/90288787/the-world-retweet-record-has-been-broken?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Is Amazon building a one-stop subscription healthcare business? It’s already got the pieces. https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-next-big-thing-prime-but-for-healthcare/#ftag=RSSbaffb68
I just stuff most of my clothes in drawers without folding. Problem solved!
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18171441/foldimate-laundry-folding-robot-ces-2019
Andreessen’s take on AR vs. VR reveals a kind of chauvinism. He says your environment is inherently uninteresting if you’re unlucky enough to live anywhere other than Silicon Valley, a college campus, or a major city. And virtual reality, he says, is the cure.
On the other hand, he’s right about the importance of audio. A voice in your ear that you can interact with every waking moment. That’s a kind of augmented reality already.
Marc Andreessen: audio will be ‘titanically important’ and VR will be ‘1,000’ times bigger than AR
“If you want hot water for coffee or tea, it promises to heat it instantly as you pour it out of the carafe instead of slowly heating the entire pitcher of water.” Still a prototype, target ship date: Summer. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/6/18171292/heatworks-duo-carafe-instant-water-heat-coffee-tea-prototype-ces-2019
I set up a mesh network in the house this afternoon. Took about 45 minutes. It’s Working great so far — at last we have a single WiFi network that extends throughout the whole house, from corner to corner. We went for the Logitech Orbi model, rather than the more well-known Eero or Google, because the Logitech seemed to be more well-reviewed.
Ask me again in a month if this continues to work well.
We tried out YouTube TV ($40 – free trial) and I thought we finally might be able to cut the cable cord by adding that service to our existing lineup. But YouTube TV won’t let you skip commercials on some shows so nope. We’re sticking with cable.
M.G. Siegler: Tim Cook knows that iPhones are overpriced and said so Wednesday. Also: Apple’s future is in services. https://500ish.com/apples-precarious-and-pivotal-2019-f4f8cea3993a
Organizations transitioning to open source need to learn both self-sufficiency and how to work with open source communities. And to grow a thick skin against criticism. [Me] https://www.lightreading.com/open-source/growing-pains-for-organizations-moving-to-open-source-its-a-tough-transition/d/d-id/748553?
Apple can still innovate, but not in ways that matter [Me] https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/devices-smartphones/apple-really-is-in-trouble-this-time/a/d-id/748581?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT
Huawei demoted two employees and cut their monthly pay for using an iPhone to send New Year greetings from its official Twitter account. Huawei is not fucking around. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-iphone/chinese-phone-maker-huawei-punishes-employees-for-iphone-tweet-blunder-idUSKCN1OY0B2
“Already, there is about a 20-year lifespan gap across different socioeconomic groups in the United States, with an average age of 66 in some of America’s poorest communities, compared with 87 in more affluent areas.” [Jessica Powell] https://medium.com/s/2069/what-happens-when-the-rich-live-decades-longer-than-the-rest-of-us-2dfec4a35b21
