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Polygon:

This $150 toy is what you’re going to want for Christmas.

The $150 BB-8 is a toy. A very advanced toy that does many things, but it’s a toy. The only utility it has is the joy that it’s going to bring you when you play with it.

That’s not to say we’re trying to talk you out of buying one. A review unit arrived this morning, and we’ve been playing with the little droid non-stop ever since. This is a premium product, and even the packaging lets you know that you’re about to experience something special.

The folks at Sphero just made Christmas shopping for your favorite Star Wars fan a hell of a lot easier.

The new version is available to download.

It’s a survey. And it’s being pulled together by XKCD. Go do it!

Atlas Obscura:

it’s September, and hurricane season is once again upon us. Since it is an El Niño year with cooler than normal temperatures across the tropical Atlantic, everyone is hoping for a low-drama season.

However, as AccuWeather reports, we may not end up being so lucky. Indeed, it is likely that a few tropical storms will track northerly, and make life a living hell for pleasure boaters and working crews alike.

While you may never set sail on the seven seas, why not watch some terrifying, yet mesmerizing videos of ships stuck in storms from the safety of your computer screen?

As a Nova Scotianer, I love the sea but these videos make even the sailor in me queasy.

This is a really cool experiment that shows how we associate colors with some of our favorite brands. While the logo remains the same, switching colors with a competitor makes a huge difference.

Jordan Pearson, writing for Motherboard:

Wikipedia has 381 fewer editors today, after hundreds of accounts were banned for taking undisclosed pay to create and edit “promotional articles.”

Polygraph:

This is a story about proving, with data, that No Diggity by Blackstreet is timeless.

Until recently, it was impossible to measure the popularity of older music. Billboard charts and album sales only tell us about a song’s popularity at the time of its release.

But now we have Spotify, a buffet of all of music, new and old. Tracks with fewer plays are fading into obscurity. And those with more plays are remaining in the cultural ether.

As with all lists like this, we’ll never agree completely on its makeup but it’s still interesting to see which songs are being played and their frequency. Jason Kottke has created a Rdio and Spotify playlist of songs from the article.

CNET:

Ever wonder how the famous museum’s artists manage to create such eerily accurate, life-size celebrity models? We’re here to spill the wax. In fact, it’s pretty friggin’ complicated…and technical.

From initial sitting to press launch, a typical Madame Tussauds figure takes about four months to make, requires a team of around 20 skilled artists, and costs £150,000, or roughly $212,500.

I’ve never understood the attraction some people have for Madame Tussauds but the process of making one of these figures is quite interesting.

xylum has to be the most beautiful Apple Watch dock to date. The minimalistic design and matte body finish that features polished chamfered edges complements any setting perfectly. Whether on a nightstand, a desk or in the living room, it fits any style. xylum’s timeless accents transcend timekeeping into a new era.

This is a beautiful looking dock/stand. I can imagine this sitting on my desk, or anywhere in the house. They are clearly going for an elegant look and they achieved that.

Over the next few days you’ll see bylines appearing beneath our headlines. This is a work in progress, so please bear with us as we get our CSS just so. Hope you like!

Runeblade is a Fantasy Adventure Game tailored for Apple Watch. Stop the ancient evil threatening your world. Sharpen your blade, prepare your spells and secure your armour to fight the rising darkness!

This should be interesting.

Great version of a classic song.

Here’s what’s happening: when customers buy our unlimited 4G LTE plan for their smartphones we include a fixed amount of LTE to be used for tethering (using the “Smartphone Mobile HotSpot” feature), at no extra cost, for the occasions when broadband may not be convenient or available. If customers hit that high-speed tethering limit, those tethering speeds slow down. If a customer needs more LTE tethering, they can add-on more. Simple.

However, these violators are going out of their way with all kinds of workarounds to steal more LTE tethered data.

Sounds fair to me.

Glenn Fleishman has a look at some of the early reviews, which don’t seem that good.

The Apple TV’s existing NFL Now channel was today revamped, changing the name to “NFL” and adding support for Game Pass subscriptions. Through the updated channel, NFL fans who have a Game Pass subscription can watch on-demand NFL games and live out-of-market preseason games on the Apple TV for the first time.

Lovely.

Apple and Cisco today announced a partnership to create a fast lane for iOS business users by optimizing Cisco networks for iOS devices and apps, integrating iPhone with Cisco enterprise environments and providing unique collaboration on iPhone and iPad.

“iOS is the world’s best mobile platform, and nearly every Fortune 500 and Global 500 company today has put iOS at the center of their mobile strategy,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone and iPad have become essential tools for the modern workforce and are changing the way work gets done. Together with Cisco, we believe we can give businesses the tools to maximize the potential of iOS and help employees become even more productive using the devices they already love.”

Apple is serious about the Enterprise market, or at least making sure enterprise customers have access to everything they need. Good move by Apple.

