Tag Archives: Apple

June 4, 2021 · 22:33

The left corner

Yup, we have all heard it on TV, in movies. In the left corner weighing ……. Yada, yada, yada. The beginning of a match. You heard it, but did you realise it? It hit me today, I was thinking back to the good old days (Google Plus), it had a side others ignored and they are still ignoring it. I joined Facebook in 2004, or was it 2003? The setting was that I was travelling the globe, most of the direct family (when they were still alive) had a travelling bug. As such Facebook was part of a solution, yet it turned out that Google Plus was a much better fit. Reality shows that I have 2 best friends, I have a number of ‘sort of friends’ and I have relatives. Apart from the relative members I would happily shoot with an M-24, I did try to stay in touch with those I had no need to shoot and then time caught up with them and they died. 

Family solution

Time is the eternal equaliser and it will claim me too at some point (once). Yet today I considered how the need for greed of Facebook is leaving an untapped side to social media. They were all about boasting that everyone wants to know everything (better for advertisement), yet the foundation of Google plus was that you decided to give to certain circles, and family is its own circle. Facebook forgot about that part and the others that followed Facebook is overlooking that too (as far as I can tell). You see, the world is not interested in the desk you bought (unless it comes with a naked lady) and then they are merely interested in how visible the nudity of the lady is. But family members are different, they are interested in your new desk, your new quilt cover, especially when there is more than an hour of travel time involved. Some are a lot further away and they want to see the birthday pics of your little one, the rest of the world has no business to see those. So why did social media evolve into an advertisement space where we see all no matter how trivial, or how convoluted the message? 

And as far as I could tell there was no one, at least that was the case, former Facebook employees caught on and created Cocoon. It is not free, it will cost you $39.99 USD per year, yet as they say (at cocoon.com) “Thirty days after you create a Cocoon, one person in the group will need to sponsor it on everyone’s behalf to keep it going. You don’t need to decide upfront whether to pay for Cocoon, only after you reach the end of your trial period. A Cocoon costs $5.99 USD per month or $39.99 USD per year for the entire group”, so one family member pays the amount of slightly less than $40 a year to keep it going and only ONE member needs to pay. That is a very different story and it is one that could take off. So as we get “The app itself does not cost money to download. Pricing is per Cocoon, not per person, and you can be in as many Cocoons as you would like”, it is actually brilliant, to get back to the true foundations of social media, of true socialising and I am amazed that others had not caught on here. Consider a family with nieces, nephews and other riffraff (read: family members) and one price per family. I am decently amazed that they have not cornered that industry yet, because as I see it that setup could grow far and fast over the next three years. As Google lost its Plus side, Cocoon might be all that remains for a lot of people who are sick of the 17 advertisements an hour and the nobodies who have something not so nice to say about your niece’s new dress or your nephew’s new bike. Yes we all make fun of family, yet that is the right of a family member, to say to auntie bertha that her hat went out of fashion when Black and White TV’s did. 

I am equally aware that Cocoon is not advertising, which is debatable as a choice, because there are globally millions who have had enough of Facebook in some regard. I am not totally against Facebook, it has its space and its function when it is about schools, friends that are not family members. And with Google Plus out of the equation Cocoon has a much larger stage to play on. And as they end their sales pitch with “You can be in as many Cocoons as you’d like, but they’ll remain separate from each other and you can navigate between them using the Cocoon switcher. Your nickname, picture, and colour are distinct in each, and contents from one Cocoon can’t be shared or forwarded into another.” We can clearly see that they are on the right track, they are heading into a direction where Social media should have headed in to a much larger degree than it has been doing. If there is one downside it will be the case that I can have it on my iPad, but not on a MacBook. At times I prefer to do my socialising on something with a decent keyboard, I am just wired that way, but that is me, some will find the iPad, android phone and/or iPhone sufficient. I also believe there are a few flaws in the initial stage, but that might be me (I don’t think so though), as such it is a great setting and it does have a real future on a stage where people are being drowned on advertisement and personalised information mining. Yet cocoon is new and fresh, just like the 1985 movie which was all about family as well. 

When you have a family that you do not want to shoot at a moment’s notice, Cocoon is a bright choice in a field where most choices are smitten with some level of darkness.

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May 26, 2021 · 12:01

Treason, by Apple

Yup, this is not some kind of aftershave, it is what I see as treason. Apple (not unlike Microsoft) is about pushing people into the direction where they WANT us to go, not where we want to go, but they seemingly do not care, it is about their long term goal, so a push here and there is perfectly OK to them (I reckon). And this is not some anti-Apple bias, I have been with apple since the Performa 630, I still have the old G5 Powermac, as well as an iPad.

MacPro

The evidence? Well, go to the Apple site, look at the new iMac, in all kinds of colours, there is also the Mac Pro, not even the most powerful one will set you back an almost hefty £22,299.00. One would think that this would be as complete as possible, but you would be wrong. You see, one part is missing, in both the new iMac and the Mac pro. It is a Apple (USB) SuperDrive, the accessories pages do not show one, the hardware does not offer one, you need to seek it out via Google search to find one, yes, OUTSIDE of the Apple site you need to find it and it is in one silver colour only, so the embracement of all these colours is a little bogus. I went to two Apple stores in Sydney to find one for a MacBook, but they didn’t have them. Is that not weird? And also consider that the design of the MacPro started some time ago, as such there is a larger stage of pushing CD’s and DVD’s, as medium for all directions, including data was left out in the open for well over 2 years.

