If you haven’t already, first read A tale of two QuickTimes, which we linked to a few weeks ago.
With that unhappiness with losing the old, but still incredibly useful version of QuickTime in mind, check out this post from Dan Moren, which is based on this gem of a find by David Chartier.
Do read both posts for the big picture. This is pretty cool.
Washington Post:
A California man who built a sizable business out of recycling electronic waste is headed to federal prison for 15 months after a federal appeals court in Miami rejected his claim that the “restore disks” he made to extend the lives of computers had no financial value, instead ruling that he had infringed Microsoft’s products to the tune of $700,000.
I recognize that there are two sides to every story, but this reads to me like this guy is going to jail specifically because judge and jury do not understand the technology.
Before he launched his company, IT Asset Partners, Lundgren lived in China, learning about the stream of e-waste and finding ways to send cheap parts to America to keep electronics running. One of his projects was to manufacture thousands of “restore disks,” usually supplied by computer-makers as a way for users to restore Windows to a hard drive if it crashes or must be wiped. The disks can be used only on a computer that already has a license for the Windows operating system, and the license transfers with the computer for its full life span. But computer owners often lose or throw out the disks, and though the operating system can be downloaded free on a licensed computer, Lundgren realized that many people didn’t feel competent to do that, and were simply throwing out their computers and buying new ones.
Lundgren made 28,000 Windows backup CDs, sold them for 25 cents apiece to computer refurbishers. The disks had no licenses, they could only be used to restore a computer with an existing license.
Key to this is the value of those disks. They determine the level of the crime (if this is even a crime):
Initially, federal prosecutors valued the disks at $299 each, the cost of a brand-new Windows operating system, and Lundgren’s indictment claimed he had cost Microsoft $8.3 million in lost sales. By the time of sentencing, a Microsoft letter to Hurley and a Microsoft expert witness had reduced the value of the disks to $25 apiece, stating that was what Microsoft charged refurbishers for such disks.
BUT:
Glenn Weadock, a former expert witness for the government in its antitrust case against Microsoft, was asked, “In your opinion, without a code, either product key or COA [Certificate of Authenticity], what is the value of these reinstallation disks?”
“Zero or near zero,” Weadock said.
The $25 value is for disks with a product key or COA. The disks Lundgren sold had neither. So with Weadock’s expert testimony, all is good, right?
[U.S. District Judge] Hurley decided Lundgren’s 28,000 restore disks had a value of $700,000, and that dollar amount qualified Lundgren for a 15-month term and a $50,000 fine. The judge said he disregarded Weadock’s testimony. “I don’t think anybody in that courtroom understood what a restore disk was,” Lundgren said.
Two sides to every story, and there is an element of harm to Microsoft, in that they do sell backup disks. But is sending this guy to prison what they were after here? Was this about setting a precedent?
Just one more thing, then I’m gonna’ let you go:
Lundgren, 33, has become a renowned innovator in the field of “e-waste,” using discarded parts to construct things such as an electric car, which far outdistanced a Tesla in a test on one charge. He built the first “electronic hybrid recycling” facility in the United States, which turns discarded cellphones and other electronics into functional devices, slowing the stream of harmful chemicals and metals into landfills and the environment. His California-based company processes more than 41 million pounds of e-waste each year and counts IBM, Motorola and Sprint among its clients.
Something seems wrong about this whole thing.
UPDATE: From this article in a local Washington state paper covering the story:
Lundgren argued that because he never ended up selling any discs, Microsoft did not lose any money. But the federal court found that the discs were worth $25 each and therefore Lundgren infringed on Microsoft’s property by $700,000. In addition, the court found that the discs had labels on them that “falsely said the discs contained authorized copies of copyrighted software,” according to court records.
That last bit did not come up in the Washington Post story.
Motherboard:
The startup is called Crowdfense and is based in the United Arab Emirates. In an unusual move in the normally secretive industry of so-called zero-days, Crowdfense sent out a press release to reporters on Tuesday, advertising what it calls a bug bounty.