Introduced in the late 1960s, the AKG BX 20 reverb was a high-water mark for AKG’s esteemed engineers. An ingenious assembly of mechanical and electronic componentry, the BX 20 offered the glorious depth and color of spring reverb without any of the limitations.

This is so nice—listen to the audio samples on the page. Another great plug-in from Universal Audio.

Jim and Dan talk about self driving cars, the Apple Watch, cutting the cord, the iPad Pro, and more.

Brought to you by lynda (Visit the link to get free 10 day trial access to their 3,000+ courses) and Braintree (To learn more, and for your first $50,000 in transactions fee-free, go to braintreepayments.com/amplified).

AmpliTube MESA/Boogie is the most comprehensive collection of officially licensed MESA/Boogie virtual guitar amps and cabinets on the market. Now you can plug in and experience legendary tone wherever your computer can take you: You get everything from the violin-like sustain of the Mark series to the aggressive, huge crunch and searing gain of the Rectifier series.

IK Multimedia has done a great job in bringing some of world’s best amps to its application. I’m looking forward to trying this out.

Music Rising is a campaign that was launched to rescue the musical culture of the Central Gulf region of the United States from the destruction caused by the catastrophic hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 by replacing the musical instruments lost or destroyed in the deluge. Co-Founded by U2’s the Edge and legendary producer Bob Ezrin along with a host of music industry partners including MusiCares, Musician’s Friend, Gibson Musical Instruments and Guitar Center Music Foundation, the organization has gone to aid thousands of musicians, students and choir members.

Jay Z-backed music service Tidal — which carried a live stream of Lil Wayne’s Hurricane Katrina benefit show this weekend — cut the transmission during Drake’s performance and accused Apple of “interfering with artistry” by not allowing the set to be streamed, a charge which has been refuted.

Drakes own people denied the claim, yet Tidal went ahead with accusing Apple. Tidal says it has proof that Apple is behind it—show the proof or shut the fuck up.

There’s some fascinating data here from a survey iMore conducted in July.

Grantland:

As conceived, Beats 1 is the most prefab, retro pitch in Apple’s streaming service portfolio — a radio station, with DJs and songs. Beats 1, of course, has been much more than that, and sometimes a little less. A tastemaker with no genre-bound point of view, a 24-hour channel that is “always on,” and a hub for famous voices to share their loves, the station has become the surprising hallmark of Apple’s streaming bid.

Turns out people still like listening to the radio.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Beats 1 can “make a star” – if, with promotion and air play, Beats 1 can take an unknown artist to global popularity.

NASDAQ:

German luxury car giant Bayerische Motoren Werke AG or BMW Group is looking to go all-electric over the next 10 years due to the upcoming stricter carbon emission laws. Virtually every BMW model would be converted to electric drivetrains, including range-extending engines and plug-in hybrids.

The transition will see even the company’s top-selling 3 Series sport sedans turned into plug-in hybrids.

The company is weary of the stringent European Union regulations that greatly reduce the average carbon emissions permitted from road vehicles. They are said to be tougher than either North American or Chinese emission levels.

Some are calling this the “death of the internal combustion engine”. That is unlikely to happen any time soon but electric is the future. BMW is just getting out ahead of it.

Apple:

Join us here on September 9 at 10 a.m. PDT to watch the keynote live.

Many of us will be watching and, in a break from past webcasts, Apple will allow Windows 10 users to tune in too.

Those settings, which are slated to arrive when Apple launches its iOS 9 operating system in September, will require all content that arrives on an iPhone (via apps, ads or otherwise) to use an encryption setting known as “https.” The setting ensures that third parties can’t read or track what users are doing on their phones.

In a blog post this week, Google told AdMob users to get ready for the new Apple setting. But if they’re not prepared, Google said, they can use a few lines of code to override it.

Go fuck yourself Google.

Jim and Merlin talk about beta software, bass players, and how to minimize stress when traveling.

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Politico:

A private conference in Washington with the attorney general (in itself a rarity for many tech magnates) would have been unthinkable for Cook’s irascible predecessor, Steve Jobs, who actively disdained D.C. Cook, much as he sought to shirk Jobs’ shadow as CEO, had also endeavored quietly to rethink his company’s relationship with the nation’s capital, becoming a leader not only ready to engage its power brokers but challenge them openly when it mattered most.

Watching Cook in his dealings with Washington has been fascinating precisely because it’s something Steve Jobs hated and wouldn’t do. Cook seems more open and able to navigate the issues.

Lifehacker:

People say that “everyone should work retail or service at least once in their lives.” I couldn’t agree more. Like many people, some of my first jobs were retail service gigs. One in a department store, another in a bookstore. I’ve long since moved on, but I learned a lot about the nature of people—and how that battle between selfishness and empathy is something we all struggle with, every day.

I never worked long in retail but I was there long enough to know the jobs generally sucked. 99% of retail employees are good, hardworking people. Please treat them with the same respect you want for yourself.

Casey Liss, of the Accidental Tech Podcast, writes about being trolled.