I am a fan of the stealth unfollow. The first vital step in a more sophisticated curation process.
How to share photos and videos with iCloud
An updated how-to on photo sharing with iCloud, iOS, and your Mac.
Samsung plans “health” event a week before Apple’s WWDC
The invitation says:
A new conversation about health is about to begin. Be there when it starts.
The event is planned for May 28th, 10:30 am, San Francisco.
I can only imagine that this is a defensive play in anticipation of Apple’s WWDC announcements. Think it’ll work? Think Samsung will take the wind out of Apple’s WWDC sails? Not a chance.
Apple patents keyboard with in-key displays, capacitive touch sensors
Each key is a little OLED screen. I’d imagine you could use the entire keyboard as a single discrete display, or switch keyboards on the fly, to an accounting keyboard, for example.
Fascinating possibilities.
Facebook’s play to become the glue at the center of mobile
From Quartz:
Facebook’s moves today point to its ambition to become the glue that holds the mobile internet together the same way Google is the glue that holds the web together. Google achieved dominance on the pre-mobile internet world wide web with a similar strategy. Not only did it bring people to the websites via search, it also created a massive data-gathering machine that tracks people across the web and runs AdSense, the web’s biggest ad network.
Google releases Google Docs and Google Sheets iOS apps
Apple offers Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes, counterparts to Microsoft’s recently released Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. As you might expect, Google has now joined the fray with their Google Docs and Google Sheets iOS apps.
Actor Bob Hoskins dies of pneumonia at 71
Seems Hoskins died yesterday. Best known for Mona Lisa and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, though my personal favorite was his take on Nikita Kruschev in the excellent Enemy at the Gates.
Science shows how guitar players’ brains are actually different from everybody elses’
I knew it!
Whether it’s playing “Stairway to Heaven” until your fingers bleed or always finding yourself in the center of a group of people intent on singing “Wagon Wheel,” some things are common to all guitarists.
Including, as it turns out, their brain chemistry.
Fascinating.
Boyhood
[VIDEO] You know all those movies where someone takes a selfie in the same position once a year, then flows them together so you can watch someone grow up? Well the movie Boyhood takes this one amazing step further.
Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, to name a few) found the star, Ellar Coltrane, when he was 7 years old and visited him for a few days of shooting every year. The growing up that occurs in the movie is real. Unbelievable. Can’t wait to see it.
The trailer is embedded in the original post.
Android’s “Silver” program reportedly designed to wrest back control over Android
Earlier reports that Google is building a new Silver brand of handsets got a big boost in this report (subscription required). This Tech Crunch article lays out the details.
Bottom line, this new Silver line will reportedly get more timely Android updates which, in my opinion, will lead to more fragmentation in the Android market.
Amazon opens new “Wearable Technology” store
The store is called Amazon Wearable Technology. Sections include Fitness and Wellness, Healthcare Devices, Wearable Cameras, Smart Watches, and Families, Kids, and Pets.
Here’s a link to the US version of the store. Not sure if this has yet rolled out in your country.
Apple v. Samsung: Jury deliberations begin
Hoping for justice here.
Netflix signs new traffic deal with Verizon
When Netflix signed their traffic peering deal with Comcast, that was a precedent. This deal with Verizon makes these deals a way of life. A Faustian bargain indeed.
Microsoft completes Nokia purchase, Nokia names Suri CEO, shares jump
Bloomberg:
Nokia named Rajeev Suri chief executive officer, picking the head of its networks division to chart the company’s future and forecasting a return to sales growth after selling the mobile-phone business to Microsoft Corp.
Samsung posts lowest sales in last 5 quarters, Chinese rivals win customers
Samsung is being attacked from both ends. Chinese brands like Huawei are attacking from the low-end and Apple is attacking from the higher end. Tough strategic position.
AT&T to roll out in-flight 4G LTE network by late next year
From AT&T:
AT&T* today announced plans to launch a high-speed 4G LTE-based in-flight connectivity service for airlines and passengers in commercial, business and general aviation. The service, planned to be available as soon as late 2015, will be capable of providing in-flight broadband for customers including fast, reliable Wi-Fi and onboard entertainment.
Looks like a shot across the bow of in-flight internet provider Gogo.
Apple updates MacBook Air lineup with speed bump, battery boost, drops price $100
The big stories here are the $100 price drop and the battery boost:
The new models also received a slight bump in battery life for iTunes movie playback, with the 11-inch model jumping from 8 hours to 9 hours and the 13-inch model from 10 hours to 12 hours.
