Andrew Baisley

Long live the Colbeard!

German watchmaker Junghans introduces the 2015 Max Bill Chronoscope. Boasting a 38mm case holding a modified Valjoux 7750 displaying both time and date, the latest Max Bill Chronoscope iteration highlights a simple, yet refined styling as a complementing brown leather strap supports the timepiece. A trio of function nobs adorn the side profile of the headpiece, providing user-friendly modification functions, adding to the minimal yet sophisticated design approach. Fit for a number of casual and professional settings, the Junghans 2015 Max Bill Chronoscope will release in May at select retailers worldwide.

Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast.com

If it comes as a surprise that the New York metro area is one of the loudest regions—by decibel, not mouthiness—in the country, then kindly stop living under that rock. The National Park Service has confirmed this through a study of noise levels across the country. In addition to finding that an average summer day in New York City rings in above 50 decibels, it found that areas like Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park sound in at about 20 decibels, or the equivalent of silence as deep as before European colonization (h/t 6sqft). Most cities in the country averaged between 50 and 60 decibels.

The scientists behind the study determined the sound level by collecting and feeding acoustic data into an algorithm, which further accounted for variables like air and street traffic. The NPS is collecting the data to help determine where manmade noise is affecting wildlife and their ability to function to collect food. Well, however it shakes out, the city's swan population doesn't seem to notice.
· New Map Reveals the Loudest and Quietest Places in the USA, As Suspected NYC is Noisy [6sqft via Science]

There’s reality, and there’s Redmond, and if one thing marked the last few years of Steve Ballmer’s tenure as the CEO of Microsoft, it was the sense that those were two distinct locales. In reality, Android (plus AOSP in China) and iOS were carving up the world phone market; in Redmond Ballmer doubled-down on the losing Window Phone bet by buying Nokia. In reality Office was losing relevance because of its absence on the mobile platforms that mattered; in Redmond Ballmer personally delayed Office on iOS until the Windows Modern née Metro version was finished.¹ And in reality, all kinds of startups were taking aim at the Microsoft enterprise stack; in Redmond, Microsoft was determined to own it all, just as they had in the PC era.

This attitude was laid out clearly in Ballmer’s One Microsoft memo that introduced his misguided reorganization of Microsoft:

We will reshape how we interact with our customers, developers and key innovation partners, delivering a more coherent message and family of product offerings. The evangelism and business development team will drive partners across our integrated strategy and its execution. Our marketing, advertising and all our customer interaction will be designed to reflect one company with integrated approaches to our consumer and business marketplaces.

The problem with an integrated approach for Microsoft in particular is that the company’s bread-and-butter – enterprise software – was even then undergoing a dramatic transformation from on-premise software to cloud-based services. The benefits of cloud offerings are well known: flexibility, scalability, access from anywhere, automatic seamless updates, predictable operating expenses instead of lumpy capital expenditures, the list goes on and on. There is, though, in the penumbras and emanations of these well-known advantages, particularly flexibility and seamless updates, an even more significant – and disruptive – advantage to the cloud.

Consider your typical Chief Information Officer in the pre-Cloud era: for various reasons she has bought in to some aspect of the Microsoft stack (likely Exchange). So, in order to support Exchange, the CIO must obviously buy Windows Server. And Windows Server includes Active Directory, so obviously that will be the identity service. However, now that the CIO has parts of the Microsoft stack in place, she is likely to be much more inclined to go with other Microsoft products as well, whether that be SQL Server, Dynamics CRM, SharePoint, etc. True, the Microsoft product may not always be the best in a vacuum, but no CIO operates in a vacuum: maintenance and service costs are a huge concern, and there is a lot to be gained by buying from fewer vendors rather than more. In fact, much of Microsoft’s growth over the last 15 years can be traced to Ballmer’s cleverness in exploiting this advantage through both new products and also new pricing and licensing agreements that heavily incentivized Microsoft customers to buy ever more from the company.

The cloud, though, changes that. Once you remove the burden of support and maintenance – that’s handled by the service provider – it suddenly doesn’t necessarily make sense to buy from only one vendor simply because they are integrated. There is more freedom to evaluate a particular product on different characteristics, like, say, how easy it is to use, or how well it supports mobile. And it’s here that Microsoft products, particularly the hated SharePoint, were found to be lacking.

This is the context to view yesterday’s announcement from the Microsoft Office team:

We want Office to be the preferred way to work with documents no matter where they’re stored. In November we announced a special partnership with Dropbox to make it easy to access, edit and share Dropbox files from the Office apps. And today, in addition to the existing Dropbox integrations, we’re pleased to announce two new integration features for an even broader set of cloud services: First, file picker integration for the iPad and iPhone; and second, Office Online integration for viewing and editing.

