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Google’s Search Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency

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Wired writes about how Google’s Search Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency:

The thing is, though, even though it’s tempting to think of algorithms as the very definition of objective, they’re not. “It’s not really possible to have a completely neutral algorithm,” says Jonathan Bright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies elections. “I don’t think there’s anyone in Google or Facebook or anywhere else who’s trying to tweak an election. But it’s something these organizations have always struggled with.” Algorithms reflect the values and worldview of the programmers. That’s what an algorithm is, fundamentally. “Do they want to make a good effort to make sure they influence evenly across Democrats and Republicans? Or do they just let the algorithm take its course?” Bright asks.

Scary to think about the implications – intentional or not – of skewed search result data. Ultimately, people are building these algorithms and even if their intent is truly ‘good’, the possibility of pushing people one way or another is real. On a somewhat related note, there was a good Atlantic article last fall about a similar concern with Facebook.

Redesigning the Apple Watch UI

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Luke Wroblewski (who, by the way, is worth a follow on social media and on his blog) talked about Redesigning the Apple Watch UI:

When wearing an Android Wear smartwatch, I found myself keeping up with more than I do when wearing the Apple Watch. A simple scroll up on Wear would give me the latest content from several apps ordered by relevance. In their current state, Glances on the Apple Watch don’t give me that lightweight way of staying on top of the information I care about. Their inclusion in the Apple Watch interaction model seems, instead, to complicate moving between tasks (and apps).

Some great suggestions on ways to make the Apple Watch a platform to more easily keep up with notifications, especially the ones you care about. I agree with him that 3rd party complications will help with this when watchOS 2 is released.

Hackers can remotely steal fingerprints from Android phones

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ZDNet, reporting on how Hackers can remotely steal fingerprints from Android phones:

The threat is for now confined mostly to Android devices that have fingerprint sensors, such as Samsung, Huawei, and HTC devices, which by volume remains low compared to iPhone shipments. But down the line by 2019, where it’s believed that at least half of all smartphone shipments will have a fingerprint sensor, the threat deepens.

and:

The researchers did not comment on which vendor is more secure than others. But, Zhang noted that Apple’s iPhone, which pioneered the modern fingerprint sensor, is “quite secure,” as it encrypts fingerprint data from the scanner.

The scary thing is that this isn’t exactly the sort of password you can change if things go wrong.

Browser battery consumption

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Power consumption of the worlds most popular websites calculated on different browsers:

TL;DR; If you’re a MacBook user, you’re losing an average of 1 hour of total battery life by using Chrome. Firefox is a little better, but Safari is the clear winner. You’ll want to use Safari if you want to get the most battery out of your laptop.

Can’t say I disagree with the findings. I use Chrome as my main browser most of the time but it is a resource hog compared to Safari, who has quietly pushed out some great updates over the past year (with more coming this fall).

Finally, a Good Google Podcast

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I’ve been searching for a good Google podcast for a long, long time but my search may be over. I’ve give Material’s first 4 episodes a listen and it’s very entertaining. What makes it better than most is their keen understanding that for their chosen platform to be great doesn’t mean the competition needs to be bad. They tackle topics in a very engaging, thoughtful manner and avoid bashing the competition – instead focusing on what makes Android/Google their platform of choice. Doesn’t hurt that 2/3 of the crew are former iOS users, so they have good perspective about both platforms.

I highly recommend it, give it a shot!

Don’t order the fish

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Marco Arment on Apple Music:

But the iTunes Store back-end is a toxic hellstew of unreliability. Everything that touches the iTunes Store has a spotty record for me and almost every Mac owner I know.

And the iTunes app itself is the toxic hellstew. iTunes has an impossible combination of tasks on its plate that cannot be done well. iTunes is the definition of cruft and technical debt. It was an early version of iTunes that demonstrated the first software bugs to Grace Hopper in 1946.

Probably not coincidentally, some of iTunes’ least reliable features are reliant on the iTunes Store back-end, including Genius from forever ago, iTunes Match more recently, and now, Apple Music.

I feel like iTunes 13 has to be a re-do.  Maybe I’m wrong, but Apple Music is such a bolted-on mess compared to the relatively well-done iOS versions that 12.x has to be a placeholder for a fairly ambitious rewrite.

Right?

New stuff from WWDC 2015

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A great gist listing all of the New stuff from WWDC 2015:

Here’s my own list of the interesting stuff announced during this year’s WWDC, collected from the keynotes, various Apple docs, blog posts and tweets.

I missed a ton of the SDK stuff especially, so it’s nice to have a consolidated list for reference.

A Watch, Water and Workouts

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Craig Hockenberry:

In case you haven’t guessed by now, I love my Apple Watch. I find myself working out more and having a better understanding of my overall health.

I’m also thrilled that the watch is working so well with my favorite workout: swimming in the ocean. Despite some hiccups in functionality, I still get enough information to improve my performance and extend my goals.

I hope this the information in this report will help others understand what the watch can and cannot do in the presence of water. I also hope my experiences will help Apple improve the watch’s capabilities for swimming workouts.

Pretty cool to see how well the Apple Watch performs in the water overall. I’ve avoided really doing much more than rinsing mine off after running but it’s encouraging to know it can stand up to way more than that.

Twitter co-founder Ev Williams wants developers to come back

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Twitter co-founder Ev Williams wants developers to come back:

Williams also suggested that it was time for Twitter to look for new ways to connect with software developers and to take another stab at making Twitter a platform. Twitter  famously went to war with developers several years ago when it restricted developers’ access to the API that allowed developers to grab Twitter data for their own use.

This is a very good thing if it actually comes to pass.  While I like what Twitter has been doing lately with their native iOS app, their Mac and iPad apps are horribly out of date.  I’m a Tweetbot user on the Mac and waffle between Tweetbot and Twitterrific on iOS, but would love to see even more innovation in the Twitter app space.  Right now, developers’ hands are tied.