Adobe:
Photoshop Touch app lets you quickly combine images, apply professional effects, share the results with friends and family through social networking sites like Facebook, and more — all from the convenience of your tablet.
A first review is available at MacStories.
Buzzfeed:
It’s 2012. And it seems like something much, much worse than what the Mayans predicted is coming—and much sooner than you’d think. These are the twenty places you definitely want to see before it’s all over on March 6, 2012.
I’ve been to three of these and would like to get to at least three more. Won’t make it before March 6th though.
Wired Science:
The moon, Venus, and Jupiter — the three brightest objects in the night sky — will be putting on a dazzling celestial show shortly after sunset both Feb. 25 and 26, coming together in a tight triangle. With any luck, you might also spot tiny Mercury down near the horizon just as the sun goes down.People all over the world can check out the performance just by stepping outside and looking westward. If snowstorms or general chilliness drive you inside, you can always watch the spectacular event live on the Slooh Space Camera feed, starting both nights at 6:30 p.m. PST.
ESPN:
As the No. 10 Chevrolet rolled to a stop Thursday, the front end destroyed after a horrific impact with the inside retaining wall, Danica Patrick let her crew know she was all right.She did it with three simple words, two of which would make many blush.
The Daytona 500 is this weekend and this video reminds you of not only how dangerous the race is but also, paradoxically, how safe it is.
EFF:
If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.Note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. It also does not change the fact that any information gathered and stored by Google could be sought by law enforcement.
Hat tip to Daring Fireball.
Adweek:
It’s hard to think of a product that’s had a greater impact on the culture in the past five years than the iPhone. Thanks to TBWA, it’s gotten remarkable advertising to match. Check out all 84 spots that have aired so far, beginning with the first teaser up through today.
Ars Technica:
To highlight work done to improve the sound of compressed music files, Apple recently launched a “Mastered for iTunes” section on the iTunes Store.How does this work? Ars spoke with Masterdisk Chief Engineer Andy VanDette, who recently completed a project remastering the bulk of Rush’s back catalogue. As part of the process, VanDette created special versions of each song specifically for uploading to the iTunes Store.
I bet you didn’t realize the effort that goes into creating music for the iTunes store.
ABC News:
Last night’s special edition of Nightline expanded upon that original report, and included footage from inside the factory, interviews with the workers, and even a visit to a local village.Since ABC News’ original report, Apple, Foxconn, and the Fair Labor Association have sent statements explaining a few sentences in the original report.
Gizmodo:
Jeb Corliss hit the side of Table Mountain while attempting a wingsuit jump. Now, the footage from the cameras mounted to his helmet is available—and it looks terrifying.
I love these wingsuit videos but this guy was asking for trouble “flying” so low, trying to grab the balloons!
New York Times:
Apple Inc. defended itself in a local court here Wednesday against allegations that it does not own rights to the iPad trademark in China, a challenge that threatens to prevent the company from selling one of its most popular products in one of its fastest growing markets.The heated, four-hour session at the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court ended, though, without the local district judge issuing any ruling or giving any public indication of how the case would be resolved.
The Verge:
Nightline has aired its report from Foxconn’s factories on ABC. In the report, host Bill Weir speaks directly to factory workers as well as their managers. You would think that this “unprecedented” look inside Apple factories would reveal much we didn’t know, but the show was relatively light on information.We’ve compiled a list of the most interesting facts in bullet points, but we’re left feeling like there wasn’t much meat on the bones of the 30-minute report.
i hope no one was expecting some kind of Mike Wallace “60 Minutes” explosive, rip-the-lid-off-the-industry kind of expose.
Betabeat:
Markus Spiering, senior product manager for Flickr, is very happy to be making extensive changes to the Flickr interface, the first of which will roll out next week, as he explained in a meeting with Betabeat, Yahoo’s Jason Khoury, and Flickr.com, looking pretty on Mr. Spiering’s Macbook Air.The new photo view will hit on Feb. 28, Mr. Spiering said, and with it comes a new upload interface. Flickr’s uploading page now looks more like an app than a website. Goodbye, retro blue links. Hello, swoopy drag-and-drop.
I’ve used Flickr for years and am looking forward to the revamp. The interface is definitely long in the tooth.
Mashable:
A new kind of outdoor advertisement is being tested on Oxford Street in London’s West End. The interactive advertisement uses a high-definition camera to scan pedestrians and identify their gender before showing a specific ad. The built-in system has a 90% accuracy rate in analyzing a person’s facial features and determining if they’re male or female.Males won’t be able to see the full ad and will be directed to Plan UK’s website instead. The purpose of this was to show men “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.”
This is the tip of the focused advertisement iceberg.
PandoDaily:
Apple has a serious problem on their hands, and it is one they need to fix it as soon as possible. This is an issue that Apple’s biggest ally – iOS developers – are complaining about, one that hurts the user, and one that could end up damaging the iOS ecosystem more than any set of labor issues ever could.The issue we are facing, is the proliferation of scamming apps. Apple needs to take better care of its walled garden.
Gizmodo:
What begins as a seemingly cheesy commercial for the Central Institute of Technology in Australia quickly devolves into a morass of extremely dark silliness. But yes, it’s actually a real ad for a real school. Very creative, twisted, and funny.
Utterly demented video.
Discovery News:
They’re a pair of jeans with a set of speakers, a wireless mouse and a keyboard embedded into the upper thigh regions. Imagine typing — literally — on your lap and you get the picture.The jeans were designed to “combine fashion and technology”.
If you wear these, don’t be surprised if someone punches you in the FGHJ.
