Tag Archives: Apple

December 16, 2021 · 15:35

Apple cool, Google functional

I got in that stage again this morning, and for the silliest reasons. It started last week (I think) when Apple upgraded to a new system. My MacBook and iPad were both affected. Now, there is (mostly) nothing wrong with an upgrade, in the Windows era most became hateful of updates, with apple for the most a lot less so. And my home has been around since the Macintosh Performa 630CD (Mac 7.5), and I gave support to Mac users way before then. I have had hardship and joy with Apple and I was hurt more than once, but it is part of the show. So when my systems needed update, I went ahead and for the most there was no issue there was even something new for the iPad, Widgets (or perhaps I only started to use them now). You see, I tend to be pragmatic. I use it when I need it and even as weather is something I use on my android, I had no issues having it on my iPad, the same for the world clock. And herein lies the problem. The Android gives digital times, iOS does not. Yes you can buy it, but why? There was even one provider that (according to the review) charges for EACH clock added and one had a monthly fee, all because Apple decided to be ‘cool’ and not think things through? So I can delete the widgets and rely on my Android solution (which is better) or perhaps after years of shortsightedness Apple starts thinking things through and OFFER their CONSUMERS value. 

And it is that way of thinking why I went the path of Google’s Android. It started on day one when Steve Jobs made the massive mistake. You see Jobs gave us what the iPhone could do and it could be a phone too. Google gave us a phone that could also do……. The difference is not semantics, it is wider. Apple was selling a processor, Google was selling a phone and I needed a phone. It is that simple. 

Now do not think I am anti-Apple (well I do prefer tangerines), I have had an iPad since version one (64GB) which I ended using until it was replaced with my new iPad Air 256GB. It has been my sidekick for most of the days and I still play the game Blockheads today. Sometimes the old ways are good and iBooks is amazing. So is the Apple Office version nowadays. Apple has good sides, but lacks in plenty of ways as well. When it goes out looking cool, it tends to forger to be pragmatic and functional at times. The Clock widget is not the only side, but it is one of the mot visible sides. Especially people who dealt with international customer service. Having a widget that does not require to have the mind convert rimes, but to see a clear simple digital clocks (in my case 4 of them) is a great way to keep track of international times. Especially early in the morning and late afternoon I used to check Toronto time to see what the Toronto, San Francisco (morning only) and Chicago office needed. Late in the evening there was the Amsterdam office and for now, the Android clocks are the only way to go and I do not get it why pragmatism and functionality was cast aside to merely have a cool analogue clock?

And it is not merely me, in the new ages, in the upcoming changes to international offices, to international support and data centres having a clear time setting in front of us is too often important. There is more, but it is finicky stuff. I am not here to convert you, not here to say Android is better, there are plenty of cases where Apple rocks (iBook being an obvious one, for all those nasty RTFM moments). There is also the larger stage that one does not fit all, some people rely on iOS, some on Android and I get it, but in the functionality stage, would it have hurt to think things through at Apple (beside relying on third party solutions? 

You see, there is a larger case, there is a functional case to make the iPad the tool to go for anyone in technical support, and they are almost there (iAnnotate, PDF save and email it all), we need to be more flexible, need to be more mobile and be in more places and a laptop is not getting us there, our iPad will and Apple has a massive advantage here, if they only thought things a little deeper through.

Consider that the PC has had Access for the longest of times. And Access (with its limitations) is actually a decently good Database system, there are others, yet the Mac is largely depending on Filemaker Pro, over all this time Mac never offered a house product to sit next to Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Why not? There are too many bases when I cannot rely on the cloud, I need something local and Mac is handing us the ‘Out for business’ sign. Even the Commodore Amiga had at some point Superbase 64 (1984) as an optional solution, so why is Apple in 2021 still behind? Do you think that anyone in support can do anything decent without direct access to a knowledge base? 

And when we have no cloud connection, or a really bad one? There are dozens of nations relying on support in rural areas and sometimes we (alas) have to go there. That includes 60% of Canada, 35% of USA, well over half of France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, parts of Scandinavia and so we go on, it amounts to close to well over a billion people that cannot rely on the cloud and that is before you consider the cloud transgressions we all face now because someone was asleep at the helm. 

Google has options all over the place and they are not without flaws, but they have something and that matters. Consider the work from home setting and the considerations that are in place if there WAS a database option, perhaps with widgets implications? 

I reckon that if the home office stays active for close to another year Apple could have made a killing in that department, if only some things were thought through a little more. But it is easy to rely on something that that worked for 20 years (Log4J pun), you see as everyone does that, so will organised crime, as you all have the same flaw, that was clear was it not? A stage that all have to improve on (Google too), a stage that is set to a much larger desk, the desk of a person that is not merely in their office, but it is stacked with the virtual version that is in a similar room in San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, New York, London, Amsterdam, Munich, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Beijing, and all in THEIR office sees all the other ones in virtual mode too (actually, this is giving me an idea). And in international support we need 24 hour covering (since 1994) and most solved their setting in a partial way, but the iPad offers more and more mobile, so what gives? 

