#steve jobs keynote

[joebustillos]

2007-01-09 MacBreak Weekly Meetup - San Francisco, CA

2007-01-09 MACBREAK WEEKLY MEETUP – SAN FRANCISCO CA 2007-01-09 21ST AMENDMENT BREWERY – SAN FRANCISCO CA. I got a chance to attend a podcast meetup for one of my favorite podcasts and see the folks in person that I’ve been listening to, in some cases, for years. Fun. Click here to Return to: Macworld Expo (2007) ||| Macworld Expo Floor ||| Around Town ||| Travels JBB’s Media Projects…

[unbfacts]

Steve Jobs made the first iPhone call publicly by prank-calling Starbucks. He humorously ordered 4,000 lattes, only to say "just kidding" and hang up.

[thisischeri]

So who’s watching it with me? I’m serious! I could look around to set up something that we can all chat on or if you have ideas let me know!! Does tumblr have anything for this? lol

@staff I’m a product designer specialised in conversational environments 👀

18:00 BST / 19:00 UTC+1

ig: cheri.png

[kentaroreviews]

Steve Jobs' 2007 keynote

This is a generation reaching a climax. They also got stuck there. See how.

People could hardly contain their Christmas excitement. They already wanted to leave and go out and get it. Instead, the experience went interestingly. They stayed in their seat.

The experience was as interesting as any movie, as exciting as any stage performance.

They sat with each others' burps, farts, coughs, etc., because they could hardly believe that this was all happening, at once. A release.

Something needed for many, I'll admit. It came from somewhere.

Apple did it, in several ways. Showing an example of how to be everything at once, that people ask for.

So, here we are.

Todays' appointments, often met, on a location where an iPhone passes through the door with people.

Oftentimes, it's this. Becomes something you watch TV on.

Your neck might crane. You might be slowed down.

You might have to

He spoke things that still have a point, today. Because he thought of this two years ago, here, in 2024. After he's passed away.

Steve Jobs is still affecting the world, now, and he's since gone elsewhere. The late Steve Jobs. He's working his magic from beyond the grave.

Consider this.

If you swapped out things that he's doing in 2007 with things that are being done now, you can -still- innovate!

Especially in the format of the Keynote presentation. When you watch the presentation, you want to stay.

He's able to be, here, while we leave. The Earth, eventually. Left by us, it might be in a state that's worse. I think Steve Jobs would want less pollution. Less landfill. Less of the cracked screens that are thrown, ending up on the road, or into a bin. I think he'd want us to realize what we have, now, that he may have put into our hands. He seems like a worker who thinks. Bill Gates, also, has done this, too. We left him in a place where, mostly, he's become fodder for a mill of conspiracy theories. Here's now.

We have that. We have ourselves.

Will we be?

Kentaro Rants

February 22nd, 2024 9 PM EST

[darsynia]

Forgiven: Candor | CEO Steve/f!Reader series part 2

MCU MASTERLIST | STEVE ROGERS MASTERLIST | Ro Roll

Summary: Your first lunch date with your company’s CEO-turned-construction-hottie has netted you an invitation to a fancy gala. You’re falling head over budget heels for this guy, but getting to know him turns out to be more charming and more complicated than you expected. Words/Warnings: 2,900 / none

Written for @buck-star's Fluffy Winter Event with the prompt CEO, a sequel to the 'Ro Roll' story Forgiven. A third story in the series is mostly written (and smutty). gif by @tay-swifts

Quick note: this one's less of a romp than the first, but I'd say where the first fic is about physical attraction, this is about emotional attraction--and part III is both!

Excerpt:

Tonight’s plan is unconventional. The gala he’s invited you to is the last event of a conference for tech companies, and he was one of the keynote speakers for their final wrap-up. Rogers told you he couldn’t miss the networking for the ninety minutes between that and the start of the gala, so you’ll be arriving separately.

Honestly, if it were anyone else, you’d have tried to beg off. You’ll have to show up dressed to the sevens (the nines are way beyond your price range) and find him in a sea of very important people and other hangers-on. It’s a recipe for a fairy tale either way--either you’ll see each other across a crowded room or someone’s rich stepsister will cut you to verbal shreds. The only way to make that image to go away is picturing Rogers acting like a storybook hero vanquishing all your villains. 