The Wall:
Whether it is uploading photos, that we then allow another entity to have control of, or granting access to our Facebook or Twitter account to a third party – we are, often unknowingly, giving away data, and, in certain instances, giving away certain privacy rights associated with that data.Admit it, when that long, boring box of detailed legal information pops up when you download an app or sign up to a website, you just hit “I Agree” and don’t actually read it, don’t you? Well maybe there are a few things you should be paying attention to.
While some of the information may be location (UK) specific, the article does serve as a reminder that the “social media” space can be scary and have real word consequences. Thanks to Colin Crawford for the heads up.
iPhone Savior:
Each lithograph will retail for $75 and then Norman intends to sign the back of the initial run of 300 and sell them for $125 each — the dimensions measure 26 x 34 inches. For this piece Seeff added color to the Apple rainbow logo on the front of the Mac. It’s a wonderful bit of detailing that adds a special quality to the black and white image.
Make sure you read the story of the image’s creation.
Lifehacker:
Mac OS X has a ton of great features, but there’s always room for improvement. Many developers have felt the same and created a bunch of great apps to enhance OS X’s capabilities. Here are our top 10 apps that can power up your Mac to the next level.
TIME:
To set the record straight, today isn’t actually Presidents’ Day. It is still known as Washington’s Birthday, according to the federal government and section 6103(a) of title 5 of the U.S. Code.
Flavorwire:
We’ve taken a look at gorgeous bookstores and amazing college libraries, so we thought it was time to bring you a little inspiration for the home library — though we admit, not too many of these designs would fit in our own NYC apartments. Click through to check out our collection of beautiful private and personal libraries from all over the world
It’s hard to believe some of these beautiful libraries are found in someone’s home. Then again, some of these homes are probably as big as your high school.
Serious Eats:
Consumers and even some bartenders have a misconception that single-malt Scotch is not a blended whisky, but this is a myth. Single-malt scotch is a blend, but it’s a very specific type of blend. In fact, nearly all whiskies on the market today are blends—bourbons, ryes, Tennessees, scotches, etc.—although in this article I’ll focus on Scotch.
This article and its follow up, “The Serious Eats Guide to Single Malt Scotch”, are well written and really interesting examinations and explanations of what Scotch is. It’s an acquired taste but once you acquire it, you’ll enjoy it!
ABC News:
Apple has given “Nightline” anchor Bill Weir exclusive access to their suppliers’ factories in China, amid reports of safety problems, hazardous conditions and underage workers. Weir is the first journalist go inside the factories to see these life changing gadgets get made. He traveled to Shenzhen China to see firsthand what life is like for factory workers, most of whom have never used an iPod, iPhone or Apple computer.Weir’s report airs on a special edition of “Nightline” Tuesday, February 21 at 11:35 p.m. ET on the ABC television network.
Cool Material:
We’ll try any beer we can get our greedy hands on. If a friend says he just picked up a sixer of something crazy, we’d expect some craft brew that’s hopped out of its mind or an imported stout that tastes like biting into chocolate cake, and we’d gladly partake.
We’re all big fans of beer here but most of these brews would make us think twice about reaching for the bottle opener.
BoingBoing:
The Blast Lab at Imperial College, London, is a place where scientists study how explosions affect the human skeleton, and try to find ways to mitigate some of those effects. As you can imagine, this involves blowing stuff up fairly regularly and The Blast Lab is a pretty loud place.But the team of students behind PLoS’ Inside Knowledge blog noticed something cool about that. The sounds in The Blast Lab weren’t just loud noises, they were loud notes. Edit them together, and you could reproduce a whole song, using nothing but sounds recorded in a working scientific laboratory.
The Next Web:
If there is one aspect of Apple’s iDevice ecosystem that deserves a ton of credit for both growing and cementing its user base, it has to be the way developers flock to it. Apple wants developers on that line, Apple needs developers on that line.That’s why it’s not surprising, but still pleasant, to see Apple making an effort to onboard new developers with a beautiful and simple new introductory document called “Start Developing iOS Apps Today“.
AllThingsD:
Proview, the foundering Chinese company battling with Apple over the iPad trademark, originally wanted millions of dollars for the rights to the mark in China. Now it wants billions.As for allegations that Proview is breaching its iPad trademark deal to squeeze Apple for more money, Proview CEO Yang Rongshan says that’s not the case at all. “We own the iPad trademark in China,” Yang said. “If you were in my position … you would try to protect your rights.”Apple, however, argues that it’s not Proview’s rights that need to be protected.
CNET’s MacFixIt:
If you’ve taken a look at Apple’s sneak peek of its upcoming revision to OS X, you might wonder if your system will be able to run the operating system. In recent versions of OS X, some requirements have resulted in older hardware no longer working properly, including the drop of PowerPC support in Snow Leopard, and Lion not installing on some of the earliest Intel-based Mac systems.Unfortunately Apple has not yet officially released the system requirements for the new OS, but the developer release that is being issued to members of its Mac development community does contain a list of supported devices.
Diesel Sweeties:
You remember the dark times. Back when having to learn 90s Linux or Windows 95 was a very scary possibility. When it was possible to sit in a Starbucks for twenty whole minutes and not see an Apple logo. If you told me Apple would get this huge back in the beleaguered era, I’d ask if you were a time traveler from an alternate future.Image is about nine inches wide and professionally silk screened in white ink on 100% cotton black shirts.
You know you want one.
PC Mag:
The Department of Transportation has proposed guidelines that would block all in-vehicle communications by a driver, including texting, dialing, Internet browsing, and even entering a GPS address by hand.The regulations, if imposed and enforced, could dramatically alter the future of connected vehicles within the United States, as well as how U.S. drivers use devices like GPS navigation systems and cell phones.
As a motorcyclist, I’m all for anything that forces drivers to focus and pay attention to actually driving and eliminating as many distractions as possible.