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// HAPPENING TODAY
- The Federal Communications Commission is mulling more than three million net neutrality comments, and it’s holding a roundtable on the issue.
- Adobe reports third-quarter earnings.
U2 to Release Next Album as Mandatory Software Update
Wired’s Vijith Assar: “If nothing else, U2’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ is the first album to command a custom-coded deletion tool and an official accompanying support document issued by one of the largest technology companies in history.”
Download Bloody Download
Developer Marco Arment: “The damage here isn’t that a bunch of people need to figure out how to delete an album that they got for free and are now whining about. It’s that Apple did something inconsiderate, tone-deaf and kinda creepy for the sake of a relatively unimportant marketing campaign, and they seemingly didn’t think it would be a problem.”
Pride (In the Name of Spam)
Peter Cohen, iMore: “I have no sympathy for you. I have trouble thinking of a more self-indulgent, ‘first world problem’ than saying ‘I hate this free new album I’ve been given.’”
NFC for Anything but Apple Pay? No Freakin’ Chance.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be the first Apple handsets to include the near field communication chips needed to support mobile payments. And while those chips could be used to do other things as well — device-to-device data exchanges, for example — Apple’s not allowing it. Not yet, anyway. The company has chosen not to give developers access to its NFC APIs, effectively restricting NFC support in its next-generation iPhones to Apple Pay. Hardly surprising. Apple’s move into the payments space is a milestone one that demands seamless execution. Given the security and user experience issues surrounding it, the company can ill afford to have some third-party NFC app muddying things up.
Tesla Shares Already Overvalued Again
It took some doing and a little help from Morgan Stanley, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally managed to convince investors that the automaker’s stock is overvalued. But only for a moment. Tesla shares rebounded this morning after falling 7.6 percent Monday following a Morgan Stanley report suggesting the stock had gotten ahead of itself lately. Shares in the company rose 1.63 percent in early trading today, pushing their price back toward the level Musk has been moaning about for over a year now. As Musk told Bloomberg last October, “The stock price that we have is more than we have any right to deserve. I’m not going to sit here and say we deserve every penny of that.”
Germany Makes Legal U-Turn in Uber Case
Uber is once again free to operate its ride-hailing service in Germany. A German regional court Tuesday lifted a temporary injunction that banned the company from operating in the country — for the time being. Evidently the judges presiding over the case still believe Uber’s service violates German law, but they just think Taxi Deutschland got a bit ahead of itself in asking for an emergency ban. “Even after deliberations, the court sticks to its view that Taxi Deutschland can win a ban against Uber,” the court said. “But after reviewing the arguments in this emergency case, we have to reverse the ruling since this isn’t an urgent case. Only for that reason do we lift the ban.”
PayPal and Samsung Must Use the Same Ad Agency
PayPal on Apple Pay: “We the people want our money safer than our selfies. PayPal, protecting the people economy.”
Not Like We’re Poised to Collect Gobs of Health Data or Anything …
Apple CEO Tim Cook: “Our business is not based on having information about you. You’re not our product. Our products are these, and this watch, and Macs, and so forth. And so we run a very different company. I think everyone has to ask, how do companies make their money? Follow the money. And if they’re making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried.”
Delete Amazon Shares From Shopping Cart?
We’ve got a few days to go before Alibaba’s IPO sets a new bar for initial public offerings, but already it is causing headaches for Amazon. You see, in order to participate in Alibaba’s IPO, big investors need to free up capital by selling off shares of other companies in their portfolios. And, to avoid overexposure in the e-commerce sector in which Alibaba operates, they need to sell off comparable companies. The one closest to Alibaba in the U.S.: Amazon.
Haha, You Said “Ganja-preneurs”
“The Marijuana Show” creator, Wendy Robbins: “The idea of combining ‘Shark Tank’ and ‘The Apprentice’ made sense — green is the new gold. We want to find the ganja-preneurs who have the businesses, the ideas, the inventions and introduce them to our accredited investors who they otherwise may not have access to because banks won’t loan them anything and friends and family only have so much money. We want to help the people who have the ideas and passion become the next marijuana millionaires.”
Says the Guy Who Just Made a Talking Fire Alarm …
Nest CEO Tony Fadell: “Is a smartphone pet-food dispenser really what you need? We don’t want to become Sharper Image or Brookstone.”
Off Topic
“The Daily Show” on the camera phone in 2004 and Michael Bay GIFs. Also: Bat attack.
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