Candor

Sharing a meal with Steve Rogers feels like it shouldn’t be this easy. 

It helps that you’d passed a vintage movie theater playing The Mark of Zorro from 1940 on your way to the deli. You’d expressed surprise that the franchise started that long ago, prompting a discussion about the notable parts of each version the other hadn’t seen (Rogers: Just her hair left to cover everything?!). Now you’re both sharing anecdotes from your late teens over some seriously delicious sandwiches, him telling you about his co-founder Barnes, and you sharing about growing up with your sister Jennie. 

Rogers’ easygoing charisma makes it far too easy to forget that he actually runs the company you work for, especially when he’s laughing. It’s only when he holds out a hand to interrupt the story of your sister’s first catastrophic job interview that his business side kicks in.

The counter is only a few feet away from your table, and he leans over, intently listening. That’s when you hear it-- the soft, frightened voice of a young woman defending herself against a furious male voice.

Rogers shoots to his feet, striding over with the remaining bites of his sandwich in his hand. The manager steps over right away, his frown fading away when he sees the tall, well-dressed man at the counter.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“I want you to observe OSHA standards, to say nothing of human decency,” Rogers says evenly. The manager presses his hands together in a blatantly fawning apology, but it’s too late. In an ever-increasing tone, your lunch companion lists out three different violations. At least one customer leaves nervously before Rogers adds a strong suggestion that the manager treat his young female employees with more respect. “I have rarely seen the same employee more than twice in the two months you’ve been open, and I hope for your sake it’s because they know their rights,” he says sternly. “Your food is good. Your management is going to run the place into the ground.”

There’s something about his voice of command that completely stomps the manager’s bravado. Seconds later, the employee who’d been yelled at comes out of the back room with a light jacket on and a purse, her face blotchy from crying. You offer her a tissue from your bag and clean up the rest of the table, which works out well when Rogers steps close and asks if you’re ready to head out. Once outside, he spots the young woman walking nearby.

“Give me a second,” he tells you, jogging over to her before she can cross the street. They have a short exchange while you wait, and you can see him give the woman a business card.

When Rogers comes back, you’re both quiet until he opens his car door for you and settles in on his side.

“That was a good thing you did.”

Rogers sighs. “I try not to throw my weight around. I’ve been watching conditions there deteriorate for weeks, and I guess that was the last straw.”

“You offered her a job, didn’t you?”

He turns and smiles, and the brightness of it reminds you of the way sunlight spills into the lobby at Star Industries.

“You’re going to spill that all down the front of you!” Marcia frets as you wobble your way to the door after work. The takeout container you’re precariously balancing is your peace offering to your sister, since you have a date on Couch Potato Movie Night.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be wearing this for long!” you say in an attempt to reassure your coworker.

“TMI!” the older woman says, playfully putting her hands over her ears.

“No, no no no--” The words cut off as you nearly bobble the styrofoam in a bid to whirl around in protest. “Doesn’t everyone change into comfy clothes after work? See you tomorrow!” 

It’s a total obfuscation, but Marcia isn’t able to object before you escape through the rotating doors. 

You won’t actually be wearing ‘comfy clothes,’ mostly because the black ensemble you’re planning to wear on your date has more exposed back than anything you’d ever worn in public before. The truth is, you look and feel great in it-- but comfy it is not. You haven’t worn it in a while (barring the try-on you did two days ago), and you’re already looking forward to the way the skirt flutters around your ankles. Its style is as close to the red dress from Only You as you could find, and you’re pretty sure Marisa Tomei would approve.

You’re hoping Steve Rogers approves, too.

Tonight’s plan is unconventional. The gala he’s invited you to is the last event of a conference for tech companies, and he was one of the keynote speakers for their final wrap-up. Rogers told you he couldn’t miss the networking for the ninety minutes between that and the start of the gala, so you’ll be arriving separately.

Honestly, if it were anyone else, you’d have tried to beg off. You’ll have to show up dressed to the sevens (the nines are way beyond your price range) and find him in a sea of very important people and other hangers-on. It’s a recipe for a fairy tale either way--either you’ll see each other across a crowded room or someone’s rich stepsister will cut you to verbal shreds. The only way to make that image to go away is picturing Rogers acting like a storybook hero vanquishing all your villains. 