The file picker is pretty straightforward: on iOS devices you can use the built-in picker to open, edit, and save documents from any storage service that is plugged in to the document picker extension, whether that be Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Box, or even Google Drive. The Office Online integration, though, is even more interesting: you could, for example, access your Box folder through any browser, click on a Word document, and edit and save it from Word online (just as you can do today through One Drive).

Continuing with the blog post:

While these may seem like small enhancements, these new features represent a big step forward for Office integration into the apps and services that are important to our customers.

This move is more than a big step forward for Office integration; it’s a big step forward in Microsoft’s fundamental positioning when it comes to the cloud. To date Microsoft’s cloud strategy, particularly around Office 365, has mostly mimicked their behind-the-firewall strategy: leverage one service to drive usage (and revenue) from another. Thus, Office 365 only worked with SharePoint, for example. In the cloud, though, absent a CIO’s desire for an integrated solution, this is a purely artificial limitation that instead of propping up SharePoint threatened to hold Office 365 back.

That is because there is in fact a need for an integrated solution on mobile. Look at Box, for example: the company obviously has a cloud component, but they also have multiple apps for every relevant – and non-relevant! – platform resulting in much better functionality than what Microsoft previously had to offer. Multiply that advantage across a whole host of services and it starts to make sense for the CIO to modularize her backend services in order to achieve integration when it comes to how those services are accessed:²

Before today, though, Office was disadvantaged in two ways: first, the productivity applications couldn’t fully partake in this new modularity because they weren’t well tied-in to other services. Secondly, though, and most importantly, this limitation meant the mobile experience just wasn’t as good as it could be. And to not be good at mobile is to not be good period.

Office 365 cannot afford to risk not being good on mobile, because there is one final piece to this puzzle: identity. The primary reason all of these modularized services work together is because access is tied to a centrally-managed identity store, and a very important feature of Office 365 is that it includes Azure Active Directory, the cloud-version of Microsoft’s identity service. This is Microsoft’s single best hold on the enterprise, and thus making Office 365 as useful as possible not only makes the service itself attractive but also positions Microsoft well to continue its hold on identity.

All that said, I must admit, as much as I think this move makes sense, I didn’t see it coming. When Microsoft announced the previous deal with Dropbox I wrote in the Daily Update (members-only):

I highly doubt that Microsoft will ever strike a similar deal with Box: the company is simply too competitive with SharePoint, one of Microsoft’s core offerings.

That sort of integration strategy is dead, though, killed by the cloud with an assist from mobile. And, fortunately for Microsoft, it seems the alternate reality that a mere year-and-a-half ago made said integration the company’s stated strategy is just as dead.³

---

There will be no Daily Update February 19-20 as I will be celebrating Chinese New Year

The post Redmond and Reality appeared first on stratechery by Ben Thompson.

On Sunday, Sunnyside welcomed a new, authentic Chinese dumpling joint to the neighborhood. Dumplings & Things opened at 45-26 46th Street, right near the Sunnyside arch. According to Sunnyside Shines, this is the second location of the business; the first outpost is located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Says Sunnyside Shines: “Sibling owners Lorraine Li and Sam Li, along with their family, bring many years of experience preparing the dough, dumplings, noodles and sauces that has made their first venture so successful.” The menu — which you can see in full after the jump — includes five types of Chinese dumplings with pork, chicken and vegetable varieties. There are also noodles, soups, baos and rice platters, including pork belly noodles, sesame noodles with peanut sauce, and braised beef baos. You can see photos of the food and interior space after the jump. Dumplings & Things is open Sunday through Thursday, 11:30 am… Read More

“ This is a pretty neat idea to have it come from a case ”
– Kris Minkstein

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The Nike+ Fuel App is the iOS counterpart for the Fuelband, Nike's wearable health tracker, which allows you to track your daily activity. Well now you can use the application without the Fuelband itself. Through an update released yesterday, the application connects with your iOS HealthKit, merging your NikeFuel Points with the Apple app. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s includes movement tracking sensors that allow the apps to track your movement for health metrics, and Nike has applied its own system of NikeFuel points which can be displayed in your HealthKit. The FuelApp is free, and requires iOS 7.1 or higher to use, but the HealthApp is only available on iOS devices using 8.0 and higher. Nike closed its FuelBand hardware operations last year, and it seems that the sportswear giant is looking to implement their Fuel technology as a service with Apple from now on. Check out the Nike+ Fuel App in the App Store here.

Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast.com

“ A really slick and addictive football/soccer management game by a really talented team. 16 seasons in and i still can't put it down. ”
– Pete Roome

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The Bitcoin mining industry is a tough and intrepid one to be involved in. Companies need specialized servers that require powerful computers with adequate cooling systems to support the massive amounts of energy being used. Footage of such a server located in an abandoned factory in Changcheng, China reveals workers' daily routines inside a world of infinite wires, high-powered computers and fans. This particular mine houses 3,000 miners that extract 20-25 Bitcoins a day. It was started by a small group of friends who raised funds and put all their money to invest in what they believe is the future of currency systems, but at a costly price -- for starters, the mine racks up an electricity bill of about $80,000 USD a month. Keep in mind that a factory such as this one only manages 3 percent of the whole blockchain -- in other words, the main transaction database that all computers of the Bitcoin system are linked to. It's incredible how extensive of a high-tech mess is needed to handle such a small portion of the whole process. Do you think Bitcoin cryptocurrency is the inevitable future that we are heading towards? Check out the video above.

Read more at Hypebeast.com

Architect Andrew Franz has transformed the top floor and roof of an 1884 caviar warehouse, into a contemporary open plan residence in New York.

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With Chinese New Year just around the corner, companies in China are gearing up to dish out new year bonuses to employees. It's claimed that the "Web Companies Annual Meeting Gift List 2015 (Confidential)" has compiled a list of awards offered by some of the top tech firms to those who have performed exceptionally within the past year. One bonus in particular caught our attention: one company is allegedly enlisting one night with famous Japanese porn star, JULIA(京香じゅりあ). Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360 is supposedly offering such an award with the 27 year-old, who already has a massive fandom in China and has starred in many adult films. The bonus is nestled right in between a brand new Porsche 911 and a five-day trip to Bali. Neither Qihoo 360 or the other companies listed have denied this information. What would you rather: a new car, an all-expenses paid vacation, or one steamy night with a Japanese porn star?

Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast.com

NOJI Architects have designed a contemporary brick addition to an existing home in Dublin, Ireland.

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[All photos by Andy Ryan for New York]

The O'Neill Building, located at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 20th Street in Chelsea, is a stone cold stunner when it comes to historic cast iron buildings, so when Bade Stageberg Cox Architecture was hired to redesign a condo inside, they wanted to do the building justice. Jane Stageberg told New York Magazine that the existing unit "was fine," but the family wanted more bedrooms and a better connection to the neighborhood. The exposed interior cast iron columns provided inspiration, and the design team "took care in the new layout so that [they] could expose those columns and reveal them in strategic places."

[All photos by Andy Ryan for New York]

The previous kitchen was closed-in, so the makeover opened it up with suspended shelving that features "custom-designed perforated powder-coated screens" and walnut shelves that match the walnut dining room table. A third bedroom was added, but to avoid sacrificing openness, a transom window was added over the children's room to let light through to the hallway.

[All photos by Andy Ryan for New York]

· Tour a Masterfully Redesigned Ladies' Mile Apartment [NYM]
· All coverage of 655 Sixth Avenue [Curbed]
· Adventures in Interior Design archives [Curbed]

“ PhoneExpander can clear out the temporary files that are secretly filling up your phone. ”
– Eric Willis

Discussion | Link

Over the years Apple has established itself as the industry leader in the area of retail experience, but may soon find some stiff competition coming its way. E-commerce giant Amazon is reportedly in talks with RadioShack to purchase a number of brick-and-mortar stores from the failing electronics chain, and use them as showrooms for products as well as pick-up and drop-off locations for online orders. While Amazon has built its entire business online, the physical presence will allow the company to showcase its growing range of hardware, including the Kindle tablets, Fire smartphones, and the new Echo speaker.

Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast.com

Getting The Tonight Show treatment, Jimmy Fallon puts his own spin on the iconic 90's TV sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Having recently moved The Tonight Show from New York to sunny Los Angeles for a week, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was the perfect welcome. With special guest appearances in the spoof including The Roots, Alfonso Ribeiro (also known as Carlton) and DJ Jazzy, Fallon gives the classic American sitcom a hilarious remake. Check it out above and let us know what you think.

Read more at Hypebeast.com

When Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan designed this home in São Paulo, a sculptural screen wall designed by the famous Erwin Hauer was included on the top floor. The result is a white volume that allows some light to pass through, creating patterns wherever it falls.

