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Sony unveils blazing fast a9: A 24MP sports camera that shoots 20fps

On specs alone, this camera will make many sports shooters drool. The price ($4,500) puts it out of reach of most sane beginners and enthusiasts but the feature set will (slowly) make its way down the Sony line. Regardless, Sony has thrown down the gauntlet to Canon and Nikon.

Phishing with Unicode domains

Wow. This is really scary. Take a look at his example of making Apple.com’s URL look correct but end up at a potential phishing site.

Pandora Premium

Yeah, you can now find and play specific songs. And albums. But, Pandora Premium is so much more than music on-demand. With Premium, you can find the music you love, but maybe more importantly, the music you love finds you. Effortlessly. It adapts to you by using all the signals – thumbs, replays, skips and stations adds – you’ve given us over the years to help curate your Pandora stations. You’ll see it from the moment you open Premium for the first time.

When Pandora Premium launched it was only available for people that directly paid the company. Now you can upgrade to premium if you subscribe through iTunes. I’ve been using it since the day it was released and it does a damn good job of knowing my musical tastes and playing songs that I love.

The brand spanking new AppStories podcast

Federico Viticci and John Voorhees from MacStories have teamed up to talk about apps on a new weekly podcast called AppStories. AppStories launches today, but has been in the works for more than a year.

I’ve had the chance to listen to the premiere episode and I have to say, I found it fascinating, well worth the listen. The focus is on the app store, the apps we love, and the developers behind those apps.

Listen to the first five minutes. You’ll have a real sense of the show. My two cents? This is a podcast worth your time.

Here’s a link to the first episode. If the link is not yet live, give it a bit of time and try again.

Google Chromebook is still spying on students

Privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have again outlined how Google is successfully dumping millions of low-cost Chromebooks on U.S. schools, enabling the mass collection and storage of information on children without the consent of their parents or even the understanding of many school administrators.

Come on, Google.

Bose accused of spying on customers

Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged.

In order to do this, customers need to download an app from Apple or Google and fill out their information. Technically, he probably had to agree to the terms of service, but still, not a good move by Bose.

Tim Cook: Companies should have values

Tim Cook’s acceptance speech for Newseum 2017 Free Expression Award:

“We know that these freedoms require protection,” Cook said of First Amendment rights. “Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most. It’s no accident that these freedoms are enshrined and protected in the First Amendment. They are the foundation to so many of our rights.”

“This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously,” Cook said. “First we defend, we work to defend these freedoms by enabling people around the world to speak up. And second, we do it by speaking up ourselves. Because companies can, and should have values.”

Cheers, Tim.

The Flickr Explore page is still really amazing

I tell all my students to check out the photographs on Flickr’s Explore page, either to see how others shot the same thing or to use it as a way to train their eye for composition and other elements.

Apple A10 iPhone 7 faster than Samsung Galaxy S8, Google Pixel

Apple’s lead in mobile performance–powered by the efficiency of iOS 10 and the computational speed of its custom A10 Fusion Application Processor–beats the newest, leading premium Androids in a wide range of tests from processor and 3D benchmarks to real-world device startup and app launching and multitasking. Not even 6GB of RAM and the extra cores of Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon 835 can prop up the laggard, inefficient Android OS.

I played with a Google Pixel at a phone store recently and it was truly awful. Slow and laggy.

The brilliance of Apple’s new iPad

I’ve been using Apple’s newest iPad for a couple of weeks now and love it. The more I used it, the more I realized that it wasn’t the features that make this iPad so good, it was Apple’s strategy in releasing it that I was impressed with. […]

The birth of a dugout canoe

Another amazing video using skills and techniques fast disappearing from our technology-focused world. I’d love to have one of these canoes.

Tim Cook to receive Newseum’s Free Speech Award

On April 18, the Newseum will award Apple CEO Tim Cook the Free Expression Award in the free speech category. Cook has used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues, including racial equality, privacy, protecting the environment, access to education and LGBT rights.

The second annual Free Expression Awards recognize those who exhibit passion for and dedication to free expression. Honorees have taken personal or professional risks in sharing critical information with the public, have been censored or punished by authorities or other groups for their work, or have pushed boundaries in artistic and media expression.

Congrats, Tim.

In Conversation with Al Gore and Lisa Jackson

Many will forget that one of the reasons why the original version of the Apple Stores had theater space was for events like these. Turns out, Apple didn’t need anything other than products to bring people into the stores. Sadly, it means these kinds of (possibly) interesting events are very few and far between.

Seriously, the guy has a point

Fascinating article. Before I read it, I thought the sculptor was being a dick, from the way he was being portrayed in media reports. After reading this piece, I think “Fearless Girl” should be removed.