You exit your taxi a block away from the venue, amused and diverted by the mental image of your CEO date wearing medieval armor and wielding a sword and shield. The night is warm for early fall, with a light breeze that pleasingly swirls around your skirt and filmy shoulder wrap. You’re left wishing you could wander through Central Park with him, looking at the first leaf changes instead of feeling out of place at the event.

As you walk, you ponder what a modern-day heroic Steve Rogers would look like. This version can definitely wield his power like a weapon, offering that young deli worker a better job or calling on his fellow manufacturers to use more sustainable materials, something Star Industries recently made news for. You’re preoccupied in coming up with a shield analogue for him when you approach your destination.

“Excuse me, miss?” a familiar-sounding voice says. You lift your head to see that it’s Rogers.

“Oh! I didn’t at all expect you to meet me out--”

“I couldn’t take it in there anymore. Place is full of opportunists who think I’m naive for not taking more advantage of our disabled clients,” he says roughly, stripping off his suit jacket as he speaks. “It seems they thought I was faking nice for the past few years. I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“You could never be disappointing!” The words come out before you can vet them, but even if you had, you’d have said them anyway. He throws his blazer over his arm and looks at you with what you can only describe as professional exhaustion. You suspect more went on in that conference than he’s willing to say, and that makes you want to be more honest with him, for some reason. “There were two things going on in my mind on my way over here, would you like to hear them?”

His tone is guarded. “All right.”

“First I was picturing you as a kind of medieval warrior on a mission to fight the kind of villains you just described--”

“No pressure or anything,” Rogers murmurs. 

“The other thing was wishing that I could take a walk with you through Central Park. The leaves are starting to change, there’s a nice breeze--what do you think?”

“I think you shouldn’t lift me up as some kind of hero,” he finally says, “--but I would very much like that.” Rogers holds out his arm for you, not unlike the way you pictured him leading you around the gala. 

As you take it, you decide to go ahead and say, “What would Barnes say about whether you’re a hero?”

“He’d call me a punk with delusions of grandeur, but he’s the one who turned down the position of CEO,” Rogers says, but though his tone is amused, his expression doesn’t really show it.

It’s information you’re not sure is even public, so you focus on keeping up with his big strides as you make your way to the Park. Everything about his body language tells you that there’s a lot going on under the surface, that he might be close to coming unraveled. There’s no good way to say, ‘it’s okay to be quiet if you need to be.’ All you can do is stay quiet and hope he feels supported. The resulting silence isn’t comfortable, but it’s not awkward either--and after what he’d said about the population of the party he left behind, the twilight beauty of the park has to be an improvement.

A gust of wind finally changes the contemplative mood when it blows your shoulder wrap up onto his chest and into his face.

“Crap, I’m sorry,” you rush to say, fighting with the thing to make it stay put. Through your fussing, he stands with his hands out, a small smile haunting his face. It’s the first one you’ve seen from him today, and you decide to comment on it to test the waters. “I can’t help but be nosy and notice you don’t seem much like yourself tonight.”

Rogers’ body language closes up and his facial expression tightens, but he nods. “I’ve had to button up for the conference. I guess it’s just harder to shrug it off, tonight.”

It suddenly occurs to you that you don’t really know him very well, and you’ve walked yourself into a semi-private section of the park with him, at night. At the same time, you still recognize the man you ogled as he sweated and worked in the foyer of his own building as ‘just one of the guys.’ 

Hadn’t you hated a job so much your sister said it ate you alive?

“I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to hold a position at your level,” you say, in the world’s greatest understatement, “What I do know is that you made a decision to protect me from having to deal with something that clearly made you miserable. It sounds like those people were judging you as a bad leader because you want what’s best for your company and its clients. For the record, I think standing up against that is plenty heroic.”

Rogers looks down at his feet for a second, letting out a quick breath before meeting your eyes again, this time with a wistful kind of smile on his face. “It’s nice to know there are people who still see that kind of idealism in me. Thank you.”

“That’s the most polite ‘I disagree’ I think I’ve ever heard,” you retort. “Just to pile on, I also get the impression that you lied to me earlier.”

Now you have his full attention, blue eyes capturing yours with a laser focus you imagine is even more intimidating to a direct subordinate. “Oh?” Clipped, doubtful.

