Reuters: Google shelves plan for phone with interchangeable parts:

Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended Project Ara, its ambitious effort to build what is known as a modular smartphone with interchangeable components, as part of a broader push to streamline the company’s hardware efforts, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The move marks an about-face for the tech company, which announced a host of partners for Project Ara at its developer conference in May and said it would ship a developer edition of the product this autumn.

The company’s aim was to create a phone that users could customize on the fly with an extra battery, camera, speakers or other components.

I called this two years ago. It’s a fun idea, but it’s not practical.

What nerds (egineers) tend to forget is most of the population doesn’t like to tinker with their electronics. They just want them to work.

I’ve been pronouncing it WAY-com all these years. Oh well.

GIF still has a hard G. Always has. Always will.

This is amazing.

If you don’t get it, I can’t help you.

And shame on you too.

Pebble’s third Kickstarter ends with $12.8M raised, $7.5M less than last year:

Smartwatch maker Pebble wrapped its third Kickstarter campaign today with $12,779,754 in preorders for the company’s upcoming products: the Pebble 2, the Time 2, a little Spotify streaming box, and a refresh to the Time Round line.

Pledges this year fell short of last year’s milestone of more than $20 million, but surpassed the company’s 2012 campaign, when it collected about $10 million.

Let’s start with the obvious: Enthusiasm for new Pebble watches appears to have slipped. Pebble has a history of breaking its own records — as well as Kickstarter’s — and that didn’t happen this year. It took the company a mere 48 hours to surpass $10 million in preorders in February 2015. This time around, it took Pebble more than twice as long.

I wish I had problems like raising 12.8 million dollars.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Pebble in the long term with Apple likely debuting a new Watch this fall and Google updating their Android Wear. I wonder if Pebble can hold on to and grow their loyal customer base or if they’ll get squeezed out.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft enters Jupiter’s orbit

Shower Thoughts

A group of ex-Google engineers have just launched Otto, an autonomous trucking startup:

Otto’s first vehicle is twice as long and six times as heavy as Google’s cute prototype car, but has exactly the same number of drivers: zero.

Founded by four ex-Google engineers — including Anthony Levandowski, the man who built Google’s very first self-driving car — Otto is applying Google’s all-or-nothing approach to commercial big rigs: ditch human drivers, avoid thousands of road deaths, help the environment, and if all goes well, make a ton of money along the way.

I can tell you who won’t be getting ‘a ton of money’—the drivers that used to drive those big rigs.

Are technology companies putting enough thought into ramifications of phasing out entire sections of the workforce?

[Side thought: I wonder if they got the name of their startup from the idealized thermodynamic cycle that describes the functioning of a typical spark ignition piston engine]

Back on April 21, after is his UFC loss to Nate Diaz, Conor McGregor posted this on Facebook:

I am just trying to do my job and fight here.

I am paid to fight. I am not yet paid to promote.

I have become lost in the game of promotion and forgot about the art of fighting.

There comes a time when you need to stop handing out flyers and get back to the damn shop.

50 world tours, 200 press conferences, 1 million interviews, 2 million photo shoots, and at the end of it all I’m left looking down the barrel of a lens, staring defeat in the face, thinking of nothing but my incorrect fight preparation. And the many distractions that led to this.

Nothing else was going through my mind.

A guy like Conor McGregor doesn’t come around often. Not only is he an amazing fighter who’s proven himself in the ring, but he’s a personality who’s infusing the UFC with some serious energy and fun. He’s just awesome to watch in- and outside the ring.

But they say you see a person’s true colors not when things are going great, but when they’re bad and it’s here where we get to see a man acknowledging his mistakes and doing what is necessary to fix them.

I love the show Conor’s been putting on since he joined the UFC, but I agree with him that he needs to re-focus on what got him there: his fighting skills.

Sharp take by Ben Thompson on the new Tesla Model 3 and the parallels of Tesla to Apple:

When it comes to the iPhone I have argued that Apple’s smartphone was, relative to the phones on the market, Obsoletive: the iPhone effectively reduced the phones that came before it to apps on a general purpose computer, justifying a higher price even as it made cheaper incumbents obsolete.