You can see some support managers hiding behind their DISC assessment (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness), then we are given that the software does not comply with the settings of SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat), and they all move on with the small niche they have. Yet SWOT allowed me to see the option to create a market for 50,000,000 consoles (Amazon Luna or Google Stadia), and that now also translates (in another way to global support with an iPad and iOS setting. All fields ignored by Microsoft (with them singing blue, an Azure pun in the making). Yet what happens when we translate DISC to support and services needs by naming them Demands, Integrity, Sophistication and Clarity? When I was younger and less corrupted I saw a person design an entire services system in Paradox and it functioned better than solutions like SCOPUS and Siebel that was a decade more advanced, all because the Paradox solution was true Services and support minded (well more than the others) and the SCOPUS and Siebel solutions were for sales people and grudgingly adjusted for technical support, a setting that was not the same and massively lacking in clarity and all inferior to a system that Info Computer Systems has in 1988 which was purely designed for technical support (written in Clipper) as well as Helpdesk needs. A setting I learned early in life, which tended to be, not the same. 

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December 4, 2021 · 11:07

Merely a dream

I had a decently weird dream last night. It might be a movie, but I think it is not good enough for that. It might be a popcorn movie, merely for streaming and DVD sales and that would be fine too. The setting is that the dream started a few other things and I wonder where we are in less then a year.

It started in Toronto, I was there for whatever reason. There was a lot of chaos, a lot of shooting and a lot of damage. It was primarily in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It is around February 2022, the US has defaulted on its loans. The people lost almost everything they ever owned and the stage is that ultra right angry people are whipping up the others who are coming to terms that their politicians are as useless as everyone expected them to be. Canada suddenly has to deal with 30-50 thousand invaders all angry and all taking whatever they can, they have nothing left. I saw police officers in Yorkville getting shot, store windows were getting crashed and houses are overrun. The American had turned into rabid dogs. The army was trying to create bottlenecks but an army spread over Canada having to deal with three clearly way to large fire points and a lot more in the rural areas is not an army that can get a whole lot done. And nearly all Americans were wielding firearms. It is then that I see the army starting to shoot to kill and I wake up.

Now, that was merely a dream, but the larger station remains. Everyone is in this ‘lets hope’ phase, but America has been utterly broke for well over three years. And every time the debt ceiling is raised. A political system that cannot take responsibility, that uses the blame game and points at the previous party if it is a different political party. They both failed and they both refused to overhaul tax laws for well over over 25 years. In the 90’s the idea of a trillion dollar firm was ludicrous. Now they have 2, maybe 3. These firms did NOTHING wrong. They adhered to tax laws and they did what the tax laws demanded that they would do. So every time I see another tax the rich, whilst these people look at three parties (ignoring 15 others), I get nervous. The larger station is not that they refuse to overhaul tax laws. It might be that they are too stupid to overhaul them.

And this too is nothing new. What will be new is that the US government will take a look at their patent office and make (forced) deals with any isolated (registered in America only) patent and demand a financial deal with that owner. So lucky my IP is not registered in the US. A setting of grab it whilst you can will start soon enough and whilst the US will be in denial, there will be behind the scene deals with Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and IBM. All to get a little more use and traction out of the failing US economy. All whilst it has been clear for decades that the tax laws need a complete rewrite, a setting where everyone is taxed fairly. But that will not likely happen. That will upset the large donators and political friends they have and they would lose them, so nothing will happen and the dream that I have will come closer to becoming an optional reality. 

Is it a wish or a dream? No one wishes for this. Not when you consider all the innocent lives struck by American stupidity, but the larger station is that a lot of Americans are close to desperate and the default will push them over the edge, I feel certain of that. Even as the news (mainly media) is now flaming their need for digital advertisement, hiding behind the announcement that the US of A could default next week, we also get a mere 16 hours ago that ‘U.S. Senate passes bill to avert government shutdown, sends to Biden for signature’, but that is not the same is it? A shutdown is one thing, a default is something else. There are paths that they could walk, set up a massive loan with JP Morgan, Blackrock or Morgan Stanley, the turnaround will need to be massive and that is how the slippery slope becomes a diagonal sheet of ice. A timeline extended and extended, all whilst the premise of stopping this going from bad to worse is ignored.

It was but a dream, I realise that, but perhaps my brain is working out a few financial items covered in nightmares. 

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December 3, 2021 · 22:03

It is difficult

One one hand, thee was a reason to be joyful. There was another article by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, so let the bashing begin. On the other hand, this is actually a good article. It is also an important article. And there is a stage where we need to consider what is and what could be. The article ‘Rights groups urge EU to ban NSO over clients’ use of Pegasus spyware’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/dec/03/rights-groups-urge-eu-to-ban-nso-over-clients-use-of-pegasus-spyware). This is interesting in two ways. We see no such ban on Remington, Fabrique national, Glock and a few other firms. And I would like to add that the NSA has done worse, much worse, so why is it now onto the NSO because their clients are skating on the edge of what some people might seem as ‘unacceptable’?

We see “Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm, alleging governments used its software to abuse rights”, we see it, but do we realise what is going on? We are holding the publisher of a law book accountable for criminals using those books to stay out of prison. And it is not mere criminals using the books, it is governments using the books. 

This is a slippery slope and as Stephanie Kirchgaessner illuminates this, we are left with questions. I personally want to see a list of these 86 organisations. I am not saying that the Guardian is lying, I am stating that the NSO and us have a right to see these accusers. Yes, we see Access Now, Amnesty International and the Digital Rights Foundation. But where are the others? We also see “the EU’s sanctions regime gave it the power to target entities that were responsible for “violations or abuses that are of serious concern as regards to the objectives of the common foreign and security policy, including violations or abuses of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, or of freedom of opinion and expression””, it is here that the problem starts. We see “freedom of opinion and expression”, but who allows for that? Who allows for ‘peaceful assembly’? Consider the US and their ‘Black Lives Matter’ setting. We see “Some states have recently increased the severity of criminal penalties for protesters along political lines”, so where is your freedom of expression and opinion now? 

