2015 Posts

Below are links to all the 2015 weekly digest roundup posts grouped with high level seasonal themes along with summary highlights from each.

Winter

  • Week 52 (03.01.16): My personal take on the key themes covered in this blog in 2015 which will remain key in 2016 too, Samsung and software, Tomi Ahonen on mobile, Chinese P2P encryption clampdown, Human Assisted AI (HAAI) prospects, how the same OSS can be used to empower or enslave, a collection of thoughts on consciousness, insights on DeepMind from Demis Hassabis, MOOC state of the nation, why it’s rare to find a leader good at both strategy and execution, mindfulness, why the takeover of Good Technology is a cautionary tale for wannabe unicorns, hierarchy and primate studies, Louis Vuitton and the politics of Star Wars.
  • Week 51 (24.12.15): On moving this blog to https, Facebook and Uber, China app retention rates, Boston Dynamics nightmare take on Santa’s sleigh, how Spotify Discover uses personalisation and machine learning to achieve its spooky brilliance, machine learning and cyber security, Dilbert on digital transformation, interview with the CIO of the World Bank, Raspberry Pi marble run, when asking the fridge goes wrong, Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket has landed, Python tqdm module, contractors are now agile talent and why attracting and retaining it is increasingly important, skeptical takes on Silicon Valley, artisanal chocolate maker Mast Brothers and economic models that don’t account for behaviour + why your identity could be hindering your Weltanschauung.
  • Week 50 (18.12.15): Time and its passage, secure messaging apps and multiple devices, DesignWeekly 2015 round up, Conversational UIs (CUI) and Human Assisted AI (HAAI), autonomous vehicles going mainstream, of AI, gods and mortals, Elon Musk and Open AI, Quill’s analysis of my Twitter history, wearable trends 2016, ideas are not cheap, a MOOC called “A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment”, Tim Peake and the ISS, Mars, why Donald Trump has already tarnished the American brand whether or not he is elected,  the housing apocalypse facing London, the case against decluttering and why your verbal disfluencies may actually be useful.
  • Week 49 (11.12.15):   In search of a European Google, Firefox OS is no more, app development and the Matthew Effect, WeChat innovation, AI app development proposition Gigster, VisionMobile on digital disruption, ChatOps, how to explain APIs to your CEO, a profile of Leon Theremin, Pine64, TagHeuer’s Carrera Connected is arguably the first real smartwatch hit, Google’s CloudVision API, driverless cars are the 21st century space race, the predictions for 2016 start coming in, why giving up is the enemy of creativity, the Casio MT40 and one author’s journey into Teach Yourself Italian.
  • Week 48 (04.12.15): Why increasingly You are Your Phone, Samsung and Xiaomi, Apple in India, Nokia Ozo VR camera, a profile of ARM, why Netflix reign supreme in streaming, iCloud tokens, a bank on WeChat, hacking an electric car, how Fintech is disrupting banking, why both TescoBank and the Guardian have gone ‘all-in’ on AWS, a blue plaque for the Namer of Clouds, Ray Kurzweil’s cloud-backed brain, Raspberry Pi Zero, have Bluetooth beacons failed?  Apple open sourcing Swift, FirstRound’s startup founder survey, a new word called ‘bakugai’, quantified stoners in California and another Benn speech on war this time from Tony.
  • Week 47 (26.11.15): Nick Bostrom and the Doomsday Invention, Jolla fighting for survival, Google in China, MS Office is 25, post Paris more polarisation on encrypted messaging, the market in zero-day exploits, AWS Lambda, Raspberry Pi and the Internet of Things, Dyson Eye 360 review, random numbers, open source software at Samsung, those Narkoz scripts, bigdataforhumans.com and the rise of analytic marketing, DX at Aston Martin, the importance of expertise, radical candour, risk diversification and some thoughts on Belgium and Europe.
  • Week 46 (20.11.15): After Paris, P2P encrypted messaging, Apple Retail, Facebook Notify, Google About Me, Amazon 2FA, passwords and why your fingerprints are lousy ones, Simon Wardley on why devops is nothing new, NewRelic, the tribulations of Mr Null, Al Jazeera video of the founder of Arduino in Shenzen, TensorFlow round up, Unicorn winter, startups vs. incumbents, Udacity and Udemy, Prince on internet music and a sample of Black Midi.
