Apple CEO Tim Cook's 'Review' of 'Haunted Empire' & Four More Stories You Need to Know Today

YEAH, BUT WHAT DO YOU REALLY THINK? — For Yukari Iwatani Kane's sake, let's hope that there is no such thing as bad publicity. To put it mildly, Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't think much of the former Wall Street Journal technology reporter's just-released book, "Haunted Empire," which plays into a favorite meme of the technorati: Did Apple lose its mojo with the death of visionary founder Steve Jobs? Cook didn't exactly channel Mary McCarthy taking down Lillian Hellman, but left no doubt about his review:

This nonsense belongs with some of the other books I've read about Apple. It fails to capture Apple, Steve, or anyone else in the company.

In an interview with New York Times reporter (and my former Wired colleague) Brian X. Chen, Kane seems to damn Cook with faint praise. Cook has improved processes, is a much better delegator, communicator and manager of people, she says. "The question of whether these changes are for the better is complex. Cook brings more efficiency and organization to Apple, which is good because the company’s increased size and scale requires a professional, consistent leadership style that is more inclusive than Steve Jobs’s was," Kane tell the Times. "But this style also adds layers of bureaucracy, which can slow down innovation."

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YOU WEAR IT WELL — Google has taken the wraps off its operating system for wearables. Google's approach is not to replicate smartphones, but to push them further into your pocket by mitigating their dumbest feature: they persistently vie for our attention like toddlers who have no concept of what really is important. And, as with toddlers, we can't just tell them to shut up. As Time puts it:

Instead of just adding phonelike features to your wrist, Android Wear will focus on notifications and quick responses. The idea is to show information as you need it while keeping interaction to a minimum.

Google is also making a relatively exotic gambit with Google Glasses, but the biggest players bet that it's all in the wrist. Samsung is about to release the second generation of Gear (round one was pretty much a thud), Apple is thought to be in the hunt, Motorola is already teasing an Google-powered model. And, of course, there is my beloved Pebble.

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A TALE OF TWO AUTOS — Yesterday we highlighted GM CEO Mary Barra's take-charge stance. Today's big auto news is that Toyota will probably be taking a charge — a big one. The Justice Department is expected to announced today that Toyota will pay $1 billion to end a criminal probe about unintended acceleration. And, as USA Today notes, "that's on top of millions of dollars in fines to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and class-action settlements." Like GM, Toyota says the experience has made it more customer-focused. Said Toyota spokeswoman Julie Hamp, per the Wall Street Journal: "We have made fundamental changes to become a more responsive and customer-focused organization, and we are committed to continued improvements."

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FED WATCH — The Fed is set to report from the first meeting chaired by Janet Yellen at 2 pm ET today. Reuters is reporting that the news will not be earth-shattering: more quantitative easing tapering and new guidance on when it might raise rates — moves that "would represent both continuity at the U.S. central bank ... and a nod to economic reality." The QE trajectory is the easy part, relatively speaking. Less certain is whether the Fed will alter its Dec. 2012 decision not to raise short-term rates while unemployment is above 6.5% (it remains stubbornly above, currently at 6.7%). There have been strong signals the Fed will drop the hard-number marker dropped in the Ben Bernanke era, and today we should know just how much Yellen will begin to diverge from her predecessor.

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GET TO WORK — I'm going out on a limb: Exactly nobody reading this post won yesterday's Mega Millions jackpot, which means that you aren't sharing $400 million with another lucky winner, which means that you — like me — will be going to work today. But take heart. In fact, rejoice that you didn't share in the nation's sixth-largest jackpot. A 2011 MIT study found that modern lottery winners aren't better off at all — in that study, windfalls only postponed financial tragedy: "our findings suggest that skepticism regarding the long-term impact of cash transfers may be warranted." Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics fame has an even fresher look at why windfalls aren't all they are cracked up to be. So, today, instead of being depressed, I'll be smug about earning it the old-fashioned way. That's my story — and I'm sticking to it.

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