Newsletter Issue #968
June 25th, 2018THIS WEEK’S TECH NIGHT OWL RADIO UPDATE
The question is the same: How will Apple distribute all the TV shows it will create over the next year or so. Will it be a supplement to Apple Music, say Apple Music and TV, or will it be a totally different service? Will Apple just offer the shows a la carte, on a series pass, or establish a new streaming service?
Indeed, does the world even need another video streaming service?
Loads of people have Netflix around the world, and it’s producing hundreds of original shows every year. That and its large library of existing content is enough to satisfy many people, but it’s often supplemented by, say, a basic cable or satellite package that provides broadcast channels, a small number of free cable channels, and maybe some other odds and ends. Or perhaps a similar general-purpose streaming service, such as Sling TV from Dish Network or DirecTV NOW!
At one time, Apple was rumored to be working on a streaming TV package, but evidently couldn’t reach a deal with the networks. The reasons are unknown, but some suggest it was mostly about Apple’s stringent demands, a common excuse. By creating its own content, the entertainment companies are bypassed, but it would take years to build a big library, and that would ultimately involve returning to the industry to license content.
But the streaming sector is saturated. There are probably too many services as it is. So I still expect it to be included as part of Apple Music. While some suggest Apple wouldn’t recover the estimated billion dollars it’s spending on its TV project, it plans for the long term, and it doesn’t matter if the existing Apple Music structure doesn’t deliver a huge profit. It’s just one more factor that ties people into Apple’s ecosystem. Apple didn’t make profits from iTunes at first either.
Now on last weekend’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, we presented a special featured encore episode in which we presented Major General (Ret) Earl D. Matthews: He spent three decades at the nexus of big budgets and cybersecurity, including stints as Director, Cybersecurity Operations and Chief Information Security Officer at HQ, U.S. Air Force, and VP for Enterprise Security Solutions at Hewlett-Packard. In his current role as Senior VP and Chief Strategy Officer at Verodin, Inc., he champions the concept of security instrumentation, a process that continuously validates the effectiveness of each security element in place. During this episode, he covered the gamut of cybersecurity issues that included the privacy issues at Facebook, the DNC hack, along with managing your personal privacy at a time when tens of millions of Americans have had their credit reports hacked. Major General Matthews also revealed two episodes of ID theft that impacted his own family.
You also heard from tech columnist and former industry analyst Joe Wilcox, who writes for BetaNews. During this episode, Joe explained why he regards Apple’s Siri voice assistant as worse than Microsoft’s Skype, despite all the connection glitches with the latter. Will hiring former Google executives help Apple make Siri more responsive and accurate, without sacrificing your security? You also heard about Google I/O and Android P, and about all those fake news reports that the iPhone X was unsuccessful. For two quarters straight, however, Apple reported that the iPhone X was not only its best selling Apple smartphone for each week it was on sale, but the hottest selling smartphone on the planet. Gene shared his 20 years experience with the iMac, which began with the original Bondi Blue model that he beta tested for Apple as part of the former Customer Quality Feedback (CQF) program. You also heard about the Apple Watch and whether it makes sense for Apple to switch Macs from Intel to ARM CPUs.
On this week’s episode of our other radio show, The Paracast: On an anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s UFO sighting, Gene and returning guest cohost J. Randall Murphy host cryptozoologist and Fortean Loren Coleman. Loren discusses the weird deaths of paranormal authors, Ufologists, Mothman-linked folks, Superman personalities, and celebrities. Do these clusters of deaths have any significance, or is it all about coincidence? Will those copycat hangings involving such notables as fashion designer Kate Spade and comic actor Robin Williams continue? What about the reality behind such creatures as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and Thunderbird? Loren is founder and director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I don’t recall the first time I bought a car with a keyless-entry remote control, commonly known as a key fob. I did some quick research the other day and ran across an item about the 1983 AMC/Renault Alliance as providing support for a remote that allowed you to lock and unlock the doors. But I was never a fan of AMC’s cars.
I also ran across a mention of a 1987 Cadillac Allanté, an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at building a two-seater roadster for the luxury brand. It was yet another car in which I had no interest whatsoever.
Now I can’t exactly recall the first car I purchased with one of these electronic gizmos, which are, of course, coded for a specific vehicle. It may have been a Honda Accord, but it still started conventionally. A real key popped out of the fob and the ignition assembly was traditional.
My last two cars, the one totaled last year and the one I own now, have a push button on the center console to turn the ignition on or off. Not so long ago, such a feature was mostly available strictly on expensive cars, but gradually filtered down to the more affordable vehicles.
While those key fobs are supposedly reasonably secure, they aren’t perfect. One of my guests on the tech show some months back, an “ethical hacker,” said you could compromise a key fob for many makes and models with a $35 device. It required being near the fob when it was scanned. I suppose that means they could be hiding in the bushes near a busy shopping plaza.
So is there a way for Apple to help provide a more secure option for a digital key system?
Well, according to a published report in AppleInsider, a new standard for digital keys has been published by the Car Connectivity Consortium, of which Apple is a member. It would allow you to use an NFC-enabled smartphone which includes both high-end Android and any iOS device that has Apple Pay support, to unlock doors and motor vehicles, among other things.
In effect, it would recognize your iPhone and other gear as a substitute for a key fob. Supposedly it’ll offer a higher level of security than existing keyless-entry systems can achieve, and I would believe that for Apple’s gear. Then again, if you can duplicate the data from an existing key fob with a $35 device, I suppose most any secured solution ought to be better. More to the point, however, would be the method by which your mobile handset is activated. Would it require pairing it with your existing key fob, or will auto makers and lock manufacturers provide specific support to enable such a feature?
As with any new system protocol, however, it will take a while for you to see it appear. Car makers usually develop new vehicles a year or two out, so it may not happen until 2020; that is, assuming you can’t adapt existing systems, and I suspect you can’t if it requires custom chips to provide added security.
As with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, CCC support may first appear on expensive vehicles and gradually filter down to the models that regular people can afford
In other words, when the standard finally shows up in a wide variety of cars, I may be too old to care.
THE FINAL WORD
The Tech Night Owl Newsletter is a weekly information service of Making The Impossible, Inc.
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