  • Week 45 (12.11.15): Starting out with Machine Learning, the Blackberry Priv cipherphone, Snapchat and tweens, Facebook and code quality, why digital transformation (DX) will move to the top of the agenda in 2016, DevOps World, NSA school, AWS IoT, Chinese drone maker DJI, Tag Heuer’s luxury smartwatch, workplace automation, distributed teams, Elon Musk oddities, another perspective on how Europe is being eclipsed in RnD by Asia and the US,  Jack Ma on money, Stiglitz on inequality, and memories of first language.
  • Week 44 (05.11.15): An improved data visualisation app running in a second Docker container, Windows Phone update, the OnePlus X, Microsoft’s Arrow Android launcher and cross-platform Outlook client, FullContact, Nexmo, advice on growing your mobile app user base, thoughts on technological unemployment from David Wood, Tesla’s self-improving car AI, TalkTalk scrutinised, coding academies, HBR on Europe’s ‘digital recession’, Sales Ops, Tim O’Reilly on ‘high freedom’ environments, contractors, John Kay on Other People’s Money, James Bond and Bez.
  • Week 43 (28.10.15): Dockerising my data visualisation pipeline, how Docker works under the hood, why BLU Products represents the future of Android, Mark Zuckerberg’s Mandarin tour-de-force, news app developments, wetail proposition Lookup, how Xiaomi have benefitted from mass amateurisation, WeChat distribution in China, hacking Fitbit, communicating cyber security at Board level, Netflix and the future of enterprise IT, some thoughts on machine learning, the endpoint for recursively self-improving AI, Tony Fadell profile, data visualisation, Linkurious, evidence that Swift is supplanting ObjC, Sinofsky on large-scale product management, why social skills are arguably more important than technical skills, the end of expertise and contemplations on death.
  • Week 42 (21.10.15): Adding MongoDB support to my data visualisation pipeline + serving it with Flask, WileyFox, Android smartphone security, early Marshmallow reviews, the average Android user searches Google just once a day, Facebook’s iOS app hogs battery, password fails, an audacious chip-and-PIN security heist, controlling a Splunk cluster with Ansible, MicroPython and the BBC micro:bit, the mind-boggling quantity of software in a modern car, IT decisions your IT people shouldn’t make, the tenuous connection between China and a film about Brian Clough and why on Back to the Future day we might be better off starting with Orwell not hoverboards.
  • Week 41 (14.10.15): Even more adventures with a data visualisation pipeline and graphing tools like Dimple and Qlik, the Pepsi phone, Synaptics Clear Force technology, the Graphite cipherphone proposition, more analysis of Stagefright and its refusal to go away, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages, why Twitter Moments micronews could be a big deal, Ethereum, IPExpo, the AWS IoT platform, how Segment.com rebuilt their architecture around Docker, evidence that AI is now capable of reaching the level of a 4-year old in IQ tests, Swiftkey Neural, Mars update, Digital Catapult creative showcase, agile product management, email newsletters (like this one) and Ada Lovelace Day.
  • Week 40 (07.10.15):  More adventures with a data visualisation pipeline and graphing tools, Sharp’s robot-smartphone hybrid, Punkt, Stagefright and monthly Android updates, why there’s trouble brewing for Google in Russia, Peeple, notification as UI, PocketFM, reel to reel tape machines, DARPA and US military AI ambitions, digital transformation and the boardroom, Microsoft Band 2, AWS and the Internet of Beer, Atlassian and Jira, why email newsletters like this one are apparently hip again particularly if they’re sent with TinyLetter, employee salary perceptions and realities, an outsider look at the Silicon Valley VC scene and an analysis of holacracy in action.

