North Korea Hacks Sony - How Does This Affect Us?

One of the big stories lately has been that of Sony getting hacked. I think everything has gotten a little out of control and of course, that means I need to give it a Renée twist. For those of you who haven’t been following, Sony Pictures Entertainment (the movie studio arm of Sony) was hacked near the end of November (it was discovered by employees on Monday, November 24^th). The hackers stole large amounts of information, deleted original information and generally damaged Sony’s network, causing it to be down for several days. Among the stolen information were 5 movies (4 unreleased), including Fury and Annie, which has its official release tomorrow. The movies were then released on file sharing sites and are being downloaded like crazy – this will definitely hurt Sony’s bottom line. The stolen information also included private company communications which interestingly enough have only been released to journalists so far (the documents are protected and only journalists were sent the password). These documents include some unflattering exchanges about Hollywood celebrities and some potential movie projects – Sony will definitely be doing damage control for a while.

Now the big question is, who hacked Sony? And following that, why did they hack Sony? Well it’s starting to look like North Korea hacked Sony. Why? Because they were outraged at the soon to be released movie, The Interview. The movie is a comedy where two journalists (played by Seth Rogen and James Franco) get an interview with Kim Jung-Un and are instructed by the CIA to assassinate him. There are so many things wrong with this movie – I honestly don’t understand how there was never a point where someone was like, hey guys, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. The movie focuses on assassinating the CURRENT leader of North Korea – a country that isn’t exactly known for its openness. Would any country be okay with this? What if someone made a movie about trying to assassinate Obama? Americans would go insane. What about the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel? Or Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper? Let’s be real - no country would be okay with a movie talking about killing their current leader, so why did Sony think this would be okay? Also, how did they not think that this would hurt relations with North Korea, which are already terrible? They are certainly never going to let a journalist in after this.

This movie feels like it was trying to be in the same genre as Borat, which was also a terrible idea, but at least he wasn’t talking about killing anyone. Now I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know what kind of commentary they provide about assassinations, but I think this shows how acceptable it has become for the government to kill leaders or people who have different ideas and values. We have come a long way from Executive order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan, which reiterates the U.S stand on assassination, stating that “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination”. This has been relaxed and stretched significantly since the war on terror began. But that’s a topic for another day.

So Sony gets hacked, and the demand is that Sony does not release the movie. This is accompanied by threats of 9/11 style violence against movie theatres that show the movie and against people who go see it. Sony wanted to make a movie with a political angle – now they get to join in the global political mess. Because of these threats, theatres started to pull out of playing the movie and so, yesterday Sony announced it would not be releasing the film at all – losing them at least $44 million (we know how much the film cost to make because the hackers released that information too). Sony then released a strongly worded letter to media organizations telling them to stop reporting based on stolen information and delete all copies they have. I find this particularly interesting because a lot of media organizations are owned by organizations that also own movie studios – for example, the Walt Disney Company also owns ABC News. While they are certainly interested in reporting breaking news, one could argue that they benefit from Sony being under attack because that’s one less competitor for them. Certainly none of the other large movie studios have come out and said anything to condemn the attacks.

I think the craziest thing about all of this is the most recent news that the U.S. government is considering a ‘proportional response’. A proportional response to what? The United States was not attacked – a company that is based in America, but is the subsidiary of a Japanese company, was attacked. The U.S. should almost be happy at the insight from these hacks, that 1) companies have weak security measures that need to be worked on to protect the information of their American employees and 2) North Korea has sophisticated cyber warfare capabilities. Besides, what are they going to do? North Korea is already incredibly isolated and sanctioned against – any actions will likely only hurt the people further. Will they hack North Korea back? Figure out a way to give everyone access to the internet and the truth? I feel like if they were able to do that already, they would have. Also, is the U.S. sure that they have better cyber warfare capabilities than North Korea? Do they really want to test that theory by turning the hackers’ attention to the U.S. government?

I’m not saying that we should be okay with what happened, but we should consider all the information before responding. One, this movie was a dumb idea and North Korea was right to be upset by it. Two, they hacked the company responsible for the movie and did damage to it, but did not overly hurt employees (while personal information was included in the hacked data, that data has not been released to the general public, only to journalists, who we can hope will keep that data private). Three, they asked (with threats) that Sony not release the movie, which Sony has decided to comply with. Four, the world is now aware of North Korea’s cyber capabilities and should increase their cyber security accordingly. That is all.

