Here’s a link to the Google Arts & Culture app.
Once you install the app, launch it, then scroll down, just a bit, to the section with the white box that asks, “Is your portrait in a museum?”
Tap to get started, give Google access to your camera, take a selfie, then let the app do its thing. My sense is that the matching algorithm keys in on your hair, including any facial hair.
Interesting idea. Wondering what Google does with all the selfies it harvests.
These are some great backstage photos from some iconic artists. And their friends.
Obviously, this is some relatively dark reading. But I found it compelling and incredibly well written.
If your head is in the right place, give this a look.
[VIDEO] Not exactly sure how this was done (I’ve been told this is doable in Pro-Tools), but I find it both awful and fascinating. Video embedded in main Loop post. [H/T @OneTrueJustin]
If you shoot a lot of video, take a look (embedded in the main Loop post) as this Osmo 2 rep walks through the features of this video stabilizer. It’s so tiny and light. And rock steady. It also has a power port so you can plug your phone in, if need be.
I love gear like this. Best of all, the previous version had a street price of about $159, and the Osmo 2 price will drop to $129. Shot by 9to5Mac at CES.
Deadline:
In a competitive situation, Apple has landed the hot TV package See with a straight-to-series order. An epic, world-building drama set in the future, the project is written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2).
And:
This marks the fourth scripted series order for Apple’s recently formed worldwide video programming division under Jamie Erlicht & Zack Van Amburg. See joins a morning-show drama, executive produced by and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon; Amazing Stories, a reimagining of the anthology from Steven Spielberg and Bryan Fuller; and a Ronald D. Moore space drama. Additionally, the division just ordered its first docuseries, Home.
Here’s a question for you: How soon do you think it will be before Apple gets its first (non-technical) Golden Globes or Emmy nomination?
This year, Netflix got 20 Golden Globe nominations and Amazon and Hulu got 3 each. Will Apple get a nod in the December 2018 nominations? If not, surely we’ll see one by December 2019, no?
OK, this seems really clearcut to me, but judge for yourself.
Here’s Lana Del Rey’s song Get Free.
Here’s Radiohead’s Creep.
My take: The chord structure seems identical, the production not so much. But there’s this one moment that really makes the case for me.
In the Radiohead video, jump to about 39 seconds in and listen to the phrase, “float like a feather”, with that bit of vocalization at the end of the word “feather”.
Now, in the Lana Del Rey video, jump to about 50 seconds in and listen to the phrase “my modern manifesto”. To me, I hear the same vocalization at the end of the word “manifesto”.
As I said, judge for yourself. But hard for me to believe Creep wasn’t an influence here.
UPDATE: And then there’s this from BBC News (H/T @timbo_baggins), Radiohead deny suing Lana Del Rey:
Radiohead’s publisher, Warner/Chappell, has since issued a statement clarifying its position. “It’s true that we’ve been in discussions since August of last year with Lana Del Rey’s representatives,” it said.
“It’s clear that the verses of Get Free use musical elements found in the verses of Creep and we’ve requested that this be acknowledged in favour of all writers of Creep.
“To set the record straight, no lawsuit has been issued and Radiohead have not said they ‘will only accept 100%’ of the publishing of Get Free.”
[VIDEO] Open Culture:
We do not typically remember [Prince] as a jazz pianist. But his facility with jazz earned him the admiration of Miles Davis, who made several efforts to collaborate with the extremely busy pop star. (They performed together only once, it seems, on New Year’s Eve, 1987 at Paisley Park.) Prince’s style, stage show, songwriting, and arranging drew from jazz of all kinds—from zoot suit-era big band to the frenetic movement of hard bop to the classically-inflected show tunes of George Gershwin. Just above see him “casually own” Gershwin’s “Summertime” during a 1990 soundcheck in Osaka, Japan.
I had no idea Prince even played piano, let alone so well. I love this video (embedded in the main Loop post). The groove is right there, with Prince driving. Super talented.
[VIDEO] This is some beautiful work (video embedded in main Loop post), some incredibly precise tuning changes, all done without missing a beat. Bravo.
[VIDEO] This is just plain interesting. Watch this guy (video embedded in main Loop post) purposely fall through the ice in a lake, just to demonstrate this life-saving technique. Then watch him do it again, still dripping wet, just to emphasize a point.
Amazing.
[VIDEO] This is a fantastic story. A teacher discovers that an autistic student responds to music, is determined to bring music creation and performance to an entire class of autistic kids.
The result just might bring a tear to your eyes. Video embedded in main Loop post.
New York Times:
For much of the last week, I have been trying to persuade the world’s most powerful search engine to remove my photo from biographical details that belong to someone else. A search for “Rachel Abrams” revealed that Google had mashed my picture from The New York Times’s website with the Wikipedia entry for a better-known writer with the same name, who died in 2013.