Autumn

  • Week 39 (02.10.15):  A basic data pipeline for analysing my blog posts, why Nokia management and culture were complicit in their demise, iPhone6s roundup, Nexus Marshmallow phones, US smartphone users only really use 3 apps, glimpses into Facebook engineering, some scathing critiques on Silicon Valley, VW and the shockwaves from DieselGate, a BBC TV special on algorithms, robots and IKEA furniture, Splunk annual .conf, Otto, Shadow IT, how humans may ultimately become the thing in the Internet of things, Pebble Time Round, Mars and Martians, Twitter and Engineering Effectiveness, why you should stop Googling and start talking, Quora on Counterfactual history, Russia’s Red Web and perspectives on the second album from Chvrches.
  • Week 38 (24.09.15):  Even more adventures with Docker restoring a WordPress instance from a backup, more on the Apple Upgrade Program, the Move To iOS app, Facebook’s React Native, why AI-backed conversational UIs are an increasingly big deal, the ad blocking debate, Flick Pixels and the Digital Catapult, more links on robots and technological unemployment, Kurzweil on what comes after the Singularity, Google and their 2 billion lines of code, PyCon UK fun and games with the AstroPi, code culture, contrasting views on the kid with the clock, a glimpse into Dyson 2.0, piggate and how elites work, Generation Z, Steve Jobs and Henry David Thoreau.
  • Week 37 (16.09.15):  More adventures with Docker involving linked containers, the Apple Event, why the Apple Upgrade Program is a genius move, Nokia, OnePlus, Marshall and Jolla, Android Lollipop adoption, media as UI, Ghostbin analysis, DevOps and the Romans, WinOps, Asia is now the crucible for mobile disruption, Chinese ODM Wingtech, the neurohacking scene, Could a Robot do my Job?  Nick Carr’s Quantity Theory of Intelligence, whatever happened to MOOCs?, crowdsourcing, your future self and you.
  • Week 36 (09.09.15):  The start of an adventure with Docker, why premium Android is an oxymoron, Google and China, the Google logo in sub-300 bytes, a devops hierarchy of needs, nearshoring, what your mobile data can reveal about yourself, product analytics, the WenaWatch, Estimote, smart glasses, the coming collision between AI and religion, robotic determinism rebuffed, negativity bias and other work antipatterns, are we in a tech bubble again, a review of the state of tech startups and reflections on a biopic of Steve Jobs who was also the son of a Syrian migrant.
  • Week 35 (03.09.15): Why Facebook M could disrupt text chat services, how access to a well-trodden Chinese supply chain has made it easy for newcomers to launch a leading edge smartphone, examples of such including WileyFox, Nextbit, Smartisan and Blackberry, two cautionary tales from Amazon, the growing complexity of the Chinese consumer market, a thread screen display, why the Tesla S looks like it will be a gamechanger, great visual introduction to machine learning, evidence that Python is more popular than French in UK primary schools, why CIOs might benefit from joining the kids in taking up coding, working as a developer at Ableton, upgrading the blog to WordPress 4.3 and reflections on matters eschatological.
  • Week 34 (25.08.15): How and why SpaceX will colonize Mars, Project Ara delays, more analysis of the Ashley Madison fallout, Marshmallow, an insight into Google’s backend technology, millenials and teens and mobile usage, Periscope, WeChat, smartphones in India, the Tile appcessory, the horror of FizzBuzz enterprise edition and Quora on what lessons do people learn too late in life.
  • Week 33 (18.08.15): Why truck drivers and self-driving AI are destined to collide, why it’s hard being an Android OEM but possibly even harder being an Amazon employee this week, more on Google Alphabet, Atlas let loose in a forest, Apple Beats 1 taste in music, Facebook Relay, machine learning algorithms review, review of the gold Apple Watch, the Ungaro luxury smart ring, Raspberry Pi roundup, why coding interviews focus on linked lists and binary trees, why it might not matter to know your trees from your lists in a tech startup anyway and why the man behind the Toaster Project is now trying to ‘live life as a goat’.
  • Week 32 (11.08.15): Age and Software Development, Windows10 tracking is on by default, Nokia seemingly want to make a comeback with Android while HTC are fighting to survive using it, more Stagefright, Android fragmentation update, how Dropbox do product management, Monday Note perspectives on ad-blocking, Xiaomi in India, the Phillipines as a tech hub, microservices and a Python framework called Pulsar, computer vision and object removal, robo world cup, after Hitchbot more evidence for human robo-sabotage, Wolfram on AI, VR, software testing, why corporate authenticity really matters, mansplaining and the sound of Wikipedia.