New Product Roundup: iPad Air 2, Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, Google Nexus Line, Blackberry Passport

The Apple saga never stops. On Thursday, the world was once again introduced to some new Apple products and they were, once again, underwhelmed. After all the mixed media they’d been receiving after their announcement in September, you would think they would want to come out with a bang, but apparently not. The new iPad Air 2 is, you guessed it, thinner and faster. Now that it’s 18% thinner, my question is, will it bend? But really, all Apple had to present was a few changes to their iPad Air: a special coating to make it the least reflective tablet on the market, Touch ID, new cameras, and an M8 processor. I’m not sure how that last feature is even useful, unless there are people out there who carry their iPad around with them absolutely everywhere. There was also the iPad mini 3 (with Touch ID), a new iMac with Retina 5K display, and an upgrade to the Mac Mini.

I read a really interesting article that said that Apple’s strategy was to “have its customers fit themselves into a product’s core principles – and then innovate from within that self-selected box” (Chris Maxer, Technewsworld). Basically, Apple thinks that they’ve mastered the tablet and that it doesn’t need any significant form changes. Well let’s just say that Lenovo disagrees, and has released a stellar product by actually listening to what consumers want from their device.

This video talks about how Lenovo created the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro (with help from Ashton Kutcher, oddly enough). I have to say, this tablet looks amazing. It’s a 13 inch tablet with a great display (2560x1440), 2GB of RAM, support for up to 64GB of storage, 15h of battery life, a subwoofer and kick stand that flips all the way around to let you hang your device if you so need to.  The special bonus feature is that it has a projector built in to it, allowing you to project your screen for others to see. It’s running Android 4.4 KitKat and costs $499. What more could you want?

Next I want to mention the newest devices from Google. On Wednesday, Google introduced us to the Nexus 9 (an 8.9 inch tablet), the Nexus 6 (a 6 inch smartphone), the Nexus player and the newest Android mobile operating system (Android Lollipop). My first comment, is that I think it’s very strange that they had different manufacturers make each of these devices. The Nexus 9 was made by HTC, the Nexus 6 was made by Motorola (which is owned by Google, but is being sold to Lenovo at the end of the year) and the Nexus Player was made by Asus. This seems like it would cause a lot of confusion and differences between the products, which is strange considering they are all part of the same product line. The only reason I can think of, would be that the more manufacturers they get involved in building Nexus devices, the more likely these manufacturers will stay loyal to Android.

The Nexus 6 is an interesting move, Google’s first “Phablet” and a phone that has a larger display than it’s two biggest competitors, the iPhone 6 Plus (5.5”) and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (5.7”). The Nexus 9 falls between the iPad mini and the iPad Air. Then we have the Nexus player, which is the first device with Android TV, which allows people to play Android games on their TV, and to send entertainment to it from any Chromebook, Android or iOS device. This is a particularly interesting device considering Apple did not release a new version of their Apple TV, and appears to be pulling out of the home entertainment market altogether.

The last company I want to mention, is Blackberry. It looks like they may be mounting a comeback. In a blog post a while back, I made fun of the blocky Blackberry Passport, but it turns out that there are people who like it! The passport pre sold 200,000 units in the first two days of being available, selling out in 10 hours on Amazon, and in 6 hours on Blackberry’s website. While that’s nowhere near Apple numbers (10 million iPhones in the first weekend), it’s certainly a positive turn of events for the Canadian company that focuses on the “30% of the market that sees their phones as a tool, not as an entertainment portal” (John Chen, Blackberry CEO).

With all of that said, there are likely to be a lot more products released in the lead up to the holiday season. It will be interesting to see which kind of products consumers choose. 

Apple Takes a Beating in the Media

This month has been full of up and downs for Apple and it’s not even over yet. I think it’s quite interesting to see how quickly the media jumped off the “Apple can do no wrong” bandwagon and jumped onto the “We expected so much more” bandwagon. I mean there were days (and weeks and months) that I thought I was riding this wagon solo, but this change of events has been so drastic that I actually feel bad for Apple. I want to talk about this, not because I’m pleased that Apple is failing, but because I want to show just how fickle the media is.