And:
Crowdfense’s director Andrea Zapparoli Manzoni told me that he and his company are trying to join that market, purchasing zero-days from independent researchers and then selling them to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
And:
“When I think about government agencies I don’t think about the military part, I think about the civilian part, that works against crime, terrorism, and stuff like that,” Zapparoli told me in a phone interview. “We only focus on tools aimed at doing activities of law enforcement or intelligence, not aimed at destroying or deteriorating the functionality and effectiveness of the target systems—but only aimed at collecting intelligence.”
And:
The company has a budget of $10 million for this “bug bounty.” Its backers, for now, are also secret.
The mind reels. Unless I misread this piece, no part of their plan is to share any discovered vulnerabilities with Apple. This is straight, help us break the system, not make it better.
“Vetting customers is the most delicate part of our whole activity,” Zapparoli said.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that your customer list will remain a secret as well. This whole thing is chilling to me.
Michael Simon, Macworld:
The Spotify executives on stage never actually mentioned Apple Music by name, but it was impossible not to catch the vibe. Throughout the hour-long presentation, Spotify barely talked about its Premium service, which boasts some 70 million users to Apple Music’s 40 million. Instead, the focus was on Spotify’s other 90 million customers, the ones who don’t pay.
And:
As it stands, the only “free” tier of Apple Music involves listening to either Beats 1 or whatever songs are in your music library. Otherwise, you’re completely locked out.
Spotify sees things differently. While its Premium tier offers the same $10-a-month access to tens of millions of songs as Apple Music, Spotify also lets non-paying customers in the door, with restrictions on playback and interspliced ads. It’s a gateway to Premium for sure, but more importantly, it’s the main advantage Spotify has over Apple Music. And it just became irresistible to tens of millions of users.
And:
Spotify’s isn’t going after Apple Music users with a better premium offering, it’s basically offering a free sample that doesn’t have an expiration date.
There’s a subtle strategic difference between offering a free trial period and a free, ad-supported tier. Apple Music’s free trial period has no “lock in” in it. Once you reach the end, you’re either in (you find the service worth the money and you sign up) or you’re out (possibly heading over to Spotify). There’s no stickiness to keep you in the fold.
With Spotify’s focus on making their free tier more attractive, they’ve achieved “lock in”. If you hate the ads, pay the monthly fee and get an even better experience, ad free.
My two cents? I think Apple should copy this move, adopt a free tier. Of course, that will likely put a dent in their services revenue, but if this helps grow their user base, that should make up for any shortfall there.
One more thing:
The only real advantage Apple has with Apple Music (other than it being the default music app on hundreds of millions of iOS devices every year) is HomePod compatibility. I half expected Spotify to launch a competing speaker at its event, but as I listened to the executives talk about the new features, it became clear that hardware isn’t their game.
When people question Apple’s HomePod move, this has to be part of the discussion.
Titillating headline, but read on:
Authorities in Florida showed up to a funeral home and tried to unlock a dead man’s cell phone using his finger.
And:
Largo Police Lt. Randall Chaney told the Tampa Bay Times that the detectives were trying to gain access to and protect data relevant to their investigation into Phillip’s death, as well as another investigation Phillip was involved in related to drugs.
And:
There is no expectation of privacy after a person passes away, so the move to access the iPhone by detectives was legal, but not necessarily appropriate or ethical, Charles Rose, a professor at Stetson University College of Law, told the Tampa Bay Times.
“While the deceased person doesn’t have a vested interest in the remains of their body, the family sure does, so it really doesn’t pass the smell test,” he told the newspaper. Even though a deceased person can no longer claim their property for themselves under their Fourth Amendment rights, whoever inherits the property at stake, such as family, can exercise those rights, he said.
I’ve long wondered about the legality of physically forcing someone to unlock their iPhone using their finger or their face. Does that legal status change when someone dies?
And what about FaceID? Will it work on a dead person whose eyes are open? Can attention detection tell if someone is dead?