  • Week 31 (03.08.15): Why smartphones are at the heart of a new mobile solar system, Windows10, TopGear on Amazon Prime, Stagefright, Dmail, Uber in India, the rise of cloud architecture, AI weaponry,  the demise of Hitchbot in the US contrasted with the progress of Pepper in Japan, coding and education, FirstRound 10 year retrospective, more Quora fun, engineering management and the difference between a CTO and VP Engineering, the black hole at the centre of the 4 basic types of work, meetings, sleep and some perspectives on narrative complexity.
  • Week 30 (28.07.15):  Apple Watch sales, Ubuntu Phone is still an alpha, Pixate, Streamus, what the “I Am Rich” developer did next, Beme, Flipboard MAU, Open Source at Facebook, Slack and the unbundling of office productivity, adware, Africa, autonomous vehicle network security, History of the Universe in 8 minutes, why you need to be faster at making decisions, WordPress as a business, brand “you” and WOMAD highlights which included a Moog System 55 and a programmable music box.
  • Week 29 (21.07.15): A 100-day digital “get fit” plan for your business,  Tomi Ahonen’s War and Peace post on Microsoft and Nokia, Commodore PET redux, Marshall’s rock and roll phone, Facebook news and eCommerce, content curation vs algorithmic selection,  Google and beacons, Docker, MongoDB security, a neural network in 11 lines of Python, the impact of self-driving cars, using Medium for blogging, Pluto, why most software projects fail, ‘Entrepreneurshit’, some bizarre interview questions execs ask, data and trends underlying the Gig Economy and a 100 word language called Toki Pona.
  • Week 28 (14.07.15): My experiences running a Python code club, the BBC micro:bit, Microsoft’s phone business restructure and the end of a road for many ex-Nokia staff, the Turing Phone, bloatware, the challenge of breaking through with a mobile app, digital marketing, Python3 in one image, a real-life StarTrek communicator, cloud security, weird Siri responses, ExOs and the WTF economy, the challenges facing enterprise IT, Flat 2.0, how Pandora do product management, why brands are the “idiots at the social media party”, waitbutwhy on lateness, and after the drama some Greek tragedy.
  • Week 27 (07.07.15): How to configure an ‘inceptionism’ setup from scratch to generate a scary cat image from a normal one, David Wood on software updates, Benedict Evans on why marketing still matters a lot, Ericsson on mobile app usage, Apple Music, Steve Jobs on playing the musicians, eCommerce in Asia, why Andrew Fentem’s FlickPixels are a genuine Internet of Things proposition, Google’s PhysicalWeb, data visualisation with D3 and matplotlib, PyGame Zero, more Agile skepticism, why tolerance for ambiguity is a good thing, John Ruskin and more Greek drama.

Summer

  • Week 26 (30.06.15): Aaron Levie on the Digital Enterprise opportunity, John Lewis selling phones, a smartphone case with an integrated keyboard, UndoSend, NewsBeat vs Snapchat, the mobile app graveyard, Bank of England’s CIO on cloud, ITIL vs. DevOps, Spark and data pipelines, the back propagation algorithm for neural nets, DeepMind insights, Large Scale Scrum, BMW i3 browser fail, the rise of algorithmic hiring, bootstrapping startups, Grexit, Londexit, the enduring effects of indoctrination and Barack Obama meets David Attenborough.
  • Week 25 (23.06.15):  Channel 4’s Humans, Google’s AI dreaming, Stephen Elop’s departure and how Nokia got flattened by smartphone competition before it had a chance, the Beats lifestyle tax, the Fairphone 2 ethical smartphone, Apple News, Android One isn’t doing very well, Uber and the coming age of the contractor, Robotica profile of RealDoll, the Pepper domestic robot goes on sale in Japan, Super Mario AI, why you need an enabling vs. disabling CIO, why Spark is the next big thing in big data, Fitbit IPO, the Tesla Travelling Salesman problem, Benedict Evans on why mobile is eating the world, the brutal stats behind VC seed funding and reflections on whether the UK is really making it as a tech powerhouse.