You could love this man, but you have the distinct feeling that he’s having some sort of crisis you’re not privy to. As such, you could be helping here, or you could be making it very easy to leave you on the curb needing a new job.

He’s worth the try.

“You said Barnes turned down CEO. I think you took the job so he didn’t have to.”

The two of you look at each other steadily for a long minute, the tension of your possible mistake ramping up inside you until he strides over, nearly chest to chest.

“You’re right,” he says, almost breathless. He lifts his hand as if to touch your face, his eyebrows quirking up in a silent question. You nod, captivated by the battle he’s clearly fighting with himself. You hope you’ve earned the faith you can see reflected in his eyes.

He slides his fingertips along your cheek and into your hairline with the kind of gentleness a girl can only dream of, and then he kisses you, stealing away all other conscious thought. You sway forward, catching yourself on his chest and then clutching at his lapel when he angles his head. His lips are reverent but hungry, just on the edge of desperate, and as it goes on, your heart spirals away toward the abyss of yes, please, forever.

When he lifts his head, he’s finally smiling in a way you recognize, and holy shit it feels so much like a triumph that you’re probably in big trouble with this guy.

“How about a do-over?” he asks, offering you his arm again. The happiness in his eyes makes you impish.

“Of the kiss, or…”

With both hands framing your face, Steve takes thirty seconds to methodically ruin you for every other man on the planet. Afterwards, he bends down to pick up his jacket from the ground, slings it over his arm like nothing momentous has just happened, and then holds his other arm out just as he’d done earlier in the night.

“You’re an overachiever, you know that, right?” you say, taking his arm. He’s a few other things, but you feel certain there will be time to work on those.

“It’s chronic,” he says. “Shall we?”

The next half hour goes exactly as you’d originally pictured when you walked past the park the first time. Easy conversation, beautiful surroundings, and more sparks flying between you than a welder’s convention. He calls ahead for a car to meet up at a specific corner, and you end up having to borrow his suit jacket by the time you get there. He makes you promise to call him ‘Steve’ before he hands it over.

“Thank you for a perfect evening,” you whisper to him after he gets in the back seat with you. “For your sake I’ll try to remember the best parts, so I can recreate them when I wake up and it’s this morning again.”

“Does that mean you’ll meet me at the same time tomorrow, in that dress, so I can take you to dinner?”

Even your swoons are swooning. You manage to say, “I could never say no to an invitation that smooth!” 

Steve reaches over and squeezes your hand. “You can always say no. It’s important to me for you to know that.”

He sounds so serious that you pull your joined hands up to briefly kiss the back of his. “There’s a story behind that, isn’t there?” As you say this, your conscience stabs you. Hadn’t you dreamed of a rich man to sweep you off your feet? Would he feel betrayed by that??

“Don’t worry about that. Just know I was starting to feel… How do I put it,” Steve says, sweeping his thumb across the back of your hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way--”

“I’m not going to steal Willy Wonka’s secrets, so you can forget about asking,” you quip.

Steve throws back his head in laughter, his hand tightening on yours almost painfully before he lets go. “I was starting to forget what it was like not to be surrounded by people who want something, even if all they want is to say ‘yes.’ That’s one of the few things money can’t buy.”

“Observation changes the results--or in this case, money does,” you say, nodding. “Well, I’m going to take that as a compliment.” The car stops, and for the first time after a long day, you are disappointed to see you’re in front of your apartment.

He unbuckles and leans over to give you a brief but searing kiss. “It’s a compliment.” 

Steve gets out of the car, and for a brief moment you’re confused until he opens your door like a gentleman. It’s impossible not to be charmed. Once he’s helped you out and onto the sidewalk, you wish you could keep his suit jacket, if only so you can use it to prove none of this was a dream. 

“See you tomorrow?” he asks, then says, “Wait. I know you just well enough to suspect you want to prove you’ll say no to me.” You burst out laughing and nod. “All right then: do you want to stay home tomorrow?”

You grin. “No.”

“Good. Let’s push back by an hour, for a better reservation. Seven?”

“Yes.”

“See you then.”

Because your life is not a romance novel but a comedy, you walk in the door of your apartment two hours earlier than promised, your stomach growling in outraged hunger.