UPDATE: Couple of good comments from JLMoran. Sounds like neither TouchID nor FaceID will work on a dead person, at least not without some extra trickery.
Check the Emojipedia chart. Apple switched from a realistic gun to a water pistol in 2016. Two years later, we see the same move by Twitter, Samsung, and now Google.
A year after Apple made their move to a water gun, Facebook shifted to a more photo-realistic image.
And, interestingly, Microsoft went the opposite direction, moving from a sci-fi ray-gun to a hand gun.
So that leaves Facebook and Microsoft, sticking to their guns. But:
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Emojipedia that a toy squirt gun will now be replacing the gun emoji design on Facebook platforms.
Microsoft. Last gun standing.
UPDATE: From Microsoft:
https://twitter.com/Microsoft/status/989269615887900673
[H/T Adam Hunter]
[VIDEO] Last week, I tweeted about the process of grabbing multiple app icons, all in one stack, dragging them from one page to another.
Jeff Benjamin, 9to5Mac, did me one better, building an excellent how-to video (embedded in the main Loop post) that shows this technique, along with a bunch of related techniques. You might know most of these, but there’s this one bit you might not know. Check the recurring theme in Jeff’s video where he holds a stack with one hand, then uses the other hand to slide pages, rather than dragging the stack to the edge of the screen to force the page change. Jeff’s way is so much faster.
If nothing else, pass the link along to your iOS newbie friends.
Space.com:
The most-viewed eclipse in history had an unexpected witness: A Google Street View car drove right through the path of totality, offering a surprising celestial treat for visitors scoping out the event in Maryland Heights, Missouri.
The intrepid car captured the darkened sky, streetlamps flickering on and even skywatching pedestrians on the vehicle’s travels through the path of the 2017 total solar eclipse in August.
Follow the headline link and check out the images. Pretty cool. Funny to think of that driver making their way through the streets, either oblivious to the major even unfolding as they drove, or so committed to their job that they just kept going without stopping to take it all in.
Visual Capitalist:
In the past, marketers would make judgement calls on your likely income and family structure based on where you lived, and you’d receive “targeted” mail and calls from telemarketers. Loyalty programs and the emergence of web analytics pushed things a little further.
Today, the steady march of technological advancement has created a vast data collection empire that measures every aspect of your digital life and, increasingly, your offline life as well. Facebook alone uses nearly one hundred data points to target ads to you – everything from your marital status to whether you’ve been on vacation lately or not. Telecoms have access to extremely detailed information on your location. Apple has biometric data.
Also watching your every move are web trackers. “Cookie-syncing” is one of the sneaky ways advertisers can follow you around the internet. Basically, cookie-syncing allows third parties to share browsing information at such a large scale that even the NSA “piggybacks” off them for surveillance purposes.
And:
While web trackers and companies like Apple and Google are collecting a lot of personal and behavioral data, it’s the whales of the data ecosystem – data brokers – who are creating increasingly detailed profiles on almost everyone.
The goal of data brokers, such as Experian or Acxiom, is to siphon up as much personal data as possible and apply it to profiles. This data comes from a wide variety of sources. Your purchases, financial history, internet activity, and even psychographic attributes are mixed with information from public records to create a robust dossier. Digital profiles are then sorted into one of thousands of categories to help optimize advertising efforts.
Spend a few minutes browsing through the chart at the top of the article to get a sense of the overall data flow at work here. Shadow profiles. Chilling stuff.
Motherboard:
Law enforcement agencies across the country are buying or have expressed interest in buying GrayKey, a device that can unlock up-to-date iPhones. But Grayshift, the company that makes the device, has attracted some other attention as well.
Last week, an unknown party quietly leaked portions of GrayKey code onto the internet, and demanded over $15,000 from Grayshift—ironically, the price of an entry-level GrayKey—in order to stop publishing the material. The code itself does not appear to be particularly sensitive, but Grayshift confirmed to Motherboard the brief data leak that led to the extortion attempt.
The mind reels. If some organization comes up with a golden key that unlocks all iPhones, that golden key will find its way into nefarious hands. This is living proof of that.