I know people with disk backups that go back a decade, there are people with over a thousand CD albums, now they cannot listen to them on their AirPods, or AirPods max. The list goes on, but you feel the drift here, it is what I personally would see as an act of treason by Apple to its consumers. So whilst we see that in 2020 31.6 million CD albums were sold in the United States alone, we see the stage where millions of users are knowingly left in the cold, I myself have a fair share of Albums, I have up to a 100 cd’s with photo-archive backups, and a similar amount of data, yet what happens when a £22,299.00 will not allow me to read that data? And that is merely one person, will Apple tell us that the millions of users, looking for an Apple IT product, none of them would need a superdrive, or a drive built in? Can anyone explain the insanity of that thought? I get the need to have it external in these air products, but these air products are not used by airheads and they need access to legacy data, a fair amount of them consultants they need to rely on a GB sized email with the data instead of getting mailed a disc leaving both parties open to more dangers. So whilst we take a gander towards the Epic case on their stores, perhaps a seemingly exploitative firm named Epic might have an optional case?

We accept that the superdrive is an addition to some products, but should it be to a £22,299.00 system that is priced without a display? You merely need to look at the design to see that the disc format was erased from consideration, as it was with the iMac where all things (including mouse) come in all colours, but not the superdrive, I could not even find a way to order that one in THEIR store. So, you tell me, is it treason to the consumers, or is it the most stupid form of intentional reckless neglect of their customers? I will let you ponder that part of the equation by yourself.

Well, back to the larger consideration in a new stage in my Fibretech adventure, and before there was colour, there was touchscreen, so here I go pondering away again, have a great day.

P.S. I did get a new handle on the option of interacting with consumer staged Domotics, but that is for another time.

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May 22, 2021 · 11:45

The good and the bad

Yes, today we see that the B is for bad, which also means BBC. A stage we never saw coming, but now that it is out in the open and the carefully phrased denials come out, we all get to see the filthy side of journalism and we see that one we thought was a good element is basically darker than Darth Vader could ever be. And evil is also synonymous with the B of Bing, a company that hijacks your results, they are too incompetent to do anything by themselves, so as I personally see it, they steal it from Google.

But this is not about Microsoft, this is about the evil BBC, the Guardian gave us “Lyons said critics had to accept that the corporation “is not the same organisation it was 25 years ago””, it is seen in the article ‘Fears of ‘feeding frenzy’ against BBC after Diana interview backlash’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/21/ex-bbc-trust-chair-fears-feeding-frenzy-over-diana-interview), in this it is my view that Sir Michael Lyons is optionally (and speculatively) a deranged loon. The media has gotten worse and now we see that the BBC is just as foul as the rest of the media, in this the hidden admission that the BBC knew it was hiding the media filth that is represented through Martin Bashir. When you consider “Lyons said, adding: “But this can’t be time for a feeding frenzy on the BBC.”” We should see the stupidity that Sir Michael Lyons represents. Yes, it is time, you do not get to play deceitfully nice for 25 years in a stage that optionally cost the life of a royal and play nice and timid, you get to take it up any hole we see fit, you do not get to have a choice or a voice in this. 

When we consider that Martin Bashir has had a 25 year career based on a lie and on deceptive conduct and he ends up with a 2 million pound house, a wealthy career and he walks out because  he was given a tap on the shoulder? Yes, we all get to be angry and we all get to decide what happens to the BBC and in this, many will be livid if the governing members who all touched and protected Martin Bashir get to walk away free and clear. Perhaps you need a reminder of what happened when the British people lost their princess.

If each person who attended that funeral and these events demand a drop of blood from every person involved in this scandal, the BBC becomes devoid of life, so Sir Michael Lyons better realise his tone on trivialisation of the event. I am also taking notice of “However, government sources played down the idea of immediate and drastic action, saying one key test would be whether the BBC’s much-changed structure was seen as less at risk of such failings, both in terms of the initial deception and time it took to emerge”, we can agree that there are sides that are debatable, but the setting of “BBC’s much-changed structure was seen as less at risk of such failings” is wrong and irresponsible. That was seen in my previous blog where we see Lord Dyson reflect on the initial BBC investigation and the fact that Martin Bashir took the money and run, whilst selling his house the fastest way possible. You do not take well over a brute annual income of loss because of whatever reason is given, the speed of sale implies that he was given the option to run and avoid media coverage, even now the media avoids chasing down Martin Bashir for comments, he is THAT protected. The Saudi government got less consideration even as there was no evidence, as such we can come to the conclusion that the larger media is part of that problem and it will be essential to cut the BBC short, prune it (with napalm) to the degree it deserves.

If this was the bad, then what was the good? Well, as I was contemplating a new idea in devices, my mind set a new stage of these devices, an application of silicate weave, lamination and processing. Devices that are created (almost) on the spot, a stage where we see that devices can be created for specific fairs, trade shows and release presentations. A stage that was not thought through enough and whilst we see that these events come with trucks of goods, trucks of mouses, keyboards and wires, a larger stage comes to the light, we can innovate there and that is in the stage before we take a gander at new display technologies.

One stage is not the other, but the view evolved whilst I was looking into the BBC and also getting pissed off to no end with Bing hijacks (bloody Microsoft), it is a stage where Apple is actually not innocent and that is the larger stage, a stage of facilitation and the power brokers are all about helping their ‘friends’ and we merely have to swallows the shit we are given and as such, as the BBC is out of luck, and as a national broadcaster the people will demand their pound of flesh, and with millions making that demand, the BBC will run out of options a lot sooner than it thinks, this is too big, they partially created it to be this bog and now the invoice is due. And in the midst of this I got the idea of new devices, a new level of technology that an be fuelled in a 5G atmosphere and as such there is a lot more to go round and even as some devices will not be the hits until 5G is truly kicking off, it will also fuel new stages of trade, in places that some players never considered because of the overhead involved, and now that I have that idea covered, I reckon that trade can flourish in a much larger stage. In this I might be the Ugly in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, yet I do not care. I got the idea one of a dozen and even as I feel that it might be my brain telling me that I am running out of time, I am happy that at least I am going on a journey in a wave of creativity, it is perhaps one of the best waves to surf.