This month started off well for Apple, with the launch of the new iPhone 6 (and 6 Plus) and the Apple Watch. CNN said that the new product launch was “one of the most ambitious product launches in its history”, while Gizmodo said “this is Apple’s biggest year yet”. People were excited and wanted to get their hands on an iPhone immediately (don’t ask me why). For customers on the east coast that meant getting up at 3AM (I actually know someone who did this) to place your pre-order. And here is where the first problem occurred. Apple’s online store in the US was down for 2 hours and 25 minutes, leaving people frustrated. And when people are frustrated, they take to Twitter to vent (and come up with clever tweets like “Guy in charge of the Apple store fell asleep listening to the new U2 album”). I would have thought at this point, they would be able to forecast demand and prepare for an increase in traffic, but apparently not. All of the online Apple stores outside of the US weren’t affected (you would think the US site would be the one they would make sure worked). It appears Apple is also unaware of Canadian geography, confusing Toronto and Ottawa on their pre-order map. This led to a lot of jokes that they must have been using their own mapping software instead of Google Maps. 

However, Apple fans aren’t so easily deterred. And so, it was announced that Apple had sold 10 million iPhones in the first weekend, beating last year’s record of 9 million. Not only that but Tim Cook stated, “we could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible”. So, why didn’t you have greater supply Apple? At this point I have to assume it’s a strategic tactic, making the products scarce to increase the demand, and it always seems to work.

But then, things started to go downhill. First, we have “bendgate” as it’s being called. Proud owners of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus started to notice that if you left the phone in your pocket for most of the day (as most of us do), that the phones started to show a slight bend. My first reaction is, how is this even possible?? Numerous companies have been releasing 4.7” and 5.5” phones for years and they all managed to prevent them from bending, but then Apple (who is supposedly the pinnacle of technology) can’t succeed at this? I’m going to presume that it had something to do with the fact that Jony Ive’s design department has far more say than in any other technology company and forced engineering to cave into some sort of weaker casing, but who knows. Its hard to believe, considering how much attention to detail he, and Apple, put into everything. Apple’s response to all of this was to say that they have only received 9 bending complaints to date, which I presume was a way of saying, stop overreacting. I think people aren’t reacting so much to the bending, as to the idea that Apple may have messed up. They then stated that their products go through rigorous testing and invited a few members of the press to their testing labs to see this.

I think the best part of all of this was the creative ads that other companies came up with to make fun of Apple. Everyone from LG, Samsung, Nokia, Coca-Cola, Kit Kat, Pringles, Heineken, etc. I think it shows just how important real time advertising is becoming and how everyone wants to be a part of the conversation, regardless of what it’s about.

And just when you think Apple may have managed that crisis effectively, they are hit by another one. The disaster that is iOS 8 and it’s updates. Originally iOS 8 had some glitches that needed to be worked out. But then, the first patch (iOS 8.0.1) caused even more issues. For a lot of users, it disabled their cellular connection and made Touch ID stop working altogether (which means users couldn’t even get into their phone if they had a fingerprint password). It was so bad that Apple pulled the update and decided to try again. And so they soon released iOS 8.0.2, which apparently is causing the same issues for users in Australia, but everyone else is fine.

Overall, I’m sure it’s been a hectic couple of weeks for the people over at Apple. All those people who waited to get their iPhone's (knowing that the first batch usually has some issues), are probably feeling pretty smart right about now. I think that every company makes mistakes (although some of these are fairly significant) and that it's only such a big deal because the media, and people, have put Apple on such a high pedestal. I wonder if it will cause anyone to rethink buying a new iPhone.

Apple's Newest Releases: iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, Apple Pay & Apple Watch

This week Apple had a huge announcement where they finally unveiled the products that everyone had been waiting for. On Tuesday, Apple introduced the world to the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple Pay, and the Apple Watch. Let’s start with the iPhones. Not only did Apple finally give in and make 4.7” phone, they went even further and made a 5.5” phone as well. So after years of refusing to shift away from the 4” sized phone, they have now abandoned it all together. I find this interesting because a lot of Apple fans that I talk to say they love the size of their phones and that other phones are too big. I’m assuming we won’t hear much of that now that Apple has told them that a bigger phone is better. I’m curious to see if the 5.5” ‘phablet’ sized iPhone takes off, and if it cannibalizes iPad mini sales. I honestly think that making their phone bigger – at least 4.7” - is a good move for Apple, if a bit behind the curve. The new phones have a new processing chip (A8), a better camera, and NFC technology, which allows them to implement Apple Pay.