“What are you doing home already? Was that your stomach? Didn’t you eat?” your sister asks as you take your shoes off. “Well?” Jennie demands, when you silently head toward the kitchen to warm up some leftovers. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she realizes aloud.

“No,” you tell her, an indelible grin on your face.

<- Previous ||||| Next ->

[learnfromjobs]

What's up, learners? It's your boy, the one and only LearnFromJobs, here to school you on the art of innovation and making a dent in the universe. You know who else was all about that life? The late, great Steve Jobs.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Jobs? That guy who made overpriced phones and wore turtlenecks like it was his job?" But hear me out, people. The man was a genius. A legend. A mythic figure in the world of tech.

You might not know this, but Jobs wasn't always the mastermind behind Apple's success. In fact, he got fired from the company he helped start. But did he let that defeat him? Hell no. He went on to create Pixar, revolutionize the music industry with the iPod, and completely change the game with the iPhone.

And let's not forget his signature move: the keynote presentation. Jobs knew how to work a stage like nobody's business. He could make you believe that a new phone was the greatest thing to ever grace the earth. That's the power of storytelling, people.

But it wasn't just about the products. Jobs was all about the user experience. He believed in simplicity, elegance, and intuitive design. He once said, "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." And boy, did it work.

So what can we learn from Jobs? Well, for starters, never give up. Even when things seem bleak, keep pushing forward. And always keep the user in mind. Don't just make something that looks cool; make something that makes people's lives better.

And last but not least, never underestimate the power of a good black turtleneck. Just kidding. Maybe.

[vague-humanoid]

Below is a transcript of the keynote speech I delivered for the 14th Conference on East-West Cross-Cultural Relations at the American University in Cairo.

How the fuck am I supposed to teach Mark Twain? 

I repeated this question as I sat on the bus traveling to campus.  It was my first time meeting classes since October 7.  I would be walking onto the same campus, but the world in which it is situated had forever changed.  Trying to separate campus from Palestine was no more viable than trying to separate Christ from the crucifix. 

Mark Twain has something to do with Palestine—he wrote about it, after all, in a way that would please Zionists a few generations later.  With a bit of imagination, everything has something to do with Palestine.  This is so because Palestine, while formally absent as a nation-state, exists as both a historical and sociological presence in the minds of people across the world.  Indeed, we affirm the reality of Palestine with every refusal to grant legitimacy to its occupier. 

Still, Twain wouldn’t cut it.  Nor would the more politically-oriented readings assigned to my other two classes.  I wanted to discuss Palestine as Palestine, without analogy, without mediation.  The beginnings of a genocide were already evident.  There’s a simple, inviolable rule about genocide:  normal life must come to a halt until it is defeated. 

What can a literary critic and college instructor do to help defeat genocide?  The obvious answer is “nothing,” but I’m not willing to concede the point so easily.  What we can do depends on how we conceptualize the scope and purpose of literary criticism.  Scholars like to call emphasis on revolutionary outcomes prescriptive, and I suppose they’re right, but certain events in the world demand a kind of vigor socialized out of us by graduate school and the job market.  I’m saying that sometimes it’s okay to be prescriptive.  Who does it help when we spend all our time slogging around in nuance and ambiguity?  What purpose does it serve other than social climbing and self-gratification?  In Palestine right now, not too far from where we’ve gathered, millions of people are being bombarded, starved, displaced, imprisoned.  I condemn it without qualification or concern for the bourgeois etiquette of higher education. 

And I can condemn it in literary criticism without sacrificing the creative touch that often makes the genre so rewarding.  Ghassan Kanafani has already shown how it can be done.  So have Toni Morrison, Robert Warrior, Raymond Williams, Viet Nguyen, Audra Simpson, James Baldwin, and Christina Sharpe.  In his book On Zionist Literature, recently translated into English, Kanafani offers a rigorous analysis of Israeli culture and society, adeptly interrogating Zionism’s discursive norms, philosophical assumptions, and ethical inconsistencies.  He fulfills all the conventional tenets of literary criticism and still manages to affirm national liberation.  There’s no contradiction.  The liberatory aspects of criticism have been suppressed by publishers, by tenure committees, by culture magazines, by scholars affiliated with the CIA—in short, by various organs of the ruling class.  National liberation isn’t considered an unacceptable methodology because of some natural, ahistorical standard of proper literary study.  The standard is political.  It was always political.  And it’s most political precisely when nonpolitics is the demand. 