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May 20, 2021 · 10:08

The other path

It started in the early morning (around 03:30) my mind was racing and I suddenly remembered an idea I had two years ago to solve some NHS issues. I kept in the middle on the name whether it would be the Apple iTome, or the Google Tome, the idea was laced with a different approach towards solving some of the NHS issues. That kept slapping the back of my brain when I suddenly remembered something else. It was from my early years, it was a Sharp PC-7000.

Sharp PC-7000

You might think it is too old to be useful, but you would be wrong. You see, Sharp tried something different and even as some surpassed them, we need to consider the impact that VHS had, yes, it did beat Sony Betamax, yet technologically speaking Betamax was superior, it was one of the few cases where marketing decided future paths and now that we are at crossroads, it is time to look back to some old ideas. It got me thinking about a new kind of display, a setting for displaying RAW graphics and using RAW as a standard format , not merely in software, but in hardware too. It got my mind racing on a new display that is the thickness and size of 10 A-4 pages, but laminated. In addition, there is a different approach when we start doing this to displays that are A6, optionally A5. A different approach to how and what we display, and more important how we go about its use, because that too is under scrutiny. We tend to follow a pack of greed driven wolves hoping to get a share and we forgot to look at the innovations of the past and how we can redirect them in today’s markets. 

In this there are options that can be captured now with innovation patents and even as that time is a lot shorter, it allows some to get ahead of the curve. The second part is how displays get their information, we go about the same route as everyone else, but we forget that there is a reason why a player like Hasselblad is pretty much the only player with a medium format video option in 4K, why do you think that is? Because they followed Canon, Nikon, Fujitsu and Minolta, or is that because they had a really good idea and stuck to their guns? It brought them more than anyone ever bargained for and they are about to cash in.

When technology and not marketing decides the future, you end up with better solutions, not pronounced innovations, but actual innovations. A lot of people forgot about that side of the equation. I decided to remember that part and set up a stage (this blog) where I can make some of these idea’s public domain and let the thinking innovators become real winners, not merely winners through the eyes of their presenting marketing pack.

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May 17, 2021 · 10:21

What makes us fall?

We are feeling all kinds of weird at times, we fall for someone, for something, and we also trip at times. These things happen and more often than not we have ourselves to blame, but is that the case all the time? In this I refer to a BBC article 3 days ago called ‘Victim of ‘Elon Musk’ Bitcoin scam loses home deposit’, first of all, the scam used the name ‘Elon Musk’ the man himself has no dealings here. But it was part of the article that woke me up. It is “Ms Bushnell, an investor in cryptocurrency, spotted an item on a website that appeared to use BBC News branding, claiming Mr Musk, the billionaire boss of the Tesla car firm, would pay back double the sum of any Bitcoin deposit”, now in my case the part where I see ‘pay back double the sum’ would raise all the red flags, but it is “an item on a website”, not merely “appeared to use BBC News branding” that got my eyes. 

There are two elements here, the first is that more and more advertisements (and scams) rely way too heavily on ‘deceptive conduct’ and the law has been dragging its heels here for 2-3 years on drowning that issue. Stronger laws against deceptive conduct needs to be there, not some political loon relying on some complaints department, but laws that give power to the law to chastise the advertisement agency that allowed for this with fines in excess of £1,000,000. I reckon that these people will clean up their acts when the fine equals a quarter of their revenue. Do you think it is overreaching? I myself thwarted 5 attempts to get scammed last week, and I believe it is getting worse, with Indian developers learning that for a mere investment of $250 they could reap $250,000 matters are getting worse and it needs to be halted, or at least diminished by a hell of a lot. In this I am willing to point the finger at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and optionally Amazon as well. Some advertisements should not be allowed to continue. 

Even when we see the Guardian giving us (some time ago) “investigation shows apparent ease of promoting fraudulent services online”, we see the lack of actions by all. They made these AI claims, so use your AI (actually AI does not yet exist), but there needs to be a much larger level of checks and even as the BBC watered down the stage towards “spotted an item on a website”, which due to a lack of presentable evidence makes sense, the setting is not all towards the victim. Yet in that light, If I had a real option to double your money, do you think I would go open, or go to my best friends? If I had an option that there was a 100% chance of a 100% gain, do you think I would give this to strangers, or to close friends? Consider that question when you go out and spend (read: donate) your money on something that is without evidence and without verification. 

And there is a reason to blame big tech in this instance, it is seen in “The fake site is still currently online”, this implies that there was advertisement, there is a trail and I reckon there is a need for action and an option for action. You do not need a big degree in IT (I do have one) and we do know that there are ways to mask one’s digital identity, but wonder should those with a masked digital identity be allowed to advertise? 

The article gives more questions than answers, but that is not a bad thing. Getting the questions out into the open optionally raises the bar or perception and if we get that bar high enough, my peers in the House of Lords will wake up and demand action, which gets us at least part of the way there. 

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May 6, 2021 · 00:10

First promise kept

Consider your mobile, especially when you bought it less than a year ago. You think it is a mobile, you use it as a mobile and we all do, but the short and sweet is that it is more, it is your personal data server and EVERYONE wants access to whatever you have there. This has been the case for a while yet as per soon with 5G, a lot more people want access including organised crime, that is because data, personal and categorised data is the new currency and it is like printing money in your living room (if you have enough data). You see the governments are not ready for the waves that are about to hit us all and with 5G the waves will be higher and they will come with a factor 50. Now, for the most you will never notice, but when your data is out in the open, your value decreases. This is not some figment, this is a given. Insurance companies want all the data to see what premiums they can skew in their favour, some want to see your interest so they can advertise more directly and personally, some want to see who your connections are. For the most these corporations have no interest in your life, they want the data of millions and every ‘convenience’ added to the mobile is one step closer to the getting your data. It does not matter whether it is an Android or an iPhone, they want it all. So in the first stage I came up with the Dumb Smart Device. The dumb smart device is simple, it is a buffer. It will replace the swipes you will make at marketing, in shops, getting information and requesting data. It can accept data from all but will only pair with 1 or 2 devices, your mobile and your laptop, or desktop. It will make more sense as the other devices are added to public domain.

