Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride Home for Friday, January 22nd, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough.

Today, what does it mean for Alphabet if it's starting to cut bait on its moonshots?

Is Google going to cut bait entirely on the entire country of Australia?

More signs that Apple is atoning for its laptop design sins.

Looks like we were right.

Plaid is very much no visa, no cry,

and of course, the weekend long read suggestions.

Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

One of the moonshots is entering the Deadpool.

Alphabet says it is shutting down loon.

Its internet balloon project calling it a successful experiment

but not a viable one,

quoting the great and legendary Stephen Levy in Wired. Tonight, Alphabet is announcing that it Great and Wyer.

Tonight, Alphabet is announcing that it is grounding loon.

Astro Teller, who heads X and was also the chair of the Loon Board,

recommended that Alphabet no longer fund it it effectively letting the air out of the

division's balloon.

No one wanted to pick up the mantle, he says.

The interesting thing is how far Loon got before Alphabet pulled the plug. When Teller first heard the idea he says he gave

it about a one or two percent chance of succeeding. By the time of its launch in 2013, which

I traveled to New Zealand to attend, following some of its first internet bearing balloons,

it had gotten to around 10%. By the 2018 graduation, Teller thought it was 50-50.

...