Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, February 8, 2016

• Apple Said to Be on Course for Approval to Open Stores in India:  Apple Inc. is on course to win clearance to open its first retail stores in India, a person with knowledge of the matter said, as Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook seeks growth opportunities in a nation of 1.3 billion people. The Indian government plans to push through Apple’s application to set up outlets, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The company is resubmitting the request as it wasn’t in the right format, the person said, without giving a time-frame for final approval. Apple should qualify as a provider of cutting-edge technology, the person said. That would exempt the maker of iPhones and iPads from a rule forcing foreign businesses that retail a single brand in India to procure 30 percent of a product’s inputs locally. The company makes most of its devices in China. Cook is hunting for fresh sources of growth after Apple last month forecast a sales decline for the first time in more than a decade. India now has the world’s fastest-growing major economy and about 220 million smartphone users. The challenge is that Indian consumers tend to prefer cheaper devices, leaving Apple with only about 2 percent of the market. Apple uses re-sellers in India for its products. Domestic distributor Redington India Ltd. has dropped about 5 percent since Apple in January confirmed it had applied to open stores in Asia’s third-largest economy.

• BlackBerry Confirms 200 Job Cuts in Florida and Canada: Phone maker BlackBerry confirmed to Re/code on Friday that it has recently cut 200 jobs in both Sunrise, Fla., and at facilities in Canada. However, the company characterized them as a “small number” in stark contrast to a Mobile Syrup report that suggested massive cuts, especially at the main office. In a statement, BlackBerry said the cuts come as it continues its turnaround effort. “This means finding new ways to enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities, while driving toward sustainable profitability across all parts of our business,” the company said. “As a result, a small number of employees have been impacted in Waterloo and Sunrise, Fla.” The company later said that it made around 200 job cuts. It also confirmed that BBM founder and longtime employee Gary Klassen has left the company. The Mobile Syrup report suggests that the BlackBerry 10 development effort has been hit particularly hard. BlackBerry recently introduced the Priv, its first Android phone, and executives suggested that if customers agree, that could represent its hardware future rather than its homegrown BlackBerry 10.

• Wood Shop Enters the Age of High-Tech: These days, tinkering is high tech. The blending of technology and craft in tools like 3-D printers and laser cutters has made it possible for ordinary people to make extraordinary things. And many ordinary people, living as they do, more and more in their heads and online, are yearning to do something with their hands. So the “maker space” movement — D.I.Y. communities to get people creating, be it for fun, for art or for entrepreneurship — is booming. Maker Faires are held around the world. Commercial operations like TechShop have popped up across the country. And tinkering is being promoted on college campuses from M.I.T. to Santa Clara University, as well as in high schools and elementary schools. There’s even a massive open online course, offered by the MOOC provider Coursera and taught by three scientists from the Exploratorium in San Francisco, called “Tinkering Fundamentals: A Constructionist Approach to STEM Learning.” At Rutgers, a bustling maker space can be found in a moldering wood-frame structure on the Livingston campus in Piscataway, N.J. The building once served as the command headquarters for Camp Kilmer, a transportation hub for soldiers mobilizing for World War II; today, the building, still called Headquarters, houses computer repair offices and the division of continuing studies. And upstairs, there are wonders. There are 3-D printers, which can be programmed to create wildly inventive shapes out of plastic or resin (like a decent copy of the Iron Throne from “Game of Thrones” or a bust of Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy”). There is a laser cutter to etch materials like fabric, marble or wood and cut through plastic. Next door is an electronics shop, with racks upon racks of parts. Close by are drill presses, a router and a key cutter, which Mr. Carter refers to as “our gateway drug,” a piece of equipment neophytes can use to produce something they really need. A common space with couches and a television gives students a place to talk, show off their projects or just hang out.

• Tesla won’t give this ‘super rude’ customer his preordered car: The customer is always right, goes the saying. But if you’re rude, don’t expect that maxim to apply universally as one man found out. Earlier this week Stewart Alsop, a San Francisco venture capitalist, shared that his order of a Tesla Model X was canceled after he wrote a blog post that criticized chief executive Elon Musk for starting a company event late. Alsop titled his late September post, “Dear @ElonMusk: You should be ashamed of yourself.” “For you to stand up at 8:52 p.m. and not even acknowledge that you have wasted your own customers’ time was insensitive and poor judgement,” Alsop wrote. Alsop said that he’d placed a $5,000 preorder for the Model X and expected to test drive it at the launch event on Sept. 29 in Fremont, Calif. But then the event started later than expected. The invitation noted that doors would open at 7 p.m., and encouraged guests to arrive by 7:30 p.m. A clear start time wasn’t specified, but according to Alsop, Musk conceded in a phone conversation that the event began 30 minutes late. When Musk arrived on stage he opened with what Alsop described as “an amateur slide show.” Alsop, angry and hungry, stormed out before the event ended. In a follow-up post this week Alsop said he’d been banned from ordering his Model X, and expressed shock given critical posts he’d authored on other companies such as BMW. He will be stuck continuing to drive his “irritating BMW X1.” Musk weighed in on the episode early Friday morning. “Must be a slow news day if denying service to a super rude customer gets this much attention,” he tweeted.