BlackBerry smette di fare gli smartphone in casa (in Canada) e fa outsourcing in Cina. Il mercato la premia.

Money quote: "BlackBerry has completely outsourced smartphone design and production, a process that Chen had been doing piecemeal since taking over as CEO almost three years ago. Analysts had been holding their breath for the news after Chen said September was his deadline for making the chronically money-losing device business profitable."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/blackberry-misses-sales-estimates-amid-slowing-software-growth

Negli Usa c'è un problema con gli scam per gli ebook: ne vengono generati automaticamente a migliaia, privi di contenuti in pratica, per venderli a tradimento e ricavarci anche milioni di dollari. Ne hanno scoperto uno, ma la cosa grave è l'apparente tolleranza di Amazon al fenomeno

Monety quote:

"Shershnyov was able to stay in Amazon’s shadows for two years by using his scam server conservatively so as to not raise any red flags.
What eventually gave him away weren’t customer complaints or even getting caught by the bookseller. It was good old-fashioned carelessness. He forgot to put a password on his server."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusive-inside-a-million-dollar-amazon-kindle-catfishing-scam/

Il dibattito sulle presidenziali americane sta aprendo la mente dell'agenda setting ad idee piuttosto singolari. E deleterie. Come questa che si possa creare una democrazia in cui votano solo le persone competenti. Una sorta di distopia brutta brutta, ma non impossibile.

Money quote: "The idea here is not that knowledgeable people deserve to rule – of course they don’t – but that the rest of us deserve not to be subjected to incompetently made political decisions. Political decisions are high stakes, and democracies entrust some of these high-stakes decisions to the ignorant and incompetent. Democracies tend to pass laws and policies that appeal to the median voter, yet the median voter would fail Econ, History, Sociology, and Poli Sci 101. Empirical work generally shows that voters would support different policies if they were better informed."

https://aeon.co/ideas/the-right-to-vote-should-be-restricted-to-those-with-knowledge

Alan Turing è una figura gigantesca. Enorme. Il padre di tutti i nerd e non solo. Adesso, si scopre che ne ha fatta una ancora in più.

Money quote:

"Listening to the recording now is only possible thanks to some New Zealand scientists, who recently restored it, announcing their aural achievement on the website of the British Library on Sept. 13.

"It was a beautiful moment when we first heard the true sound of Turing's computer," the scientists wrote then."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/you-can-now-listen-to-the-first-computergenerated-music-ever

Come fai a vendere la merce online senza che arrivi danneggiata al cliente? Semplice, stampi sulle scatole "TV"

Money quote: "With a big hairy goal to sell 90% of our bikes online by 2020, we had to find a fix. Anyone in the ecom world knows you’re only as good as your shipping partner. Your covetable products, your frictionless website, your killer brand — they all count for nothing when your delivery partner drops the ball"

https://medium.com/vanmoof/our-secrets-out-f21c1f03fdc8#.8awvhujyd

Sette trucchi "sul serio" per fare le foto con gli iPhone. Funzionalità nascoste.

Money quote: "In this tutorial you’ll discover just how easy it is to use the advanced iPhone camera controls so that you can start taking incredible photos with the camera that’s always with you."

https://iphonephotographyschool.com/iphone-camera-controls/

Siete smanettoni con il Mac? È arrivato il momento di usare Gmail con Mutt, programma di posta antichissimo a riga di comando, accessibile solo dal terminale. Molto, molto divertente (anche se a casa preferiamo Alpine, la versione "moderna" di Pine).

