AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Apple and the FBI, and, by extension, the rest of the federal government has been locked in an epic battle that will define what privacy in America means. Parsing through the carefully worded statements from both sides and smoke created by the media and tech pundits, the government does want a backdoor or a key to the whole iOS walled garden so they can access user data whenever they want while Apple is fighting to prevent that from happening. Despite claims to the contrary, making tech companies build backdoors to their devices or platform is the ultimate goal of the government. However, a recent development in the fight between Apple and the FBI shows that the government cannot be trusted to use the technology correctly much less responsibly. The government has a tough job fighting crime and keeping the public safe in light of the recent events of terror on both sides of the Atlantic. With both the Paris and San Bernandino attacks fresh in minds of the public, the governme...

Source:   Bloomberg . When the mobile phone companies owned every aspect of their customers' experiences, it was a blissful world.  They get to maximize their investment, squeeze every last cent out of their customers, and hardly had any competition.  Along came Silicon Valley, and the struggle continues to this day over the mobile experience which has largely been revolutionary.  So, what else is new when telecoms complained about Whatsapp, a $20 billion buy by Facebook, that continues to be one of the top go-to app for messaging and voice calls. Here is the real news alert:  telecoms don't like Skype, Facebook, Google Hangout, iMessage, Line, and any dozens of messaging and voice apps that exist.  No longer can companies charge 10 cents per  message or charge users a monthly allotment of texts.  No longer are voice calls metered (most plans anyway). And here is the shocker to come:  mobile payment.  More control will be wrestled ...

Just works is the mantra many attributes to Apple and its products and services.  For the most part, it is a very true statement.  But because of the nature of its successes, when something does not just work as advertised, it gets amplified in the media -  traditional and social. First, it is important to state that with more than 1 billion devices in the wild still being used and who knows how many Macs there are, it's quite obvious that people are using Apple's products and services including, yes, iCloud and other cloud related services.  Now, it does not mean that Apple's implementation works as well as, say, when Apple introduced the world to the iPod and iTunes. Back then, yeah, it just works.  It was air tight as far as what Apple wanted the iPod and iTunes to do for the user.  Today, with more services, it is a much harder task to accomplish.  Many still do not care for Apple's native mail app for instance.  While vastly improved, other a...