There is an issue, there is and in this Stephanie is right, but is there any kind of stage where the NSO can be held responsible for the actions of their clients? What do you think will happen when the NSO sells what they have to China and/or Russia? Do you think these 86 organisations will have anything to say then? 

And there is a larger stage, the stage everyone is silent about, the stage we all know but no one is willing to look there. We are so willing to blame the NSO group, but no one is wondering why Apple and Google didn’t have better protection? We can understand that there are always, but they do not seem to work and for some reason, Apple and Google have a massive problem. So when we consider Forbes ‘Apple Starts Sending NSO Hack Warnings To iPhone Users’, why was this not done earlier, and more important why was the problem not fixed 5 years ago? Apple is playing the cautious game, leaving the NSO group out of the debate with “State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated, and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete. It’s possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected. We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future.” So why are new phones not more secure? Why are cyber locks a problem? Because Apple (Google too) caters to people who need automation to get better and more revenue and that crosses with the needs of some players who need access. 

In all this, the simplest solution was that no one gets access to your mobile, and it is not a new concept. The Blackberry started that idea and was quickly pushed out of the market (they were not the cheapest either). I saw this come up a few times when I was considering the evolution of a console (name xxxxxxxx redacted) , but the premise is larger and it is all linked to the simple setting that Facebook opened a door and EVERYONE wants to get through. In this case the NSO group saw that as a great idea to collect information and they are not alone, let that be clear, they might be the most visible player, but they are not the only player, but the article does not give that part, do they? You see there were a few nations on the list (that everyone ignores) and they are not NSO group clients, but they have certain abilities, so they are a client of someone and these 86 organisations are about to give that one player (with no scruples) the entire market.

Did you consider that?

Moreover, the accusations from some against the NSO group are still absent of evidence. Several newspapers gave light that the list of 10,000 was bogus and it was from 2017. In addition, I found the financial link missing, 10,000 hacks implied that the NSO group had received in excess of $600,000,000 and they have not. Some give us specifically worded accusations. Like the Citizens Lab giving us that 36 phones might (emphasis on might) have been transgressed upon, 36 out of 76, and we seemingly delete the word ‘might’ with our minds, but I did not. I am not opposing the Citizens Lab, but 36 might out of a debatable list of 10,000 is a long stretch and so far none of the media have given us any clear evidence, but these 86 organisations see there limelight moment, so they are all crying foul (or is that fowl). 

I for one want to see the media become responsible and hand over a dashboard of alleged victims. 10,000 numbers, that would be a massive list, but a dashboard stating how many are government, how many are journalists (which was in one article no more than 180, I think) making that a mere 1.8%. How many infections per nation? The list goes on and the media over all these months presented ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But now we see “Letter signed by 86 organisations asks for sanctions against Israeli firm”, all whilst no clear evidence has been presented EVER. This is ab out something else and it has nothing to do with the NSO group, it has everything to do with a group of journalists who have become obsolete and as we see event after even (like that running Joke called the ICIJ), how much evidence have we see on their so called 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data, and zero (none) dashboard giving a summary, even with all that time and 600 journalists no one had time to give us a run down, that is how pathetic the media has become. Oh and they promised not to investigate the source, interesting is it not?

All flaming for digital revenue and presenting close to nothing, flames and way too little  substance. So when we ask these media players for clarity, their most likely answer will be ‘It is difficult’

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November 26, 2021 · 22:14

Stupid people never learn

This is not an accusation, it is merely a setting we need to accept. This all started half an hour Aho when the BBC gave us ‘Protesters hit Amazon buildings on Black Friday’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59419572), with the setting “An international coalition of unions, equality and environmental groups called “Make Amazon Pay” is staging a day of action, demanding concessions”, it is like the approach of a hurricane, and making the one person who left a window open giving him (or her) a bill for the draft damage. People just do not get it, and I am at a loss why that is. It is not hidden information, it is not secret information, it merely is information out in the open for anyone to read.

The setting is not “Amazon takes too much and gives back too little”, the setting is that governments would not overhaul tax laws for the longest of times. I first make a case for overhauling tax laws in 1998, now 24 year later none of it EVER happened. Amazon did not take too much, it took what Amazon was entitled to take. Amazon (only) gives what it is mandated to give. There are las out there and Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Facebook and Google adhere to these laws. All the rest is merely discriminatory bullshit. So when I see “Worldwide, nearly 50 organisations have signed up to a list of “common demands”, published by the Make Amazon Pay coalition”, so I wonder who they are. And it does not really matter as they cross over from one into the other. Consider “A global union federation representing 50 million workers in 140 countries in a range of sectors”, this implies less then 350.000 per nation, which includes the US, which imply that they basically amount to nothing. Then we get “A global union federation of journalists’ trade unions, representing more than 600.000 media workers from 187 organisations in 146 countries” I merely wonder whether they include the same essay writers that grace the ICIJ, a fair question, because journalists are supposed to be smarter than this. All the flames, the bullshit and the need for click bitches that spike digital revenue, all to have a go at a company that struck it big by being actually innovative. 2 years ago Amazon would not be on the mind of console gaming. Now the Amazon Luna overtakes what Google and Microsoft have and that is just for starters. They equal Apple in a few ways and there is no end to Amazon at present. All that and they adhere to laws, or lets just states that they adhere to what their legal department states that they need to adhere to. And no one is putting actual and factual pressure on the politicians that need to get shit done (like overhauling tax laws) but then people get quotes like “It is a really complex situation”, so complex that in 24 years nothing was done, so the utter nonsense of 50 organisations that have call signs making them close to ludicrously useless. If they were not useless, they would put pressure on politicians overhauling tax laws. 