Andrew J. Hawkins, The Verge:
Amazon announced today a new service that gives its couriers access to a person’s vehicle for the purpose of leaving package deliveries inside. But rather than use smart locks and a cloud-connected camera to gain entry, Amazon wants to use the connected technologies embedded in many modern vehicles today. The company is launching this new service in partnership with two major automakers — General Motors and Volvo — and will be rolling out in 37 cities in the US starting today.
Amazon creep, first through your front door, and now into your car. Interesting liability issue. If something goes wrong with an in-house delivery, presumably the Amazon camera would be theft deterrent, obvious evidence, and proof of delivery.
But that’s missing with an in-car delivery. You could minimize an issue by emptying your trunk first. But many cars give you access to the main car compartment once you can open the tailgate or trunk lid. And there’s no cloud-based camera to prove delivery catch theft.
It’ll be interesting to watch this unfold.
Side note: Audi and Amazon did a test-run of this back in 2015.
The first thing that struck me about Jean-Louis’ Amazon-centric Monday Note was this quote from Amazon’s shareholder letter, regarding memos:
“We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of ‘study hall.’ Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely. Some have the clarity of angels singing. They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion. Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum.”
Fascinating. OK, back to the topic at hand:
Amazon now has 100M Prime subscribers and is a respected, if not feared, supplier of video content, some of which is home-grown and recognized as world-class. Amazon has the means — and the need — to envelop its Prime subscribers in its Everything walled garden. An Amazon Fire TV set finishes the job the Alexa-powered Echo devices started. After a hard day’s work, you come home, ask your Amazon TV to turn the AC on, order dinner from the nearest Whole Foods store, and watch the latest Harry Bosch episode.
I do agree that Amazon’s focus on Fire TV sets is an important chess move and step toward their own walled garden. But, as I’ve said before, they are missing a critical element, a phone with wide adoption. If Amazon ever found a way to ship a phone that competed well with iPhone or, if it was Android-based, ate significantly into the Samsung/Google/etc. marketshare, that’d be trouble for Apple.
In addition, a Fire TV set solves the “Input 1” problem, the default connection that comes up when you turn the TV on. Not important? Think of the billion (or billions — some say three) that Google is rumored to pay Apple to be its default search engine on the iPhone.
Fascinating point. What comes on when you turn on your TV? For me (and, I’d argue for most folks), my TV defaults to whatever input I was watching last. But a TV that makes it super easy to watch Amazon video content with some frictionless combination of built-in seamless UX and tightly integrated remote? That’d have value, I think.
Apple TV is still a second class citizen for me. Or, at best, a peer to my cable package that requires me to keep two remotes handy and switch inputs regularly. I would love a more integrated solution.
Jean-Louis always keeps me thinking. Note his use of mutatis mutandis. Had to grab the dictionary for that one.
Christian Zibreg, iDownloadBlog:
Downloading watchOS software to your Apple Watch is a tremendously slow process.
It can take anywhere between half an hour to an hour or more to send a watchOS software update to your wrist. Because it’s such a sluggish experience, I try to update my watch only when I’m positive I won’t be using it for a few hours, like right before I’m about to hit the bed.
And:
I’ll let you in on a secret: sliding the Bluetooth toggle to the OFF position in Settings → Bluetooth on your iPhone will speed up watchOS software updates dramatically.
But timing matters here. Follow the link for the details. This is an interesting tip. Of course, you can just let the update happen overnight. But personally, I find the details fascinating, worth the read.
This is from 2014, but just came across it yesterday. A fascinating stroll through Apple’s advertising history. Check out the address on that first ad:
Apple Computer Company
770 Welch Road, Suite 154
Palo Alto, California 94304
Popped that address into Apple Maps and I see that it is now the Palo Alto Endoscopy Center. It’s a block away from the Stanford Apple Store on some prime Stanford real estate.
[VIDEO] The first ad pushes the speed and elegance of the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X Portrait Lighting. Android is not mentioned by name, but pretty sure that’s what’s meant by “your phone” (all lower case).
