Business

Making money by abusing phone-based two-step verification

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This is a bit hard to follow, but it is a pretty ingenious scheme. In a nutshell, the scammer sets up a pay phone line, a phone number that people have to pay to use. They then use that number as a verification number with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. and take an action which causes that number to be called.

By automating the process, they bring in a nice little wave of money. That’s the theory, anyway. This was pieced together by a security researcher who raised the issue to get companies to put barriers in place to prevent this hack.

The greatest resume I’ve ever seen

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This sounds like an exaggeration, I know, but take a look at this resume. Not effective in a traditional sense, since it can’t be printed and won’t fit in with most job search engines, but still, great job.

The New York Public Library’s little-known “human Google” service answers any question by phone

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Quartz:

Just call 917-ASK-NYPL, and a live librarian will try to answer your question, using vast archives collected over 120 years.

And:

Set up in the 1960s, the line is manned by nine librarians and information assistants. The team gets a lot of calls from people who want to fact-check things they’ve heard on the news, says Caballero-Li.

What I find amazing is that this service still exists, has not been overwhelmed with demand. Fascinating read.

Garry Marshall, Pretty Woman director and creator of Happy Days, dies at 81

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Variety:

Garry Marshall, who created some of the 1970s’ most iconic sitcoms including “Happy Days,” “The Odd Couple,” “Laverne and Shirley” and “Mork and Mindy” and went on to direct hit movies including “Pretty Woman” and “The Princess Diaries,” died Tuesday in Burbank, Calif. of complications from pneumonia following a stroke. He was 81.

Marshall went from being TV writer to creating sitcoms that touched the funny bones of the 1970s generation and directing films that were watched over and over: “Happy Days” helped start a nostalgia craze that has arguably never abated, while “Mork and Mindy” had a psychedelically goofy quality that catapulted Robin Williams to fame and made rainbow suspenders an icon of their era. “Pretty Woman” likewise cemented Julia Roberts’ stardom, while “The Princess Diaries” made Anne Hathaway a teen favorite.

“Happy Days” star Henry Winkler credited him for launching his career, tweeting “Thank you for my professional life.”

Garry Marshall was a huge influence, sending out waves far beyond the specific content he created.

Tehran threatens to ban iPhones unless Apple officially registers in Iran

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The Japan Times:

In an ultimatum, Iranian officials asked iPhone manufacturer Apple Inc. to either officially register in Iran or have its products banned, a local news agency reported Monday.

“If Apple will not register an official representative in Iran within the next few days, all iPhones will be collected from the market,” Tasnim News Agency quoted the director of Iran’s anti-smuggling office as having said on Sunday.

More than 40 million Iranians are using smart phones, including millions of iPhone users, whose devices are often imported into the country by smugglers.

And:

For anti-smuggling purposes Iran has started a project, running under the president’s office, to ban smuggled mobile phones. The scheme, which will start later this week, will require all mobile phones to be registered with Iran’s telecommunications user database. Any that are not will not be able to be used.

Hard to know what to make of this. Given past events, is it wrong to be skeptical here?

Google’s futuristic new campus

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The Verge:

Google’s grand plans for a futuristic new campus in the North Bayshore district of Mountain View, CA may finally become a reality thanks to a new real estate deal struck with LinkedIn. According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the two tech companies came to an agreement on a property swap that puts to rest a longstanding feud over lucrative current and unused square footage in Silicon Valley. Google paid $215 million for the swap, while LinkedIn paid $331 million, the report states.

In a nutshell, Google’s plans for their campus were put on hold last year when the Mountain View city council voted to award a huge tract of land to LinkedIn instead of Google. With the swap, Google now has the property it needs to push forward.

Politics aside, follow the various links to see pictures and video of this planned campus. To me, it’s like a science fiction fantasy. It will be interesting to watch this unfold. Looks like Apple, Facebook and Google will all have their grand palaces.

Apple Pay launches in France

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Graham Spencer, writing for MacStories:

Starting today, Apple Pay is now available in France for credit and debit cards issued by Banque Populaire, Ticket Restaurant, Carrefour Banque, and Caisse d’Epargne. Apple’s website also notes that support will soon be added for cards issued by Boon and Orange.

Out of the 4 big banks in France, just BPCE is supported (Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne merged to become BPCE in 2009). There is no word on when cards issued by the other three big banks (BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole or Société Générale) will be supported by Apple Pay.

Here’s a link to the official Apple announcement page (in French).

Nintendo now worth more than Sony

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BBC News:

On Tuesday, Nintendo shares finished trading another 14% higher, meaning they have doubled in value since the launch of Pokemon Go on 6 July.

This puts Nintendo’s overall market value at 4.36tn yen ($38bn; £28.8bn), topping Sony by 300bn yen.