Apple Pay is a mobile payment system meant to replace your wallet and all your cards. Essentially you load your cards and information on your phone, and when you want to buy something you tap it (the same way you would tap a credit card) and put your finger on the fingerprint sensor. Of course it only works on the new iPhones, and with certain companies/retailers. While Apple could be the company to make mobile payments takeoff, I think it also has several concerns to face. Security is a big issue considering the recent hacking of iCloud accounts that led to the release of nude pictures. Apple says that the place you’re buying from doesn’t get any of your financial information, and that Apple doesn’t either, but I’m not sure how much I believe this. If Apple can push the new U2 album to everyone person who has iTunes (users get the album for free), to help break some records, then I’m pretty sure they can collect data about your purchase habits. One part of Apple Pay that wasn’t announced on Tuesday, is that Apple gets 0.15% of all payments made with Apple Pay. That’s 15 cents for every $100 spent, and that’s going to add up quickly.

While a lot of retailers are on board (McDonalds, Staples, Walgreens, etc.), some companies aren’t planning on implementing Apple Pay any time soon. Walmart and Best Buy both stated that they have no plans to equip their stores with NFC scanners. Both of them have given their allegiance to a retailer owned mobile commerce network called MCX (Merchant Customer Exchange). MCX uses an app (available next year) that is available on both iOS and Android devices, allowing the technology to be used by a much wider range of people. Considering the impact that Walmart has on the marketplace (it pretty much single handedly got companies to switch to RFID tracking), it could definitely affect which mobile payment systems take off.

Lastly, is the Apple Watch (which is horribly named, in my opinion – even iWatch is better). I felt kind of bad for Apple because the expectations were so high for this product. And while it isn’t bad, it isn’t amazing either. Apple clearly attempted to make their product customizable, but only with the physical hardware. There are 2 sizes, 3 different watch faces, and 6 interchangeable watch bands. There are also physical buttons, which remind me of the original iPod with the scroll wheel. I’m not sure why the buttons are necessary, but we’ll see how they improve the user experience. The watch pushes your phone notifications to you, it functions as a mini iPod, it’s a fitness tracker, it works with Apple Pay and you can control your Apple TV with it, among other things. While it’s arguably the best smartwatch out there right now, it certainly doesn’t blow anything out of the water. It incorporates a lot of the similar features and ideas of other smart watches, and the design leaves you looking for more. However it is the first iteration and lots of improvements are sure to be made in the future. Still, it’s a hefty price to pay ($349 USD) for something that simply saves you the convenience of pulling out your phone. Like other smart watches, the Apple watch has to be charged every night. It also won’t be available until sometime in 2015.

Overall, I think this was a good day for Apple. Nothing revolutionary was introduced, but they are working on new things, and often their strength is improving on the ideas of others. Tim Cook did say that Apple is working on products that haven’t even been rumoured about, and that he still thinks improvements need to be made to TVs. Now the media will have to find something new to expect from Apple, continuing the endless cycle of hype.  

Smartwatches: Rumours Vs. Reality

For the past couple of months there have been plenty of articles speculating on Apple’s ‘iWatch’. However I think it’s starting to get slightly out of hand. For one, Apple has not announced, hinted, or mentioned that they will be releasing a smart watch. They did hint at ‘new product categories’ for 2014, and so far we haven’t seen anything. I’m pretty sure that analysts have been saying an iWatch is coming soon, for about 2 years now. Some now say the watch is coming in September, or October, or November, or maybe people will have to wait until 2015 – how will they survive? 

My favourite assessment was from Tech News World: “Apple apparently is facing wide ranging production issues involving components, system design, manufacturing, and integration between hardware and software.” Or maybe they just haven’t finished designing it yet? Considering they have never announced the product, let alone a release date, how can they possibly be behind schedule? All this speculation leads to updates like this: “Apple iWatch rumours remain strong despite few leaks. We could still see or at least hear about an iPhone-compatible smartwatch at September’s iPhone 6 event (Tech Radar).” So really, you know nothing.

The quote that really gets me is this claim: “There’s a good chance that smartwatches won’t explode in popularity until Apple brings both an excellent product and an eye-opening marketing campaign that reveals why a smartwatch or health band is so cool and necessary (Tech News World).” Because nothing matters until Apple does it. Except for the fact that as of Q2, Android has an 84.7% global market share (http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp), and a lot of that growth is attributed to the growth of the low end and ultra-low end segments. None of those people will be able to use an iWatch because Apple operates in a closed system.

Let’s take a look at the alternatives to the rumoured iWatch – products that already exist and are compatible with devices used by the majority of the world.

Samsung Gear Live. Considered the best smart watch in the market (for now), this watch lets you send and view emails and texts, change your music, track fitness stats, and answer or reject calls, among other things. It also incorporates Google Now, which will push you updates on your favourite sports teams, traffic, weather, etc. The watch isn’t meant to replace your phone, it’s meant to reduce the number of times you need to pull your phone out. It also allows you to use voice commands; by saying “OK Google”, you can set appointments, ask questions, navigate somewhere, and so on.