The second ad is about security against malware, this time comparing “your store” (all lower case) with the App Store. The exploding malware nose icon was a pretty good bit.
Both ads are embedded in the main Loop post.
Washington Post:
On Amazon, customer comments can help a product surge in popularity. The online retail giant says that more than 99 percent of its reviews are legitimate because they are written by real shoppers who aren’t paid for them.
But a Washington Post examination found that for some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews. Such reviews have certain characteristics, such as repetitive wording that people probably cut and paste in.
OK, this is pretty old news. Terrible news, but fake reviews have been around for some time. But:
Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers on dozens of networks, including Amazon Review Club and Amazon Reviewers Group, to give glowing feedback in exchange for money or other compensation. The practice artificially inflates the ranking of thousands of products, experts say, misleading consumers.
Amazon does periodic purges to wipe out those reviewers, but:
But the ban, sellers and experts say, merely pushed an activity that used to take place openly into dispersed and harder-to-track online communities.
There, an economy of paid reviews has flourished. Merchants pledge to drop reimbursements into a reviewer’s PayPal account within minutes of posting comments for items such as kitchen knives, rain ponchos or shower caddies, often sweetening the deal with a $5 commission or a $10 Amazon gift card. Facebook this month deleted more than a dozen of the groups where sellers and buyers matched after being contacted by The Post. Amazon kicked a five-star seller off its site after an inquiry from The Post.
And:
Suspicious or fraudulent reviews are crowding out authentic ones in some categories, The Post found using ReviewMeta data. ReviewMeta examines red flags, such as an unusually large number of reviews that spike over a short period of time or “sock puppet” reviewers who appear to have cut and pasted stock language.
For example, of the 47,846 total reviews for the first 10 products listed in an Amazon search for “bluetooth speakers,” two-thirds were problematic, based on calculations using the ReviewMeta tool. So were more than half of the 32,435 reviews for the top 10 Bluetooth headphones listed.
Nice work by the Washington Post here. Just another example of everything is broken. Sigh.
Deadline:
Apple just won an auction for world screen rights to Songwriter, the Murray Cummings-directed documentary that shows singer Ed Sheeran as he finds the handle on writing and performing his distinctive songs. Deal is low to mid-seven figures for world rights, and Apple will make it an event release that includes a theatrical component along with release on Apple’s multiple platforms. The film made its world premiere in Berlin, and tonight the docu is making its North American premiere in the Tribeca Film Festival.
I read that as $1-$5 million. Another brick on the content pile. It will be interesting to see the platform Apple is planning to turn this investment into revenue. Will this content be a draw to extend Apple Music? Will they build a separate Apple Video platform? When will the curtain be pulled back on all this investment?
[VIDEO] Fantastic look (embedded in the main Loop post) at the sequence of today’s pop hit creation process.
Side note, I’d like to urge folks to support at least one newspaper or journalism source, whether it be The New York Times, The Guardian, or your favorite blog. Pick one, buy a subscription, help keep that vital flame alive.
[VIDEO] Ouch. Pretty, pretty good. Video embedded in main Loop post.
Bloomberg:
The world lacks a great all-around red. Always has. We’ve made do with alternatives that could be toxic or plain gross. The gladiators smeared their faces with mercury-based vermilion. Titian painted with an arsenic-based mineral called realgar. The British army’s red coats were infused with crushed cochineal beetles. For decades, red Lego bricks contained cadmium, a carcinogen.
Yikes!
More than 200 natural and synthetic red pigments exist today, but each has issues with safety, stability, chromaticity, and/or opacity. Red 254, aka Ferrari red, for example, is safe and popular, but it’s also carbon-based, leaving it susceptible to fading in the rain or the heat.
And:
Subramanian, more scientist than chief executive, is now hunting for a similarly safe, inorganic red derivative of YInMn—something that could put Ferrari red, which is worth an estimated $300 million annually, well in its rearview mirror.
Fantastic article. Had no idea this market was so huge.