The lesson has been out there for almost 25 years, the facts were out there for almost 25 years and still the people will not learn, the politicians do not want them to learn, because they will have to do something and over time it might amount to something pissing of the rich friends they have. In all this, the setting is much larger then the FAANG group. It includes people like the Walton Family, the Green family, the Koch family, the Yuan family and as such several dozens more. All billionaires, all doing what the law allowed them to do. The feigned anger against Amazon is just pointless bullshit and we need to wake up. Flames and emotions will not get us anywhere and that is the problem with Grassroots people, all about anger and emotion and when the anger subsides, when they realise (if ever) that the law was adhered to we see the pointlessness of the situation and stupid people never do so, in this, how come the journalists are part of this? Who do they serve? Because in the end they serve the shareholders and advertisers. But what of their stakeholders? Who are they and why are they embracing pointless actions? Did you ever consider that part of the equation? 

As such will you learn, or will you just pointlessly embrace a coalition that wastes another two decades going nowhere? It is up to you, you can chose and making the choice that goes somewhere is always better, even if the destination is not better, sometimes things get worse before they get better, that is the outcome of change, the changing process is never better, the outcome can be, it is up to us to make that so, and it is not an easy fight, that much is an absolute given.

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November 12, 2021 · 04:40

Epic downfall

This happens, I saw it coming and today as the BBC gives me (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59234961) ‘Apple v Epic: Court denies delay on App Store changes’ we have come to a point. A point where Epic Games will lose billions, not millions, billions. You see, the larger issue is not the fee, it is that too many ApplePay options are not completely secure, as such the moment we see the first few issues go sour, when people are dented by credit card fees and scams that started with Epic, that is the moment the class actions come calling and they will come calling in a huge way. There will be no defence for Epic Games. There will not be some ‘I know nothing’ approach. It will be on Epic Games. They wanted to cut costs and they did, but the costs in hind-fall will outrank all revenue they would hope to make.

And all this is beside the issues (source: Eurogamer) “Epic Games is also facing a class-action lawsuit following a data breach which exposed personal information from millions of users’ accounts. The data breach occurred back in January this year, when hackers found a flaw in Fortnite’s login system, allowing them to impersonate players and purchase V-Bucks with the bank information attached to their accounts” and the issue outside of Fortnite will escalate a lot faster than they feared it could. I reckon that first issues will emerge within 3 months of the alternative to ApplePay path and it will not take long until lawyers will suit up for class actions all worth billions. Epic will need a lot more lawyers soon enough and it will cost them. It could constitute the dangers (for Epic) that 2021 started the downfall that could have been avoided, a setting they caused themselves and the greedy hackers saw a clear new target, Epic Games with a bullseye. A bullseye that will be painted on their CEO and CFO, what a wild web we tend to weave.

A setting that they could have and should have avoided. An optional first in the dangers of greed. What a lovely day this could become.

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October 19, 2021 · 05:41

Adaption 103

I just had an idea, it got to me when I was tweeting with a person I know. A few minutes later my mind grabbed back to the age when I had a Dell laptop. Then an idea grabbed me. I wonder why Apple never considered this. When you have more than one device, when you need your MacBook Pro or air too regularly. Did no one consider the power of the docking station, or the port replicator? Instead of connecting device after device, having a station on your desk where you can connect your iPod touch, your iPad, your MacBook, iMac or Mac Pro to all with one replicator in the centre of it all. A setting where they are all connected, with the station also connecting to an external keyboard, external drive and optionally a larger screen. The power of direct connectivity when you get home. The songs, the tablet and all of it to a  larger screen, more storage and not to forget interacting all with one another. No worry whether you had the document on your tablet, your laptop or even your iMac or Mac Pro. Connecting them all through one station. You see, when you have one Apple product, you might have more, I do and many other do too. Even for non Apple products the setting of connecting laptops, desktops, music solutions, and tablets, all whilst giving any the power to connect to Bluetooth speakers is becoming increasingly important, especially as streaming will go from device to device. A multi system station, no matter if it is a docking station or more aptly seeing it as a connecting port replicator will take the foreground in the near future. I synch my iPad, and soon my iPod touch (my iPod Classic will not connect), a larger setting of interactivity is required and consider that when you get home, via the replicator. Connecting to data on tablet, laptop and desktop they can all grasp the data of one another and they can all be used in conjunction. A setting that none have offered, always in the second degree, so why not in the first degree? That would be real innovation and so far none have opted for it, They all want to do each other work, they all want to do the same, but the laptop makes you less mobile, the tablet has its own restrictions, but on the road it is OK. And so on, yet at home we need access to all, we need it all without a larger setting and the cloud is too often a limitation, especially when it is confidential data. The people need their secure environment and anyone stating that the cloud is a safe space is lying to you. Some give you “Cloud security is tight, but it’s not infallible. … But the bigger risk with cloud storage is privacy. Even if data isn’t stolen or published, it can still be viewed. Governments can legally request information stored in the cloud, and it’s up to the cloud services provider to deny access.” 

