A robot followed me around New York to carry my stuff

Written by

Bridget Carey, CNET:

Gita is an extremely nimble cargo bot, designed to follow its owner for miles, carrying 40 pounds of stuff inside its 2-foot-tall body.

It doesn’t have the features you’d expect of a companion robot. There are no arms. It doesn’t make small talk. There’s not even a smiley face programmed into the screen to ease your trepidation over having a robot follow your every move.

Gita is basically a two wheeled shopping bag, designed to follow whoever is wearing the fanny pack to which it is linked. Great concept, though you’re screwed if it runs out of battery.

Steve Jobs’ liver—and the quest for a better organ location algorithm

Written by

Mallory Locklear, Ars Technica:

In 2009, Steve Jobs received a liver transplant—not in northern California where he lived, but across the country in Memphis, Tennessee. Given the general complications of both travel and a transplant, Jobs’ decision may seem like an odd choice. But it was a strategic move that almost certainly got him a liver much more quickly than if Jobs had just waited for a liver to become available in California. Eight years later, the Apple founder’s procedure continues to highlight the state of transplants in the US: when it comes to organs, we have a big math problem.

Today, there’s a much greater need than there are organs to go around. It’s a problem currently being tackled in part by mathematicians and developers, who are crafting clever algorithms that aim to make organ allocation as fair as possible. But it’s complicated math that’s done against a backdrop of sticky ethical issues, and the debates surrounding it are heated and contentious.

The article digs into the complexities of distributing organs as they become available, and the process of deciding who qualifies. This truly is life or death decision making.

Apple adds Apple Park details and satellite imagery to Apple Maps

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Fire up Apple Maps, switch to satellite (on the Mac, it’s the tab in the map window’s upper right corner, in iOS, the tab is hidden behind the info icon), then type Apple Park in the search box. You’ll want the Apple Park in Cupertino, CA. Fun exploring the map this way, though I’m looking forward to the finished product.

White hat hackers use Safari to pwn MacBook Pro, display message on Touch Bar

Written by

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors, on the CanMacWest security conference and the Pwn2Own hacking contest:

Independent hackers Samuel Groß and Niklas Baumstark landed a partial success and earned $28,000 after targeting Safari with an escalation to root on macOS, which allowed them to scroll a message on a MacBook Pro Touch Bar.

Check out the picture in the post. Imagine seeing a message like that crawling across your Touch Bar. On the positive side, these exploits have been turned over to Apple so they can be patched before the exploits are made public.

Apple is underpricing AirPods and Apple Watch

Written by

Neil Cybart:

After using AirPods for the past three months, one takeaway relates to pricing. It is clear that Apple is underpricing AirPods. While this statement may sound outlandish considering that a pair of EarPods is included in every iPhone box, AirPods are not just any pair of headphones.

Yes, I do think the statement sounds outlandish. But reading the post, I do think Neil is on to something here (as he usually is). Apple seems to be shifting away from their typical high margin Apple Tax strategy, at least when it comes to AirPods and Apple Watch.

Contrary to the conclusions found in most headphone buying guides, AirPods should not be compared to lower-priced, wired headphones. These buying guides not only lean on sound quality to unfairly shortchange truly wireless headphones, but also misidentify why consumers want to buy wireless headphones in the first place. AirPods’ primary value proposition isn’t found with sound quality but rather with not having any wires. Accordingly, the product should be compared to other truly wireless headphones.

And those products are almost universally priced higher than $159. Same holds true for Apple Watch. Nice analysis here.

Rare working Apple I heading to auction

Written by

[VIDEO] MacRumors:

In 1976, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak designed and built the Apple I, or Apple-1, the company’s first computer. Of the 175 sold, only 50 to 60 or so remain in existence, including just eight functioning ones, making the iconic machine a rare collector’s item worth significantly more than its original $666.66 price.

This one is coming up for auction in May. Click through to the main Loop post for a video showing the Apple I at work.

Apple Watch shines in Cleveland Clinic heart rate study

Written by

Science Daily:

Researchers at Cleveland Clinic put five popular wrist-worn fitness trackers to the test to find out how accurately they gauge heart rate across several types of exercise and intensity levels.

And:

The devices chosen for testing (Apple Watch, Fitbit Blaze, Garmin Forerunner 235, and TomTom Spark Cardio) were based on their popularity and sales figures. Researchers then recorded volunteers’ heart rates at rest and after light, moderate and vigorous exercise across three types of activities, including the treadmill, stationary bike and elliptical (with and without hand levers). Measurements on the wearable devices were compared to readings from the chest strap and EKG.

