Axios Questions the Google Duplex Demo→

This whole article by Dan Primack at Axios is ridiculous.   The calls were CLEARLY edited / cherry picked prior to the keynote just by the simple fact that the businesses did not identify themselves at the beginning of the call.   They were not done live on stage.   I thought this was blatantly obvious to everyone who was watching the demo.   Apparently not.

The people writing all the hot takes about how outraged they are today are in one of two camps.

1)  Feigning outrage for clicks.
2) Total morons who are unable to think logically.

Like everything else in a keynote,  it's a demo.   Judge the feature when and if it releases.  Until then it's a waste of time to get agitated about it.

Microsoft Surface Hub 2→

This is pretty neat.   It's good to see that someone is still pushing the envelope on what a desktop PC can possibly be.    A niche product for sure, but an interesting one nonetheless.

OnePlus 6 Impressions Roundup

For those interested in the forthcoming OnePlus 6,  I figured I would link to a couple of the better "First Impressions" videos that made their way out today.

MKBHD

Dave Lee

Youtube Raising Prices→

Looks like Youtube is raising it's ad-free pricing, (and renaming it from Youtube Red to Youtube Premium) to fund the creation of more original content like it's current hit show Cobra Kai.   They are also launching a new music service (that was already launched?) called Youtube Music,  and will eventually replace the other music service (Google Play Music) that Google has also been running at the same time.    Also somehow these two services overlap but have different pricing tiers.

If you're confused you aren't alone.   This is a mess so convoluted it could ONLY come from Google.  Jeez.

SEC Creates Satirical Cryptocurrency→

This is a brilliant tactic.    The age-old adage still holds:  "A fool and his money are easily parted."
Hopefully this will give someone out there some pause.   

Then again, there's always tulips.

OnePlus 6

Watched today's presentation on the brand new OnePlus 6.   Have to say it looks like a beautiful phone.  The design is quite nice,  and the corroded glass back (similar to a macbook trackpad) seems like the near perfect texture for a phone back.  (I'll be checking one out when they are released, and get back to you guys with my thoughts.)

That being said,  OnePlus's product marketing and web teams are seriously letting the product down.  The OnePlus 6 has a notched screen with rounded corners similar to the iPhone X.   Now obviously not every app in existence will be perfectly compatible with that right away.  But for the love of god why would you SPOTLIGHT one that isn't on your OFFICIAL WEBSITE.   Shameful.   Come on OnePlus,  sweat the details!

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SPECTRE... AGAIN.→

From the Register:

““The new bunch of Spectre-like flaws revealed last week won’t be patched for at least 12 days.

German outlet Heise, which broke news of the eight Spectre-like vulnerabilities last week has now reported that Intel wants disclosure of the flaws delayed until at least May 21.

“Intel is now planning a coordinated release on May 21, 2018. New microcode updates are due to be released on this date”, Jürgen Schmidt reported on May 7.

Last week, Heise noted that one participant in the planned coordinated release would include a Google Project Zero disclosure, which as far as The Register can discern has not yet happened.

Heise added that the bug affects any Core-i (and their Xeon derivatives) processors using microcode written since 2010; and Atom-based processors (including Pentium and Celeron) since 2013.””

— https://www.theregister.co.uk

Something tells me Apple's rumored move to ARM on the Mac has a lot less to do with performance than it does with security.