- Alexa, We’re Still Trying to Figure Out What to Do With You (NYT) "A management consulting firm recently looked at heavy users of virtual assistants, defined as people who use one more than three times a day. The firm, called Activate, found that the majority of these users turned to virtual assistants to play music, get the weather, set a timer or ask questions. Paul Erickson, a senior analyst at the research firm IHS Markit, said the next step for these devices will be to become the hub of a connected home, controlling internet-connected lights, thermostats and other basic home appliances."
- Voice Assistants To Draw Customers Away From Websites, Physical Stores (WSJ-Paywall) "As consumers increasingly tap voice assistants instead of websites or mobile apps, companies should start thinking about how they’ll add value to the customer experience and gain a competitive edge... 'A brand today is an image, a set of colors, something you see on TV, on a website or in a store. With a voice channel, you see nothing, so a brand needs to have an audible image'"
BUSINESS:
- Troubles Push GE to Consider a Breakup (WSJ-Paywall) "A breakup of the remaining operations would be a shift from decades of deals that once made it the most valuable company in the U.S."
- Hype Meets Reality as Electric Car Dreams Run Into Metal Crunch (Bloomberg) "If each of the billion cars on the road were replaced today with a Tesla Model X, 14 million tonnes of cobalt would be needed—twice global reserves. Even a more realistic scenario for people to drive 30 million electric cars by 2030 requires output to be more than trebled... The projections have made the lustrous metal, a byproduct of copper and nickel mining, into one of the most coveted commodities. Its price surged 128 percent in the past 12 months... If history is a guide, the cobalt mania won’t last. Carmakers expect to gradually move to batteries that use less cobalt. Currently, most contain roughly equal amounts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, called NMC 111. By 2025 the dominant composition will be 80 percent nickel and 10 percent cobalt...".
MORE SMOKE:
- Mr. President, stop attacking the press (WaPo) "Reagan recognized that as leader of the free world, his words carried enormous weight, and he used them to inspire the unprecedented spread of democracy around the world. President Trump does not seem to understand that his rhetoric and actions reverberate in the same way. He has threatened to continue his attempt to discredit the free press by bestowing 'fake news awards' upon reporters and news outlets whose coverage he disagrees with. Whether Trump knows it or not, these efforts are being closely watched by foreign leaders who are already using his words as cover as they silence and shutter one of the key pillars of democracy. Trump continues his unrelenting attacks on the integrity of American journalists and news outlets. This has provided cover for repressive regimes to follow suit. The phrase 'fake news' — granted legitimacy by an American president — is being used by autocrats to silence reporters, undermine political opponents, stave off media scrutiny and mislead citizens."
- Our elections are in danger. Congress must defend them. (WaPo) "While the 2016 election may have left our country divided on many issues, it exposed one critical problem that should unite all Americans: Our democratic process is vulnerable to attacks by hostile foreign powers. As our intelligence community unanimously assessed, Russia used social media channels to influence and mislead voters. It also hacked political campaign committees and local elections boards in a brazen attempt to undermine and subvert our elections. Russia is not our only concern. The director of national intelligence has identified China, Iran and North Korea as our other major foreign government cyberthreats, and they may also seek to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities in the next election cycle."
NEWS:
- Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms (NYT) "For decades, American presidents have threatened 'first use' of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons."
- Time to put Kim Jong Un on his heels (WaPo) "In the past, Washington viewed the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear and missile tests more as a disciplinary problem, reluctantly announcing sanctions like hesitant parents punishing rebellious children. Contrary to President Barack Obama’s claims, North Korea was not in fact the world’s most sanctioned country, but rather the eighth. As Kim — and his father before him — quickly learned, this approach only empowered them to pace their country’s atomic development according to their own wishes. This appeasement policy has consistently kept the United States two steps behind North Korea, and we must reverse course."
- Most of National Park Service panel quits out of frustration with Zinke’s refusal to meet with them (WaPo) "The resignations of nine out of 12 National Park System Advisory Board members leaves the federal government without a functioning body to designate national historic or natural landmarks."
TECHNOLOGY:
- Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble (NYT) "The real promise of these new technologies, many of their evangelists believe, lies not in displacing our currencies but in replacing much of what we now think of as the internet, while at the same time returning the online world to a more decentralized and egalitarian system. If you believe the evangelists, the blockchain is the future. But it is also a way of getting back to the internet’s roots. For our purposes, forget everything else about the Bitcoin frenzy, and just keep these two things in mind: What Nakamoto ushered into the world was a way of agreeing on the contents of a database without anyone being 'in charge' of the database, and a way of compensating people for helping make that database more valuable, without those people being on an official payroll or owning shares in a corporate entity. Together, those two ideas solved the distributed-database problem and the funding problem. Suddenly there was a way of supporting open protocols that wasn’t available during the infancy of Facebook and Twitter."
TRUMPTEL:
- Bannon Is Subpoenaed in Mueller’s Russia Investigation (NYT) "The move marked the first time Mr. Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle. Some legal experts said the subpoena could be a sign that the investigation was intensifying, while others said it may simply have been a negotiating tactic to persuade Mr. Bannon to cooperate with the investigation. The experts also said it could be a signal to Mr. Bannon, who has tried to publicly patch up his falling-out with the president, that despite Mr. Trump’s legal threats, Mr. Bannon must be completely forthcoming with investigators."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- The Pub That Banned Swearing (New Yorker) "The Cock is part of the Samuel Smith chain of pubs. There are more than two hundred of them... As a social experiment, it is at once idealistic and authoritarian. At the Cock, the ban was already coming up against metropolitan apathy."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Gorgeous (X Ambassadors)
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