Mark Fields, President and CEO, Ford Motor Company:

We’re announcing our intent to have fully autonomous vehicles in commercial operation for a ride-hailing or ride-sharing service beginning in 2021. This is significant. Ford will be mass producing vehicles capable of driving fully autonomously within five years. No steering wheel. No gas pedals. No brake pedals. A driver will not be required.

If someone had told you 10 years ago — even five years ago — that a major American car company would announce the mass production of a vehicle with no steering wheel, you would have said they were crazy.

This seems like a remarkably ambitious timetable for such a vehicle. Would you buy or ride in one of these in five years, assuming Ford can pull it off (which I don’t think they’ll be able to)?

As discussed last week, something designed minimally doesn’t necessarily mean it is well-designed. As Apple design guru Jonathan Ive aptly notes, “simplicity is not the absence of clutter…simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product.” Following along this train of thought, Core77 reader constellation23 recently brought up a brilliantly simple question with a variety of points to consider. Our reader asks:

“How do you know when something is overdesigned?”

Very good question.

Today, we’re releasing Google Duo — a simple 1-to-1 video calling app available for Android and iOS. Duo takes the complexity out of video calling, so that you can be together in the moment wherever you are.

Not a big surprise that Google has entered this market.

Adobe:

The Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan features the world’s best photography tools, including Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom desktop, mobile and web at an amazing price. Everything you need to organize, edit, enhance and share stunning photos on any device, anywhere.

Automatically get access to the latest features and product updates including support for new cameras, hardware and operating systems and access an extensive library of video tutorials to get you up to speed quickly and master new skills.

Adobe has the “Creative Cloud for Photography” plan that gives photographers access to both Lightroom and Photoshop for $10/month. If you use them on any kind of regular basis, it’s a decent deal and I say that as someone who uses both apps but hates subscription services.

Through Amazon, Adobe is offering $25 off the usual price of $120 when you pre-pay for a year. It’s applicable to both new and existing subscribers. Full disclosure: the link is attached to my Amazon Affiliate Code.

The Loop reader Andrew Leavitt shared these pics of The Oculus Mall at the World Trade Center with us today. This is the same mall where the new Apple Store will be, although it was behind barriers when these pics were taken.

Reuters:

Apple Inc will boost its investment in China, one of its most important but increasingly difficult markets, and build its first Asia-Pacific research and development center in the country, Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Tuesday.

Apple’s new research and development center will be built by the end of the year, Cook told Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, one of China’s most senior officials, according to the official Chinese state broadcaster.

It’s hard to overstate Apple’s desire and need to be successful in China. It has become one of, if not the most important market in the world for them.

Alex Kavutskiy:

We all sat down and watched Airplane!. We input every joke into a Google Excel Sheet, gave each joke a score from 1–10 (whole numbers only), set the document to automatically average the score for each joke, and, after the movie was over, we sorted the jokes from highest to lowest average score.

If you’ve never seen “Airplane” (what is wrong with you!?), these may seem like stupid, silly jokes. If you have seen “Airplane”, you’ll likely laugh out loud at these stupid, silly jokes. But you also might be surprised at what the number one joke was.

David Chartier, writing about his sea change experience going from watchOS 2 to the watchOS 3 beta:

A big help are the new tools in the iPhone app which make customization of Watch faces and complications much faster. But the real star, for me, is the huge performance and speed increases for third-party apps, including the new quick-switching Dock that takes the place of the previous friends wheel. As far as I know, developers cannot yet publicly release updates for watchOS 3 (whereas a number of iPhone and iPad apps have already updated in the App Store), but even current apps start up and simply run better. In a word, they’re usable now.

This is definitely my experience as well. David make’s an interesting point here: The big performance change is purely based on existing app code, not on code tuned specifically for watchOS 3.

Jason Snell, writing for Six Colors:

The thing that makes Castro 2 stand out is its approach to curating your podcast playlist. New episodes of subscribed podcasts appear in the app’s Inbox tab, in chronological order with the most recent item at the top. You tap on an episode to reveal a horizontal toolbar of action buttons, which let you quickly play the episode, add it to the bottom or top of your podcast queue, or banish it to the archive.

The net effect of this is quick podcast-episode triage, all focused around a single playlist.

As always, solid writing by Jason.

On a related note, I think there’s room in the podcast player space for better discovery, for more, “if you like this, you’ll like that” or for tools that let you walk the tree of podcasts to make your way into an area of interest, whether that be startup mechanics, sports, or interviews with celebrities.