  • Week 24 (16.06.15): BusinessWeek on Code and the man in the taupe blazer, Apple and WWDC, HTC woes, Andrew Chen on mobile app retention and the “saddest curve in tech”, TalkDesk software-defined call centre, Jott, CapGemini’s Apollo as a de facto framework for a software-defined data center, the CALMSS acronym for DevOps, why your business really needs 2FA, Bremont, software defined radar, building a corporate analytics culture, Pi2Go, DARPA Robotics Challenge, RNNs, Ray Kurzweil suggests we will have brain<->cloud sync by 2030, bright prospects for Swift, why culture trumps strategy, and how improvements in network speed might be making us more impatient.
  • Week 23 (08.06.15): What does it mean for an Enterprise to be digital?, a damning review of Tizen’s UI framework, GMail user growth, Project Ara camera module swap demo, Yahoo Pipes demise, Plotly remixes Edward Tufte, social media data mining, RoboSimian and Cheetah, why machine learning is not like human intelligence, Midas Touch gold electroplating kit for Apple Watch, Thync, the new hardware movement, the Hannah’s Sweets furore, why it’s tough being a CIO these days, big company strategy, how Nokia’s strategic decisions heaped misery on thousands of its employees in developing countries and why successful startups are mainly a matter of timing.
  • Week 22 (01.06.15): GoogleIO analysis, Samsung’s IronMan phone, Vietnam’s Bphone, Jony Ive becomes Chief Design Officer at Apple, Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trends, Snapchat, WiFi Skeleton Key, why you might not benefit from adopting microservices, rich people and drones, more on RNNs, BRETT the learning robot, why humans could be relegated to cloud storage, 50 lies programmers believe, on teaching Python, low-end disruption, Enterprise dysfunction (again) and organisational debt, why Esperanto was a language before its time and a PowerPoint explaining why PowerPoint is hopelessly broken.
  • Week 21 (26.05.15): How neural network pattern recognition is advancing Deep Learning, David Wood on why technological unemployment is inevitable but not yet a mainstream concern, a LG super thin display panel, the Lightphone, Schiller’s Law, Google Brillo, Twilio API update, the inexorable rise of cloud computing and why it represents a problem for traditional CFOs, real world devops, robot teaching aids for kids, how Uber gutted Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics department, a Minecraft clone in 500 lines of Python/Pyglet, a first go at programming with Go and the new Californian digital gold rush.
  • Week 20 (19.05.15):  The rise of the solopreneur and their no-stack startup, Apple and Greece, Apple and rose gold, Verizon’s AOL acquisition, the Starbucks app that takes that friendly approach too far,  Rust 1.0, web scraping with PyQuery, an Amazon Web Services tip, SplunkLive, the BeyondCorp approach to Enterprise security, Google self-driving cars, image identification AI, Unicornia, what the Big Lebowski has to teach us about troll bait and more election analysis.
  • Week 19 (12.05.15): Value Chain Mapping and corporate innovation, how both Apple and Microsoft in their own way are transitioning to services companies, Symbian Insights ten years on, NVidia, Lollipop takeup, Nikola Labs, tech support as a service proposition Enjoy, more Quora fun, why if you’re not already planning to shift to public cloud you’re doing it all wrong, the regulation of AI, robot vision, Fitbit, on shortcomings, compassion and what to make of the election.
  • Week 18 (05.05.15):  My experience doing an Artificial Intelligence MOOC, the Snapdragon 810 is a hot chip, Fairphone, why Microsoft are “killing it” right now, Apple and luxury, Nexpaq modular smart case, social media stock takes a beating, Secret closes down, insight into a large scale microservices migration fromgilt.com, the data lake, how the robots are coming in China, a tremendous Python concurrency tech talk,  how suit thinking is alive and well in big companies and how the UK government would look if it was elected on the basis of candidate Twitter followers.
