How to use Voice Search with the Apple TV

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When Amazon introduced the Fire TV yesterday, much was made about the ability to do voice search on the device. In the linked post, Kirk McElhearn walks through the process of doing the same thing on Apple TV, using the iOS Remote app. Cool beans.

Apple opens WWDC ticket lottery, starting today

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Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off on June 2nd, runs through June 6th, at its usual spot in Moscone West in San Francisco. Sign up. Hope to see you there!

A new phase in scamming: using your online photos

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A new breed of scammer now lifts your online photos to create a fake online identity, using your real name. For example, they might use your photos to create a Facebook account, using your name. Someone who knows you might search for you, see the pictures, invite the fake account into a friendship, setting themselves up for a scam.

The scammers obviously know who you are, and block you from these accounts making it difficult for you to detect.

This is a fascinating read.

George Lucas explains how he invented lightsabers

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So very great. From The Verge’s post:

There’s one particularly interesting shot around two minutes into the video that shows Obi Wan Kenobi being run through by Darth Vader’s lightsaber. In Lucas’ cut of Episode IV, the blade passes through an ethereal Obi Wan; in the early shot, it rips through his cloak, leaving a trail of fire and the aging Jedi’s upper body hanging in the air as his lower body slumps to the floor.

United Nations uses iBeacons to simulate a minefield at NY museum

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For the UN’s International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action taking place on April 4, New Museum in New York City will host an exhibit that uses iBeacons to simulate a virtual minefield and let anyone experience the danger of land mines.

Fantastic use of iBeacons.

Facebook’s very public dispute with Eat24

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Eat24 is a food delivery service, with a pretty sizable following on Facebook. All that is about to change.

From the Eat24 blog:

Dear Facebook,

Hey. It’s Eat24. Look, we need to talk. This isn’t easy to say since we’ve been together so long, but we need to break up. We’d love to say “It’s not you, it’s us” but it’s totally you. Not to be rude, but you aren’t the smart, funny social network we fell in love with several years back. You’ve changed. A lot.

Eat24 spent years accumulating fans and likes on Facebook and is so upset with changes Facebook is making, they are deleting their entire Facebook presence.

Apple’s war on Samsung has Google in crossfire

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New York Times:

Some features in Samsung devices that Apple objects to are part of Google’s Android operating system, by far the most popular mobile operating system worldwide, running on more than a billion devices made by many manufacturers. That means that if Apple wins, Google could have to make changes to critical Android features, and Samsung and other Android phone makers might have to modify the software on their phones.

Video of Woz surprising a young girl by hand-delivering her brand new Mac

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[VIDEO] Steve Wozniak is such an incredibly nice, down-to-Earth person. This happened a few years ago, but the video was just put up on Saturday.

A few years ago, Steve and Janet Wozniak came to town to help us have a little fun with our kid Emma. Emma’s dad met them around the back of the block to give them Emma’s new iMac, and then they drove back around and rang the doorbell to deliver it…and shocked the heck out of Emma and her sister (who as Apple fankids immediately knew who he was) and friends (who only knew of him from “Dancing With The Stars”). Little sister Elizabeth got the iPod Touch as a “one more thing,” and Janet shot the video.

Steve’s known to be quite the practical joker, and it was very kind of him and Janet to spend the time to do this…and make a great memory for all of us.

He gave permission to put this up. We all hope you enjoy it.

Her reaction starts at about 2:30 in. Just a nice thing to do. You rock, Woz!

Why Google is splitting their stock

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On Thursday, April 3rd, Google will split their stock, creating two stocks, each of which will start at approximately half the current share value. I thought the logic behind the split was interesting.

Access any Tesla S with only a 6 character password over the net

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I don’t find this worrisome, since if someone wants access to a Tesla S, they’d find a way to break in. But I do find it interesting.

Tesla Motors Inc’s electric vehicles can be located and unlocked by criminals remotely simply by cracking a six-character password using traditional hacking techniques, according to newly released research.

Wikipedia about to undergo a massive font retooling

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From FastCoDesign:

Next Thursday, Wikipedia will launch a redesign that’s almost impossibly large in scope, scaling across 32,533,899 pages in 287 languages. But admittedly, it’ll take a sharp eye to notice that font size is larger, or that the section headers will render in authoritative, old media serif (think Georgia) while body copy will render in streamlined sans-serif (think Helvetica).

Google’s 100 year study of employee happiness

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Interesting. There’s potential to help fine-tune work environments to make employees happier and, presumably, more productive. There’s a big brother aspect to this. Hopefully, the “Don’t be evil” motto is still in effect at Google.

The invention of Jeopardy!

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Jeopardy! will turn 50 this year and the version hosted by Alex Trebek will turn 30. Ken Jennings, one of the all time biggest winners on any game show ever, won more than $3 million on the show. In the linked post, Jennings interview the mother and creator of Jeopardy, Julann Griffin. Julan was married to Merv Griffin, who created Wheel of Fortune. Just saying.

Search Google’s newspaper database

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Back in 2008, Google started scanning and archiving old newspapers, making the archives searchable. Imagine seeing the newspaper from the day after we landed on the moon. Great resource!

Writing Aid, a real assist for writers

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If you are a writer, check out the Writing Aid, an iPhone app by Benjamin Mayo. The interface couldn’t be simpler. Launch the app, type in a word or phrase, and a banner appears at the top of the app, scrolling side to side with a list of synonyms. At the same time, the definition of the word appears in the main body of the app.

Tap a synonym to jump to a new page with more synonyms and a definition of that word. And so on. You can tap on the upper left of the screen to climb back out to previous synonyms.

Simple, elegant, effective.