Details

The picture above is my brand new HomePod Mini and its power adapter. You can buy HomePod Minis in 5 different colors to match your decor!  And they all come with a stark white power adapter.

This is what I expect if I buy something from Logitech or Belkin or the other brands that litter Best Buy aisles or Amazon searches.  And sometimes I just want functionality and the best price, and I don't care. If this device was going into a closet or under a desk, who cares.

But Homepods sit out on shelves or counters, and that white blob is annoying. For a company that prides itself on design and vertical integration, this is lame.  People choose HomePod colors for style reasons, they don’t want a white marshmallow sitting there next to it.  

It is not like it is impossible to source adapters in different colors.  Anker sells them in black, white, and gray.   There are off-brand options that come in every color of the rainbow.  

I am sure this adapter will function well and be safe.  But when a company doesn’t pay attention to one obvious detail, it leaves you wondering what else they didn’t pay attention to.  

Room at the Bottom

So much economic growth has been driven by innovation in manufacturing and materials science at the micro- and nanoscale.  So far, mostly silicon devices have benefited from Moore’s Law cranking away, but some fun articles this week about bio materials:

• Genesis’ advances in generative AI have now pushed them beyond the threshold where they believe agentic drug discovery loops are finally possible — “we’re rapidly approaching a time of drug discovery agents running 24/7 making/testing new molecules”.  
• This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And It’s Manmade.   I can’t even begin to imagine all the possibilities around hand-crafted cells (and all the risks).  

Ouch

Benedict Evans on CoPilot:

The parallels between Co-Pilot and Watson just keep getting stronger.

Watson is legendary branding disaster, this is pretty biting.  Maybe not fair, but there is sure a smell around CoPilot.  Microsoft is shaking up its CoPilot effort which is certainly necessary..