Stephen Hawking asks a big question of Mark Zuckerberg
Technically Incorrect: In a Facebook Q&A, Mark Zuckerberg's intellect is tested by one of the world's great minds.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
Stephen Hawking woke up Tuesday morning and immediately summoned his handlers.
"Look, one of the world's most foremost scientific minds is holding a Q&A. We must ask him something," Hawking declared.
They convened all morning before deciding the most important question to be asked. At the appointed hour, they leaped upon Facebook to participate in Mark Zuckerberg's one-hour Q&A.
The very last sentence is true. What came before is my dramatic interpretation. But here was Hawking's question: "I would like to know a unified theory of gravity and the other forces. Which of the big questions in science would you like to know the answer to and why?"
Was this a trick question? Was the great thinker trying to catch the slightly robotic social-media pusher in an intellectual trap?
Zuckerberg thought for some time before answering: "I really wish science would tell me how I can sell more ads."
No, wait. What he actually replied might to some seem even more entertaining: "I'm most interested in questions about people."
Zuckerberg's protestations that he's really a people person have often incited suspicion. Too many times it's seemed like he was on a relentless quest for nerdy domination and that people were merely beings who needed to be weaned off ancient notions like privacy.
Perhaps love and wealth have mellowed his perspective, for the Facebook CEO continued: "What will enable us to live forever? How do we cure all diseases? How does the brain work? How does learning work and how we can empower humans to learn a million times more?"
Please, Mark, stop there. Some people might feel they've already learned too much. How moving, though, that Zuckerberg's utopia is one where we know everything and live forever.
And it only got worse. For then Zuckerberg offered: "I'm also curious about whether there is a fundamental mathematical law underlying human social relationships that governs the balance of who and what we all care about. I bet there is."
Yes, our Lord and Master of All Humans wants to makes human relationships understandable through math. How utterly convenient that would be for, say, the CEO of a company that wants to know everything about everyone at every moment?
It's like this, Mark. People are insane. Really quite insane. They'll tell you they don't like white cars or Audis. Then they'll buy a white Audi. They'll tell you they like lovers who are reliable, don't do hard drugs and have respectable careers. Then they'll go and date a cocaine-snorting DC lobbyist.
There is no mathematical formula for our madness, Mark. Please give it up.
I should note that Arnold Schwarzenegger also asked an important question of Zuckerberg. He began it as if he was a tabloid correspondent interviewing, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger: "You've got to be one of the busiest guys on the planet, and younger generations can probably relate to you more than they can the Pope."
Um, yes. Bless you, Arnie.
So what was the Terminator's question? "So tell me how you find time to train and what is your regimen like?" He added: "And will the machines win?"
I really can't bring myself to describe how the Facebook CEO flexes his (physical) muscles. I can confirm, however, that he said the machines don't win.
I worry, though, that after he wrote this, he added a smiley-face emoticon.
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Apple Music goes live, courtesy of latest iOS software update
After years resisting subscriptions, Apple hits play on a $10-a-month streaming music service Tuesday with a three-month free trial.
Apple Music, a late entry by the electronics giant into the competitive subscription streaming music race, is live.
Apple on Tuesday fired up the new $10-a-month service in more than 100 countries as part of an update to its iOS mobile operating system for devices like the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Anyone can try it out free during a three-month trial.
The service is the belated entry into subscription streaming tunes by the company that revolutionized the music industry more than a decade ago as recorded tunes morphed into digital formats. Apple's loyalty to the 99-cent download let startups like Spotify, which dominates the subscription business, gain steam. As downloads decline and streaming options surge in popularity, Apple Music is the electronics giant's bid to come off the sidelines and remain relevant to consumers' changing habits. However, Apple needs to prove that the unique elements of its service are enough to convince people to pay.
Apple Music can be found in all iOS gadgets after the update, but you can also listen on Macs and PCs. The new version of iOS with Apple Music was available starting at 8 a.m. PT, and a worldwide 24-hour live radio station, Beats 1, was planned to go live at 9 a.m. PT.