Money quote: "This tutorial assumes that you have some familiarity with using mutt and have installed it with sidebar support (sudo apt-get install mutt-patched for the ubuntu folks) and are comfortable with editing your muttrc."

https://smalldata.tech/blog/2016/09/10/gmail-with-mutt

Crollano del 93% gli esposti contro la polizia da quando vengono indossate le piccole videocamere personali da parte degli agenti (in Gran Bretagna). La cosa è notevole

Money quote: "In fact body-worn cams could turn out to be the biggest upgrade to modern policing since DNA profiling."

https://www.thememo.com/2016/09/30/body-worn-cams-lead-to-incredible-93-drop-in-police-complaints/

Diego Piacentini: «Meglio provarci e non farcela che avere il rimpianto tutta la vita» - mio articolo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/diego-piacentini-meglio-provarci-non-farcela-rimpianto-tutta-la-vita/

L'ultimo film a cartoni animati di Makoto Shinkai, "Your name", è diventato un caso in Giappone. La storia di due adolescenti, un ragazzo e una ragazza, che si scambiano i corpi e vivono l'uno la vita dell'altra, sta affascinando il pubblico nipponico così come aveva fatto il racconto da cui l'anime è stato tratto. La straordinaria fotografia, i giochi di luci, la colonna sonora particolarmente "hip", sono gli altri elementi di questo successo che proietta l'autore in quell'Olimpo occupato sinora dal solo Hayao Miyazaki. E ovviamente i giornali giapponesi si sono affrettati a definire Shinkai "l'erede di Miyazaki", soprattutto dopo che l'autore di Nausicäa ha dichiarato tre anni fa che presto si sarebbe ritirato.

Money quote: "It is now the ninth-highest grossing Japanese film, and the only Japanese animation to rack up more than ¥10 billion in revenue apart from Miyazaki’s works."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/09/27/films/animated-film-name-taking-nation-storm/

Data Port è uno storico rivenditore Apple, che ha tenuto in piedi il marchio Apple nel centro Italia anche durante gli anni della crisi ('90). Adesso si fonde con il gruppo Juice del nord Italia. È una mossa difensiva per sopravvivere agli Apple Store e al successo dell'azienda, che sta prosciugando il mare per i suoi partner.

https://www.macitynet.it/data-port-si-unisca-juice-tasso-zero-firenze-pisa-bientina/

Se avete installato iOS 10 sul telefono ma non avete ancora capito come mandare i messaggi con gli effetti speciali, ecco qui una rapida guida

Money quote: "When you send messages like “Happy New Year”, “Happy Birthday”, iOS 10 will automatically add suitable screen effect to it."

https://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-add-screen-effects-to-imessages-in-ios-10/

Non vi sto consigliando di seguire le istruzioni fornite da ProPublica per "vedere" cosa Facebook sa di voi. Oltretutto sono tecniche e non mi fido che non sia un modo per raccogliere ulteriori dati. Però la spiegazione di cosa tipicamente il social network raccoglie è davvero impressionante.

Money quote: Facebook has a particularly comprehensive set of dossiers on its more than 2 billion members. Every time a Facebook member likes a post, tags a photo, updates their favorite movies in their profile, posts a comment about a politician, or changes their relationship status, Facebook logs it. When they browse the Web, Facebook collects information about pages they visit that contain Facebook sharing buttons. When they use Instagram or WhatsApp on their phone, which are both owned by Facebook, they contribute more data to Facebook’s dossier."

https://www.propublica.org/article/breaking-the-black-box-what-facebook-knows-about-you

La foto della domenica

In questi giorni Il Sole 24 Ore ritiene di avere lo scoop e aver capito chi sia in realtà Elena Ferrante. Intanto, sulla Paris Review...

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6370/art-of-fiction-no-228-elena-ferrante

Omaggio a David Bowie. I suoi collaboratori, musicisti che hanno lavorato con lui in vari dischi, lo ricordano con un concerto.

Money quote: "Much has been said about the extraordinary way in which Bowie spent his final couple of years; it is unusual for an artist to go out the way he did. He knew that he was sick, and he worked, beautifully and prolifically, right up until the end. His collaborators on those projects—younger, healthier, and earlier in their careers—poured themselves into “Lazarus” and “Blackstar,” having new creative experiences in the service of Bowie’s work. Bowie died when “Lazarus” was in its final weeks and “Blackstar” had just come out. Many of these younger collaborators were shaken by his death; they were also still in the thick of those projects."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/david-bowie-celebrated-by-his-friends

Il luminoso futuro dei sexbots e come cambieranno le relazioni interpersonali.