This doesn’t quite work for Tesla: at the end of the day a Model S is still doing the same job as a traditional BMW or Mercedes-Benz. It just does it better: a Model S accelerates faster, it has more storage, it has innovative features like limited auto-pilot and a huge touch-screen interface, and you don’t have to stop at the gas station. Most importantly, though, it is a Tesla.

The real payoff of Musk’s “Master Plan” is the fact that Tesla means something: yes, it stands for sustainability and caring for the environment, but more important is that Tesla also means amazing performance and Silicon Valley cool. To be sure Tesla’s focus on the high end has helped them move down the cost curve but it was Musk’s insistence on making “An electric car without compromises” that ultimately led to 276,000 people reserving a Model 3, many without even seeing the car: after all, it’s a Tesla.

Thompson refutes the Clayton Christensen’s idea of ‘disruptive innovators’ like he and many others claim Apple and Tesla to be. It’s the strength of the Tesla and Apple brands that allows them to do and achieve what they do, not because they’re necessarily disruptive.

Put that in your disruptive pipe and innovatively smoke it, Christensen.

Remember that whole thing back in February where the FBI was demanding Apple unlock unlock the iPhone 5C of San Bernardino terrorism suspect Syed Rizwan Farook? And Apple told the FBI in so many words to go fuck itself? And then the FBI pussied out and said, “Oh, nevermind, we figured it out ourselves. Fuck YOU.”

Well, here is what the FBI did:

FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that the government had purchased “a tool” from a private party in order to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

“Litigation between the government and Apple over the San Bernardino phone has ended, because the government has purchased, from a private party, a way to get into that phone, 5C, running iOS 9,” Comey said.

Hold up. Does this special, magic software work on any iPhone?

The FBI director also said the purchased tool worked only on a “narrow slice of phones” that does not include the newest Apple models, or the 5S.

I’m just picturing the knuckleheads at the FBI googling “iphone jailbreak software 5c”, clicking on the first search result, and buying a software package for $29.95.

Is this how it went down in reality? Unlikely, but it’s fun to imagine.

Apple Watch Sales Estimated at 5.1 Million in Holiday Quarter, Swiss Watch Sales in Trouble:

The latest data from Strategy Analytics reveals that the Apple Watch remained the most popular smartwatch through the fourth quarter of 2015, capturing 63 percent global market share based on an estimated 5.1 million sales in the three-month period.

Samsung trailed in second place with 16 percent market share and an estimated 1.3 million sales. Apple and Samsung together accounted for 8 in 10 of all smartwatches shipped worldwide during last year’s holiday shopping season, based on the data.

Hey Swiss watch maker guys, keep not being worried about the Apple Watch.

Maybe just cover your eyes and plug your ears. Pretend it’s all a bad dream.

Most people can play daily fantasy or casino games without a problem. “I know there are people that can do it normally,” Mr. Adams said, but he is not one of them. He also acknowledges that he ultimately bears responsibility for his addiction.

Yet gambling counselors say they could more easily help people like Mr. Adams if fantasy companies did not portray their games as involving mostly skill. That alone is a risk for addiction, said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

“The perception of skill has led many, many people down a very dark path,” he said.

—NYTimes: For Addicts, Fantasy Sites Can Lead to Ruinous Path

People, just don’t gamble.

via little animal gifs

Microsoft’s flagship NYC store opens at the end of October:

Microsoft is opening its first flagship store in New York City later next month. Located just a few blocks away from Apple’s iconic cube on Fifth Avenue, Microsoft’s new retail location will replace an old Fendi store at 677 Fifth Avenue and serve as the company’s first full retail store in Manhattan. “These flagship stores have been in the making for six years,” explains David Porter, Microsoft’s head of retail and online stores. “We are eager to open our doors to those in Manhattan. The five-floor, 22,269 square foot location will be a premier venue to learn about, experience and shop for the products and services from Microsoft and our partners.”

Guys, it’s time to end the charade.

Focus on what you do best—software.