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Twitter’s crucial 2014 fourth quarter earnings report is due next week (February 5th, 2015), and co-founder Jack Dorsey has conjured up a 17-tweet \"tweetstorm\" in defence of the company, its platform and its CEO.

Twitter needs a big win in this release – analysts and investors will be looking for positive signs of growth in monthly active users (MAUs) and increased profitability. Once chief exec himself (now chairman), Dorsey knows how important this report is – if Twitter drops the ball, the stock, already down significantly from its 2014 highs, is going to be seriously punished.

And it will probably cost current CEO Dick Costolo his job.

So, what better way to convince skeptics than with a tweetstorm?

\"Is this thing on?\" Dorsey asks in his first of seventeen tweets, before posting, \"I have some things I’d like to say. To start… the tweetstorm!\"

Here’s the rest of his updates.

3/The folks using Twitter daily created the @username, the #hashtag, and the retweet, all within the constraint of 140 characters.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

4/The @, #, and RT have become cultural movements and have influenced every social and communications service since. Even offline.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

5/The \"tweetstorm\" and #/tweet syntax is a (clever) way around the 140 character constraint. Once again created by people using the service!

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

6/I think it beautifully showcases Twitter's real strength: simple and engaging live conversation. From anywhere about anything!

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

7/A service that enables the people using it to create new cultural practices is a service that is evergreen. Twitter is that service.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

8/And now, the team at Twitter. The team today is excellent in every way and is having a tangible positive impact on our pace and execution.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

9/We saw that Tuesday with a string of amazing launches that are making Twitter even better: https://t.co/5XWnxpNmQN

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

10/As for @dickc, our cofounder @ev rightly pointed out there isn't a single person who has been thinking longer about Twitter than @dickc.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

11/@dickc was one of our first angel investors, our advisor, our COO, the creator of our revenue engine, and our CEO who assembled the team.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

12/And finally, the company. I don't know of many companies that also represent a movement. Twitter does.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

13/Twitter has more global awareness than most century old companies, and yet the brand actually stands for something.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

14/The Twitter bird has come to stand for empowerment and a positive force in civil society.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

15/The company constantly shows this spirit in action, especially in policy. And it's built a great business to enable that to flourish!

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

16/I think Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness. And I believe the world needs that right now.

— Jack (@jack) January 29, 2015

Dorsey then signs off with, \"That’s all. Have a great day!\"

Phew.

There are two ways to look at this. One, that Dorsey is super-proud of Twitter (rightly so) and wants the world to know, and to be honest it’s hard to disagree with most of what he says in his musings. Twitter is an important service that has changed the planet, giving millions of people and many nations a voice and the means to be heard.

The flip side, of course, is that Dorsey is scrambling and getting as much \"good stuff\" out there as possible because he’s aware that Twitter’s earnings next week aren’t going to cut the mustard.

We’ll know the answer come February 5th. Watch this space.

John Gruber is, as only he can, relishing the claim chowder – his collected bits of analyst wisdom sure, again and again, that Apple is doomed.

Apple, of course, is not doomed. In fact, the company is the very opposite of doomed, having just posted the best quarter of any company, ever.¹ The analysts Gruber mocks were not just wrong (and, as everyone knows, they are only a small part of a much larger sample), they were hilariously wrong, and cost their clients millions of dollars.

And yet, the perception that Apple is somehow hanging on by the skin of their teeth persists. I was speaking to someone about Apple’s particularly excellent China results this afternoon, and was struck at how their questions were so focused on threats to Apple – “How will Apple respond to Xiaomi” for example. This is in stark contrast to the way most think about a company like Google, where their dominance in whatever field they choose to enter is assumed, just as Microsoft’s was a decade ago. Apple, though, is always a step away from catastrophe.

It’s difficult to overstate just how absurd this is, but here’s my best attempt: last quarter Apple’s revenue was downright decimated by the strengthening U.S. dollar; currency fluctuations reduced Apple’s revenue by 5% – a cool $3.73 billion dollars. That, though, is more than Google made in profit last quarter ($2.83 billion).² Apple lost more money to currency fluctuations than Google makes in a quarter. And yet it’s Google that is feared, and Apple that is feared for.

I’ve previously, in one of the first ever posts on Stratechery, tried to figure out why it is that people keep getting Apple so wrong; I chalked it up to an over-reliance on modeling and magical manager syndrome. And, while I think that is still true, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that much of the reporting and analysis about Apple specifically and tech broadly is governed by bad assumption on top of bad assumption on top of bad assumption:

Bad Assumption 1: Markets are monolithic

If you look at a market monolithically, simple math dictates that the average will be most heavily influenced by the majority. And, income distributions being what they are, the majority of customers in any market will have less money, and likely be inclined to prioritize price. Ergo, monolithic market analysis necessarily concludes that customers prioritize price.