So why not set the stage where it is with you and with you alone? And when we look at the data breaches with. Microsoft, Estee Lauder, MGM Resorts, Facebook, Zoom, Magellan Health, Cognizant, Nintendo, Twitter, and Whisper. These are places with large infrastructures and cyber sections and they could not keep THEIR data safe, how much of a chance do you have? I am not anti-cloud. It has its uses, but it has a bad safety reputation, as such the replicator gives more and offer more too. It is just a thought, but it Tok me less than 30 minutes to seek out part of all this and write it down and when we add the streaming gaming platform the need increases rapidly.

All devices that need connection, whilst the connection does not always exist. 

So consider what you have and how easy it would be to connect it. Now, if you only have 2 devices the value is not really there, but consider a desktop and a laptop connected giving the user access to both, would that make it? I thought initially to connect the Apple devices, but the setting is much larger and will grow over time. Consider that the MacBook Air has a max of 2TB and so does the new iMac, so why have 2 backups when both can be connected and be connected to a much larger drive, seagate offers 4TB for $99, WD has 6TB for $200, and that offers perspectives to keep your music in one location, not on all locations. Option after option are added as we see more devices connected and I am surprised that no one took it into that direction, especially Apple. 

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September 30, 2021 · 17:23

When it was about safety

That is the stage I was woken up to, a stage that is no longer about ‘safety’ but about convenience. And people will pass corpses just to give marketing a chance to set the phrase “This will be a lot more convenient to you” and it is a dangerous step. In one direction the news is good news. It shows that not only was I on the money when I wrote ‘As banks cut corners’ on September 7th, a mere three weeks later we see ‘Researchers find Apple Pay, Visa contactless hack’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58719891). Here we are given “researchers were able to make a Visa payment of £1,000 without unlocking the phone or authorising the payment”, a setting that evolved for people to bloody lazy to unlock their phones. Lets be clear this is a setting regarding commuters to make quick contactless payments without unlocking their phone. That gate is coming up and you know this 30 seconds in advance and unlocking the phone takes mere seconds. So when we get in opposition “Visa’s view was that this type of attack was “impractical”” did anyone tell VISA that they are marketing themselves as a bunch of tossers? There is nothing impractical about £1,000, 20 hits a day and the young entrepreneurs are sitting on a healthy income and it will take time to solve it after which someone else can make a new hack.

And Apple is not free of blame either. The response “This is a concern with a Visa system but Visa does not believe this kind of fraud is likely to take place in the real world given the multiple layers of security in place”” gives criminals the stage where they can get away with it for some time. So how long until low income people can get a transit ghost? And all this is happening because there was no proper testing. Yet, it is an outlier and it was unlikely that people were seeking in this direction, but that will soon change. All because people were not willing to go through the inconvenience of unlocking their phone. So how long until this stage evolves beyond the Metro? Your first cup of coffee, your quick lunch, your cinema line, and that list goes on, all because of convenience we now see a stage where Apple and VISA are optionally catering to crime and organised crime (if they have a Filofax it is very organised crime). 

A stage that is out in the open and we see deflection from VISA and to a smaller extent from Apple too. In this it is Dr Andreea Radu, of the University of Birmingham who seems to be the voice of reason with ““It has some technical complexity – but I feel the rewards from doing the attack are quite high”, she said, adding that if unaddressed “in a few years these might be become a real issue””, in addition we see that Samsung Pay and MasterCard cannot be exploited like that. So there is a stage where this goes (as the academics say) tits up. Concert tickets, beverages in any trade show all places where it is about small transactions and as they are all about the convenience of the people the criminals get to have a laughing feast, a feast with all the trimmings because the banks, in this case Financial Institutions cut another corner, optionally straight into your bank balance. 

Enjoy your contactless payments today.

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September 28, 2021 · 19:12

Sphere or Cube?

In continuation of yesterday, we have today. This is a direct consequence of time. Yet, that is not how some spin it and it is about spinning. In this we introduce Australia’s own spin master ACCC. They decided to inform us via the Guardian with ‘Google’s dominance of Australia’s online advertising needs to be reined in, says ACCC’, I personally wonder who they are speaking off (plenty of volunteers) but the article struck a chord, especially after what we saw today. I am not stating that limits should be drawn, I am not stating that the article is completely wrong. Yet the stage as it is painted does not add up, especially as some of the stakeholders are now in a stage where they painted themselves into corners. There is no real timeline here, because the article is actually quite good, but I am better (and a lot older). So let’s take you through the threads unravelling them one by one. Let’s be clear, there is no real lying here by the article writer. Yet when you see the unravelled strings, you might wonder how they got to this article. Time is the first element. The article is spun like it was a continuation of events, but it is not and more importantly the weavers seem driven to keep larger players Microsoft, Amazon and IBM out of the limelight. In light of this lets take a look at the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/28/accc-calls-for-new-powers-to-rein-in-googles-dominance-of-australian-online-ads) and look at that first thread. 

The first thread is “Google’s takeover of ad companies, including DoubleClick and Admob, as well video platform YouTube, have helped to further solidify its position, the ACCC said” the fact that these companies became part of Google is not in question, the statement “takeover of ad companies” however is. You see, YouTube was bought in 2006. In 2005 it was launched as a “an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google”, the players here namely Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim became multimillionaires overnight. After a golden idea a year later was tossed for a little over $1,500,000,000. In this we get from Steve Chen himself “he was inspired by how the search giant monetised without hurting their users. “It translated over to Youtube as well. There are people that create content, view content and pay for content,” he said.” Take here that the operative part was “without hurting their users” and it is important. Look at personal video’s, look at reviews of hardware (Hero 10, PS5) review of books, games and music, even video’s of songs. It all benefits the people, all the people. It was created in 2005 and sold in 2006. It was not until 2008 when they gained 480p videos, AFTER Google acquired it. Thanks to GoPro and DJI we now see 4K movies of cities. In all this time there was no mention of advertisement, the corporate world was not ready and not prepared for YouTube. 

