This week’s episode is back to our usual format, with a News Roundup to kick things off, a Question of the Week, and a third segment, followed by a Weekly Pick.
Our News Roundup covers three stories: firstly, Snap (nee Snapchat) released its Spectacles hardware and reportedly confidentially filed IPO documents with the SEC; secondly, Twitter introduced some muting options to help combat abuse and harassment, while also kicking several figures from the “alt-right” movement off the service’; and thirdly, the fake news story we discussed last week continued to evolve this week with Facebook and Google both making news.
Our Question of the Week is “What are the implications of Samsung buying Harman International?” Aaron did some research this week into this acquisition and its implications, and answers questions about what exactly Samsung is buying, what Harman’s connected car business does, and how the two companies might bring their assets together, and lastly how this is likely to impact consumers and the broader tech industry. (We also weigh in on the idea that Apple should have bought Harman instead).
Our third segment combines a couple of Apple-related items: Jan shares a summary of his MacBook Pro review from earlier this week, and we also discuss the new coffee table book Apple launched this week about its design.
We wrap up with our Weekly Pick, which this week is a movie recommended by Jan.
As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.
We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.
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Show notes:
Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:
- News Roundup:
- Snapchat IPO story from Reuters
- Twitter muting and filter announcement
- Mark Zuckerberg post on fake news, Google announcement on fake news sites, Sundar Pichai comments
- Question of the Week:
- Investor presentation from Samsung and Harman
- Connected Car information on Harman’s website
- Infotainment and telematics supplier market shares from Strategy Analytics
- Harman/Fiat car hacking story from last year
- NY Times story on Samsung Harman acquisition.
- Jan’s review of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
- Apple’s design book press release
- Apple design book video.
- Jan’s Weekly Pick was the movie The Light Between Oceans, which will be available on DVD and digital services in January (Apple and Amazon affiliate links).
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