Under the topic “My account is sending spam emails”, this from a giant, ever-growing thread in Google’s Gmail product forum:
My email account has sent out 3 spam emails in the past hour to a list of about 10 addresses that I don’t recongnize. I changed my password immediately after the first one, but then it happened again 2 more times. The subject of the emails is weight loss and growth supplements for men advertisements. I have reported them as spam. Please help, what else can I do to ensure my account isn’t compromised??
This is followed by a wave of people with similar experiences. Making my way through the thread, it appears that this is a weakness in a specific DNS implementation, a hole in the system that makes spoofing via Canadian national telecommunications company Telus open to anyone.
This from Telus’ official Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/TELUSsupport/status/988060048843657216
And see this Hacker News post for more of a deep dive.
Another example of how delicate our tech infrastructure can be.
The Guardian:
Google has unveiled a new messaging system, Chat, an attempt to replace SMS, unify Android’s various messaging services and beat Apple’s iMessage and Facebook’s WhatsApp with the help of mobile phone operators.
Unlike traditional texting, or SMS, most modern messaging services – such as Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or Apple’s iMessage – are so-called over-the-top (OTT) services, which circumvent the mobile phone operator by sending messages over the internet.
Chat is a successor to SMS:
Instead of using OTT, it is based on rich communication services (RCS), a successor to SMS (short message standard), which has been used by people all over the world since 1992 and is still the fallback for most.
And:
With Chat, Google is unifying all the disparate versions of RCS under one interoperable standard that will work across networks, smartphones and operating systems. In doing so it hopes to take the surefire nature of SMS – anyone can send anyone else with a phone a message without them requiring a specific account or app – and bring it up-to-date with all the features modern chat demands.
On the potential for Chat killing iMessage, I defer to this excellent comment from The Overspill:
if Google even looks as though it is positioning this as a way to “kill iMessage”, Apple will never support it, and if Apple doesn’t support it then operators are going to wonder why they’re letting Google screw up their golden goose, and they won’t support it after all. Google can preload it on Android phones, but that’s not “killing iMessage”; it’s “providing an alternative to iMessage”, which WhatsApp and latterly Facebook Messenger have done for years without “killing” iMessage.
And John Gruber’s take on the same topic, different article:
It is unconscionable for Google to back a new protocol that isn’t end-to-end encrypted. End-to-end encryption is table stakes for any new communication platform today. Apple should ignore this — if it’s not secure it should be a non-starter.
I agree with all of the above. I don’t see any danger to iMessage. But I do see this meshing with Google/Android’s place in the market. Chat’s penetration will likely be at the base of the pyramid, the larger, lower priced, smaller margin part of the market. Apple’s sweet spot has always been about halfway up the pyramid: smaller, but higher priced, with larger margins.
Note also that here’s another place where Amazon has no seat at the table. With no mobile phone of their own, Alexa can send a text via the Internet, but has to ride on iOS or Android infrastructure when out and about.
In a nutshell, the survey’s top 3:
The survey was implemented by SurveyMonkey.
What I’d really love to see is some detail on people’s thinking on this. What is the positive impact from Amazon? Is it about getting goods so quickly and reliably? Amazon Echo and Alexa? Something else?
And is Google’s positive mostly about search?
I also wonder if Apple would have won this survey hands down 8 years ago, when the iPhone was still exploding but Android hadn’t quite taken off yet. Interesting.
This whole thing started with this tweet from The Economist’s Hal Hodson:
Twitter, a mystery: I’ve been walking around New York a lot the past few days, AirPods in, tunes going, great vibes. Almost every time I cross a street, though, they cut out. Why? Crossing roads is the only time the cut. Can not figure it out
This appears to happen consistently, and to a lot of people. Here’s mystery solved, via a sequence of tweets from The Verge’s Dan Seifert.
First:
I know the exact spot when crossing 5th Ave in front of the library where every pair of Bluetooth headphones will cut out. to the step.
Experience the same in the middle of Grand Central Terminal. to the step.
