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“iOS apps already help millions of customers track and improve their health. With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “ResearchKit gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more ways to collect data than ever before.”

I didn’t see this one coming, but I’m really glad Tim and company decided to do it.

“Apple has reinvented the notebook with the new MacBook, and at just two pounds and 13.1 mm, it’s the thinnest and lightest Mac ever,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Every component of the MacBook reveals a new innovation. From its fanless design, ultra-thin Retina display and full-size keyboard that’s 34 percent thinner, to its all-new Force Touch trackpad, versatile USB-C port and breakthrough terraced battery design, the new MacBook is the future of the notebook.”

So Apple has the MacBook Air, MacBook, and MacBook Pro lines again. I spent some time with the new MacBook today and it is stunning. I want that gold one.

“Apple Watch begins a new chapter in the way we relate to technology and we think our customers are going to love it,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait for people to start wearing Apple Watch to easily access information that matters, to interact with the world, and to live a better day by being more aware of their daily activity than ever before.”

It was a great keynote and a very interesting product.

Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.

HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.

With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.

Here’s video of the first test run of #Fury325 at Carowinds from a riders point of view! The coaster was tested late Wednesday afternoon, March 4. Debuting this spring, Fury 325 will be the world’s tallest & fastest giga coaster. The thrill ride stands 325 feet tall with an 81-degree initial drop and reaches breathtaking speeds of 95 miles per hour.

Oh. My. God. I want to ride this so much.

I, Programmer:

Susan Kare is the artist responsible for many of the classic Mac icons that are universally recognized. Now her impact as a pioneering and influential computer iconographer has been recognized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Susan Kare designed all of her early icons on graph paper, with one square representing each pixel. Now this archive of sketches has been acquired by MoMA, jointly with San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and has gone on show as part of a new exhibition, This is for Everyone: Design Experiments For The Common Good.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kare for her lovely and elegant icon designs.

Dr. Drang:

Apple’s patent application is for a method that allows them to make 18k gold that has, on a volume basis, less gold than regular 18k gold.

How can this be? It’s because Apple’s gold is a metal matrix composite, not a standard alloy. Instead of mixing the gold with silver, copper, or other metals to make it harder, Apple is mixing it with low-density ceramic particles. The ceramic makes Apple’s gold harder and more scratch-resistant—which Tim Cook touted during the September announcement—and it also makes it less dense overall.

The media is going to have a field day with this. They’ll get it wrong but they’ll still lose their collective minds over it.

ZDNet:

For years, Oracle has tormented Windows users by bundling adware with its Java installer for Windows PCs. Now Oracle has begun including the same adware as part of a default installation of Java for the Mac, using the same deceptive techniques.

More sleazy business practices for you and yours to be made aware of. Thanks to Rob Griffiths for the heads up.

The Mac Observer:

For the purposes of Gatekeeper, Apple verifies the identity of the developer, but not their intent. It’s up to you to ensure that the applications you install and run on your Mac come from the people you think they came from, and we’ll show you how to do that.

The key words are, “it’s up to you” to not let your guard down and to always be aware of what you are downloading and installing. Apple is doing their part and it’s up to the user to do theirs.

CNN:

Apple will replace AT&T in the Dow — an exclusive club of 30 stocks that also includes tech giants Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco as well as brand-name consumer firms Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Disney.

“As the largest corporation in the world and a leader in technology. Apple is the clear choice for the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement.

Apple will enter the Dow at the close of trading on March 18.

As tha article says, this is mostly symbolic but, for a company on the edge of bankruptcy less than 20 years ago, it’s a remarkable journey.

I was by Yerba Buena today and Apple was putting up the banners in preparation for Monday’s event, so I thought I’d share.

A street photography project to document world’s humanity in one single day. World wide participants will share their city stories through one photo per hour during 24 hours.

Sounds great.

In February 2015, I traveled far north to Norway to hunt down and photograph the Northern Lights, one of the most mesmerizing natural phenomena of this planet.

The Northern Lights are amazing.

Apple received the highest score for loyalty of any brand cited across all categories. What explains Apple’s unrivaled loyalty in China? Yes, the products are attractive. Yes, the price point is high enough that the iPhone is a status symbol that is more accessible than a diamond-studded watch or flashy sports car.

