Jurassic Park velociraptor cage up for auction

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This prop is from one of my favorite movie scenes of all time, the opening of Jurassic Park. As of this post, 153 people have bid (on eBay) and the current price is $99,900.10.

Google Chrome allows malicious sites to eavesdrop via your computer mic

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I have always been a little paranoid about my computer’s web cam and microphone. Here’s yet another reason why.

A user visits a site, that uses speech recognition to offer some cool new functionality. The site asks the user for permission to use his mic, the user accepts, and can now control the site with his voice. Chrome shows a clear indication in the browser that speech recognition is on, and once the user turns it off, or leaves that site, Chrome stops listening. So far, so good.

But what if that site is run by someone with malicious intentions?

Most sites using Speech Recognition, choose to use secure HTTPS connections. This doesn’t mean the site is safe, just that the owner bought a $5 security certificate. When you grant an HTTPS site permission to use your mic, Chrome will remember your choice, and allow the site to start listening in the future, without asking for permission again. This is perfectly fine, as long as Chrome gives you clear indication that you are being listened to, and that the site can’t start listening to you in background windows that are hidden to you.

When you click the button to start or stop the speech recognition on the site, what you won’t notice is that the site may have also opened another hidden popunder window. This window can wait until the main site is closed, and then start listening in without asking for permission. This can be done in a window that you never saw, never interacted with, and probably didn’t even know was there.

To make matters worse, even if you do notice that window (which can be disguised as a common banner), Chrome does not show any visual indication that Speech Recognition is turned on in such windows – only in regular Chrome tabs.

This is scary.

Just unearthed: Steve Jobs’ first public demo of Mac

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This is not the video we published this past Friday. That one was about five minutes long. This one is Steve Jobs presenting to a much more technical audience, the Boston Computer Society.

The video is about an hour and thirty six minutes long. It includes Steve talking about the Mac technology, then doing his “pull the Mac out of the bag” demo. But there’s so much more. There’s the 1984 commercial, along with a series of other commercials that ran at the time. There’s a slide show showing the Mac culture and marketing plans. There’s Steve pitching low cost networking, printing, compatibility with mainframes, file servers, and even Unix compatibility. Fascinating.

Nomad ChargeKey, a lightning adapter that fits on your keyring

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I’d definitely like to take one of these for a spin. There have been a number of times when I was on the road and my iPhone was running low on charge and I didn’t have the right cable on hand.

My only concern is durability. Both ends of the cable are open to the elements and the cable will be riding around in your pocket, picking up all manner of little gunky bits and debris. Still, a terrific idea.

One way to make money in the music business

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This guy picks the hot topics of the day and embeds them in short little songs. He writes up to 100 songs a day. He’s found a loophole in the system and he ekes out a living doing this.

This is a tough call. What he creates is his music, so hard for me to say he shouldn’t be doing this. And he’s pretty consistent, so you know what you are getting when you listen to his stuff. Just feels a little bit slimy to me.

Question is, is he taking money from other musicians? Certainly anyone who buys one of his songs knows what they are getting before they pay. Interesting.

Alternative stock photo sites

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Tired of the usual suspects, stock photo sites with no grit, no edge? Check out this list. There’s some good material on these alternative sites. Pass this along.

David Muir’s one-on-one interview with Tim Cook

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The interview opened up with this quote from Steve Jobs, a quote which is prominently displayed at Apple’s One Infinite Loop headquarters:

“If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

Muir started with a focus on the new Mac Pro, stressing the fact that the Mac Pro is manufactured in Austin, Texas. Tim mentioned that the Mac Pro was just the start, in terms of on-shore manufacturing, briefly touching on the sapphire glass effort starting up in Phoenix.

There were glimpses of the 1984 SuperBowl commercial, and of Steve Jobs’ original Mac rollout.

Next, a brief discussion of secrecy (locked doors, black drapes over unannounced products) segued into the topic of the NSA and surveillance. To me, this was the most interesting part of the interview.

The inner workings of mechanical keyboards

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Ever wonder what the difference was between mechanical and soft keyboards, other than the feel of the keys? This article contains everything you could ever want to know about the mechanics behind the mechanical keyboard. I love the animated GIFs that show the different types of switches in action. [via TidBits]

Steve Jobs introduces Macintosh

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This is the original video showing Steve Jobs introducing the Mac to the world. The crowd’s reaction is amazing to hear, approaching hysteria.

Steven Levy: The Mac is 30 and I was there for its birth

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Steven Levy, on how he came to be part of the Mac’s 1984 launch:

Almost no one remembers who played in the Super Bowl (the Los Angeles Raiders lost to the Washington Redskins. Like I said, 1984 wasn’t like 2014). But the commercial, aired two days before the Mac launch, is part of history, and many can recite the tagline verbatim: “On January 24, Apple will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ’1984.’”

Jobs also planned a massive advertising campaign to follow, including a complete mini-publication that would run in multiple magazines. But, as he would do often in his subsequent career, Jobs relied on the news media to provide the narrative focus for his effort. He decided to give the exclusive story, along with early access to the team, to Newsweek and Rolling Stone, though he also gave briefings to a new magazine called Macworld.

