Yearly Archives: 2012

1440 Challenge offers $75,000 for the best ideas

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The 1440 Challenge is an awards program — totaling $75,000 — aimed at further developing the best new ideas that help people learn, improve, and share the life skills of self-awareness, authenticity, trust, and empathy. These relationship skills help people connect at deeper levels with themselves, each other, and their communities. By leveraging communication technology and social media, winning entries will accelerate the development of these skills in the areas of education, wellness, or the workplace.

Go collect your money people.

Facebook to stream Casablanca

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Mashable:

Grab some popcorn and your laptop. Facebook users on Wednesday night will be treated to a one-night only screening of the classic film Casablanca, which will be streamed from the film’s brand page.Casablanca — the winner of three Academy Awards in 1944 and often heralded as one of the best movies of all time (according to, among others, world-renowned film critic Roger Ebert) — will be complimentary streamed on Casablanca’s Facebook page on May 16 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Only one screening for each Facebook account is permitted.

I’m begging you – don’t do this. Rent the disc, sit in front of your TV on your comfy couch with a loved one and watch it. There’s no magic in watching this wonderful movie on your laptop.

Apple forced to drop “4G” name from some international iPads

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PCWorld:

Apple has stopped calling the new iPad “4G-capable” after regulators cracked down on its U.S.-only capability to connect to high-speed LTE networks. Although it is still listed as being “4G LTE capable,” the new iPad is now called “Wi-Fi + Cellular” instead of “Wi-Fi + 4G” in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and several parts of Asia.Apple’s labeling drew criticism from regulators in Australia because its advertisements misled regarding the device’s 4G connectivity, and Apple also got complaints from customers in Europe.

Online privacy

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Steve Wildstrom:

But based on what I heard from an admittedly limited sample in Seattle, that’s not where real peoples’ concerns lie. Their worries about online privacy are less corporate and much more personal and intimate. Privacy concerns are real, but the policy responses can seem like solutions in search of problems.

I think this sums up my feelings pretty well. Privacy is a personal issue and one that we sometimes give up freely for a small reward.

Glassboard 2.0

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In case you’re not familiar with Glassboard, here’s the deal: what Pair is to the bedroom, and Path is to the rec room, Glassboard is to the board room. (Hence “board” in the name. “Glass” refers to your phone’s screen.)In other words, it’s great for teams (whether co-workers or not). It uses the same statuses, comments, and sharing that we’re all used to from social networks — except that Glassboard is private.

Nice looking new version from Brent Simmons and Sepia Labs.

New details emerge in Apple e-book lawsuit

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Laura Hazard Owen writing for paidContent:

New York, the District of Columbia and fifteen other states have joined the e-book pricing class action suit against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin, bringing the total number of states involved so far to 31 (if you include DC and Puerto Rico). The amended complaint, released Friday, reveals details that were previously redacted, including an e-mail from Steve Jobs.

CallingVault takes on Google Voice

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Your CallingVault number is a real phone number capable of receiving SMS/MMS messages and calls from any phone. The people you give your number to do not have to be CallingVault members to reach you.We believe that software should be fun and easy to use, and that we should strive to empower users through intuitive design. We believe that privacy is a right and that we should do everything we can to protect it. And we believe that you – not advertisers – should be in control of your data.

This will be fun to watch.

Olympic Games security

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During the Games an aircraft carrier will dock on the Thames. Surface-to-air missile systems will scan the skies. Unmanned drones, thankfully without lethal missiles, will loiter above the gleaming stadiums and opening and closing ceremonies. RAF Typhoon Eurofighters will fly from RAF Northolt. A thousand armed US diplomatic and FBI agents and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80m, 5,000-volt electric fence.

Good times.

[Via Jim Coudal]

Perian project comes to an end

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We began the Perian project over 6 years ago. We wanted to simplify viewing your content. Our team has attained that goal and with that in mind, Perian will be retired soon. Our stewardship has been a blast but it’s time for all of us to move on.

Perian allows you to play a variety of audio and video formats on your Mac. I’ve been using it for years and it’s still on every Mac I own.

Plagiarism and The Next Web

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Joshua Gross:

Today, TheNextWeb took a little bit of that away from me by basically plagiarizing my post (pic), being sneaky about it, and defending it.

The response by The Next Web is terrible.

iCloud

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Ben Brooks:

A widely adopted, seamless, fast, robust iCloud is the greatest threat to Apple’s competitors — and this time around I think Apple knows it.

iCloud is becoming the center of everything Apple wants to do with it’s devices, whether it’s a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.

Drawing conclusions

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John Gruber:

So the reason Apple TV doesn’t show up in Freewheel’s data is because it doesn’t show any ad-backed video. Freewheel’s data isn’t about online video watching — it’s specifically about ad-backed online video watching.

I don’t understand how people can draw conclusions from data like this. Gruber gets it right.

Apple planning photo sharing upgrade to iCloud

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Eric Slivka:

The new features, expected to be announced at Apple’s world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, these people said. Currently, users can only store one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream, which is designed to sync those photos to other Apple devices, not share them.

The original story is at WSJ, but that story is for subscribers only, so enjoy it at Mac Rumors.

Kaspersky lied

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This statement was taken out of context by the magazine – Apple did not invite or solicit Kaspersky Lab’s assistance in analyzing the Mac OS X platform.

In other words, we lied and got caught.

Capo [Sponsor]

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Reverse Engineering Rock and Roll: Capo is a revolutionary tool that helps you learn the music in your iTunes library. Available for your Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad.

Download the free trial for the Mac at http://capoapp.com, and check out the new mastering-quality slowing engine that retains the detail in your music all the way down to quarter-speed!

Question marks in headlines

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Betteridge’s Law of Headlines states the following:Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no’.Ian Betteridge explains his theory as follows:The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it.

If you post crap, but post it first, it’s still crap.

Adobe decides to issue security upgrades for CS5

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“The team decided to make available patches for Photoshop CS5.x, Illustrator CS5.x, and Flash Professional CS5.x.” The time frame for availability of those fixes is unclear. “We are still in the process of finalizing the timeline for the patches,” the spokesperson said. “We will update the respective security bulletins once the patches are available.”

It’s good that they did this, but the original decision to not issue updates and force people to upgrade to CS6 left a bad taste for many users.

‘A giant middle finger’

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In English: Photoshop CS5 will not be patched for this vulnerability. The only way to remain secure is to upgrade to Photoshop CS6 for $200.

This could get ugly.