That’s a nice little boost. Love this update.
Inside HBO’s “Silicon Valley”
I love this show. It’s satire, but underneath it all is well researched, sharp witted, down to the bones truth. And funny as hell, too.
Forbes: “Apple, be afraid: China’s Xiaomi going global”
Forbes:
Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, announced on Wednesday that it is planning to enter ten countries this year. By New Year’s Eve, you should be able to buy the Mi3 in India, Brazil, and Russia as well as Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. Xiaomi is already selling phones in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Cupertino should be worried. Xiaomi’s Mi3 in China is cheaper than the iPhone 5c—1,999 yuan versus 4,488—and better—the Xiaomi phone has a larger and sharper screen and a camera with higher-density pixels. Unless you insist on having a depiction of a piece of fruit on your device, you will go with the Xiaomi offering every time. No wonder Xiaomi outsells Apple in China according to research firm Canalys, shipping 7.3 million phones in the fourth quarter of last year. The American company came in at about 7 million in the period, enough for sixth place behind Xiaomi’s No. 5 ranking.
This is disappointing. The poorest level of journalism, if you can even use that term here. There might be something to this. I don’t have any experience with Xiaomi’s Mi3. But when I read the sentence, “Unless you insist on having a depiction of a piece of fruit on your device, you will go with the Xiaomi offering every time”, all credibility is gone.
Forbes, you should be ashamed to have your name associated with this tripe.
Internet Explorer exploit makes 26% of the world’s browsers vulnerable
Sounds to me like this is a very large exploit (impacts IE version 6 through 11) that is currently active, being used in attacks. If you use Windows, the quickest fix is to switch to another browser, at least until … Continued
Unpickable bike lock
[VIDEO] This bike lock is pretty clever. Most of these U-shaped locks are notoriously easy to pick, often just using a simple Bic pen.
This lock offers no apparent keyway. And when you do find a place to put the key, all you get is a hollow cylinder. Watch the video (embedded in the post) to see how this works. The coolness starts at about the two minute mark.
If someone buys Jim lunch with Tim Cook, pick me up one of these locks, too!
Daisy chaining 36 drives to a single Mac Pro
This is just plain cool. No one would ever need to do this, but amazing to me that one machine can support such massive connectivity.
Responding to App Store reviews
Microsoft is adding the ability for developers to send feedback directly to customer reviews. Are you an iOS developer? Read the post, leave a comment.
How to outguess passwords
Think you know how to generate a secure password? Do you follow your own advice?
This is a thoughtful look at the process of guessing people’s passwords. Well written, an enjoyable read, and I learned a few things along the way.
Scam convinces poor/homeless to sign iPhone contracts at Apple Store
This is heinous.
Men cruise around homeless shelters, the 16th Street Mall, and plasma donation clinics in an effort to find people desperate for money.
Google+ chief Vic Gundotra to step down
Follow the link to read Gundotra’s blog post about leaving and go to the post to read Larry Page’s comment on Vic leaving.
Time’s 100 most influential people
There’s much to consume here. At its core are 100 short biographies of influential people, all written by fascinating people. A bit of a clunky interface, and there’s much to discuss as far as the makeup of the list.
Larry Page and Google: The Untold Story
Not sure this is the untold story as much as it is a collection of anecdotes from a variety of sources, but I did find it interesting, if a bit scattered.
There’s coverage of Page, Brin, and Schmidt of course. But there are stories about Andy Rubin and Android, Steve Jobs, Tesla (a big influence on Larry Page), Paul Buchheit and gmail, Marissa Meyer, and a lot more.
Definitely an enjoyable read.
Deleting documents stored on iCloud
Kirk McElhearn talks through the process of deleting iCloud documents from iOS and the Mac.
On the iOS side, he’s right on the money. But on the Mac side, there actually is a parallel interface. Read the post for more.
Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit
Reuters:
Four major tech companies including Apple and Google have agreed to pay a total of $324 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to hold down salaries in Silicon Valley, sources familiar with the deal said, just weeks before a high profile trial had been scheduled to begin.
And:
The case has been closely watched due to the potentially high damages award and the opportunity to peek into the world of Silicon Valley’s elite. The case was based largely on emails in which Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and some of their Silicon Valley rivals hatched plans to avoid poaching each other’s prized engineers.
In one email exchange after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired, court documents show. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt’s note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face.
Glad that’s over. I can’t imagine this would be anything but a giant distraction.