Double Click was pure advertisement, and even as it was founded in a basement (behind the washing machine) by Kevin O’Connor and Dwight Merriman. It offered technology products and services for a mere handful of advertisers that included Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L’Oréal, Palm, Inc., Apple Inc., Visa Inc., Nike, Inc., and Carlsberg Group, and this is important! So why is this important? You see DoubleClick was acquired by an equity firm named Hellman & Friedman. Basically a greed driven Wall Street player who saw that this would be worth something over time. And the two clients that DoubleClick had (Microsoft and Apple) never saw the potential, even as they were trying to break through in all the markets that Google had created, we see things like MSN Search, aQuantive and adCenter (renamed to Bing Ads) as well as Search Alliance (renamed to Yahoo! Bing Network). Microsoft used a 20 year old tactic, why create when you can acquire. Google acquired too but evolved the segments into behemoth, all whilst there is every chance that the Bing Network would be unable to properly identify the word ‘Behemoth’. A stage we do not see in the Guardian article because it raises too many questions. The one given part here is that only Google knew what it was doing, the rest merely tried to invoke invoices on the corporate world, Google tried to cater to the greatest denominator here, they tried to adhere to the needs of the seeker, the searcher, and as Steve Chen states “without hurting their users”, a stage that was a winning mixture and we do not see that in the ACCC spin, do we?

Then we get thread two “Rod Sims told Guardian Australia a key issue facing news sites and other users of ad tech is they did not know how much revenue ad tech providers like Google were making from each advertisement served up to readers”, in this I find ‘a key issue facing news sites’ as well as ‘they did not know how much revenue ad tech providers like Google were making from each advertisement’. It’s almost like hearing a toddler ask “these juggling tits, do they always provide milk?” In all this does it matter how much the advertiser makes? How often was this asked of Yellow pages or the advertisement moguls in New York? And it is important, because this hits Microsoft as well (Bing Ads, or Microsoft Advertising) Google was upfront in this, they even made it public in their documentation. “No matter how much you bid, you are only charged $0.01 more than the previous winner”, so if we see the bids $12, $9, $2.36, and $0.99 number three pays $1.00, number two pays $1.01 and number one pays $1.02, not $12. A setting NO advertisement company EVER offered, it was all about how much they could rake in and in their defence a system like this was not possible before the digital age. More important, the digital innovators (Google) took that step from day one (well, almost day one). A customer facing setting that prolongs the visibility of marketing departments because they can advertise more and longer, a stage they never faced before, yet the Guardian never touches on that, do they? It was all about the threat that the friends of the ACCC see, not what we actually experience. Oh, and when it comes to advertisement. Why is there no mention of Facebook, or Amazon for that matter? 

The article gives us that there needs to be a border and there should be limits, but is that up to the ACCC? 

So when we see “if you want to block certain companies advertising on your website, it’s very hard to do that through Google” there is a choice, do not advertise on your website, or get your own channel, and, oh…. Here is a thing, Google states “To give you editorial control over the ads that may appear on your site, AdSense offers several options for reviewing and blocking ads. There are various reasons why you might not want certain ads to show on your site. You may have content or business reasons, or philosophical issues. Maybe you have a vegan food blog and you don’t want to show an ad for a steakhouse”, as I personally see it Sims engaged in some forms of non truths (aka lies). And that is the beginning of a much larger station. The ACCC is the BS caterer of their friends and the Guardian did exactly what it was told to do, not inform us but to perpetrate issues that are not really there. And the entire article gives no mention of AdSense at all, why is that? It might not fit the needs of the ACCC, does it?

Consider what you are offered and vet the information, it is important that you do, you are given a pile of goods that are glued together, a setting of 10.000 cubes, glued together so that we see a sphere, but is it a sphere? I will let you decide.

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September 28, 2021 · 00:13

Who is correct?

There is a larger stage on what is right versus what is correct. It is not always clear and we are all biased, me included. There are those who make claims that I am entertaining, but I do not know anything. It is their call and it might be correct. I worked in IT and in automation since 1981, so I have been around a while. When I offered my bosses some version of Facebook in 1997 they all rejected it stating that it had no future. It was merely n idea and it was nowhere near as advanced as Facebook. It was a free website and chatting platform with us in the middle offering advertisements in the middle, it had no future they stated. Now we have Facebook which arrived 4 years later, now a global economy surrounds it. 