Money quote: "The personalities offered by Roxxxy are crude types, but they are instructive, insofar as they tell us what sexbots are likely to proliferate, especially as the technology to customise them becomes more sophisticated. In a few decades time, sexbots might be as commonplace as vibrators. We’d do well to start thinking about what they might mean for human culture."

https://aeon.co/essays/how-will-sexbots-change-the-way-we-relate-to-one-another

Queste presidenziali americane diventano sempre più interessanti. Un'idea sono i due articoli del NYTimes e del New Yorker. Il primo si rifiuta di parlare di Donald Trum e si concentra solo su Hillary Clinton, perché, ritiene, Trump non è una cosa seria. E che bisognerebbe non votarlo perché essere contro i democratici e il sistema elettorale americano non è una ragione sufficiente per avallare un personaggio come Trump.

Money quote: "In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate — our choice, Hillary Clinton — has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway. (We will explain in a subsequent editorial why we believe Mr. Trump to be the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern American history.)"

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html

Invece il New Yorker ci dà giù duro su Trump e basta: il punto non è come si presenta e come espone ai dibattiti con la Clinton. Il punto è quello che dice. Alla fine, Donald Trump è semplicemente una "brutta persona".

Money quote: "Again, this wasn’t a problem of how he chose to present his beliefs; the problem is with the beliefs. This wasn’t a question of preparation. It was that the things he actually believes are themselves repellent even when coherently presented. This was not a bad performance. This is a bad man."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-problem-with-trump-isnt-his-debating-skills

Sarà un'elezione interessante: se vince Hillary Clinton, ci dimenticheremo tutti di Donald Trump in pochi minuti. Se invece vince Trump, entreremo in un mondo imprevedibile e soprattutto imprevisto.

La ricerca spaziale si alimenta anche con le illustrazioni e i disegni artistici. E che disegni! Tant'è che adesso, dopo anni che la professione di illustratore scientifico è in crisi, pare che ci sia un tentativo di rinascita.

Money quote: "The aim of this odd confluence was to engage an “artistic response” to NASA’s journey to Mars, the space agency’s ambitious goal of putting a human on the red planet’s surface sometime in the 2030s. To help set the mood, NASA brought some zappy toys to share—a Hololens headset that offered an augmented reality view of Mars, as well as surreal images of winds carving the Martian surface. According to those present, scientists spoke of the necessity of having “an outpost” on Mars to help solve the many riddles of the galaxy. The question they were asking the assembled artists was whether they could help communicate this vision to the public as part of a new program entitled “Arts + Mars”."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/space-art-propelled-scientific-exploration-of-the-cosmosbut-its-star-is-fading-fast

Si diceva di Elena Ferrante alias Anita Raja e dello scoop del Sole 24 Ore. Ammesso che sia vero. Perche, se lo fosse, sarebbe uno scoop di quasi due anni fa di Dagospia, infatti. E tra l'altro, uno scoop di spazzatura, non a caso. Perche insomma, ma cosa ve ne frega di chi è Elena Ferrante?

https://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-2/media_e_tv/strega-pulcinella-si-pu-dare-premio-scrittrice-94606.htm

Sheryl Sandberg, COO di Facebook e personaggio con notevole leadership, da tenere d’occhio insomma quando esterna, apre la settimana della pubblicità di New York e racconta un po’ di cose che sono come il check-up del settore.

Money quote: “"What's really going on, big picture, is that we're living through the fastest adoption of a communication technology that the world has ever seen," Sandberg says, noting that the average American checks his or her smartphone 150 times a day. Still, only 40% of Facebook advertisers are creating ads specifically for mobile.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/3064264/sheryl-sandberg-on-the-future-of-advertising-mobile-mobile-mobile