Beyond Moore’s Law

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The Economist walks through the basics of integrated circuit design and construction, digging into the factors that limit future miniaturization and speed increases.

As a relative newbie when it comes to chip design, I found the whole article to be very readable.

Apple’s crushing brand value growth

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There’s a lot of interesting data to digest in research agency Millward Brown’s latest global brand value report. Read on for some good quotes from the report.

Force Touch is poised to rule all Apple devices

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M.G. Siegler asks: if there was no Apple Watch, would Apple have come up with Force Touch at all?

My 2 cents: I don’t think Apple Watch was in anyone’s mind when Force Touch was patented.

Net neutrality tester

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The Internet Health Test site runs a series of upload and download tests to check for consistency and degradation in the connection through your ISP. That data is then passed back as part of a crowd-sourcing effort.

Shoe retailer Clarks rolls out iPad foot measuring, data gathering system

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Clarks is no small operation. They’ve got more than 1,000 stores throughout the world and they also manufacture their own shoes which they sell in their own shops, as well as via third party retailers.

This new system gives them accurate foot measurement, but that’s not the goal behind this system.

On the Apple Watch interaction model and the Digital Crown

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John Gruber digs into the digital crown interface, explaining how it works and why it’s not as complicated as it first seems. This is helpful if you are confused or, perhaps, intimidated by the Apple Watch interface.

9to5mac: iPad to get dual app viewing mode

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Mark Gurman, writing for 9to5mac:

Facing slowing growth for the first time since the iPad’s 2010 debut, Apple is working on several significant software and hardware updates to reinvigorate the tablet over the next year. Apple is developing a dual-app viewing mode, 12-inch iPads codenamed “J98″ and “J99,” as well as support for multi-user logins, according to sources briefed on the plans.

Find the tempo of any song

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Go to songbpm.com and enter an artist and title. SongBPM will search its database and return all songs that match, along with the beats per minute (BPM) for each song.

Steve Jobs and time travel

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Yesterday, I posted this video, a collection of photos and audio interviews of Apple’s early days. A reader alerted me to an interesting picture of a young Steve Jobs at about 1:50 into the video. Take a look.

The early days of Apple

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This is an amazing video, a collection of audio interviews and still photos, beautifully edited together to capture the early days of Apple. You’ll hear lots of Steve and Woz, and some excellent anecdotes.

Scamming a quiz show

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Like a good scam story? How about one about scamming a quiz show? This one is a few years old, but I just ran into it today, thought it was good enough to share. Enjoy.

Thought controlled prosthetics, a step on the road to immortality

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When he was a teenager, Les Baugh was racing with his brother and ran into some live power lines, ultimately losing his arms. Much later in life, he has been given the chance to try out some new, bionic limbs, arms and hands that he can control with his thoughts.

How to customize your new Apple Watch

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Once you’ve read Jason Snell’s piece about Apple Watch faces and complications (see the previous Loop post), spend some time with Walt Mossberg as he talks you through things like settings, apps, and notifications. Excellent complementary pieces.