All thanks to Pokémon Go.

How Apple executives recruit new hires

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Business Insider, recounting an interview from this MacObserver podcast:

“‘You’re asking me if I’m interested in a job, if I’m willing to move out to the West Coast, but you’re not willing to tell me what the job is,'” Gartenberg joked. “He goes, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Phil will give you a call in the next couple of days.'”

Read the whole thing. Fascinating anecdote.

Netflix to carry new CBS “Star Trek” series in 188 countries around the world

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From the Netflix press release:

Netflix and CBS Studios International today announced a landmark international licensing agreement for the new “Star Trek” television series. Netflix will be the exclusive premiere home of “Star Trek” in 188 countries (excluding the US and Canada). Each episode of the new series will be available globally within 24 hours of its U.S. premiere.

Additionally, all 727 existing episodes of the iconic “Star Trek” television library – including “Star Trek: The Original Series,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Star Trek: Enterprise” will be available on Netflix around the world by the end of 2016.

The all-new “Star Trek” will begin production in Toronto in September for its January 2017 premiere.

Interesting move by Netflix to lock up this show for streaming at such an early stage. Also notable that they will stream the show globally within 24 hours of its US premiere. Will this become the new norm?

SoftBank’s $32 billion deal for chip designer ARM

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New York Times:

Started in 1990 as a spinoff from Acorn Computers, a now-defunct British computer maker, ARM has gone from a small start-up of less than 20 people to a global leader whose technology is used in more than 90 percent of smartphones produced by Apple and Samsung, among others.

And:

Unlike Intel, ARM forgoes the high margins — and equally high production costs — of directly manufacturing microchips. Instead, its engineers design chips, which are then licensed to larger technology companies like Qualcomm that pay ARM fees and royalties for manufacturing the chips.

This is not yet a done deal. Whoever ultimately owns ARM will have control over the chip designs in most of the mobile devices in the world, no small thing. I don’t expect Apple to sit on the sidelines while this plays out.

The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

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All about tech companies and the movement to have a right to repair your broken phones, computers, tablets and other complex products. This is an important issue.

On falling Mac sales and the lack of refreshes

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Why the lack of new Macs? Is the Mac space too small, revenue-wise, for Apple to go to the trouble of a new product launch? Is something else causing this lack of new models?

More in the main post.

Handheld tool is like Shazam for fonts

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Wired:

O’Leary developed a handy, handheld tool she calls Spector that captures typefaces and colors in the real world, and then transfers them directly to InDesign.

Cool idea, not yet productized. More in the main post.

Meet the people who create the playlists at Apple, Spotify and Google

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Reggie Ugwu, at Buzzfeed, pulled together a fantastic feature, bringing you behind the scenes at Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play.

When he’s choosing your music for you, Carl Chery, 37, is in Culver City, California, sitting at his desk in an office with no signage, trying to decide whether Drake and Future’s “Jumpman” (jumpman, jumpman, jumpman) has jumped the shark. Or sometimes he’s at home in his one-bedroom apartment on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, walking around in his living room with new Gucci Mane blasting from a Beats Pill. Or at the gym going for a morning run on the treadmill, thinking about your gym and your treadmill, listening through headphones for changes in tempo and tone: Will this song push you through the pain? Is that one too long on the buildup?

I’ve always wondered how they pull these playlists together. This piece answers a lot of questions.

Meet the mastermind behind Pokémon Go

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Time:

Off the meteoric success of its augmented reality-meets-GPS game Pokémon Go, which launched for iOS and Android on July 6, maybe Niantic founder John Hanke just became the most powerful PokéMaster of all.

TIME spoke with Hanke, who’s been traveling in Japan, to chat about the game’s runaway success, the impact of augmented reality (AR) at this scale, and what he finds interesting about the medium going forward.

What an incredible ride this has been. I found this interview with John Hanke to be a fascinating read.

How Apple could improve Family Sharing

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Jason Snell:

Family Sharing feels very much like a version 1.0, a first crack at the idea that people with their own Apple IDs also have intermingled real lives that should probably be intermingled digitally. Nearly two years after the release of iOS 8, however, not a whole lot has changed in the realm of family sharing. And it’s got some glaring deficiencies that really need to be addressed.

Spot on. Read the post for more examples/suggestions.

Apple’s Mac sales fall, economies shudder

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Computerworld:

The latest PC marketshare figures from Gartner and IDC suggest Mac users are anxious for new MacBooks, as Mac sales fall and economic weakness impacts PC sales everywhere.

“Apple continues to face an increasingly competitive market as it awaits a refresh of its PC lineup. As a result, shipments experienced a decline from last year,” said IDC.