There is more, but it will come with the second device, this should get the hungry designer started, lets see what w get next.

You see we might ignore the swipes, but some will not, some will want to milk it for all they can and that cannot be stopped, but this device will dampen and delay the effect. Some will state that this is all between my ears, this is not real and it will never happen. Search the news, zero day faults, hacks on Cisco, Microsoft Exchange, Android hacks, iPhone hacks and all kinds of transgressions. We might think that we have a handle, but with 5G the usage pressure will increase factor 50 and the law cannot even keep up now, when that happens they will fight a battle they have already lost and they are all about blaming, but the real part is that they have no clue, so I came up with a few devices that to stem that tide. I doubt it will completely stop it, but I can delay the impact. And as the DSD gains momentum, we will see a new retail era emerge.

These DSD devices will be part of jewellery, rings (in a more advanced stage), pendants, necklaces and some will be kitsch, it will take shape like the ghetto blasters did. More and more will be a little oversized, some will become fashion statements basically saying ‘I have one’, some will do it to show it is a tool. There will be all kinds of reasons, but it will grow in several directions all at the same time. A tool that needs no swiping, it keeps the mobile where it is sae, in ones pocket. And this stage is merely the beginning.

You see this was not designed in the Covid era, even though it benefits on a larger scale, it was not set as such. This came to mind when I saw the first drafts of Marketing needs to evolve, approaching customers will go differently and as my mind was adjusting to that stage, developing new methods of digital power towards customers and interactions, I saw that the power needs to be with the customers, only such an approach will create a larger wave of loyalty, not the ones taking power away from the customers, those giving them options will benefit to the same degree , but much longer, it creates larger retail waves. Yes the books are all saying the opposite, yet those books were written in an age where newspapers ruled, where the population was known, in a digital age that is not a given as such the empowering party will gain a longer benefit to that population, creating a larger wave of customers. It is a different approach to a different era. The iterators never understood it, they come from their ‘position of power’ and that dog no longer barks, we need a different approach and I a setting the first step by making it public domain, now the faster connector will become a larger player and optionally a winner. It is my first step, one of several to debunk those wannabe managers relying on bulletpoint memo’s. Now they cannot shout, now they have to deliver. Well, have fun with that.

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May 1, 2021 · 12:54

What did they not see?

You think it is simple, but if you have been in photography like me (1975), that question becomes easier to comprehend, but explaining that becomes harder, I get that. Distractions, obstructions, light and focus are 4 basic elements of missing a detail, optionally several details. Yet the professional photographer learned not to be hindered by obstructions and to adjust for focus and light, which leaves the focussed photographer and the photographer. So the focussed photographer can make the ‘snatch’ shot and the photographer merely looks for a tissue. Seems bland and crude but this example matters.

To see one application, we need to turn to ‘Telstra, NATO and the USA’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/06/20/telstra-nato-and-the-usa/), an article I wrote in 2018 “unless you work for the right part of Palantir inc, at which point your income could double between now and 2021”, the shares were at $9.69 and ended last night at $23.18, basically I saw that coming a mile away. And that is not all, there are several avenues where their value should at the very least double within the next 19 months. It is the flaws we set ourselves up for and when the stupid people (loud mouthed politicians) realise that their loud mouths will require data, Palantir is close to the only option they have.

That article has a few more connections to what is to come, the most important part if 5G and there is a lot going on (at https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/australian-5g-speeds-truth-revealed/) in Australia. Gadget Guy gave us last week one take (not the highest quality source), but they do give us  “There are two issues for Australian 5G speeds. The primary is that despite Telstra insistence that it covers 50% of Australians and 75% of the population by the end of June, it does not! nPerf (based on real 5G user’s) shows minimal reception. The second is real download and upload speed. While the average is 240.9/15.5Mbps Mbps, it is well short of Telstra’s hype – so fanciful we won’t embarrass it by mentioning it’s up to 20Gbps claim debacle when first introduced”, oh hold on, did I not give you “The problem is that even as some say that Telstra is beginning to roll out 5G now, we am afraid that those people are about to be less happy soon thereafter. You see, Telstra did this before with 4G, which was basically 3.5G” with a reference to ABC in 2011 on how Telstra was BS’ing the population on the 28th of September 2011. So thats two elements where we see that their ‘photographers’ ignored obstacles, blamed the lens makers for focal points, the sun for shining to brightly and they all went running for their tissues. They audience got distracted (as I personally see it) by all the baubles that they were offering. It worked in 1700, so why not in 2021? Yet CMO gives us 2 days ago (at https://www.cmo.com.au/article/688024/tourism-australia-7-eleven-telstra-balancing-data-driven-engagement-consumer-consent/) “Panel of digital executives share the role of first-party data and personalisation in their customer experience approaches against consumer consent and control of their privacy”, a setting where we might see that a panel of 5 are slicing the new currency (data) cake in a way that THEY are happy with, all whilst we are told “the key is to balance data sophistication as a business with consumer controls and transparency. He also noted the varying levels of control and regulation around using data across geographies such as Europe versus the US, which the tourism bureau is operating in”, yet the answer which was not really an answer is about ‘balance data sophistication’, all whilst ‘consumer controls’ (for the consumer) will be as nonexistent as possible. We might not get that when we see “invest in first-party identifiers as well as a unified ID for the tourism industry that can be leveraged”, yes but to what extend it is leveraged is never stated, merely implied, the additional ‘unified ID’ would have a much larger impact, but that too is never stated, they all want as large a slice of that data pie and Cambridge Analytica has made them very very cautious. 

These two elements are merely that, elements. Yet the underlying data there will require analyses and whilst some will claim that they can, Palantir is close to the only source that actually can analyse the whole lot and that is what I saw coming a mile away. 