[kickthecan-revolution]

I worked from 10 AM until 3 AM on one single keynote slide, woke up at 7 AM this morning and realized it was wrong, so tossed it out entirely and re-created it. And now it’s perfect. Or close. My singular focus on making some thing perfect can get a little crazy - and what’s even weirder, hardly anyone is going to look at that slide. It’s my own internal plan for my small team. It’s not like I have to present it. It just is helping me shape and simplify the way that I think, and the aesthetics of the information have to be really clean, so I can think cleanly.

Steve Jobs once told the story about why the details when no one’s looking.

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” 

That resonates with me. I used to be pretty performative about work and I still am, of course, because that’s corporate America but there’s also a big part of me that needs the work itself to flow in a clean way because that shows me that I’m thinking cleanly. It’s like a thermometer.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

To save the news, repeal the app tax

Today (June 7), I’m keynoting the Re:publica conference in Berlin.

Tomorrow (June 8) at 8PM, I’m at Otherland Books in Berlin with my novel Red Team Blues.

Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals is money, not content. Talking about the news, excerpting it, linking to it, quoting it — these are all beneficial, normal news activities. If you can’t talk about the news, it’s not news — it’s a secret.

But tech does steal from news. A variety of monopolistic tricks allows tech to interpose itself between reporters, publishers and outlets, and the audiences they serve. By creating chokepoints between the news and its audience, tech can extract gigantic sums from the news.

And because the news itself is dominated by the same kinds of extractive, vicious, gigantic corporations, the shit flows downhill: the first victims of attacks on news profitability are news workers — reporters, technical staff, illustrators, photographers. A news outlet has to be really starving before it turns to the money claimed by vulture capitalists who buy distressed debt, or hedge funds who roll up papers, or wealthy owners.

Anything that can’t go on forever eventually stops. Tech’s ripoffs have reached a breaking point, and there’s a broad coalition of journalists, media companies, audiences and politicians ready to do something about this. Now the question is: what should we do?

Whatever we do it should:

Maintain broad access to the news;

Make it easier for new news outlets to pop up;

Make it easier for new tech outlets that carry the news to pop up, too.

It shouldn’t simply transfer funds to bond holders who own newspaper debt, or shareholders of media companies, or billionaire dilettante news proprietors. It shouldn’t make the news and tech into “partners”: we want the press to hold tech to account, not join forces with it.

A month ago, EFF and I started publishing a five-part series of policy prescriptions “saving the news from tech.” Part one was the “curtain raiser,” setting up the whole program:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

Each week since, I’ve published a specific policy recommendation. The first one was breaking up the ad-tech industry, on the lines suggested by Senator Mike Lee’s AMERICA Act:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Next was passing comprehensive privacy law, which would kill off surveillance ads and force a switch to “contextual ads” (ads based on what you’re looking at, not who you are):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Both of these proposals are aimed at reducing the share of ad money claimed by tech, especially the ad-tech duopoly of Google/Meta. Ad-tech claims more than 50% of every ad dollar spent, thanks to their chokepoint on ads. The ad-tech market is a cesspool of fraud, abuse and creepy practices. Fixing ads would make everyone better off, by freeing us all from ubiquitous commercial surveillance, and it would make the news better off, letting the news claim a much larger share of ad revenues, whether they are large media brands or independent reporters covering a niche subject in depth.

This week’s installment turns to subscription revenues. When Steve Jobs launched the Ipad in 2010, he set himself up as a daddy figure for the traumataized press, promising them a return to subscription-based business, with seamless payment processing through the apps in his walled garden:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

But since then, the mobile duopoly of Apple/Google has simply recapitulated the abusive extraction of the ad-tech industry, but for apps. Both companies charge a whopping 30% to process in-app payments, and both companies have strict rules banning app makers from evading this 30% app tax by steering customers to the web to complete payments:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