IDC says Q2 2016 worldwide PC shipments fell 4.5%, totaling 62.4 million units, with Apple and Lenove particularly impacted. Apple fell from a 7.4 percent share in Q2 2015 to a 7.1 percent share in Q2 2016, with an 8.3 percent drop in year-on-year shipments, they said.

Gartner says Q2 2016 worldwide PC shipments fell 5.2%, totaling 64.3 million units. The analyst say Apple’s market share held, year-on-year, at 7.1 percent, though its year-on-year shipments fell 4.9 percent.

Demand continues to build. I do wonder what drives Apple’s thinking here. Is the issue simply that the new MacBook Pro is not ready for prime time? Are there related supply chain or other product issues that are driving the timing?

I do feel certain of two things: Apple knows what they are doing here, and when they do release a new MacBook Pro, they will sell a lot of them, enough to significantly change the above numbers.

Apple, Pokémon Go, and the chaotic wave (with some amazing pictures)

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Graham Spencer pulled together this terrific piece for MacStories, all about the massive, spectacular launch of Pokémon Go. Scroll to the bottom for some video and pictures showing the crowds of P-Goers plying their craft. This is much more than a disruption. This is more of a chaotic wave, a wave that rapidly changes societal behavior.

We’ve seen chaotic waves before. Think back to the early days of the iPod. There was massive adoption, evidenced by the sudden, widespread appearance of those distinctive white headphones. People were walking down the street in their own little bubble, listening to music. The disruption was the change this brought to the music industry. The chaotic wave was the societal change brought by the iPod.

The iPhone had a similar chaotic wave. But neither wave was as sudden as that of Pokémon Go. The question is, will this new wave last.

Apple Music libraries wiped after changing region settings to download Pokémon Go

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The Telegraph:

Eager to get their hands on some Pokémon, iPhone users in the UK and other countries have resorted to altering the region settings on their devices and setting up new Apple ID accounts.

But an unexpected consequence of the workaround has left users angry: all of the data in Apple Music disappeared.

Yeah, probably not a good idea to change your region settings. If you did, read the article to learn how to get your music back.

64-bit Office 2016 for Mac is coming

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From the official Microsoft blog:

We have released the first drop of a fully 64-bit version of Office 2016 for Mac to the Insider Fast channel! The update number is 15.25 (160630). I do encourage Insider Fast users to install this update and give it a test. We want to know about any problems you encounter as soon as possible, so that we can make sure we address them before the official release.

My original take on this was amazement that a 64-bit Office was just now emerging in beta. After all, the ability to produce 64-bit apps has been around since OS X 10.4 Tiger, which shipped in 2005.

But this Office team has had to overcome some significant hurdles to bring this new product to life. So many hurdles, that it might be more appropriate to be amazed that they were able to accomplish what turned out to be a Herculean task.

Understanding Tesla Autopilot

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Marco Arment:

A few Tesla vehicles have had accidents with Autopilot enabled recently, and I’ve gotten countless questions about these incidents and the nature of Autopilot from people who aren’t Tesla owners. Tesla and the media haven’t clearly communicated what these features do (and don’t do) to the public, so I’ll try to help in whatever small way I can as a Model S owner for a few months so far.

This is a terrific walkthrough on Tesla’s autopilot, a glimpse into what’s coming for cars in general, as well as a reality check on where autonomous driving stands. Things are changing fast as we move towards autonomous vehicles all around us.

Artificial intelligence, Apple, and Google

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This post by Benedict Evans first digs into the idea of artificial intelligence, then looks at the efforts by Apple and Google to get a sense of who is doing what.

If you have even the slightest interest in artificial intelligence, neural nets, speech recognition, etc., this is worth the read.

When a song in iCloud music is suddenly “no longer available”

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Kirk McElhearn:

Record labels and artists are free to choose whether to allow their music to be available on streaming services. There are still some holdouts: Garth Brooks, Bob Seger, King Crimson, the Traveling Wilburys, Pete Townshend, and others are totally averse to streaming. And some artists only stream their music on certain services, as exclusives. This includes Taylor Swifts’ 1989, Adele’s 25, Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, most of Prince’s music, and much more.

But things get complicated when music that you have added to your iCloud Music Library from Apple Music is pulled. Labels can withdraw the right to stream certain songs and albums at any time, but you won’t be notified. You may see albums and songs in your library, but their titles are a slightly lighter color (depending on the view), and their iCloud status is No Longer Available.

Interesting post.

The beta cascade: Why Apple’s latest OS’s require each other

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Dan Moren, writing for Macworld:

My Apple Watch, much as I like it, is hardly an indispensable part of my everyday life. And ready I was to go ahead and install the watchOS 3 beta when I ran up against a bit of a brick wall—because in order to install the watchOS 3 beta, I also needed to install the iOS 10 beta on my iPhone.