A linked small digression
You see it takes a massively large level of stupid (and greed) to cater to this, but I believe that the EU (Margrethe Vestager) is trying and optionally succeeding in pulling this off. She is all about “European Commission anti-trust regulator Margrethe Vestager tweeted that “consumers are losing out”. It relates to charges brought two years ago by music streaming app Spotify which claimed that Apple was stifling innovation in that industry”, you might think that, but I do not. You see the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56941173) gives us “It relates to charges brought two years ago by music streaming app Spotify which claimed that Apple was stifling innovation in that industry”, no it had set a premise to all (which it does not), all 23,000,000 Apple developers. It set a premise where they could develop whatever they want whilst having zero deployment cost and they would be charged as they gained incomes, so not the $75,000 upfront to get started, but after the fact and with no time limit. As such wannabe innovators flourished. It never stifled innovation, it limited greed. So whilst we see the painting of bad bad evil Apple, no one is looking at the fact that Spotify is paying artists HALF of what Apple and Google pays them, it amounts to $0.0032 per stream, so to make 1 cent, the song needs to be requested 3 times. This is why I still buy music, at least the artists I care about will get a much better slice. 

And when we see the image where they are now CHARGING for algorithms, all whilst they made a brute gross profit of $575,000,000 in Q4 2020, I think that the EU commissioner is massively loopy. You see, this is about consolidating greed plain and simple and in the process it will endanger consumers (the ones she claimed to protect). 

The image is merely one element of greed, it goes further. That part is not directly seen, but the BBC does give the goods with ‘The ransomware surge ruining lives’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56933733), there we see “Ransomware gangs are now routinely targeting schools and hospitals. Hackers use malicious software to scramble and steal an organisation’s computer data”, in this the larger stage is not merely the theft, it is how they use larger systems to spread across all the internet and with 5G that danger becomes 5,000%. You see people like Spotify, Epic Games et all want to be outside the Google and Apple store, but they will limit protection (they will call it something else) and when the consumer ends up paying for that, we will get to see all kinds of apologies, but it was not entirely THEIR fault. As such I say, when you get hit (and you will) make sure that as you sue Spotify for damages, you add Daniel Ek and Margrethe Vestager to the culprits of your damages. Organised crime is getting better and better in walking away and as such their greed must be addressed in courts and their approach towards a ‘too big to fail’ setting must be answered, the data will be out there and s such players like Palantir will make even more money, it will be all about the data from 2022 onwards, in this the OCCRP their 2021 serious organised crime threat assessment where we see “The threat from cyber-dependent crimes is set to further increase in volume and sophistication over the coming years”, and in this stage Margrethe Vestager is willing to open the floodgates towards greed driven idiots setting the stage for organised crime getting more? You think that will ever be a great idea? I think not. 

And it does not stop there. The fact that the exchange hack was hard to detect for a long time, some hacks were out in the field for years and now we see greed driven idiots scale away the two decent bastions of protection that consumers have (Apple and Google) and let others skate around them? How long until we see some corrupted Amazon like app via a phishing spree be offered to millions. By the time some will have a clue billions will have been shifted and who pays for that? Insurers?  I very much doubt that. As such these two will be required to sit in the dock explaining their catering to greed. You see if Margrethe Vestager was really about the consumers, she would also be about protecting the artists and where is it acceptable that they get one third of a cent for a song? Is there more? Yes, but I will admit that this is part speculation. The BBC article gives us “The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, also a member of the Ransomware Task Force says it handled more than three times as many ransomware incidents in 2020 than in the previous year”, you see paying a bitcoin is only one part, the data can still be shared with others and as data become currency the damage setting goes up by a lot. The dangerous part is that commissioner Vestager knows that the law and policing are not up to the task and she is catering to someone with dubious greed needs? One that underpays artists by what I consider to be as close as criminal levels of renumeration? And in my mind, some excuse ‘If we get this they get more’ does not float, in that setting their business model was wrong from day one, in addition, the entire algorithm setting shows a larger exploitation to kindle greed and leave an artist with less. So how accomodating to EU consumers do you think Margrethe Vestager actually is, that in opposition to catering to greed driven players? Apple and Google might not be god, not great but they agreed on a format to keep their consumers safe all whilst giving an option for starting developers to score big, the fact that these players were not as good as they hoped they would be and as they relied on advertisement to push the players is a mere side effect, but without these store protection, the mess will be close to unimaginable and players like Palantir will have the data  and the greed driven players (as well as some not too bright politicians) get to defend themselves in the dock against lawyers with massive class actions. When that happens, be sure that you have  stocked up on popcorn, because it will be worth watching. It will be reality TV with lots of fake tears and CEO’s claiming that they did not know certain things and watch their fortunes dwindle. It will be a much better class of reality TV for some time to watch.