Very interesting article.

AltConf is a free, community-driven and supported event, held in downtown San Francisco alongside Apple’s WWDC. We’re currently planning the 2015 conference, and we’ve got some very exciting plans in the works that we’re hoping that we can announce very soon.

Mike and Judy do a tremendous job with AltConf. If you’re interested in speaking or wish to support the conference, be sure to get in touch with them.

People hate him. Boy, wow, do they hate him. At first they loved him, and then they were confused by him, and then they were irritated by him, and now they straight-up loathe.

I’m definitely in the “loathe” camp. I’ve loathed him since way back in his days in Seattle. But it’s still an interesting, well written (and well presented on the web site) article. And, after reading it, I still loathe him.

CBC:

The contest is held in association with the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous festival, but Takhini Hot Pools owner Andrew Umbrich says he runs the contest the entire month of February to account for unpredictable temperatures.

He says -20C works for hair sculpting, but -30C is ideal.

“It just takes 10 minutes to a half hour to make a pretty incredible picture,” he says.

Goofy Canadians.

This is a cleverly designed site that allows you to mix and match various Apple Watch bodies with different straps. Fun few minutes diversion. What’s your favourite look?

Samsung lawyer Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP said the South Korean company had all but stopped using the patents, so no injunction was needed.

Wait, I thought Samsung said it didn’t infringe on Apple’s patents. Now they’re saying they did infringe, but they sort of stopped. This company is crazypants crazy.

The seven-track demo (Metallica’s second overall) dropped during the summer of 1982, when the band members themselves (which then included Dave Mustaine on guitar in the pre-Kirk Hammett days) sent the copies out to friends and the underground metal cognoscenti.

Yeah, I’ll be picking this one up.

Jim, Shawn and Dave talk about the Apple Watch, healthier lifestyles and guitar amp software!

Sponsored by lynda.com. (Start learning something new in 2015 by visiting the link to get a 10-day free trial and access their 2400+ courses)

Apple has promised to distribute a client-side patch for the issue on both iOS and OS X by next week, while the researchers who discovered the flaw — from INRIA, IMDEA, and Microsoft Research — have been working to notify hosts who still serve export ciphers.

“These products are the result of a simple philosophy,” Samsung CEO J.K. Shin said. “It comes to two words: Relentless innovation.”

Here are two more accurate words: Copying Apple.

Here’s some news from the Zeppelin camp: A film offering a bevy of Led Zeppelin live footage is coming to a movie theater near you. The movie, appropriately called Led Zeppelin, will feature Zeppelin performing several concerts that happened throughout their career and play in more than 300 U.S. cinemas March 30.

This is going to be a must-see film. I hope they make it available on iTunes because I’ll be buying it.

Samsung ditched almost all of its hardware differentiation to go all in on iPhone 6-style design — though layering in, iPhone 4-like, with glass on both sides.

Does this company have no shame? Can they not come up with anything on their own? Pathetic.

I’ve been waiting for this version since I saw it at NAMM in January. The new software includes Apollo Expanded featuring Console 2.0 Software; Sound Machine Wood Works Plug-In; Distortion Essentials Plug-In Bundle; Friedman Amplifiers Plug-In Collection; and (Mac) Support for OS X Yosemite. This is a great update.

Kayne talking to Oxford students:

“I love Steve Jobs, he’s my favourite person, but there’s one thing that disappoints me. When Steve passed he didn’t give the ideas up. That’s kinda selfish. You know that Elon’s like ‘yeah, take these ideas’. Maybe there are companies outside of Apple that could work on them and push humanity forward. Maybe the stock brokers won’t like that, the stock holders wouldn’t like that idea, but ideas are free and you can’t be selfish with them.”

What a moron.

This is a really nice looking app. I just downloaded the trial and it works great too—if there’s one thing I would add, it would be access to custom fields in WordPress. Otherwise, I really like it.

Steve was wicked smart. I was always amazed at how sharp he was and how quickly he could focus on what was important. I don’t know ANYONE that even comes close to how good he was at being able to do that.

Don’t just read the story, read the comments too. I miss Steve.

I don’t know why I found this so cool, but I did. Working CSS Clocks.