And:
When an acquaintance said she was alarmed to read that I had passed away, it seemed like an error worth correcting.
And so began the quest to convince someone at Google that I am alive.
This is a riveting story, a trip down the rabbit hole trying to convince Google to change something they are locked in certain is correct.
This reminds me of another story, about Google’s algorithmic approach to deleting videos they found objectionable, which cut funding from videos that got caught in the bigger sweep. To read about this, Google (ironically) the term adpocalypse.
[VIDEO] Nellie Andreeva, Deadline:
Ronald D. Moore is heading back to space. Apple has given a straight-to-series order to a space drama from the Battlestar Galactica developer. The untitled project hails from Sony Pictures Television and Moore’s studio-based Tall Ship Productions.
Created and written by Moore, along with Fargo co-executive producers Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, the untitled series explores what would have happened if the global space race had never ended. Tall Ship Prods.’ Moore and Maril Davis executive produce with Wolpert and Nedivi.
Ronald D. Moore was one of the creators and main writers of the excellent Battlestar Galactica. I’ve got high hopes for this one. Fingers crossed.
How excellent was Battlestar Galactica? Watch the video embedded in the main Loop post to see what happens if you start watching it. And if you liked the video, click here to watch the second half, which brings some recognizable Battlestar faces into the action.
[VIDEO] This is pretty, pretty good. Video embedded in the main Loop post. Worth watching.
The audio is in German, but there are subtitles. I had no issue watching with the sound muted.
From Disney’s official announcement, here are the major deal points.
First, here’s what Disney won’t get:
So no Fox News and Sports, that’ll spin off into a new entity.
And what Disney will get:
Lots of value there. Notably, Disney gets The Simpsons, which is currently a big part of the Universal Studios Florida theme park, an obvious competitor. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Does the Fox / Universal deal have an expiration date? A buyout clause? Will the Simpsons make their way to Disney theme parks?
Another big deal: Disney will have a controlling interest in Hulu. That is no small thing.
Interesting times.
[VIDEO] Kottke:
For his work Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time, William Forsythe sets in motion hundreds of pendulums in a room and invites people to walk among them, attempting to avoid collisions.
No way to get a sense of this without watching the video, embedded in the main Loop post. Looks like fun to me.
[VIDEO] Marques Brownlee has had the new iMac Pro for about a week. In the video embedded in the main Loop post, he shows it off, shares his first impressions.
If you are in the market, this is absolutely worth your time.
Couple of notes here:
Important to note that the new iMac Pro is not user upgradable. So if you are ordering, future proof best you can.
Marques priced out a home built PC using the iMac Pro parts (or similarly specced parts where the actual parts are not yet available) and came up with a price of $5100. Comparing that to the iMac Pro base price of $4999, my take is that the iMac Pro is fairly priced.
The fact that I cannot upgrade over time is an issue for me, though I suspect iFixit will eventually sell a kit to get me inside and 3rd parties will sell parts to upgrade. Eventually.
The iMac Pro is very quiet, runs cool. That’s impressive, given the high end workstation grade parts jammed in to that svelte enclosure.
[VIDEO] Three new spots, one particularly striking, all embedded in the main Loop post.
Brian Fung, Washington Post:
The news was announced Monday by Verizon as it sealed a deal with the NFL for an estimated $2 billion over the next five years. The move highlights the telecom giant’s pivot toward digital media and online advertising amid massive changes in the TV and Internet industries.
Monday’s deal makes it possible for Verizon to hook customers of even rival Internet providers with must-see content hosted on websites that Verizon owns — such as AOL, Yahoo, Yahoo Sports and go90, the telecom giant’s proprietary online video app.
The agreement between Verizon and the NFL will let football fans stream their local teams’ games, as well as nationally televised games and league highlights. Games that air on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays are covered under the deal. Even the Super Bowl will be widely streamed to anyone with an Internet connection, Verizon said.
Even if you have no interest in the NFL, this is an important move. Verizon has managed to throw enough money at the NFL to make the games you normally watch in your cable package available in your browser, and that’s no small thing.
First things first, this is a big enabler for wannabe cable cutters. It legitimizes the concept, makes it practical for a reasonably sizable audience to break free of a cable package, as long as they have access to either WiFi or an unlimited data plan.
Second, it provides a big test case for net neutrality. Will other cable companies throttle Verizon NFL packets to throw a monkey wrench into Verizon’s plans?
At the very least, I see this as a rip in the fabric tying us to cable packages. In my view, the cable disruption just got closer.
