How to position your desktop speakers for optimal sound

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Kirk McElhearn walks through the various steps of optimizing the position of your computer speakers. Much of this was new to me, good stuff to know for anyone with any kind of speakers, whether they be for a computer, TV, or for your home recording studio.

Why using Wikipedia to look up your illness is a bad idea

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A large number of doctors and med students use Wikipedia as a reference. If Wikipedia was regularly vetted for mistakes, or had editing limited to trusted experts in specific fields, this might not be a problem.

They printed off the articles on 25 April 2012 to analyse, and discovered that 90% of the entries made statements that contradicted latest medical research.

Yikes.

Satya Nadella, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the Code conference

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[VIDEO] Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg kicked off the annual Code Conference by interviewing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. I found the interview both fascinating and revealing. Fascinating because of the tidbits that Swisher and Mossberg crowbarred out of Nadella, and revealing in that I really didn’t get a sense of vision from Nadella. To me, he had a great opportunity to lay out his grand vision for his company, to pontificate a bit, but instead, he looked clenched, close-mouthed, and a bit uncomfortable. See the video embedded in our original post for highlights.

I also enjoyed this article about Gwyneth Paltrow’s speech at Code.

Her topic — which she had talked about with Re/code earlier, as well — was the “objectification and dehumanization” of anonymous Internet comments. Or, she said, how it feels to be “a person in the culture that people want to harm.”

“We can momentarily anesthetize ourselves by focusing on someone else’s life, get a nice hot shot of schadenfreude and keep going, but how does this serve us?”

Apple statement: iCloud not compromised in Find My iPhone Apple ID attack

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Yesterday, we posted about the wave of Find My iPhone ransom hacks reported in Australia. From the post:

There is conjecture that the hackers have access to some recently stolen eBay passwords and that the victims have the same password on both eBay and for their Apple ID. Regardless of whether this is true or not, this is a pointed example of why you should not reuse passwords.

This morning, Apple made a statement that lent some credence to the password reuse theory:

Apple takes security very seriously and iCloud was not compromised during this incident. Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible and avoid using the same user name and password for multiple services. Any users who need additional help can contact AppleCare or visit their local Apple Retail Store.

Also, the ransom attack affected customers in New Zealand, Canada and the US, as well as in Australia.

The current state of home automation

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The Financial Times reported [paywall] that Apple will push for Jetsons style home automation in next week’s WWDC reveal. Whether or not there is any truth to this conjecture, the home automation/internet of things space is maturing rapidly.

Wave of Australian iOS devices held for ransom via Find My iPhone hack

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Sydney Morning Herald:

One iPhone user, a Fairfax Media employee in Sydney, said she was awoken at 4am on Tuesday to a loud “lost phone” message that said “Oleg Pliss” had hacked her phone. She was instructed to send $50 to a PayPal account to have it unlocked.

Why a tax implication might be driving an Apple/Beats acquisition

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Forbes:

Corporate M&A decisions are increasingly being driven by offshore tax policy. It’s hard to argue the business logic of using offshore income to acquire foreign companies versus bringing the money back into the U.S. for a domestic acquisition.

Following the rough tax math of a foreign acquisition, Apple’s $3.2 billion bid would really be more like $2 billion if the transaction could take place in Ireland. Considering the fact that Apple currently has approximately $54 billion in cash parked offshore, the benefits of doing a foreign acquisition over repatriating that cash back into the U.S. become even more apparent.

Interesting conjecture.

Hotels for your bucket list

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I find these hotels breathtaking. Most are embedded in some form of nature. There’s Switzerland’s Äscher Cliff hotel embedded in the side of a mountain, or the Hotel Kakslauttanen built under the ice in Finland.

Words don’t do these hotels justice. Fantastic pictures.

Have you ever visited any of these?

Everything is broken

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This essay has been making its way around the net like wildfire the past few days. An interesting rant of the “we’re doomed” variety.

Osmo connects iPad gaming to physical world

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[VIDEO] At first blush, this might seem an unnecessary complication. In order to play Osmo games, you sit your iPad in a stand in portrait mode, then place a clip over the iPad camera that contains a small mirror. A tangram puzzle appears on the screen, and you slide blocks on the table in front of the iPad to complete the puzzle.

No big deal, right?

But there’s something more to this than simply reflecting puzzle pieces onto the screen. There’s a real interaction between the actions in the physical world and a model’s representation in the virtual world. Kinda, sorta, an augmented reality, but done very simply, cleanly, just perfect for a series of kids games.

The video in the main post is a marketing piece, for sure, but it does a good job of getting the point across.

Samsung pursuing sapphire for cover glass

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According to the industry on May 22, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics recently asked ingot and wafer makers to submit samples in an effort to adopt the sapphire cover glass. They reviewed it last year as well, but they were reluctant to use it because of high prices, but as global competitors recently announced plans to release new products with sapphire glass, they began to reconsider it in a hurry.

Sound familiar? It should.

Facebook’s left turn on privacy

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Privacy concerns (AKA, Facebook sticking their nose in all my business) is one of several reasons I walked away from the platform more than a year ago.

Facebook is worried that you will start sharing less – or maybe even move to more anonymous services – unless it helps you better manage your private information. On Thursday, the company announced that it would give a privacy checkup to every one of its 1.28 billion users worldwide.

Is Facebook truly taking privacy more seriously?

Driverless car testing coming to California roads on September 16th

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The California Department of Motor Vehicles produced a set of testing regulations for manufacturers of driverless cars. Those regulations went through a period of public comment and were then submitted for legislative approval. The regulations were approved this week and will become effective on September 16th, 2014.

Leaving iMessage

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Re/code:

The Internet is filled with tales of frustration from those who have traded in their iPhone for an Android phone only to find their text messages trapped within Apple’s cloud. The issue arises when an iPhone customer trades in his or her phone for, say, an Android device, but keeps the same phone number that Apple’s messaging system recognizes as an iPhone.

iMessage is far from perfect but has gotten much better over the past year (at least from my experience). But that said, there is a point here.

What responsibility does a tech ecosystem bear to enable customers to easily leave that ecosystem? More…

An iPad case kickstarter I can really get behind

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The Ergo Book has a big strap that is hidden away until you need it, and your iPad can rotate in the case so you can view or stand it in portrait or landscape mode. Shipping in September.

Gigantic lawsuit against Pandora, Sirius/XM, for pre-1972 royalties

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In 1972, copyright law was amended to cover sound recordings, but not retroactively. Yet there are many pre-1972 songs that are played on streaming and satellite radio, enriching the companies that play them. This issue is coming to a head.

Fantastic article, does a great job laying out the issues/players involved.