9to5Mac:

Apple isn’t an official Olympics sponsor, but it’s managed to still take advantage of the event for its own marketing purposes with limited-edition Apple Watch bands themed with country flag designs. Not only is it selling those watch bands for 14 different country flags to coincide with the Olympics this month, it’s also reportedly giving them away for free to athletes at its Apple Store in Rio.

Citing a firsthand account from a team manager for Germany, iphone-ticker notes the Apple Store is giving away two free bands to accredited Olympic athletes, effectively allowing it to market its product during the games without an official sponsorship of athletes or the games itself. Athletes can get the two free bands through the VillageMall Apple Store in Rio after showing proof of being an Olympian, according to the report. The bands normally sell for $49 US each.

And from this Reuter’s article, Apple’s tactic for a little Games glory:

Samsung is mobile phone sponsor of the Rio Games and sells its handsets exclusively to hundreds of thousands of visitors flocking to Olympic venues – but Apple is tempting some of them outside with its own unofficial Games merchandise.

It is using an Apple Store about six miles (10 km) from the main Olympic park as the sole outlet for special-edition Apple watch bands. Some buyers, including top athletes, have been proudly advertising their new bands on social media.

The watch bands do not feature the iconic Olympic rings logo or the word “Olympics”, which are for the exclusive use of sponsors like Samsung. Instead, they come in a choice of 14 national team colors, including the United States and Canada. A Brazil-themed nylon band was close to selling out this week.

“While they don’t appear to be breaking any rules, they appear to be getting really close to the edge of ambush or guerilla marketing,” said Jeff Benz, who arbitrates disputes for international dispute-resolution firm JAMS and is a former general counsel at the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Samsung has long been an official Olympic sponsor. With that approximately $100 million price-tag comes four years of exclusivity.

Forbes:

Univision, the Spanish-language television and news organization, has formally submitted a bid for bankrupt Gawker Media, two sources close to the negotiations told FORBES. It is unclear how much Univision has offered for the New York-based group of news websites, which now has at least two offers on the table as it goes through a court-supervised auction.

On Monday, interested parties were expected to submit bids by 5 p.m. ahead of the auction, which begins on Tuesday. Digital media firm Ziff Davis had already offered $90 million for Gawker’s seven main online properties, including Gawker.com, Deadspin and Jezebel, setting a floor or “stalking horse bid” in the auction.

A source familiar with the situation said that Vox Media, which owns sites such as Recode and SBNation, and Penske Media, the home of Hollywood publications Variety and Deadline, were expected to make a combined bid, but may not have made the deadline. That person also said that Gawker and Univision had been in “meaningful discussion for a possible acquisition” prior to Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy trial that drove the company to file for bankruptcy.

As noted, the floor price for this auction is $90 million. The award in the Hulk Hogan invasion of privacy lawsuit was $140 million. So it will take a significant auction bid-up just to pay off that award and give Gawker investors their first penny back.

The Mac Observer:

Warren Buffett bought some 5.41 million shares of Apple during the June quarter, according to regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The investment cost more than half a billion dollars, and represents a 55% increase in Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in Apple.

Mr. Buffett’s position puts him at odds with some other big investors. Reuters noted that David Tepper and Leon Cooperman recently began paring back on their position in $AAPL. Hedge funds have also reduced their positions in Apple as Apple faced its first year-over-year decrease in revenues in 13 years.

To be more accurate, Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, made the purchase. It makes a difference because, while Buffet has been personally critical of technology stocks, Berkshire Hathaway has recently hired a couple of tech fund managers who are much more bullish on Apple. That’s likely what happened here.

Fast Company:

Meet Bob Messerschmidt.

Apple quietly acquired Messerschmidt’s startup in 2010 (after Messerschmidt sent Steve Jobs an unsolicited email, but that’s another story). Afterwards, Messerschmidt was placed on the Apple Watch team, where he led a group charged with architecting new sensor technologies for the device. The heart rate sensors on the Apple Watch we know today are the creation of Messerschmidt and his team.

Fast Company has another in their very good series of interviews with key people at Apple.

Petapixel:

Want to see light pollution changes photos of the starry night sky? Photographer Sriram Murali‘s new time-lapse short film will show you. Titled “Lost in Light,” it shows different locations with progressively lower levels of light pollution.