The companies — nominally bitter competitors — have nevertheless converged on this 30% vig, allegedly without any anticompetitive collusion. Apple uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) to lock people into using its App Store, threatening anyone who reverse-engineers its devices to add competing stores with five year prison sentences under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Google’s Android does have a facility for “side-loading” apps that aren’t in its app store, but the company uses a web of commercial requirements and technological tricks to prevent a competitor from emerging:

https://theplatformlaw.blog/2023/05/24/why-the-proposed-commitments-offered-by-google-to-the-uk-competition-authority-regarding-in-app-purchases-are-wrong-and-will-make-the-situation-of-app-developers-worse/

The result is a massive transfer from the news to tech: payment processing normally costs 2–3%, but these companies manage to take a 30% bite out of every subscription dollar collected in-app. Some very large outlets like the NY Times can drive readers to sign up on the web and escape the app tax, but the additional friction costs even these large publishers a fortune in lost subscribers — and smaller outlets have even less leverage over readers and are corralled into paying the app tax, making it a regressive tax indeed.

Unrigging the mobile payments market would produce good results far beyond the news, of course. Games publishers, independent creators, and office and productivity app makers would all benefit from no longer having to pay the app tax. And so would their users: these app makers are passing on most of those payment costs to us, and we end up paying them, because there are only two major mobile platforms and they both charge the same app tax.

In the EU, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will force app stores to open up, paving the way for alternative app stores:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/25/22996248/apple-sideloading-apps-store-third-party-eu-dma-requirement

In the US, there’s proposed laws like the Open Apps Markets Act, which is likely to be reintroduced in this legislative session:

https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-blackburn-and-klobuchar-introduce-bipartisan-antitrust-legislation-to-promote-app-store-competition

The mobile duopoly hate this, of course, and claim that forcing them to permit rival app stores would put users’ security at risk. It’s true that this could happen, but it doesn’t need to: security and openness are compatible:

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2022/01/letter-to-the-us-senate-judiciary-committee-on-app-stores.html

Next week, I’ll conclude the series with a post on applying the end-to-end principle to social media, to prevent platforms from holding a publication’s subscribers hostage in order to extract “boosting” fees from media. Once that’s out, we’re going to gather all these posts into a single, downloadable PDF, suitable for sharing with the news junkies in your life, your friends in the media business, and your elected reps.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery. All the icons except for 'open app stores' are greyed out.]

[mlpfashionarchive]

Pony Life: Keynote Pie - Pinkie dressed as Steve Jobs (I think?)

[joebustillos]

2007-01-09 Steve Jobs' Keynote - San Francisco, CA

2007-01-09 STEVE JOBS’ KEYNOTE – SAN FRANCISCO CA 2007-01-09. Long lines wrapped around the building in the pre-dawn hours, snaking there way through giant rooms that eventually lead to thousands of seats in an enormous darkened auditorium. This was not my first Steve Jobs’ keynote. I was at a Steve-note in January 2000 when MacOS X’s Aqua interface was introduced and Jobs dropped the “i” from…

[didyouactuallyjustdothat]

a while ago i got to tour an ibm facility home to their system one quantum computer, which looks like this:

the glass panels are made by goppion, who generally make the glass enclosures for museum displays. to be clear, they serve no functional purpose here—the cylinder you see on the inside certainly should provide enough isolation from the environment, no further enclosure should be required. supposedly the engineers were frustrated with how the case stopped them from actually working on the system.

at the time it bothered me that the presentation of the system got in the way of its actual function, especially because quantum computers didn't have any practical applications at the time (as they still really don't), so it was really just meant to be a proof-of-concept, a research system. dressing it up like a new consumer product fit for a steve jobs keynote felt wrong to me somehow, like it was promising something it couldn't deliver.

i think i've come around to it, since it obviously does look quite sleek, and i like the idea of presenting ongoing science like a museum, rather than just instruments used in century-old discoveries. it still makes me happy to see people appreciating quantum computers the way all the scientists and engineers normally see them, though :)

why did no one tell me quantum computers looked like that

[muqtadarinternational]

speakinno

In an era defined by rapid technological advancements and a globalized economy, effective communication and innovation emerge as twin pillars of success. "Speakinno," a term that encapsulates the fusion of speaking and innovation, underscores the transformative power of ideas when expressed with clarity, creativity, and influence.

The Power of Speaking in the Innovation Ecosystem

Innovation thrives on the exchange of ideas, and speaking serves as the bridge between thought and action. From pitching a groundbreaking startup idea to delivering a persuasive keynote at a tech conference, the ability to communicate is often the difference between an idea taking off or being relegated to obscurity.