So when I took notice of ‘Google, in fight against record EU fine, slams regulators for ignoring Apple’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-fight-against-record-eu-fine-slams-regulators-ignoring-apple-2021-09-27/) some thoughts went through my mind. We see “The European Commission fined Google in 2018, saying that it had used Android since 2011 to thwart rivals and cement its dominance in general internet search”, in the first most rivals were still trying to get their heads around the digital world. In this 2011 is important, TechCrunch gives us “Patents are increasingly used to block innovation in courtrooms rather than create innovations in the marketplace, and we saw this problem reach epic proportions in 2011. Patent trolls continued to extort tech companies large and small. But the patent wars spilled over to the major industry players themselves as everyone pointed their patent arsenals at Android.” In this, how many patent trolls did the EU arrest and there is a larger stage on the realisation that the secondary field of patents is used, the ability to block others. A legal setting that is validated by the short sighted and at ties greedy law entrepreneurs. And we see this more clearly in 2012 with ‘Why Microsoft spent $1 billion on AOL’s patents’ (at https://www.cnet.com/news/why-microsoft-spent-1-billion-on-aols-patents/), a stage the law and the lawgivers are eager to circumvent and in this Apple (Steve Jobs) was not innocent from either, but lets be clear, the law allowed for this. And we see the one Techcrunch gemstone “as everyone pointed their patent arsenals at Android”, Google was not innocent, they never were, but they were not the evil party here and that needs to be made clear. So when we are given (by CNet) “according to a source close to the situation, Google didn’t even bid on the portfolio”, it seemingly makes Google even less evil. And when we return to the Reuters story and we accept ““The Commission shut its eyes to the real competitive dynamic in this industry, that between Apple and Android,” Google’s lawyer Matthew Pickford told the court.” We also need to see “Commission lawyer Nicholas Khan dismissed Apple’s role because of its small market share compared with Android”, I personally wonder what kind of drugs Nicholas Khan is on and can I have some please? The brands using Android are Samsung, Oppo, Huawei, Google, Motorola, Oneplus, Lenovo and a dozen others that use Android, yet iOS products are Apple products, as such we need to see that there is a 70% use of Android over ALL these brands and the 23% is Apple, Apple alone. When we see the bungles (forced USB-C chargers) and this setting, we need to wonder the words by Matthew Pickford “The Commission shut its eyes to the real competitive dynamic in this industry”, that might not be far from the mark. There should be space for evolution, but is one sided evolution truly that or is that the beginning of handing the technology market to China? Especially with HarmonyOS in the design stage it is currently in. The middle East and the far east is ripe for HarmonyOS, the last thing we need is the EU screwing that up too. 

So does that make the EU wrong (not legally wrong)? To be honest, I cannot tell. Yet when we see “Bringing Apple into the picture doesn’t change things very much. Google and Apple pursue different models” we need to wonder what this is really about and this is after Microsoft destroyed Netscape to get sole advantage in browser world, even as some give us “The most innovative company in the computer industry in the last 10 years is dead”, it had been crippled around the time when we got Windows 2000. After which Microsoft screwed the world over again with an utter version of inferiority (Bing). That is how I see it, but feel free to disagree (which is your right).

So whilst we are eager to give Google the Clown card and all kinds of accusations, we see that an Apple phone costs $2369, whilst the Samsung is $1399, Oppo $1299, Asus $1199, Motorola $899, Nokia $449, and Google Pixel 5 $1199. A stage where Apple is pricing itself out of the market and it had been doing so for some time. But this is not about Apple, this is about Google, a brand that is open to others, It used what was available at the time and the rest was nowhere near. Am I wrong? Legally I might be, but then I never saw the 100,000 pages and I reckon I would be able to find a few options that blows the statement “Bringing Apple into the picture doesn’t change things very much. Google and Apple pursue different models”. You see, the Browser had another contender, Yahoo. It lost too much marketshare because the Google search was vastly superior and the patent shows just how superior it was because the people behind it took a long hard look at what the PEOPLE needed, Yahoo, Microsoft and others focussed on what businesses were willing to pay for, a very different stage. I personally believe that this stage of adherence and compliance has been largely ignored. A stage that puts Apple, Microsoft, and a few others in the dock of accusations as well. The stage of adherence to business and I personally believe that the EU is all about that, less about people and that bites me, that partially offends me. To lose in one setting and then openly and bias based attack Google is offensive. Google was never innocent, but they were not the evil player, we need to see this and we need to see this now. The EU is setting a stage where business moves out and then? An iPhone for $2999? The biggest iPhone is now A$2719, so it is not that much a stretch. 8 years of iterations got it from $299 to what it is now and Google? They are on a similar track, the hardware might not be iteration, but their software is not. Innovation software allowed people to make leaps forward and so far the other brands kept up as well, I wonder when that got investigated in the EU?

The case has been running a while, so there is no clear line to draw, but the media seemingly reports the final line and the history and context before it is forgotten, I wonder why?

Am I right?  Am I wrong? Am I correct? I leave it up to you to decide, but consider that I predicted the arms fallout and now we see, only 3 hours before ‘China’s biggest airshow to highlight military prowess’, others laughed about HarmonyOS and now it is here. And in all this not one government has shown any evidence regarding the Huawei accusations. I wonder when people wake up, realising that they are getting played by stakeholders who need to push forward the need need of corporations, American and seemingly European as well. All whilst those corporations have no patents, they have no innovations, merely marketed concepts, hyped hardware that draws short. How much more failures will push their agenda’s against actual innovators (Facebook, Google, Amazon and Huawei)? 

It might be a wrong point of view, I will admit that, but it is tainted what I have seen over almost 40 years in IT in all kind of fields.