“Imagine if we lived under skies full of stars. That reminder we are a tiny part of this cosmos, the awe and a special connection with this remarkable world would make us much better beings,” he continues. “But in reality, most of us live under heavily light polluted skies and some have never even seen the Milky Way. We take the skies for granted and are rather lost in our busy lives without much care for the view of the stars.”

If you’ve never had the opportunity to get far away from city lights to see the “true” night sky, you owe it to yourself to do it. Awe inspiring.

Priceonomics:

Is it any wonder that Americans will buy one billion rotisserie chickens this year, most of those from supermarkets or discount stores with grocery operations?

The price point of rotisserie chickens has captured consumers’ interest almost as much as the chickens themselves. At a typical supermarket, it might cost $7 or $8, the same as a fresh whole chicken in the refrigerator case. Less, in some stores. And the store pays for the herbs and the heat.

Why is rotisserie chicken so cheap?

This article was a lot more interesting than it had any right to be. I’ve never roasted a whole chicken, preferring to just cook the individual pieces I need (usually breasts or thighs, depending on the recipe) but, when I need a lot of chicken, I always grab a rotisserie bird from the supermarket if only for convenience and speed’s sake.

Castro 2 is the first app that is designed to help you expand your listening habits and track a broad range of shows without getting overwhelmed.

I use Castro and love the app.

Hayley Tsukayama brought up some fair points in her Washington Post article. I have two things to say about it: First, I don’t buy this “planned obsolescence” bullshit that’s talked about now and then. Apple makes incredibly long lasting products, so that notion is just ludicrous. Second, I see great things for a software button, if they decide to do it—3D Touch from the home button and who knows what else they can come up with.

Carolina Milanesi wrote an interesting piece at Tech.pinions:

But different is not necessarily bad. Tim Cook has a different personality than Steve Jobs and, as we learned from this week’s interviews, a different management style. We certainly see a more open, humble, inclusive, socially engaged leader that, in my view, has softened, not weakened Apple’s image as a company. As I mentioned, we cannot just look at management and think the Apple we see today has not been impacted by the markets it plays in. Let’s think about some of the things that are different today.

Tim Cook is a great leader and provides a human side to Apple that we have never seen before. I can’t imagine the challenges the management team goes through in preparing new products or working on the new products that we don’t even know about yet. In order to lose confidence in Apple, you would have to think they are no longer trying to innovate its current or future products—I don’t believe that.

To bolster the effort, Twitter is in talks with Apple to bring the Twitter app to Apple TV, which would potentially let millions of Apple TV users watch the streaming N.F.L. games, according to the two people briefed on the discussions.

It seems to me that Twitter is betting a lot on this streaming deal with the NFL. There was quite a bit of competition for this deal, but Twitter won. Now we’ll see if it pays off for them.

Tesla removed the word “autopilot” and a Chinese term for “self-driving” from its China website after a driver in Beijing who crashed in “autopilot” mode complained that the car maker overplayed the function’s capability and misled buyers.

It seems clear that there has to be a new term used for “autopilot.” People still need to understand they are responsible for their vehicles.

Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like. It’s 100% cloud-based, so you’ll always have the latest version and it can be accessed from any device, anywhere. It’s time to simplify work and keep people more connected than ever before.

Great anecdote.

At its core, this article is a review of Logitech’s new Create iPad Pro keyboard and case:

This new snap-on keyboard is (in my view) not only better than Apple’s, but it completes the smaller iPad Pro as a great productivity device. In fact, I’m writing this entire column using it. It’s from Logitech and it’s called the Create 9.7. It costs $130, which is $19 less than Apple’s Smart Keyboard for the 9.7-inch iPad.

I do see this as a solid solution to a problem: Finally, a case built with the Apple Pencil in mind. I find it incomprehensible that Apple did not solve this problem themselves.

As to replacing my laptop: As I’ve said many times before, the iPad won’t truly be a replacement for my laptop until I can develop iPad apps on one.

The linked New York Times piece is worth reading in its own right, with some interesting background on Twitter’s battle with Facebook for the right to stream and sell ads for the NFL’s lucrative Thursday Night Football games.

From the article:

To bolster the effort, Twitter is in talks with Apple to bring the Twitter app to Apple TV, which would potentially let millions of Apple TV users watch the streaming N.F.L. games, according to the two people briefed on the discussions.

Apple and Twitter declined to comment.

It should be noted that Thursday Night Football is said to draw an average of 13 million viewers. That’s on par with the highest rated prime time TV show, Empire.