James Patterson says he’ll “disrupt” reading by writing shorter books
A new venture from publishing juggernaut James Patterson is being sold as the “Uber of books.”
“I’m a disruptor,” the massively prolific, bestselling author announced in a press conference this morning (June 6) as he introduced a new line of books. They’re called Bookshots, and the great promise of each is to be a plot-driven book under 150 pages that costs than $5.
These aren’t novellas, Patterson clarified, nor are they just short, regularly paced novels. Rather, he said, reading a Bookshot is like “reading a hit movie”—fast-paced, economical, with no meandering. Hisfirst two Bookshot titles, published by Little, Brown, will be available tomorrow, and will include Cross Kill, a new installment in his popular Alex Cross series. So far Patterson plans for Bookshots to publish thriller, romance, and non-fiction.
Nigeria says it’s recovered $9.1 billion in looted funds, but won’t name the culprits
The Nigerian government says it has recovered assets and funds totaling $9.1 billion as part of its anti-corruption drive. The recovered assets “include monies withheld by past government officials, monies kept in private accounts, monies diverted to private pockets and monies in possession of government officials not disclosed after leaving government,” a spokesman said. The funds were recovered during president Buhari’s first year in office.
The news of the recovered funds signals gains made by president Buhari’s anti-corruption drive as he remains intent on ensuring transparency in state institutions and agencies previously known for being opaque and corrupt.
The recovery will also likely enhance Buhari’s reputation internationally as being intolerant of corruption despite aspersions cast inadvertently last month by David Cameron, prime minister of Britain. Cameron had described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt” in the run-up to an anti-corruption summit in London but Buhari responded strongly asking Britain to return Nigeria’s stolen assets kept in the country.
But while the news of recovered funds has been hailed as a major win by the government, it has been received with a healthy dose of skepticism from many Nigerians. The skepticism is because the government did not release any names of persons and officials the assets were recovered from. This was despite an earlier promise by president Buhari to “make a comprehensive report” on “what has been recovered in whatever currency from each ministry, department and individual.” The report was expected to come during the president’s democracy day address on May 29.
The government says it cannot release names of looters for legal reasons but various groups within the country have questioned andcriticized the government’s decision to withhold the names. Critics say by not naming the looters, there is little deterrent to prevent others from looting funds as they suffer no reputational damage. “These people will do it again and again,” said a comment on one of the country’s biggest newspapers. “Because all you have to do in the eventuality that a government changes, is that you simply return the money and you wait until you can do it again.”
The Amazon Echo, a cylindrical speaker with a built-in, always-listening, virtual assistant called Alexa, has been a sleeper hit for the the online retailer since it was launched in late 2014. It can now do everything from order pizzas and Ubers, to turn on lights and sprinklers, and even remotely start your car. Through its developer program and partnerships, Amazon has managed to line up a wide range of services for the diminutive cylinder, and according to independent researchers, the company has already sold over 3 million units.
Apple is apparently working on its own home hub, with Siri acting as the digital assistant, to rival the Echo, and Alphabet’s forthcoming entry into the field, Google Home. According to The Verge, Siri will no longer be restricted to Apple services and basic internet searches, and it will apparently be able to tie into any other service that developers want to build for it—as major tech companies vie to be the conduit through which the increasing number of internet-connected home appliances and services flow.
Apple’s Echo rival could potentially be announced as early as next week at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, according to The Information (paywall).
Another wearable
While the first iteration of the Apple Watch may have left something to be desired, there’s likely a second version with cameras, a sleeker design, and more features just around the corner. But Apple CEO Tim Cook has said in the past that the company might be interested in building something else to use in the medical industry. The company is certainly pushing into health, using sensors on the Apple Watch and iPhone to send data back to doctors and researchers, and in an interview with The Telegraph last year, Cook said the company might look into a separate device that could be used just for tracking health data, that would be built to the specifications the US government has for medical devices:
“We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it—maybe an app, maybe something else.”
Wireless headphones
There are rumors that the next version of the iPhone will not have a headphone jack, implying users will have to invest in some wireless headphones, or another converter cable, to listen to music on their new expensive gadget. But there are further rumblings that Apple is working on a set of wireless earbuds, or headphones, that it will launch at the same time as the iPhone 7, likely later this year. Perhaps Apple can use some of the expertise it acquired when it bought Beats in 2014 for $3 billion to help build some headphones with mass appeal. Apple has let Beats and its line of products operate relatively independently up until now.
Samsung just unveiled the Gear IconX wireless earbuds last week—what has Apple got to respond with?(Quartz/Mike Murphy)
Virtual reality
Apple has been awarded a number of patents pertaining to virtual and augmented reality, suggesting that the company may be in the process of building something to rival Samsung’s Gear VR device, or potentially a more powerful VR system like the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, or perhaps even forthcoming systems like Microsoft’s HoloLens, or whatever Magic Leap is working on. It currently holds 220 patents that mention “virtual reality” in some capacity.
Will we be seeing a VR anytime soon?(Reuters/Beawiharta)
But unless Apple has figured out some massive breakthrough in how to power virtual reality systems, make them far more intuitive than the systems currently on the market, or has secretly been working on securing partnerships with large gaming companies, it seems unlikelythat the company will be releasing a headset anytime soon.
A car
Then there’s the car—or minivan—that Apple is apparently working on. There have been reports that Apple has separate, secret facilities inSilicon Valleyand Germany where it’s working on its prototype cars. And the company has hired designers from Aston Martin and Tesla, and electric-car-charging engineers from Google. It’s also been reported that the company has been meeting with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Given all these disparate pieces of information, it does seem that Apple is indeed working on a car, even if the company has not officially confirmed that it is.
The Chrysler Pacifica minivans that Google will be using for its new self-driving cars.(PRNewsFoto/FCA US LLC)
Some suggest that Apple is working on an electric car, something that would rival Tesla’s design-minded models, and others, such as The Guardian, say that the company is working on a self-driving vehicle. Apart from auto workers, the company has been hiring artificial intelligence researchers, and at the time of publishing, had 96 job openings listed on LinkedIn that mention artificial intelligence. Many include the following line:
Play a part in revolutionizing how people use their computers and mobile devices. Create groundbreaking technology for algorithmic search, machine learning, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence.
So perhaps the company is working on something more than just a regular car—or maybe it’s working on:
