I’m not particularly interested in whether or not the Google Duplex demo was faked. (The fact that Google didn’t even think to address the ethics of the technology was far more interesting—and frightning—to me.) But if I had to guess: Google made a real phone call, but to someone who had been prepped to follow a very specific script. That way, they were sure to get the responses they wanted. Not so much a complete fake as a contrived circumstance that didn’t demonstrate how this…

As more details emerge in this massive scandal over employee non-poaching agreements, I can’t help but think of something I said to my brother a few years ago: If you don’t own a piece of the company you work for, you’re always getting screwed. It doesn’t matter if you’re a senior VP making 30 Million a year. You’re still getting a sucker’s share of the overall take. What Jobs and Schmidt started here was absolutely atrocious. But it’s not even remotely surprising.…

I never had any interest in Gmail. Back in the mid 2000s, when everyone was jumping on the Gmail bandwagon, I was perfectly fine with my mac.com email address (which I had signed up for within five minutes of Steve Jobs’ announcement at Macworld New York 2000). People always complain that Apple’s Internet services suck, and they are right in many cases. But mac.com email has always been rock solid for me. I can count on one hand the number of times my account has actually been…

Android’s Market Share Is Literally A Joke | Tech.pinions – Perspective, Insight, Analysis: “The company that buys market share must inevitably go out of business or reverse its course and fight its way back up to profitability. The company with the value and the profits, on the other hand, has the advantage of holding the high ground and can choose to take market share at will.” (Via John Kirk for Tech Opinions.) This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with developers on the App Store trying to get to…

It occurs to me that the people trading barbs about the whole maps controversy on iOS are wasting time and getting bent out of shape about nothing. There’s a very simple and logical way to decide which maps app, Google’s or Apple’s, you want to use. If you live in an area where Apple’s map data sucks, use Google. If you live in an area where Google’s map data isn’t as good as Apple’s (Yes, those places exist.), use Apple’s. If you…