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April 26, 2021 · 14:36

Consider the question

We always have questions, we all do. Some are based upon curiosity, some are based on acquisition and some on compilation. The people tend to have questions in the range of one and three, businesses on two and three, with an optional need for the first group to see if a creation towards awareness is required. And in this we need to see ‘Facebook v Apple: The ad tracking row heats up’, the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56831241) gives us “The IDFA can also be paired with other tech, such as Facebook’s tracking pixels or tracking cookies, which follow users around the web, to learn even more about you”, yet the question no one seems to be asking is how much is an advertiser entitled to get? I have no issue that Facebook, within Facebook measures and ‘collects’ it is the price of a free service, but did we sign up for a larger stake (or is that steak) at the expense of the consumer? Even as we tend to agree and accept “Apple co-founder Steve Jobs acknowledged that some people didn’t care about how much data they shared, but said they should always be informed of how it was being used”, in this the question takes a few steps and has a few exits in where to go next and we tend to remain in the dark about our needs, and what we are comfortable with. This is not new, but digital marketing is new, we have never faced it before. Even as we accept the quote by Tim Cook, the setting given with “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform”, we forget that this is not merely misusing, it is a much larger stake. I some time ago refused to play a game because it collected my religion. Since when is a game’s requirement the religion I have? So (its Catholic by the way), even as we decide to not use an application, consider the price we pay and it goes further as app’s and their advertisements strategy on nearly EVERY device is set to showing us advertisements (to further the financial setting of the maker), in this I have no real problem, but what information is collected by the advertiser? And we all like the steps Apple seems to be making and as we ‘revere’ “Apple is baking privacy into its systems. Its browser Safari already blocks third-party cookies by default, and last year Apple forced app providers in iOS to spell out in the App Store listings what data they collect” we are forgetting what all advertisers are collecting and no less the issue becomes what happens when 5-7 games collectively are collecting and for the most we have no idea where this will end and it is important to take that in mind. It is there where Facebook is getting the largest negative wave. With “And it argues that sharing data with advertisers is key to giving users “better experiences””, precisely what is that ‘better experience’? And in what setting should ANY data be shared with an advertiser? We get that the advertiser wants to segment WHO gets to see their advertisement, we get that and I reckon no one will object. Yet why share our details? How is that priced and why are we not informed? OK, we are not told that Facebook is getting money of us, it is after-all a free service and as Mark Zuckerberg told the senate in a hearing “We sell ad’s”, yet he did not say “We sell ad’s and user data”, you all do understand that there is a fundamental difference between the two, you do get that, do you? And we see that given in the BBC article when we are given “Facebook appeared to accept the changes and promised “new advertiser experiences and measurement protocols”. It admitted that the ways digital advertisers collect and use information needed to “evolve” to one that will rely on “less data””, but that now gives us a much larger problem (optionally), when we see ‘new advertiser experiences’ we should be concerned on what it will cost, in pricing, in experience and in data segments. It does not make Facebook evil or bad, but when we are given “Technology consultant Max Kalmykov wrote in Medium that advertisers had to “prepare for the next, privacy-focused era of digital advertising””we accept change, we accept evolution, but in the stage of digital marketing most can be achieved WITHOUT sharing data of any individual level with the advertiser, the setting we see come might be good, yet I am concerned with their view of ‘new advertiser experiences and measurement protocols’, a setting for sales, not the consumers and optional victims, because to some degree that matters. Do I care when I see another advertisement by MWAVE.com.au? No, I do not, and for the most I do not care about that part, it is basically the cost of a free service, but no one accepted sharing data and that I what Apple is bringing to the surface even more than Cambridge Analytica brought. 

There is a larger setting in all this and we optionally see that with “Device fingerprinting combines certain attributes of a device – such as the operating system it uses, the type and version of web browser and the device’s IP address to identify it uniquely. It is an imperfect art, but one that is gaining traction in the advertising world”. You see I made the personal choice not to link devices, not to link services of any kind, it will not stop aggregation, it will merely slow it down, yet most of the people did not have the foresight I had a decade ago, as such the apps that have a identifier of hardware, they will get a lot more information on non-Apple devices in the near future. When the people realise that all others will take a backstage, it is a powerful advantage that Apple is creating, I wonder what Google will do next, because their market is in the middle of Apple and Facebook, they need to side one way or the other and it will have deeper repercussions in the long game. As such we see that Apple made its choice, it is one the consumers will embrace, some will accept the scenario that Facebook offers, and laughingly they oppose the data governments have and give it to whomever else wants it. In this Google has an opportunity (or a burden), but only if they change the game they are playing. When the consumers see this, they will wonder where to go next and they are all about flames and biased options through the media. 

It started last year and got to be serious in December 2020 when we were given (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/17/22180102/facebook-new-newspaper-ad-apple-ios-14-privacy-prompt) ‘Facebook hits back at Apple with second critical newspaper ad’, in one form we are given “Forty-four percent of small to medium businesses started or increased their usage of personalised ads on social media during the pandemic, according to a new Deloitte study. Without personalised ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend”, is that true? When you pick up the newspaper, how much is personalised? There will remain a level of personalised ads within Facebook, but the following outside of Facebook (within Apple products) stops and that might be a relief to a lot of consumers. As such I have a much larger issue with “the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend”, I would be interested to investigate the data that brought the statement, and I have some reservations on the application of the data used. We could optionally say that the digital marketing that relies on such a 100% application is also to some degree unfair on printed media, but that is a very different conversation. 

And in all this the question will soon become “What should you (be allowed to) collect from me?” And now with the upgrades Apple has created a massive advantage, Google will need time to define an answer and direction, because Google will need to make a choice, and this is not a simple one, their business profile will alter accordingly and as Facebook is setting its premise, we see a larger stage, one with the option where Google Plus might be re-introduced in a much larger application of personal and non personal data, you see they are all about the personal data all whilst the hardware fingerprints in 5G will be a much larger setting then it ever was and there a much larger gain could be made by the proper makers in all this.

Did you see the new world where your mobile, tablets, laptop and domotics are linked? I can see it and the application of one of my mobile devices, yet the stage that it offers (or not) is still open to a lot of the players, so as I see it the next year will see a rapid evolution of digital marketing. Those who adjust will see 2023, those who do not ‘Goodbye!’

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April 23, 2021 · 17:43

Innovative?

Yup we heard it all. Quotes like ‘Apple is widely considered as the #1 innovative company in the world’, as well as ‘While most companies are lucky to come up with one major innovation, these three continue to develop breakthroughs and don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon’ and Apple it was to some extend true, especially when Steve Jobs was still mortal, around and kicking. Since then they only gave us the Apple AirPods, which is true innovation. The rest is iteration. Microsoft is calling the Surface innovation, wrong! I see it as iteration and a weak copy from the iPad to begin with, it goes on and on, IBM has the Quantum computing cloud, but that has been pretty much it, beyond that most are merely iteration and weirdly enough, they seem to focus on what can be iterated, not innovated. 

iPad fling
I have had a fling with my iPad going back to 2011 when the first one came out. It was a present from me to me when I got into graduate school at UTS. I saw all these eager students with a laptop in one hand like it was a serve platter running from corner to corner trying to find a powerpoint, as such I decided on the iPad, the very first one, which had 64GB, cellular and WiFi. I was happy as a puppy with a fresh bone. This would continue until 2020 when it started to show issues and most parts would no longer be updated, it was too old. There were no tears, with 10 years 24:7 service it had earned its keep at least twice over and my storage never exceeded 50%, the 64GB was a true achievement. As such in 2020 I updated to the iPad Air, now with 256GB, a more powerful processor, higher resolution and that fling feeling came back in a rush. 

