I’m easing back into this weekly Else column, or put another way, I missed last week’s Else due to preparations for NewCo SF, which I’m proud to say was a huge success. This week is Detroit, then New York, London, Boulder, LA, Palo Alto, but I get ahead of myself. For today, I’ll just focus on the best stories of the past 14 or so days. Much has happened in that time period, including Microsoft buying Minecraft, Alibaba filing for an IPO in the US, and yet another Apple announcement. I like the watch best, but in the shorter term, I think Apple Pay is the first mover. Bigger iPhones? Been there.
Why Apple Pay could succeed where others have had underwhelming results (ars) It all comes down to timing and getting the back end players to play nice. Apple most likely will have a hit on its hands – once they update the OS with the service.
A Cambrian Explosion In AI Is Coming (TC) THe author, former CEO of what is now Apple’s Siri service, predicts a new marketplace beyond search and the App store. Sounds like a place I’m interested in, given this: Early Lessons From My Mobile Deep Dive: The Quickening Is Nigh.
We’re Innumerate, Which Is Why We Love Visualizations (Searchblog) A short piece thinking out loud about innumeracy.
After Selling Out to Microsoft, Minecraft and Its Founder Write the World’s Best Press Releases (re/code) Minecraft is a phenomenon. I hope Microsoft doesn’t screw it up, but I have my doubts.
Should We All Take a Bit of Lithium? (NYT) The article does not answer the question. Which is a shame. I have a long history with the drug, not personally, but through a close relative. Too much is too much, not enough, a problem. I’m curious to learn more.
Programmatic bidding: Buy, buy, baby (The Economist) A short intro to the practice, a longer overview of the online advertising model, with attendant concerns over privacy and surveillance, is in the print version (and behind paywall online).
Utilities of the Future (Forbes) In which a rather contra-Forbesian case is made for turning nearly the entire current sharing economy into some kind of utility.
One man willingly gave Google his data. See what happened next. (ORR) Not what you might expect. In fact, this doubter was turned into a believer that Google’s not as bad as we might fear.
The surveillance society is a step forward. But one that harkens back to our deep forager past. (Praxtime) An expansive essay about the public/private debate. Really worth the read.
Who is Jack Ma, the man behind the largest ever tech IPO? (Telegraph) Good question. Turns out, as you might expect, he’s something of a character.
Peter Thiel disagrees with you (Fortune) As long as we’re going with profiles of larger than life characters, this one is very worthy as well.