I was the Rolling Stone writer.

Great read.

Apple execs on the Mac at 30

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MacWorld’s Jason Snell spoke with Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Bud Tribble, vice president of software technology, and Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, about the Mac’s thirty years of evolution.

Happy birthday, Macintosh

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Thirty years ago today, Apple first introduced the Mac. From Apple’s front page:

Happy Birthday, Mac.

In 1984, Apple introduced the world to Macintosh.

It was designed to be so easy to use that people could actually use it.

And it came with a promise — that the power of technology taken from a few and put in the hands of everyone, could change the world.

That promise has been kept.

Today, we create, connect, share, and learn in ways that were unimaginable 30 years ago.

Imagine what we can accomplish in the next 30 years.

Digitally signed malware targeting Mac users

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The mechanics of this particular scam are fairly sophisticated. Most readers would be cautious enough to avoid this trap, but even so, this is worth a read.

Bill Gates, the Gates Letter, and Jimmy Fallon’s MacBook Pro

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Bill Gates is on a PR tour to promote the latest edition of the Gates Letter, the annual missive from the Gates Foundation detailing the current focus of the foundation. This year’s letter is called “3 myths that block progress for the poor”. Take a few minutes to read it. No matter your opinion of Bill Gates and Microsoft, this stage of his life is being well spent, in service to others.

One of his recent appearances was on Jimmy Fallon’s show. He spoke about his foundation, about ridding the world of diseases like polio, then Bill started talking about his vision for the future of computing. At some point (about 1:30 in the video if you want to skip ahead), Bill got a little distracted by something on Jimmy’s desk. Something not made by Microsoft. Pretty funny.

iPhone 5s users consuming significantly more data than their predecessors

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Users of flagship smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone 5s and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 are continuing to suck down more data than their tablet-wielding counterparts, according to a large-scale survey of mobile data consumption in 2013 conducted by JDSU (which last year bought mobile data analytics company Arieso, the company that previously ran the annual survey).

Is there something about the evolution of the architecture of mobile phones that makes later models consume more data? Is there a correlation to the adoption rate of the most recent OS rev? In other words, the latest model of a phone enables faster transmission speeds and typically runs the latest OS. Or is there something more complex at work here?

Chinese internet traffic redirected to small Wyoming house

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On Tuesday, most of China’s 500 million Internet users were unable to load websites for up to eight hours. Nearly every Chinese user and Internet company, including major services like Baidu and Sina.com, was affected.

Internet crowd-solves 20 year old mystery

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This is great. A family kept a mysterious note from their grandmother for 20 years. The note was a series of letters, clearly some sort of code. Try as they might, they could not decipher this last message from grandma. So they posted it online. 15 minutes later, they had their answer.

Google and Apple shuttles will now pay to use San Francisco’s public bus stops

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The shuttle buses that transport workers for huge tech firms like Google, Facebook, and Apple between San Francisco and Silicon Valley every day have come under heavy fire lately, but today a vote was passed unanimously on a pilot program that the city hopes will help ease those tensions. In front of a meeting room packed full with journalists and citizens, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) just approved a proposal that will see commuter shuttle buses pay to share approximately 200 spots with city buses.

Companies that operate the buses will soon have to pay $1 for every stop they make, every day, to the SFMTA — amounting to about $1.5 million over the 18-month pilot (set to start in July 2014). The agency won’t earn any profit from the money it collects, though; instead, it’ll use the fees to cover the new permit program, enforcement, and further evaluation of the pilot. Prior to today, Silicon Valley shuttles typically would use SFMTA bus stops throughout the city without express permission, leading to potential traffic snarls — as well as a sentiment that these companies were taking advantage of the city without giving anything back.

This seems fair and, hopefully, will satisfy both sides.

U.S. court finds Samsung to infringe one Apple patent, declares one Samsung patent invalid

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In a summary judgment order entered late on Tuesday (January 21, 2014), Judge Lucy Koh, the federal judge presiding over two Apple v. Samsung patent cases in the Northern District of California, found Samsung’s Android-based devices to infringe an Apple patent on word recommendations (autocomplete) and declared a Samsung patent on multimedia synchronization invalid.

This spells trouble for Samsung.

Bill Murray AMA

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Bill Murray is a national treasure. And now he answers all your questions in this Reddit “Ask Me Anything”.

Google Glass, movie theaters, and journalism

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Where do the ethical obligations of journalism kick in? If you are a blogger, does that make you a journalist? Do you have an obligation to double-check your sources to verify the accuracy of everything you post?

Julie Strietelmeier, a self-professed “tech geek writer” got an email from a reader, telling a story that started when a friend wore his Google Glass into a movie theater (they were prescription lenses) and detailed his detainment by homeland security. Follow the headline link and read the story. It’s worth it.

Hard drive failure rates

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Backup service Backblaze answers the question, “Which hard drive should I buy?”