Yet the market has changed, this is fair enough and I see the iPad Air as an iteration, not innovation. It was this step that I saw today that innovation was absent, or more precisely absent from the iPad systems for too much. Now, in the larger scheme I do not care, I am still really happy with what it has, and as pretty much all of it is back, I have little to complain about.

There is this one thing
It is there that I saw innovation, where none was and I do not know why Apple did not see this. You see apps, games (free to play) are all nice, but they need to get their money (as much as possible) from advertisers. As such it does not matter how it is setup, the increasing amount of advertisements, a setting that is beyond the borders of harassment are also grabbing my Bluetooth speaker when I am trying to enjoy music whilst playing a game, and it is there that I saw the lack of innovation. I wonder why Apple never looked at the setting to make the bluetooth an exclusive to for example the Music app. I cannot fault app makers to rely on advertisement, but when your speakers get hijacked every other minute, you either listen to music or nothing at all, why did Apple not see this, or even see this coming?

When we have YouTube playing and the advertiser grabs/pushes through the same speaker as YouTube, it is fine, I get that, but I have a problem in the other event when I play a game muted, but the advertiser will hijack/obtains your speaker. Did Apple not see that coming? So whilst we saw in June 2020 ‘13 new innovative technologies and features unveiled at WWDC20’, Bluetooth innovation was absent, Bluetooth iteration too. As such, whilst we herald the addition of “New cycling directions in Maps take into account elevation, how busy a street is, and whether there are stairs along the route”, we see iteration, the natural consequence of what came before, not iteration, which is supposed to mean “the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services”, yet here we see the problem ‘or improvement in offering goods or services’, the problem there is that ‘improvement’ is now on a sliding scale, especially in software where a lot of improvements are iterations, not innovations. 

Is this me?
Yes, it probably is, but in that same light, there is a larger group of people that see the addition of one new chip as iteration, not innovation. Marketing departments globally have ‘abused’ the word ‘innovation’ to the degree that we see it as a debatable word at best. This is pure in us, driven through the advertisers and the larger brands need to see that innovation is no longer a calling to customers, it is a calling to investigate the brand in just how loyal one needs to be. In this I will also admit that it might not merely be marketing, but the brief that their board of director gives out to marketing, no matter how you slice it. As such what information to trust, and that is fair enough. Yet the stage we see is larger, larger than even I can consider, simply because I am not the greatest expert in the field and there is also the stage that I do not look everywhere. It becomes increasingly difficult where we see the Internet of things (IoT), consider that a device is suddenly used in a field that it has never been used in, this (to me) is innovation, not iteration and that field is in motion, in rapid motion in all directions, as such what might be innovation is seen as iteration in the way it is brought to us, it is understandable that we see this wrong, but it is unfair to the player bringing it. We can blame it on their marketing, but that is not fair either. As such you need to wonder where the threshold lies and here we have a nice example. Are the Bravia XR TV’s (2021) iteration or innovation? We might say one, but consider that speakers have to go somewhere and Sony is the first one to put them behind the LCD display, does that make it innovation or iteration? I am not certain, but they call it innovation. Is it true or false? I actually do not have a clear answer, yet my view of what is would call it iteration, an iteration I desire, but an iteration none the less. 

It goes deeper and ZDNet gave us that part in January 2021 with a list of ARK Big Ideas 2021, which would include the following:

  • Deep Learning
  • The Reinvention of the Data Center
  • Virtual Worlds
  • Digital Wallets
  • Bitcoin Fundamentals
  • Bitcoin: Preparing For Institutions
  • Electric Vehicles (EVs)
  • Automation
  • Autonomous Ride-Hailing
  • Delivery Drones
  • Orbital Aerospace
  • 3D Printing
  • Long Read Sequencing
  • Multi-Cancer Screening
  • Cell and Gene Therapy: Generation 2

When I see this list, we see deep learning, Bitcoin fundamentals, and Long Read Sequencing and in these cases we expect iteration. 

In case of deep learning (often presented as AI) we see the definition “Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised”, yet my issue is with the part ‘Learning can be supervised’, as I personally see it to be deep learning, it needs to be semi-supervised or unsupervised, if not it is merely adapted scripting. I will skip Bitcoin fundamentals, it is in my mind an iterative field, but in that I must admit there is a lot I do not know and I never cared to learn it, as such if someone states to me that I was wrong, it would be a fair assessment, but to see innovation paired with a word like ‘fundamentals’ is weird on too many levels. It becomes a different stage when we consider Long Read Sequencing, I get it data is in evolution and transformation and these sequencings are often linked to biometrics, a field that is very much innovation, even the iterations tend to be innovation, so I see the flaw in my thinking here. Yet it compares to naught when we consider ‘Long-read human genome sequencing and its applications’ by Glennis A. Logsdon, Mitchell R. Vollger & Evan E. Eichler. It was published less than a year ago and it took almost that long for me to get the gist of it (armed with a thesaurus). As such when we see Oxford Nanopore Technologies and its applications we do clearly see a large field of innovation, not merely in biometrics, but in an adapted path towards a string of devices all the way from manufacturer to user, where we see an optional path towards identifying digital forensics, I wonder if Mr or Mrs Technology Nanopore from Oxford considered that part of the equation. In a stage where the IoT is in nonstop motion, setting a chain of identifying hardware and connections in a string, an extremely long string might be (for now) the only way to go and that will be (as I personally see it) a much larger stage in digital forensics to find the paths towards organised crime and disorganised corporate crime soon enough. When parts of a path are identified we would optionally see an identifier of non repudiation. Only that person, and that person could have taken that road. Which might also more quickly identify a larger strain of click farms. Not claiming the innovation, merely stating that this might be a path worth considering. At present some will discard the issue with data size, yet I come from an age where DEC had a Winchester drive with 250,000,000 bytes, which was the size of a work-desk and 50 times the weight, all for the price of a house in 11 specific cities in the USA. This happened within a career, as such do not dismiss the idea, as size becomes ever debatable, as speed is increasing in the better hardware, the application of ONT could go a long way and in directions the makers never considered, or at least not openly considered. 