And then, the answer:
I’ve asked headphones makers why this happens in past and here’s best explanation I’ve received:
BT needs surfaces to bounce off to work efficiently (walls, ceilings, etc). very different from WiFi. in the middle of the street is farthest from large flat surfaces.
Which begs the question, how come my AirPods work in the middle of a field?
You may wonder why this doesn’t happen in an open field?
Bluetooth doesn’t have any other signals to compete with out there, doesn’t need to be at peak efficiency.
Any Bluetooth experts out there want to weigh in here? This is fascinating to me.
Have some large files you’d like to send? Too big for email and don’t want to have to sign-up for a service like DropBox? Check out Plover.
Here’s how it works:
For example, I just loaded the page and found that I am a panther in blue-foreign-spring. All I need to do is grab a link to this page and text it to a friend. When they follow the link, they’ll appear on the same page as a different animal.
To construct the link to the current page:
In my case, the link to my page would be plover.io/blue-foreign-spring. There’s also a link to the room on the page you can control-click and copy. Either works.
Once you see your friend’s animal appear on the page, drag and drop a file on their animal, or click their animal and browse/choose a file.
Easy peasy. Try it yourself. You can open a second browser tab, head to plover.io, and you’ll get a second animal in the same location. Drag a file to send it from yourself to yourself. Not particularly useful, but it’ll show you how this works.
Big fan. Nicely done, Plover. Podcasters with big audio files, give this a try, let me know if this works for you.
Nice writeup by Andrew Orr for The Mac Observer. This is one of those posts that worth scanning now, while you are feet up with a cup of coffee, rather than in a state of panicked response to your phone gone missing.
One note: Ignore the link to “How to Set Your iOS Device Data to Auto-Destruct” on that page. As pointed out in the comments, it’s outdated and no longer accurate.
UPDATE: Outdated link was deleted from the Mac Observer article.
Mitchel Broussard, MacRumors:
eBay today announced a new update for its iOS and Android apps, aimed at further simplifying the item listing process. The headlining feature of the update is a new barcode scanner, allowing sellers to quickly scan the box of an item (if they still have it), select a condition, and click “list your item.”
The barcode scanner will automatically populate the listing with all of the requisite details (images, description, suggested starting price), and the process can be finished “within seconds,” according to eBay. If you don’t have the item barcode you can still search for it by typing in a description, which should populate the listing at around the same rate as the barcode scanner.
Great idea.
9to5Mac’s Ben Lovejoy just finished reading James Comey’s new book, A Higher Loyalty. Politics aside, a section of the book deals with the FBI’s battle with Apple to access an iPhone used by a San Bernardino gunmen, detailed on this Wikipedia page.
Ben briefly excerpts Comey’s book, interleaving his own take with relevant passages. Short and worth the read.
Some wisdom from Glenn Fleishman.
Long story short, take a minute to familiarize yourself with the details on this Apple Support article on two-factor account recovery.
If you have a Mac or PC, open your browser and head over to a Wikipedia page, like this one on the Mona Lisa.
Hover over a link and you should see a brand new behavior. Instead of a tool tip (a tiny snippet of text), you should see a fairly substantial preview of the linked page. This is a huge improvement.
From Wikimedia:
This seemingly cosmetic change may seem far from revolutionary, but has been built through careful and vigorous A/B testing; scaling APIs to Wikipedia levels of traffic and a change to how we build our code (blog post to follow). Our testing shows that the feature makes it easier and more efficient for Wikipedia readers to interact with our content and get more context about a topic on Wikipedia.
And:
The goal of page previews was to decrease the cost of exploration for each blue link you come across, allowing readers to satisfy their curiosity or clarify a confusing or unknown topic without the burden of opening a new page and navigating back to the original.
More reading on this change: How we designed page previews for Wikipedia — and what could be done with them in the future.
A few stats from that last article:
I love Wikipedia, I think this is a wonderful move. Note that if you don’t see the previews, check to see if you are logged in. If so, head over to Preferences > Appearance and click Enable in the Page Previews section.