  • Week 17 (27.04.15): How AI and robotic replacement will disrupt almost everyone from receptionist to CEO, the Turing Phone, why Android’s audio architecture is a good metaphor for platform compromises, how Apple are using luxury tactics to drive demand for the Edition Watch, health insurance startup Oscar, shopping concierge Operator, AWS marches on, four days with the Go programming language, crowdfunding hazards and HBR on why disappointment lies at the heart of a midlife crisis.
  • Week 16 (21.04.15): Disintermediation, parsing the various Why the advent of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) could lead to either human extinction or immortality within a hundred years, Xiaomi power on, Google charged with monopoly abuse while Microsoft embrace Cyanogen, why Facebook are arguably top of the OTT Messaging tree, DataSift just found out what platform risk entails, London AWS Summit impressions, more DevOps, Splunk, Pepsi Marketing WTF, StackOverflow developer survey, personal energy management lifehacks and why not taking any career risks is the biggest risk of all.
  • Week 15 (14.04.15): Why hiring the right people is central to the growth Exponential Organisations, Apple Watch round up, Facebook Messenger and what happens when there are more dead users on Facebook than living ones, luxury eCommerce, government DevOps, Artisan Engineering and Design Engineering, James Dyson and BEEP, Amazon’s Machine Learning service, JavaScript is taking over the world of software development, why you need a plan B if you’re a software developer over 40 plus other hiring insights, the meme as a meme and creating a happy culture at work.
  • Week 14 (07.04.15): Reasons to be skeptical about Agile fundamentalism, the Galaxy S6 has a great camera, Micromax ambition, how Apple’s barbell strategy with the Apple Watch is reflected in product pricing, Google is encouraging its employees to be Fitter Happier, Feedly marches on, can Tidal hold back the Spotify tide?, Olio smart watch, a Raspberry Pi powered laptop and accompanying Raspberry Pi phone, Guido van Rossum does some Python code review, Bayes’ Theorem explained in lego, how technology is altering human minds, Ex Machina director on AI and why gender bias in tech is more than just a ‘pipeline’ problem.

Spring

  • Week 13 (30.03.15): Why GAFAnomics is here to stay and changing everything, Kodak’s IP exploitation strategy, Micromax and Cyanogen, Android in your car and at work, software complexity cost, Github under attack,  Apple Watch and an Enigma watch, Artificial Intelligence in the Enterprise + evidence for corporate adoption of big data, techno dystopian pessimism, Bionic ants, what Uber is made of, why consistency and rigour should underpin your tech hiring process, why Britain won’t create a Google or Apple, and do you really need that meeting?
  • Week 12 (23.03.15): How the Age of Mobile will give way to the Age of Context , how Apple manufacture the Apple Watch, UK product design outfit Bullitt making phones for CAT and Kodak, Lollipop take up remains anaemic six months after launch, Meerkat, forking software, Pizza as a Service analogy, the FSF and Richard Stallman 30 years on, Google and TagHeuer luxury smartwatch, Apple Watch prospects, Quora insights on software development, impactful engineering leadership and what exec teams look for in a CEO.
  • Week 11 (16.03.15): The Watch launch and how Apple is redefining itself as a luxury brand, Android gets another update to 5.1, Fortune magazine survey of the dynamism of the leading Chinese smartphone manufacturers, how Twitter Answers is architected to ingest five billion sessions a day, DataSift being given the keys to Facebook’s castle, MongoDB isses at scale, why tech hiring could benefit from greater consistency, Nick Carr asks if we’ve reached “Peak Code”, Disney’s MagicBand, haptics, genomics and why big companies struggle to distinguish between execution and concepting.
  • Week 10 (09.03.15): Disintermediation, parsing the various announcements at MWC, Samsung’s shift to premium with the S6 and S6 Edge, Google Services initiatives including Android Pay, Stratos Bluetooth credit card, Tinder and the over 30’s, Firefox Hello, why Pebble Time smartstraps could be a really big deal, wave particle duality “pictured”, Crossy Road, JavaScript framework fatigue and a Java knock knock joke.
  • Week 9 (02.03.15): Apple’s car, a circular pocket watch Firefox OS based device called Runcible, the race to the bottom for Android OEMs, the secondhand smartphone market, Android for Work, Concierge text proposition Magic, Silent Circle and Geeksphone, Hadoop usage, Artificial Intelligence in reality and fiction, premium smart watches, the remarkable rise of Swift, Mr Spock’s last tweet, how the MBA brigade piling into the tech industry are increasingly crowding out the weirdos and misfits, and the physics of that multicoloured dress.
