Brad McCarty:

I had my first quarterly review a few weeks ago. Things didn’t go very well. Though I had exceeded a few of the goals that we set up when I started, there was one key area in which I had undoubtedly failed. That failure led to a stern discussion with my VP of Biz Dev (my direct boss) and the CEO (his boss).

Incredibly open article.

According to research from Parks Associates, Apple is the top brand in a wide range of categories, including tablets, laptops, smartphones, home networking routers, MP3 players, and streaming media devices.

So basically, Apple isn’t the top brand in cars and hockey sticks.

Businessweek:

Over the last two months, Bloomberg Businessweek spoke to dozens of current and former BlackBerry employees, vendors, and associates. Here is their account of the thrill of BlackBerry’s ascension—and the heartache of watching its demise.

Not a pretty story from RIM insiders.

Very sad.

Observatory:

Here’s my JCP story. It’s loaded with the things we love about this business: drama, crushed dreams, out-of-control egos and unintentional comedy.

Segall is a guy who was there and his timeline of the frequent missteps at JCP show a company and a board of directors that has no idea what they are doing. I predict JCP will not be around in less than ten years.

He leans forward. I can feel his breath in my ear.

“I’ve touched everybody on the nose, man,” he says, quietly. “There ain’t nobody I can’t touch on the nose.” He tilts to one side and says, “I know what you’re thinking. Just relax.” A while later, he says, “If I can touch you, I can kill you.”

Holy shit that must have been scary. The article is seven pages long, so plan ahead.

Great article from John Kirk.

There’s a “View All Images” link on the page so you don’t have to go through the slideshow.

Radiant Orchid. In other words, Purple.

US President Barack Obama admitted Wednesday he was not allowed to have an iPhone owing to security fears — explaining why he is sometimes seen with a bulky super secure Blackberry.

“I’m not allowed for security reasons to have an iPhone,” Obama told a group of young people at the White House for an event promoting his health care law.

He added that his daughters Sasha and Malia spend a lot of time on their iPhones.

I didn’t think that was the case any more.

The Loop Magazine Issue 16:

In this issue Brianna Wu looks at the status of women in the gaming industry; Matt Gemmell explains why he likes analog tools like pens and notepads to plan; Matt Dusenbury talks about how technology is supposedly helping our health; In New York, Seamus Bellamy takes a trip around town to all the pubs his favorite writer visited; and Steven Aquino talks about why he loves subscription music services.

Very smart. A place for Siri in your home so anyone can make use of the service.

In operation, a user would perform an initial setup that would include assigning an audio prompt, such as a spoken word or hand clap, that will be used to activate the unit and its services. For example, a user may want to set the prompt as a finger snap. When in listening mode, if the dock “hears” a finger snap, it will activate the iPhone’s voice recognition feature.

This opens up a lot of possibilities. Since Siri is constantly monitoring the airwaves, listening for a “go” command, why not let Siri settle arguments?

“I never said that.”
“Yes you did.”
Voice from the living room says, “Sorry, Dave, but you did say that, at 749 am this morning”
“Damn.”

A problem that occurs in small island nations:

There are only about 320,000 people living in Iceland. A small island nation, it’s also isolated from the rest of the world, so you don’t have a lot of immigration, historically, and therefore, you don’t have a lot of genetic diversity. In some sense, the vast majority of Iceland’s population are branches from the same family tree. So In 1997, a medical genetics research company called deCODE teamed up with the makers of computer anti-virus software to map it out. Using data from virtually every available source, the company now claims to have “genealogical information about the inhabitants of Iceland, dating more than 1,200 years back.”

If you have an Icelandic ID number (called a “kennitala”), you can log onto the Islendingabok (literally, “the Book of Icelanders”) and look up your genealogy. It’s a great tool if you’re single and want to avoid likely embarrassment before taking the relationship to the next level. As one Icelander told USA Today, “everyone has heard the story of going to a family event and running into a girl you hooked up with some time ago. It’s not a good feeling when you realize that girls is a second cousin.” Check the database, though, and you can avoid that.

This is interesting, certainly. But more importantly, as far as I can tell there’s no iOS app that mines this data, only an Android solution. So get cracking, iOS devs, Iceland needs you.

When you are in a face-to-face conversation, the person on the other side is constantly reading and interpreting your facial expressions, looking for feedback. If you offer a puzzled look, they might rephrase their words, without you having to ask.

Ever since Darwin, scientists have systematically analyzed facial expressions, finding that many of them are universal. Humans are remarkably consistent in the way their noses wrinkle, say, or their eyebrows move as they experience certain emotions. People can be trained to note tiny changes in facial muscles, learning to distinguish common expressions by studying photographs and video. Now computers can be programmed to make those distinctions, too.

Pretty interesting stuff. This seems like a natural evolution to existing facial recognition algorithms. Seems to me, the first company that comes up with a consistent solution to this problem will be ripe for acquisition.

There are privacy concerns, of course. Reading facial expressions is clearly a form of surveillance. And constantly reading my expression feels awfully close to reading my mind. Lots of unwanted thoughts flit across my face. But if it’s just me and my computer, I think I’m OK with that.

Wall Street Journal:

China Mobile Ltd. has signed a long-awaited deal with Apple Inc. to offer iPhones on its network, a person familiar with the situation said, an arrangement that would give the U.S. technology giant a big boost in the world’s largest mobile market.

Take this with a tiny grain of salt because of the “a person familiar with the situation said” line but we’ve been expecting this deal for several months.

Mashables:

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences on Tuesday revealed the new inductees into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The 27 recordings inducted bring the total in the hall to 960, including albums and singles that span from Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind” (1930) to Run-D.M.C.’s cover of “Walk this Way” (1986).

Like most lists of “Best of…” this one is likely to cause at least a little controversy. Which of these songs do you think don’t belong in the Grammy Hall of Fame?

A global ad campaign to promote Samsung devices, involving soccer stars and an alien invasion story, instead revealed that the fantasy campaign’s star manager Franz Beckenbauer tweets from his iPhone, not a Galaxy device.

Perfect.

Although the term is still whispered in cobweb-infested hallways to this day, it pretty much fell out of public favor once people realized you could affect “the fold” by simply turning your space phone sideways.

I chuckled when I read that, mostly because I spent years dealing with it. I’m glad that’s gone, but there are new ones to replace it.

I love reading Hemingway’s letters.

It’s $49,999, but I want it badly. I’ve heard great things about The Music Zoo—I’m going to buy a guitar there someday.

Why do people uninstall apps? Appiterate conducted a survey and discovered one reason stands above the rest: annoying push notifications.

I get that.

Jim and Dan talk about Apple’s stock movement, Apple acquisitions, the Beard Calendar, Amazon’s Drones, Slash’s pickups, and more.

For the new PlayStation 3 racing game Gran Turismo 6, the Mercedes-Benz designers have developed the visionary concept of a super sports car – the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo.

Imagine driving that in real life.

Read this XKCD cartoon, then change your weak passwords, then read the linked article.

I really enjoyed Ben Moss’ take on this.