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September 27, 2021 · 04:43

Stark contrast

There is an old ‘expression’, The people will rally against the injustice of children, yet for the most, only if it hurts THEIR children. It is a saying that most people ignore because there is a string of pain, the realisation that the need of ‘me’ overrules the need for all. And guess what, Apple joined those ranks a while ago. We see BBC News headlines (last year) like “Ricky Gervais slams Apple over Chinese factories” and we laugh, but the pain is a lot more real than you think. There is an ignored side and there Apple does not seem to give an ‘eff’ (as long as the revenue comes in. It is there advertisement section, the one that is ‘hidden’ in games. Games that give an advertisement and that is OK, but then they take you STRAIGHT to the installation page. Where did we sign up for that? And this is not some innocent ‘barbie game’ this is how pokie and gambling sites assault the weary and the vulnerable. They take the game and the problem to a whole new level. You see, the ad is not the real issue. The issue becomes when you want to close the window and the super-small ‘X’ that closes the window is in the top left corner, and if you miss it, the excuse will be ‘We assumed you wanted the program’, but the close icon is small enough to miss it way too often.

So not only is Apple setting a stage, they are doing this in the setting of “We do not want any issues in the schools where OUR children go, we do not care about the rest” it is a stage that is speculative, but consider the impact. How many children get exposed to that part? And they are not alone, there is more and more out there coming to all of us regarding a ‘game’ named coin master. Even if it has an ad with Joan Collins. In Change dot org (and a few other places) we see messages like “I have been playing coin master for about 8 months and saved up all my coins and spins and spent a fortune on the game then one day i open up my game and the 117billion coins i had and 22,000 spins are gone , i had been reset , apparently coin master are reseting accounts with high savings which is against their own rules because they cannot tell the difference between people who play honest and the cheaters”, now this is a setting of accusation that require data and evidence and I do not have any myself. But coin master is important as it is not only vying for your cash (which is fair enough). It is combining with the ‘sentiment and acceptance’ of pokies, but what we see is not a pokie, it is a game that looks like a pokie and there we see a problem. The makers were decently brilliant, but there is a new stage, “what looks like one” is not the same as one actually is and the makers are in the clear and there is a larger station where it is happening under the noses of Apple (and a few other places), but there the stage is not protective, because it is as I paraphrased “in the schoolyard where we see no Apple employees” so no one at apple seems to care. So when we take a look at some media that give us ‘Complaint Website Flooded By Angry Coin Master Players’ we think that there is a case for action, but that article is almost 2 years old, as such they are doing something really really right or Apple just does not give a hoot (or is that hooters) about their consumers? And the stage is rapidly getting larger. Deceptive conduct (like the gardenscape ads), several ads all showing something that the game does not have, or perhaps in some obscure mini game. And the people are getting less and less choice, because the in game advertisements are seemingly not policed. 

And Apple (Facebook and Google too) needs to start acting. 

And here is the rub, we might see the complaints, yet the game was downloaded in extent to 100,000,000 times, so their app will hold what Apple might see as a remarkable advertisement magnet, and there is the problem, when an app becomes too big too fail there is every chance that the three players will not act in fear of driving people to one of the other two channels, but in the mean time your children are just in danger, because if an app (or game) like ‘Happy Color’ can spout these two advertisements, what other apps will expose your children to the dangers of gambling? 

And consider the start contrast hat Forbes is trying to give us (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2021/09/04/ios-15-apple-just-revealed-a-game-changing-new-iphone-privacy-feature/) a mere 3 weeks ago. There we saw “We already knew iOS 15 would come with multiple privacy features that will further hurt the data-hungry habits of Google and Facebook. But now, Apple has just revealed that iPhone users will finally get a choice whether to enable Apple’s own personalised ads on their devices” yet, how does that fare for the in-game advertisements? The Forbes article does not bare that out and I feel decently certain that Apple (Facebook and Google too) is not willing to put the foot down there. So in the end how much danger are your children in when they play a ‘free’ app? Consider that nothing is for free and a player like Coin Master makes on average $24,000,000 a month. I did not look into the revenue of Lightning Link, but that is clearly a pokie, so it is clear gambling. The problem there is that kids might not understand the difference. So you thought EA games was pushing a setting? I think parents have bigger problems and in this Apple (Facebook and Google too) have a much bigger problem protecting the vulnerable and that is something the media seemingly tends to shy away from a little too eagerly in my books. This whilst somewhere in February this year we saw ‘Apple slapped with class action suit over gambling apps’ where we also see “according to plaintiffs, users are unable to collect actual cash in the casino games, but they do have the ability to win and therefore acquire more playing time. This system — paying money for a chance to win more playing time — allegedly violates anti-gambling laws in the 25 states at issue in the case” and that is only the US setting, Apple et al could have stopped this by blocking that stage but it seems they were eager to get more cash, so even as some would voice “The people who play, are literally paying to kill time”, it is a point of view that is fair enough in some cases, but the advertisements seen are using the little tricks to get a few more vulnerable players into their fold and that is a larger station. If there was a much larger ‘X’ in the advertisement they might have been in the clear, but they did not and moreover they take you STRAIGHT to the app installation page whilst the sentiment to do so was not there. A stage of deception a few times over and there will be a larger invoice for all the players allowing for this. In a stage where political players all over the field are gunning for their coffers these players did something really stupid, they are making it easy to gun for them and when the politicians get to use the cards ‘gambling’, ‘vulnerable people’ and ‘easy exploit’ together (optionally in one sentence), places like Apple (et al) will be handed a fine that could end up being considerably larger than the $1,200,000,000 fine they faced in march. 

These players see it as mere parking fines. The fines are tax deductible, the 100,000,000 downloads seem to validate a speculative advertisement revenue of $10,000,000 a day in just ONE APP and that is the stage, if the case only takes 2 years, the players are looking at an optional $7,000,000,000 in advertisement revenue, the people do not stand a chance to get a fair shake here, so where can they go?

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