  • Week 8 (23.02.15): How traditional organisations are being disrupted by ‘exponential’ competitors,  Jony Ive and Apple’s ambitions with watches, cars and music, why Facebook is the Internet for many of its users and the $19billion it spent on WhatsApp represents a ‘bargain’, the ‘Light Apps’ trend in China,  Gemalto, Apache Spark, Raspberry Pi in space, entrepreneurial alertness and how the data centres and microwave dishes powering high frequency trading are warping the built environment.
  • Week 7 (16.02.15): What does a CTO do?  Android device manufacturers and the struggle for profitability, Ubuntu Phone and its Scopes, Tizen and the mobile Linux endgame, how Apple ‘broke’ Wintek, Google Maps YouTube and Nathan Barley are all ten years old, mobile “unicorn” companies worth in excess of $1bn, why the “anternet” preceded the “internet”, machine learning and face recognition, lessons learned from a large scale install of iBeacons, smart jewellery roundup, Raspberry Pi 2 is camera shy, Apple’s secret electric car project and why the rising tide doesn’t lift all boats.
  • Week 6 (09.02.15):  Apple’s war on many fronts and the lack of coordinated opposition, Samsung’s decision to drop Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810, Ubuntu phone redux, are the Pono Player and Tidal the Emperor’s New Clothes?, Snapchat Discover and why the internet of the future will be like the television of the past,  MyFitnessPal users are worth $10 each, Swatch’s “smartwatch”, the “everywhere” customer, the 1% consuming the lion’s share of mobile data, the rise of AntiWork and why studying Pebble’s open positions provides key insights into the modern technology product stack.
  • Week 5 (02.02.15): Apple keep pedalling on with their “bicycle for the mind”, the Prynt smart case, cool hunting proposition Dojo, concierge telemedicine, AirPnP, why gifting trends in China bode well for Apple, WeChat numbers, how Paper scaled their backend to cope with a web scale surge in demand for an actual celebrity backend (SFW), why we may be only 5 years away from an electronic babelfish, AI utopia/dystopia, Ringly, software estimation, a parody on modern economics, the black mirror, Bitter Lake, Google and the Strategy of Tension.
  • Week 4 (26.01.15): Why Lego are the “Apple of toys”, the Microsoft Windows 10 announcements, why iOS app development is now “bigger than Hollywood” yet most app devs are not raking it in, smartphone photography, how Western brands are using WeChat to reach Chinese consumers, linking automation with Uberization and inequality, why the cult of “algorithmic culture” is like a religion, what it’s like to work at Netflix and what really makes a team smarter.
  • Week 3  (19.01.15): Using web scraping to analyse what I wrote last year and why it was far too much, Google Translate as babelfish, the latest on Google’s modular smartphone initiative Project Ara, hyperlocal OTT Messaging proposition Qork, why APIs should be a primary strategic concern for any modern business, when USB goes bad, why Facebook can profile you better than many of your friends, Uberization, and Jacques Peretti’s latest travels through the alternative London underground of microjobs.
  • Week 2 (12.01.15): CES roundup, an exposé of Amazon’s FirePhone development model, high resolution audio myths, Microsoft and Android, social media for brand reach, service MAU (monthly active users) vs TTR (total time spent reading), innovation in China, machine learning and the Enterprise, wearables and fashion, the Internet of Things and craft beer, a teenager’s view on how he and his friends use social media and Jacques Peretti’s BBC series on the super-rich, inequality and the myth of trickle down.
  • Week 1 (06.01.15): Smart Thinking, the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, 2014/2015 perspectives, why Apple might be overreaching themselves in terms of QA, a “Market Research as a Service” proposition called KnowledgeHound, Call a Chicken, the Gongkai (IP sharing) culture powering the Chinese Shanzai (cloned) phone scene, the origin of the Bluetooth name, open offices, an Adam Curtis short film and how asset diversification is the key to the rich staying rich.

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