After the trial period, elements of Apple Music will remain free: You can listen to Beats 1 with advertising integrated into hosts' patter, you can play other radio stations with ads and limited song skips, and you can follow and view artists' feeds through a featured called Connect.
For years, Apple was dismissive of subscriptions. Founder and former CEO Steve Jobs called the model "bankrupt" in Rolling Stone in 2003 and told Reuters "people want to own their music" in 2007. Apple's success with downloads backed up his stance even after his death in 2011: A year ago, Apple revealed it had sold 35 billion songs since launching iTunes.
It has only been in the last year that streaming music's growing popularity has started to erode the download business. Worldwide revenue from digital subscriptions jumped 39 percent last year while download sales fell 8 percent, according to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a global trade group for the music business.
Like rivals such as Spotify, Apple Music provides commercial-free access to million of songs on demand, and it has sections that make personalized recommendations based on your listening habits and -- in Apple's case - your iTunes history.
Unlike others, Apple Music features the live radio element of Beats 1 alongside the expert-curated stations and Pandora-like options that are common to its peers. Apple also differentiates itself with Connect, which gives artists the ability to share audio, video, photos and posts directly with fans. Additionally, it integrates Siri voice commands like "play the top song from 1993" and "add Drake's latest album to my library," and Apple Music offers cloud storage for 100,000 songs.
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Sprint bids adieu to $50 iPhone plan in the name of clarity
The wireless carrier will instead promote an "All-In" plan that includes $60 for the plan and $20 for the smartphone.
Sprint wants to clear things up when it comes to how much you pay for your smartphone service. For those hoping to sign up for its iPhone plan, that means a $10-a-month hike.
The nation's third-largest wireless carrier on Tuesday (Eastern Time) introduced its "All-In" campaign, an effort to educate customers on what they'll actually end up paying each month. The "All-In" price for unlimited talk, text message and data is $80 a month, which includes $60 for the service and a $20 leasing fee for a base-model smartphone such as a 16-gigabyte iPhone 6.
Sprint positions the campaign as a simpler way to do business, noting that competitors often tout the price of the service, but exclude the device cost. But the move also means the elimination of Sprint's $50 plan specifically designated for iPhones (customers still had to pay the $20 device fee). Existing customers on the plan will be grandfathered in, but new customers looking to sign up will be out of luck.
The All-In pricing bundle marks a dramatic change from just a few years ago in how the industry touts its pricing. The carriers had previously promoted the low, subsidized cost of a smartphone -- typically $199 with a two-year contract -- and bundled in the service plan when you signed up. Now, carriers like Verizon and AT&T tout their family plans and data packages, but decline to mention the device cost, which can tack on another $20 to $30 a month to the bill. Sprint believes its All-In offer gives customers the best sense of what they'll pay each month.
"The industry has historically advertised a price point that wasn't entirely transparent in order to get people in the stores," Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Crull said in an interview on Monday.
As for the iPhone plan, Crull said it was a promotional program that would be phased out with the $80 All-In plan. He noted that the offer for unlimited data remains the best in the industry. A comparable unlimited data plan at T-Mobile costs $80 a month, in addition to the cost of the device. Verizon Wireless and AT&T don't offer an unlimited data plan.
The move could be the first of the price hikes on unlimited data that CEO Marcelo Claure hinted at earlier this month. He said he expected to raise the price of unlimited data in the second half, and would consider eliminating it if it became too expensive to offer.
Sprint hopes customers respond to its clearer pricing, and hired soccer superstar David Beckham to help pitch the new program. The genesis of All-In came from a discussion between Claure and Beckham about the confusion of wireless pricing, and they agreed to work together on a campaign.
Beckham can be seen in a video spot visiting each of the carrier stores and getting increasingly frustrated with the complicated plans before landing at a Sprint store. The ads will premiere during the US team's match of the FIFA Women's World Cup on Tuesday night.
"He'll be the face of the campaign," Crull said.
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