This Week In Mobile
Our Statement on Black Lives Matter
Since George Floyd’s murder we, like many of you, have taken a long and hard look at the foundations of our nation and the role systemic racism plays in our society and our criminal justice system. It is an outrage that Black Americans are 3 times more likely to be killed by police than white …
Working the Pandemic
42.6 million people — that’s more than a quarter of the total US labor force — have claimed unemployment benefits in the last 11 weeks. Of those, 21.5 million remain without work. The Labor Department is about to release its nonfarm payroll report for May, and economists surveyed by Dow Jones are expecting a decline …
Where Have All the Devs Gone?
Last week another 3 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance, bringing the 8-week total to 36.5 million. Before COVID-19 took hold, unemployment was at a 50-year low. Now it’s at its highest point since the Great Depression. Labor shortages are a given. This is an unprecedented disruption in manufacturing and in shipping; crops go unharvested; …
At the Drive-In
On a warm June night in 1933, auto-parts salesman Richard Hollingshead charged Camden, New Jersey motorists 25 cents a person to watch Wives Beware from the comfort of their cars. A month before, he had patented a ramp system for cars to park at different heights so everyone could see the screen. The show was …
Playing the Game
During our BiTE team call last week we got all nostalgic for the days of real game shows. Joe went down the YouTube rabbit hole and spent his weekend watching old episodes; we mused on where those big winners are now. We talked about how much better they were Back When — not the new, …
Droning on About Privacy
Even as certain unnamed world leaders are suggesting people inject disinfectants to treat COVID-19 (…), tracing efforts at least are moving ahead more rapidly than expected. European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton reports Tim Cook will deliver an early version of Apple’s and Google’s contact tracing tech to developers on April 28. …
Tracking the Spread
While most of us are getting used to the new normal of quarantine and social distance, for tech companies it is a brave new world of close collaboration. We looked at the mutually beneficial partnership between long-time frenemies Apple and Amazon, and now Apple has entered into an unprecedented, globally beneficial relationship with perpetual rivals …
Pandemics, Paid Streaming, and the Pace of Progress
Tigger, Self-portrait, 2020 We said we weren’t going to talk about anything related to…the situation this week, but COVID-19 has woven itself into everything and altered the way we live, the way we work, and the way we look to the future. Or, more specifically to today’s column, the speed with which the future is …
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