Public speaking is not just about sharing information—it’s about inspiring change. Innovative leaders like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Malala Yousafzai have demonstrated the ability to galvanize audiences with their words. Their speeches do more than inform; they ignite action, foster collaboration, and build communities around shared goals.

In the corporate world, communication drives the innovation process. Leaders must articulate a vision that inspires teams to think outside the box. Engineers and designers need to present their prototypes effectively to secure funding. Even the most revolutionary ideas can falter if not communicated persuasively.

Innovation in the Art of Speaking

Conversely, innovation has revolutionized the way we speak and share ideas. Technology now allows speakers to connect with global audiences in real time. Tools like AI-powered teleprompters, virtual reality presentations, and data-driven storytelling techniques have redefined the speaking experience.

TED Talks are a prime example of innovative communication. These short, impactful presentations leverage storytelling, visuals, and succinct messaging to convey complex ideas in a digestible format. Speakers employ creative tools to make their points memorable, often turning abstract concepts into tangible takeaways.

Moreover, the integration of artificial intelligence into communication tools has opened new frontiers. AI assistants analyze audience feedback in real time, enabling speakers to adapt their delivery. Language translation tools break down barriers, allowing ideas to flow seamlessly across cultural divides.

The Role of Speakinno in Shaping the Future

The marriage of speaking and innovation is more relevant than ever in solving global challenges. Climate change, social inequality, and technological ethics require not only innovative solutions but also persuasive advocates to champion them.

Programs like Toastmasters International are evolving to incorporate training in digital tools, virtual communication, and multicultural audience engagement. Similarly, innovation hubs and startup incubators now prioritize communication training alongside technical skill development.

At its core, Speakinno represents the belief that speaking and innovation amplify each other. Great ideas need powerful voices to bring them to life, while impactful communication finds its ultimate purpose in advancing human progress. Together, they have the potential to reshape industries, societies, and the world at large.

[doncosty]

This is what you call a visionary, knowing where Apple is today.

Keynote from Steve Jobs at the International Design Conference in Aspen, 1983.

[infamousbrad]

Bruce Sterling called it gothic high-tech: today's ultra-wealthy live the lives of gothic-novel supervillains. They're so separated from the rest of us that they can do things nobody else can imagine even wanting to do, let alone being able, but when horrible things happen to them, nobody but their fellow gothic-novel supervillains has any sympathy.

Let me explain to you what Gothic High-Tech is like. In Gothic High-Tech, you're Steve Jobs. You've built an iPhone which is a brilliant technical innovation, but you also had to sneak off to Tennessee to get a liver transplant because you're dying of something secret and horrible. And you're a captain of American industry. You're not some General Motors kinda guy. On the contrary, you’re a guy who’s got both hands on the steering wheel of a functional car. But you're still Gothic High-Tech because death is waiting. And not a kindly death either, but a sinister, creeping, tainted wells of Silicon Valley kind of Superfund thing that steals upon you month by month, and that you have to hide from the public and from the bloggers and from the shareholders. And you just grit your teeth and pull out the next one. A heroic story, but very Gothic. Something that belongs in an eighteenth century horror novel. Kind of the “man in the castle" figure.

(Bruce Sterling, "Gothic High Tech and Favela Chic," keynote speech at the 11th Reboot conference, June 25th 2009)

I can't deal with this whole titanic thing. The stepson of one of the billionaires being like "so sad about my stepdad stuck in that big metal tube anyway im off to see blink 182 tonight it's what he would've wanted ✌️✌️" then he almost immediately got milkshake ducked for threatening to shoot up an EDM concert a while back and I think getting arrested???? Amazing stuff.

[arielmcorg]

#Apple Keynote presentación del iPhone 16

En el día de hoy se realiza la tan esperada presentación, en donde vamos a conocer los nuevos iPhone 16, seguramente integrada la IA de Cupertino. Cómo ver el evento y a qué hora, el evento se llevará a cabo en el Steve Jobs Theater en su sede de Apple Park, en Cupertino, California, y se transmitirá en línea en su cuenta oficial de Youtube. También desde la web oficial de Apple. A continuación…