And:

While the watch-style heart rate monitors may accurately report heart rate at rest, and most were acceptable on the treadmill, they were fairly inaccurate while bicycling or using the elliptical. Of the wrist-worn heart rate monitors, only the Apple Watch provided accurate heart rate readings when participants switched to the elliptical trainer without arm levers; none gave correct measurements when they used arm levers. The wrist and forearm monitors also became less accurate the more intense the activity levels, with the exception of the Apple Watch.

Interesting about the arm levers. Seems to me, this should be part of Apple’s Apple Watch heart rate testing. But still, a solid result.

Ugreen Apple Watch charger, no cable required

Written by

Jeff Benjamin, 9to5Mac, reviews a portable Apple Watch charger stick that not only comes with a built-in magnetic Apple Watch charging bubble, it also comes with a built-in USB-A port so you can top off your iPhone charge at the same time as you charge your watch.

Great concept. Wish all chargers had this. I’d never need to travel with that single-purpose Apple Watch cable again.

iOS 11 lock screen concept

Written by

Matt Birchler:

iOS 11 will all but surely be revealed at WWDC in June this year, and I would expect something to change on the lock screen there. So before Apple shows us what we’re getting in iOS 11, I decided to design my own new lock screen for iOS.

Matt has some excellent ideas here, designed to wring some usefulness from the lock screen, beyond checking the data and time and seeing notifications that have occurred since your last unlock.

I’ve long felt we should have the ability to fine tune what shows up on the lock screen and that Apple should open up the lock screen to developers. For example, I’d love to see the current temp/weather, along with my next appointment, on my lock screen.

Great writeup, worth reading.

Futuracha Pro: quirky font, watch the magic as you type

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Futuracha Pro is an Open Type Font, originally based on Futura, which includes a large set of ligatures which change dramatically depending on the letter before and after the letter you are typing. This concept is best seen in motion.

Watch the video embedded in the main Loop post and jump to about 1:07 to watch the magic.

The key is the ever-expanding library of ligatures, which you can add to. Futuracha Pro is homing in on the end of its Indiegogo campaign, having long ago reached their original funding goal. This is definitely my favorite new font.

While you slept, massive swastika-laced Twitter hack

Written by

The Guardian:

Thousands of Twitter accounts, including high profile ones belonging to users such as Forbes, Amnesty International, the BBC’s North American service, and tennis star Boris Becker were compromised on Wednesday morning, resulting in them tweeting propaganda related to Turkey’s escalating diplomatic conflict with Germany and the Netherlands.

All the compromised accounts were attacked through their use of a popular third-party analytics service, Twitter Counter.

There are captured images of a few of the tweets in the Guardian article.

This does beg the question: If your account was hacked, what do you do?

Here’s a link to Twitter’s official My account has been hacked page. Tuck this one away and hope you never need it.

The typography of Broadway

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This is an amazing visual catalog of the typography up and down Broadway in New York City. Each photo has a slide that reveals the font (in one direction) and the font in place on a building or sign (the other direction). Beautiful implementation.

33 photos of the rise and fall of Apple

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This is a collection of photos that take you from the birth of Apple, through their early successes, then through the dark days leading to the return of Steve Jobs in 1997. Nice little one page walk through history.

One side bit of trivia: Gil Amelio, the CEO who brought Jobs back, was on the team that first demonstrated the charge-coupled-device, the hardware that made digital cameras possible.

The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers

Written by

David Pogue:

A few years ago, backstage at a conference, I spotted a blind woman using her phone. The phone was speaking everything her finger touched on the screen, allowing her to tear through her apps. My jaw hit the floor. After years of practice, she had cranked the voice’s speed so high, I couldn’t understand a word it was saying.

And here’s the kicker: She could do all of this with the screen turned off. Her phone’s battery lasted forever.

Ever since that day, I’ve been like a kid at a magic show. I’ve wanted to know how it’s done. I’ve wanted an inside look at how the blind could navigate a phone that’s basically a slab of featureless glass.

This week, I got my chance. Joseph Danowsky offered to spend a morning with me, showing me the ropes.

Fascinating video, terrific article. A nice, detailed day in the life with VoiceOver.

New rev of LG 5K UltraFine Display solves problem working near routers

Written by

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Earlier this year we reported issues with using the LG UltraFine 5K Display with new MacBook Pros near wireless access points including Apple wireless routers. LG acknowledged issues caused by poor shielding, inventory was pulled from Apple Stores, and revised hardware with proper shielding is now shipping and should be in Apple Stores soon. This week we got our hands on one of the new models with shielding improvements to put to the test and see if the issues have really been resolved.

A rare third party product that has become critical path for Apple. An important problem to fix.

Apple finishes first in undercover tech support showdown list

Written by

Laptop Magazine:

Not every company offers first-class tech support for its laptops. With confusing web resources, unhelpful social media accounts and clueless phone reps, many brands put a lot of unnecessary obstacles between consumers and the help they need.