It might be me, anyway, I am meeting up with an old friend (Gaius Julius Caesar) who is giving me the lowdown on his campaign in Gaul, with my rusty Latin, it will take all weekend, so let’s see if I can afford a nice bottle of Italian wine. Have fun!

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March 31, 2021 · 22:41

And so it begins

To be honest, yesterday was a little whack. I came up with the foundation of a new Star Trek movie (a story covering two movies), but I will not set it here as it is founded on Star Trek materials already in existence and as such, it is not mine, that and the fact that the people at Paramount should be ahead of me, if I can come up with the goods and they cannot, you can draw your own conclusions on that. The second part was a new idea on something that might be seen as either a sequel or a prequel. I am not much of a horror fan, never was but I sometimes go see one. There was Poltergeist, the Relic, Grave Encounters (one and two), and then it happened. The idea got into me and these movies gave way to the paving of the idea, they are important (somehow). I remembered a ride in a Dutch theme park named ‘the Efteling’, the ride is called ‘Villa Volta’ and it refers to a legend called ‘de Bokkenrijders’ (the Goat riders). The story goes back to a book written in 1779, the book and the gang actually referred back to 

  • Gabriël Brühl – sentenced to death by hanging, 10 September 1743.
  • Geerling Daniels – died of two self-inflicted stab wounds, 28 January 1751.
  • Joseph Kirchhoffs – sentenced to death by hanging, 11 May 1772.
  • Joannes Arnold van de Wal (“Nolleke van Geleen”) – sentenced to death by hanging, 21 September 1789.

When we consider these parts, we see the foundation of an excellent horror movie, one with references to the past, consider that the area ‘the Kempen’ was not the most illuminated one and also largely absent of lighting, we see a larger stage, with the robbing of churches, people and devil worship that the stage for something nicely haunting can be made. A stage that includes parochial corruption, envy based corruption and superstition all whilst there was an actual danger of cutthroat robbers does tend to lend a hand in setting nerves on fire as we contemplate what is behind the three doors, it might help to realise that it is not the doors leading to the living room, the street or the cupboard door to the bed (people slept in cupboards in those days). A stage that was determined not by law (even as they claimed it) but by fear and by the hands of the church, yes, those were the days.

So as I was setting the field to all kinds of creativity, the US government changes the timeline I had in mind initially (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/03/trillion-dollar-musk/  where I wrote ‘Trillion dollar Musk’, the stage where I predicted “I stated before that in the next 3-4 years his value will increase to roughly $1.2 trillion dollars, or in a less shorthand version $1,200,000,000,000, yes that is where he is heading and he already has most of the IP in his possession to do so”, now we see that Reuter gives us ‘Biden proposal: $174 billion for EVs, new funds for renewable power’, a stage where we are told “The White House said the new EV funds will result in more U.S. production of EV components and batteries and fund new consumer rebates and tax incentives “to buy American-made EVs, while ensuring that these vehicles are affordable for all families and manufactured by workers with good jobs” and that is the beginning for Elon Musk to chisel in stone the setting that gets him a trillion dollar plus member and he already has most of the IP to do so, the little he is missing was in one of my articles and likely his team already has the stage in place to get started, I reckon (speculatively) that Elon Musk and his Musk-wares will optionally be a household name within the decade, equalling, optionally surpassing Google, Apple and Microsoft in the process. It is the power of innovation and the sooner the iterative flaccid minds take notice, the better the world becomes. 

And so it begins, the stage for a new technology driven economy comes into play and when 5G deploys all over the world, the old people (Arvind Krishna, Satya Nadella, Larry Ellison et al) see what happens next, they will race, they will cry needs and they will object to all kinds of things, but the world is changing and unfortunately for them, Elon Musk seemingly has the goods.

It will not make changes overnight but it will make larger changes. He will not do it alone, there are larger players who will be part of all this, but not the three mentioned and if they do not adjust the need of their shareholders to actual innovative jumps they will become obsolete. Yes and it includes Microsoft, who has the good fortune to be reduced to a user facilitator. The innovative will also push us into directions we are not completely ready for, but that is the foundation of innovation. You see Ren Zhengfei was initially part of that, but the Wall Street players saw what they were missing out on and their anti-Huawei rhetoric is playing against them, now the US will miss out on a lot more, the question is will the change of direction go towards the EU, or will there be another direction? I actually do not know, but to cater to these changes proper 5G was required and in the speed section, we see (according to statista.com) that Saudi Arabia is at the head of that speed setting, yet both Canada and Australia have more than the minimum speed requirement (America does not), as such they do have a larger advantage at present and that matter, because the developer that fits the bill will have an easy mark raking in revenue in whatever direction innovation pushes. I cannot tell what direction it is in, because I simply do not know, but the earlier step (the Elon Musk deal) will also push domotics and smart devices and they are optionally now all driven by Musk technology. 

So here in the beginning of new technology, we see players, but not the players that hoped to be in charge and that drives them to all kind of directions, it is THEIR personal horror story, and they fear to be non-essential, the rich fear that as much as a direct loss of wealth, because when their status as essential captain of industry goes, so do their automatic revenue renewal programs, and it seems like we get to see the impact of those changes earlier than I expected.

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