Apple founder Steve Wozniak was in Australia to speak at the Pivot Summit in Geelong, Victoria. Woz was asked his feelings about the iPhone X. What spun out of that short talk was a series of headlines, like:
“Woz Slams The iPhone X, Confirms Google Is Taking Advantage Of Consumers”, from ChannelNews, and “Apple iPhone X not what Steve Wozniak wants” from the The Australian.
At the same time, 9to5Mac ran this take on the exact same event:
Speaking at the Pivot Summit in Geelong, Victoria today, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shared a few new tidbits about his experience with the iPhone X so far and his thoughts on Face ID vs. Touch ID. Woz also offered up a few anecdotes about his years working with Steve Jobs. Wozniak is one of several speakers at the one day conference focused on providing insight about emerging technology.
And:
Speaking prior to the launch of the iPhone X, Wozniak expressed that he wasn’t interested in picking up the phone on day one, offering little explanation as to why. Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to remedy the situation himself and personally sent Woz an iPhone X to try out. His verdict? “I kinda like it.”
So which take is accurate?
Here’s Woz, via email, referring to the 9to5Mac article:
“This article is on the mark. Another article was like typical Australian sensationalism saying that I didn’t like my iPhone X. How ridiculous.”
I found this whole thing interesting, thought it worth posting. Straight from the horse’s mouth.
[VIDEO] Apple’s official how-to video on using Apple Pay and Messages to send and receive cash is embedded in the main Loop post. It’s short and focused. Learn how Apple Pay Cash works in just about a minute.
From the Bright.nl exclusive interview:
Schiller has a quick answer to the commentary that other smartphone makers had a face or iris recognition before Apple did: “They all stink.”
He nuances: “They don’t work in all the ways we need Face ID to work. We’re very aware that through the years this simple thing, the Home button, that started as the way you click to get to the Home screen, grew into doing so many things for us. We added Touch ID, it took you to the multitasking screen, paged Siri, activated Apple Pay. All through this one mechanical button.
So for Face ID we needed the best way we know of to enable us to easily unlock our device with our face, in a protected way with the Secure Enclave, and support all these other things. We had to solve all of that. Other things that people have tried with face haven’t been anything like that. Face ID is a very unique implementation.”
And:
“I think we’ve worked really hard to maintain the trust we have with users about how this information technology is and isn’t used. First of all, no Face ID data goes to third parties. So what you enroll with Face ID, what you use to unlock your phone, that’s an algorithm that is created and encrypted by the Secure Enclave. No third party that uses the iPhone camera has your Face ID data. We did create an API so developers can use the cameras to track facial movements, to do things like wrap stickers on your face (like Snapchat, ed.) That’s different than Face ID. They don’t have all the access to the data that Face ID has for that.
And:
“We feel bad we aren’t able to deliver Homepod for the holidays. We’re going to take the time to do it right and make sure it’s great when it comes out. We need more time to make it right.”
There’s a lot more. I found the whole thing worth reading.
Sarah Perez, TechCrunch:
Apple’s iPhone remains the most popular camera used by the Flickr community, the photo-sharing site revealed today in its annual review of camera rankings and top photos. This year, the iPhone beat out other camera makers – like Canon and Nikon, the number two and three respectively – by accounting for 54 percent of the top 100 devices used on the site, the company found. In addition, all top 10 devices of 2017 were iPhone models, Flickr says.
Amazing. All top 10 cameras on the list were iPhones.
Some of these images are astonishing. These two especially. They almost look fake.
[VIDEO] The ads are branded as “The Gift of Go”. Beautifully filmed eye candy. All four embedded in the main Loop post. Worth watching.
I find this fascinating, an extended bit of schadenfreude. And an interesting business model.
The trailer is embedded in the main Loop post.
[VIDEO] Scares me just watching this. Jump to about 2 minutes in (video embedded in main Loop post) for a real closeup of the innards. That’s one brave individual.
Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:
Apple began a support Twitter account early in 2016, answering customer queries and tweeting out the occasional iOS tip. It has now expanded into a dedicated Apple Support YouTube channel.
The account features highly-produced tutorial videos explaining all sorts of iOS features from how to change your wallpaper to deleting your call history.
Here’s a link to the Apple Support YouTube channel. Terrific resource, nice find from Benjamin Mayo.
[VIDEO] Yesterday we posted a pair of Face ID iPhone X ads from Apple. Here’s another pair, embedded in the main Loop post.
[VIDEO] Regardless of how much (or little) you enjoy the singing or production values, I do find this a fascinating piece of Apple history. Folks who’ve been around the Apple universe for long enough will recognize a lot of these references.
The video (embedded in the main Loop post) was originally posted in 2012, but I just came across it this morning, thought it worth sharing. Anyone recognize anyone in the video? They are ALL Apple employees.