That’s why, for over 10 years, Laptop Mag has published its annual Tech Support Showdown, in which we go undercover to test and grade the most popular laptop brands.

Apple has Apple Stores combined with excellent phone support. Over the last year, they’ve supplemented this approach with the excellent @AppleSupport Twitter account. Sure, there are stumbles, but Apple remains strong in this area, even as they grow in size and in product lines they have to support.

Myke Hurley’s excellent Nintendo Switch review

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[VIDEO] Myke Hurley did a fantastic job pulling together this video walkthrough of the Nintendo Switch. It’s informative in the best possible way, conveying lots of detail while still being watchable and interesting.

If you are interested in the Switch, this is absolutely worth your time. As always, the video is embedded in the main Loop post.

25 songs that tell us where music is going

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This sort of interactive media exploration is something the New York Times does very well. Just a heads up: Some of the song lyrics are NSFW and the songs play when they scroll into view, so consider headphones before you dig in.

But do dig in.

Conan: Introducing Apple Healthcare

Written by

[VIDEO] Click through to the main Loop post for Conan’s take on Apple Healthcare. Some thing you just can’t unsee.

Indie game promotion takes over the iOS and Mac App Stores

Written by

John Voorhees, MacStories:

The App Store looks a little different today. If you opened it and thought you accidentally landed on the Games category page, it would be understandable. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, Apple has launched a major promotion of the finest indie games available on iOS. According to the App Store Games Twitter account, the promotion is running for the next twelve days.

Lots of great games.

Beta of the iPad’s new floating keyboard

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Back in January, developer Steve Troughton-Smith discovered a new one-handed keyboard embedded in an iOS 10.3 beta. And because he’s a nice guy genius, Steve went ahead and built a Swift playground so you can play with it, too.

Here’s Steve’s tweet, with a link to the playground:

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/840170036786524160

And here’s a post by Ben Lovejoy, with a bit of background.

WikiLeaks: We’ll work with tech firms to defeat CIA hacking

Written by

Associated Press:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says his group will work with technology companies to help defend them against the Central Intelligence Agency’s hacking tools.

In an online press conference, Assange acknowledged that companies had asked for more details about the CIA cyberespionage toolkit whose existence he purportedly revealed in a massive leak published Tuesday.

Assange said Thursday that “we have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out.”

The CIA has so far declined to comment on the authenticity of the leak.

The world’s finest logos

Written by

Logobook purports to curate and feature the world’s finest logos, symbols and trademarks.

An interesting project, worth digging through, especially if you need to create a logo of your own.

How Siri learns a new language

Written by

Stephen Nellis, Reuters:

There is at least one thing Siri can do that the other assistants cannot: speak 21 languages localized for 36 countries, a very important capability in a smartphone market where most sales are outside the United States.

Microsoft Cortana, by contrast, has eight languages tailored for 13 countries. Google’s Assistant, which began in its Pixel phone but has moved to other Android devices, speaks four languages. Amazon’s Alexa features only English and German. Siri will even soon start to learn Shanghainese, a special dialect of Wu Chinese spoken only around Shanghai.

And:

At Apple, the company starts working on a new language by bringing in humans to read passages in a range of accents and dialects, which are then transcribed by hand so the computer has an exact representation of the spoken text to learn from, said Alex Acero, head of the speech team at Apple. Apple also captures a range of sounds in a variety of voices. From there, a language model is built that tries to predict words sequences.

Then Apple deploys “dictation mode,” its text-to-speech translator, in the new language, Acero said. When customers use dictation mode, Apple captures a small percentage of the audio recordings and makes them anonymous. The recordings, complete with background noise and mumbled words, are transcribed by humans, a process that helps cut the speech recognition error rate in half.

Fascinating.

Shatner’s seat, the small black triangle on the inside wall of most airplanes

Written by

Quora question:

I always see this small black triangle on the inside of airplane walls. What does it mean or do?

And the answer:

The black triangle marks the location of what has been called “William Shatner’s Seat,” the seat with the clearest view of the wing. This is the place inside the airplane from which you can get the best visual check for ice or other problems. The Shatner reference is to one of the strangest Twilight Zone episodes, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, which first aired on October 11, 1963. In it, Shatner’s character sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane he’s a passenger on.

Not sure if this is true, but I did a bit of lookup and there are a number of forums that tell a similar story. Great bit of trivia for your next flight, or the next time you meet William Shatner.

TouchRetouch Review: Removing unwanted objects from photos

Written by

Jake Underwood, MacStories, shows off TouchRetouch, an iOS app that makes it easy to remove objects from photos.

This is like magic to me, removing an object from a photo and using context to replace background in the photo that the camera cannot see.