LG G Watch. This watch is very similar to the Gear Live. It has a slightly larger screen, however its' resolution is lower. The LG watch has a larger battery, which may help considering battery life is an issue with the current smartwatches. Most smartwatches last about a day (about the same as a smartphone), which means having to plug it in every night. Because Google won’t allow custom firmware or user interfaces, you essentially get the same experience on both watches.

Moto 360.  This watch has been announced, but isn’t yet released. It’s going to feature a custom screen, one that is round instead of the square screens we’ve seen so far, and will conserve battery life when not in use. No price or release date have been announced, but it’s likely to be debuted early September at the Motorola event.

Of course, all of these products are works in progress – the first in a series is never the best. It may take them a while to figure out exactly what it is customers are looking for, but it looks like this time Apple will be the one playing catch-up. 

Thoughts On The Apple-IBM Partnership & Amazon's Rough Week

The big news this month was the announcement that Apple and IBM have partnered up to deliver better enterprise solutions to large corporations. Essentially IBM will be selling iPads and iPhones with custom apps to help deliver complete enterprise solutions to big business. These devices will include IBM cloud services, a new enterprise focused Apple Care and all the solutions you need for security, analytics, etc. This is apparently putting the best of both companies together – Apple can focus on making great hardware and operating systems, while IBM can focus on enterprise solutions and IT support. While this all sounds wonderful – especially for the apparent 98% of Fortune 500 companies that use iOS devices even though Apple provides sub par solutions for big business – it’s a lot easier said than done. 

Apple can claim that this will be a partnership, but when have we known Apple to give up control of anything? They’ve created a closed operating system that doesn’t allow for user changes, they control what apps are released in the App store, they controlled the global prices of e-books, but now they will allow another company to sell their devices with alterations? Aside from Apple having control issues, I think they are underestimating how difficult of a task this will be. They are asking IBM to design and develop specific applications and security features for an operating system it didn’t build. Will these devices need a customized rollout for each big company? What happens to employees that follow BYOD – bring your own device? Will their phones need to be altered or replaced? I think that Apple and IBM have a long way to go before this partnership is feasible - this announcement is primarily meant as a scare tactic.

I’m sure as soon as they announced this, all the analysts were going crazy trying to figure out who this would hurt the most. Already there were some journalists saying Microsoft would lose its hold on enterprise or that Blackberry’s revival was doomed. Blackberry doesn’t seem too worried – CEO John Chen’s response was to say that the partnership was like “when two elephants start dancing”, whatever that means. Lots of noise, no results? The partnership has certainly started speculation about Blackberry potentially collaborating with another company, with Dell being one of the names thrown out there. As for Microsoft, they’ll be just fine. While they may not be winning on the mobile front, the majority of businesses still use PCs, even if they may not have upgraded to Windows 8. 

However, an interesting point was made by the media. Will Apple and IBM do anything to combine their ‘computer selves’ – Siri and Watson? What kind of outcome can we expect if they do? One of the funniest things mentioned by the media was the fact that businesses are struggling with the complexity of managing big data and that maybe there can be greater insights if they are available on the ‘easy to use iPads and iPhones’. Maybe they think Apple can magically make big data simple enough for everyone to use – good luck with that.

I want to end off by talking about how Amazon has had a rough week. They announced that they lost $126 million this quarter, even though they had a 23% increase in revenue. They’re investing so much in new products and services that they’re simply spending more than they make, even if they continue to make more and more. Investors are starting to get antsy, especially because Amazon announced that they are expecting to lose $810 million next quarter, but CEO Jeff Bezos is trying to explain that it’s about the long haul. Of course investors want to see a return on investment but Amazon just isn’t that kind of company. Bezos has a huge dream and wants to continue expanding – especially now that Chinese giant Alibaba (which is bigger than Amazon and Ebay combined) is trying to get into the U.S. market. I think Bezos is right when he says that this is not the time to slow down – although i’m not sure if there will ever be a time for slowed growth.

As a side note for those avid Twitter/Amazon users, you can now buy things without leaving Twitter. You just sync your two accounts, reply #AmazonCart to any tweet containing an Amazon link and when you wander back to Amazon the item will have already been added to your cart. I’m not sure how useful this will be to most of us, but it’s certainly the start of an interesting trend.