Markets, though, are not monolithic. They are wildly disparate, able to be endlessly segmented not just by income, but by a whole host of demographic and psychographic factors. In every market there is a segment of people who have the means to buy nice things, and there is a segment that values a superior experience. These segments quite often overlap, to Apple’s benefit.

Bad Assumption 2: Consumers only care about speeds, feeds, and price

The old hoary chestnut that “Apple only wins because its advertising tricks people into paying too much” was raised in my Twitter feed last night, and while the holders of such an opinion are implicitly saying others are stupid, my take runs in the opposite direction: it’s not that people are irrational, it’s that human rationality is about more than what can be reduced to a number. Delight is a real thing, as is annoyance; not feeling stupid is worth so much more than theoretical capability. Knowing there is someone you can ask for help is just as important as never needing help in the first place.

Apple spends an inordinate amount of time and resources on exactly these aspects of their products. Everything is considered, from the purchase to the unboxing to the way a webpage scrolls. Things are locked down and sandboxed, to the consternation of many geeks, but to the relief of someone who has long been conditioned to never install anything for fear of bad actors. Stores – with free support – are just a few miles away (at least in the US), a comfort blanket that you ideally never need. All of this is valuable, even though much of it is priceless, only glimpsed in an average selling price nearly triple the industry average.

Bad Assumption 3: Apple’s talk about “making the best products” is for show

Apple executives have again and again stated some variation of the line Tim Cook delivered during his prepared remarks on yesterday’s earnings call:

Apple’s mission is to make the greatest products on earth and enrich the lives of others

Surely it can’t be so simple! Surely to believe such tripe is the ultimate in fangirl-hood. And, in fact, I hesitate to write about stuff like this, for fear of the fanboy angle. This blog prides itself on calling things as I see them, not as I wish they were. At a more fundamental level, I’m much more concerned with the underlying strategies and trends that govern companies, and the incentives that ultimately decide how effective those strategies are.

It’s incentives, though, that make Cook’s line so believable. If you believe, as I do, that there is a segment of the market that is not strictly governed by the lowest price, and if you further believe that customers value products that deliver more value than what can be reduced to a number, then you believe there is an opportunity to create best-in-breed experiences for a handsome price. In this view, Apple’s focus on “making the best products” is perfectly aligned with their market opportunity.

To put it another way, is Apple concerned with making the best product, or with making the most money? The answer is yes.

And so they have.

The post Bad Assumptions appeared first on stratechery by Ben Thompson.

REACT Channel filmed a handful of senior citizens playing Grand Theft Auto V for their first time. The elders were given absolutely no information about the game other than the basic controls. The video follows the players' journeys and captures their reactions. Watch the hilarious video above to see them progress from abiding traffic laws and slowing down for pedestrians, to becoming trigger-happy woman-hitters who admit that "it's very fun to do naughty things."

Read more at Hypebeast.com

“ Hey guys, one of the co-founders of @luna_sleep here. We have spent the last year working on a smart mattress cover and we are finally getting it out there. I’m excited to get PH’ers feedback and I’m here to answer any questions you have. PS: if you pre-order through the PH link you can get up to 35% off (depending on the size) ”
– Massimo Andreasi

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These days, it's common to put Nutella in our lasagna and macaroni in our tacos, but back in 2011, the innovative minds at M. Wells Dinette were putting spaghetti on their sandwiches—and now they're back to their old tricks! Montreal-style M. Wells empire makers Hugue Dufour and Sarah Obraitis are bringing back their popular Spaghetti Sandwich to the MoMA PS1 outpost, so we spoke with head Chef Aidan O'Neal about the sandwich's origin, the current reincarnation and the future of sandwiches at the restaurant. [ more › ]

Whether its via French press or another countertop device, the perfect cup of coffee is a generations-old pursuit. For the guys at Brooklyn-based Poursteady, the pour-over technique is largely unparalleled in terms of taste. The technique has been long favored amongst baristas for its exactness – and thus its even taste and finish – but is also the most time-consuming. Poursteady, an automated machine, amends this by taking the guesswork out of measuring water, pouring the necessary amount every time with precision and ease. Check out the video above to learn more, and head to the brand's website to find out how to bring this innovative machine to a café near you.

Read more at Hypebeast.com

“ This app is hilariously fun. It draws a censored blur over the color of a person's skin giving the impression they are nude. Thanks @mattellsworth ”
– Tristan Pollock

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