With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Dave Mark, I think “rideable luggage” is a silly idea. Now, luggage that follows you around like a puppy? I’d buy that. But this is yet another Indiegogo campaign I don’t expect to be delivered on schedule or, for that matter, delivered at all.
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Apple reports $7.8 billion profit for third-quarter, sales down
Apple on Tuesday announced its fiscal third-quarter results. The company posted quarterly revenue of $42.4 billion and quarterly net income of $7.8 billion, down from the $49.6 billion revenue and profit of $10.7 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. […]
Hackers can spy on wireless keyboards from hundreds of feet away
This hack doesn’t affect non-wireless or Bluetooth keyboards and none of the more popular keyboards used by Mac or iPad users are included on the list of affected keyboards. At least, not yet.
Apple Music Buys ‘Carpool Karaoke’ series
Apple has emerged as the surprise buyer of the unscripted TV series based on the “Carpool Karaoke” segment of CBS’ “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”
I’ll admit to being a little surprised.
Vizio purchased by Chinese company for $2 billion
Under the deal, Vizio will be operated as an independent subsidiary, with the company’s current management team staying in place and working out of its offices in Southern California. Vizio’s data business, Inscape, will be spun out into a privately held company, with Vizio CEO William Wang serving as chairman and CEO. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
Announcing Lightroom for Apple TV
I use Flickr right now as a way to show off my images on an Apple TV but this would allow me to keep up with any edits I may make to them.
Smartphone platform wars: The final score
The smartphone platform wars are pretty much over, and Apple and Google won. But it’s interesting, in passing, to note the final score, and think about what it means.
Some good work from Benedict Evans.
Amazon, British government agree to drone delivery
The world’s biggest online retailer, which has laid out plans to start using drones for deliveries by 2017, said a cross-government team supported by the UK Civil Aviation Authority had provided it with the permissions necessary to explore the process.
I just don’t know about this whole thing.
The web’s most popular cameras and their settings
Interesting look at what cameras are popular among the millions and millions of photos the company has looked at. You can also check out the most popular lenses and camera settings.
The intriguing legal ramifications of Pokémon GO
Recently, there has been a virtual tsunami of articles about the so-called hidden dangers of using the Pokémon GO app. The vast majority of them concern potential violations of the privacy rights of both consumers and landmark-owners. The media’s Chicken Little-like take on this is that augmented reality apps are opening the door to a dystopian future.
However, what has not been widely discussed is the impact of all this on the developers of augmented reality apps.
There are so many things to consider, it’s almost mind boggling.
Making a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive
Dan Frakes:
I’ve long recommended creating a bootable installer drive—on an external hard drive, thumb drive, or USB stick—for the version of OS X you’re running on your Mac. It’s great for installing the OS on multiple Macs, because you don’t have to download the ~5GB installer onto each computer, and it serves as a handy emergency disk if your Mac is experiencing problems.
Dan takes you through all the steps using Terminal.
Yahoo snapped up by Verizon in $4.8 billion deal
It’s been a long slow decline for Yahoo but the CEO who presided over it will make out like a bandit to the tune of a quarter billion dollars in salary and bonuses during her tenure. Personally, my biggest question will be what will happen to Flickr, the popular but also fading photo sharing service.
Depression
Many people suffer from depression—some people are in so deep, they don’t even know it. Sometimes it takes strong people like Robert Macmillan telling their story to make you realize that you’re not alone. If you know someone suffering from depression, help them.
67 years of Lego sets
There are many of us—errr, people—who build stuff with Legos at all ages. Having grown up with loads of hand-me-down Legos (and having a Lego Wall-E sitting on my desk right now), I started to wonder how Legos evolved from the sets I remember from my childhood to what they are today.
Everyone loves Lego.
Apple turns over car project to Bob Mansfield
Bob Mansfield had stepped back from a day-to-day role at the company a few years ago, after leading the hardware engineering development of products including the MacBook Air laptop computer, the iMac desktop computer, and the iPad tablet. Apple now has Mr. Mansfield running the company’s secret autonomous, electric-vehicle initiative, code-named Project Titan, the people said.
Mansfield is a very smart guy and is well respected inside and outside of Apple.
Apple Watch and a saved life
Chuck La Tournous:
I’ll begin this story the same way I began the phone call to my wife: “I’m OK, but…”
I’ve known Chuck for a long and he’s a friend. I’m glad you’re okay!
Apollo 11 command module
This 3D re-creation of the Command Module is really cool, if terrifyingly analog. Click on the globe icon in the upper left to get a walkthrough of the various aspects of the module.
15 classic cars that define cool
There’s no doubt I’d give up body parts to own about half of the cars on this list (that 1969 Ferrari Dino 246 GT is sex on wheels) but it’s odd there are none from after 1970. Were there no “cool” cars made after 1970 (leaving aside the definition of “classic” car?
Watch all of the trailers released at San Diego Comic-Con
I have no interest in attending a Comic-Con but I love all the sneak peeks and trailers that come out of the show. I’m most looking forward to Suicide Squad but I think the PG13 rating means it won’t be as much “fun” as Deadpool was for me.
Unlocking murder victim’s phone using 3D replica of fingertips
Law enforcement agents had seen a YouTube demonstration of a technique developed by Jain’s lab which could transform fingerprint scans into fake fingertips that could fool the sensors on smartphones.
You certainly can’t blame law enforcement for using every trick they can.
Elon Musk’s Master Plan
There is no doubt that Musk is a very smart man. He went way out on a limb building the things he has over the last decade and he’s succeeded.
Pokemon Go and illegal border crossing
Two youths unaware of their surroundings when they were playing Pokemon GO on their cell phones made an illegal border crossing this week from Canada into the United States in a remote part of Montana, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said.
The weirdness goes on.
We need more books about the present
Om Malik:
As an avid reader, I am often amazed how much of our written materials are about the past (or the near past) and the future (and the near future) but never about the present. Is present too boring? Or is too real? Or is it too incomplete to merit a careful and long deliberation.
That’s an interesting point. I hadn’t really considered that before.
Crows are smart
It’s really interesting that they retain knowledge of the people in these experiments, and reacted to other crows and predators, but not pigeons.
How tennis balls are made
Inside the Wilson tennis ball factory. I also find these things fascinating.
The iPad paradox
This is one of the reasons why Apple created the retail stores – so customers could go in and try out the hardware and software. One of the downsides of devices like the iPad is they are “nice to have” not “I need that”. So the buying experience has to be experiential – that is, you have to try it before you buy it.
Apple confirms Pokemon Go sets App Store record
With all of the press it’s received in the past couple of weeks, it will come as no surprise that Pokemon Go has been a huge success. In fact, Apple told me today that the game has set a new App Store record with more downloads in its first week than any other app in history. That is impressive. […]
Apple releases country specific Apple Watch bands for Olympics
These are cool, I’d love to have some of these.
Verizon will cut off customers using over 100GB of data a month
“Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a very small group of customers on unlimited plans who use an extraordinary amount of data that they must move to one of the new Verizon Plans by August 31, 2016,” a Verizon spokesperson told Ars. “These users are using data amounts well in excess of our largest plan size (100GB). While the Verizon Plan at 100GB is designed to be shared across multiple users, each line receiving notification to move to the new Verizon Plan is using well in excess of that on a single device.”
I have no idea how someone could use 100GB of data a month.
Apple’s FY 16 third quarter results conference call
Here’s a sneak peak of what Apple will announce: Billions in earnings and profits and tens of millions of iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watches sold. The stock price will then drop by two percent and the tech media will once again predict the death of Apple.