Speaking at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection on Friday, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook revealed that the U.S. government plans to begin accepting Apple Pay for a number of transactions, starting with admission to U.S. national parks.
And there you go. Apple Pay is huge.
Billboard:
You didn’t have to look too far to spot the action at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala on Feb. 7. Ground zero was table 108, where Apple CEO Tim Cook, senior vp Internet software and services Eddy Cue, iTunes vp Robert Kondrk and Beats co-founder and title-less Apple executive Jimmy Iovine were seated alongside former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. After a shout-out from the party’s host (Davis called Cook a “special human”), music execs lined up single file for an audience with the Apple contingent — not to mention selfies and overshares about their first Macs.
Headline hyperbole aside, Apple is definitely making behind the scenes moves with the music industry. It will be very exciting to see what they come up with.
TidBITS:
Ss those of us who have had to rely on our backups in the past know, the act of backing up is only the first small step in the full equation — it’s being able to restore that really matters.Take a few minutes to identify some critical files and see if you can restore them successfully from your backups. If a bootable backup is part of your backup strategy, make sure you can actually boot from it.
Adam has mentioned this every Friday the 13th and it’s a good thing to remember – all the backups in the world are useless if you can’t restore your data from them.
Six Colors:
I believe Apple is truly a company that is always looking at the big picture, I really do. The iPhone and iPad and Mac all work together, using iTunes and iCloud and even Apple Pay as infrastructure, in a harmonious way. But at the same time, it’s hard not to look at the size of Apple’s iPhone business and wonder how the success of the iPhone affects Apple’s decision-making.
I’ve often made the same point. I don’t think Apple is truly ignoring the the other aspects of their business but the iPhone is definitely the 800 lb gorilla.
Petapixel:
An Italian company called CoeLux has developed a new light source that recreates the look of sunlight through a skylight so well that it can trick both human brains and cameras.The scientists who invented the light figured out how to use a thin coating of nanoparticles to accurately simulate sunlight through Earth’s atmosphere and the effect known as Rayleigh scattering. It’s not just the color temperature thats the same — the quality of the light feels the same as well.
This is just mindbogglingly cool. I have lived in basement apartments most of my life so I know the practical application of this in living spaces could be profound. I especially like the concept of “earthscrapers”.
Macstories:
Apple has started promoting games that don’t have any In-App Purchases on the front page of the App Store. Currently featured in the UK App Store and likely expanding to the U.S. store later today as part of the App Store’s weekly refresh, the section is called ‘Pay Once & Play’ and it showcases “great games” that don’t require users to pay for extra content through IAPs.
Great to see Apple promoting these games. Go out and buy one or two.
New York Times:
David Carr, a writer who wriggled away from the demon of drug addiction to become an unlikely name-brand media columnist at The New York Times, and the star of a documentary about the newspaper, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 58.
An incredible loss for journalism and writing. I devoured everything he wrote, not because I agreed with everything he said but because he wrote so damn well. He will be sorely missed.
Three models, two sizes for each model, which one would you buy?
Multiple developers have told Pocket Gamer that Apple is starting to reject games and updates from the App Store, if they use screenshots that show people holding guns, or being maimed or killed.
I spoke with Apple about this today and they told me the company is being more liberal lately with what it allows in the App Store for images and screenshots. I don’t know the specifics of individual games, but overall, Apple is being more lenient of late.
As much as we might not like Google’s business model of selling our information and habits to anyone that will pay, I agree with Brian—Google isn’t going anywhere.
This is great. I laughed.
The size limit of an app package submitted through iTunes Connect has increased from 2 GB to 4 GB, so you can include more media in your submission and provide a more complete, rich user experience upon installation. Please keep in mind that this change does not affect the cellular network delivery size limit of 100 MB.
This is good. As we move farther down the road with apps, they are becoming more complex and require more space. Science apps and games can be especially large, but they are both popular categories.
ZZ Top, the famous beard-heavy blues rockers from Houston, Texas played their first show on February 11, 1970. Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard Knights filled the rafters of the Knights of Columbus Hall off U.S. 90 at a gig arranged by DJ Al Caldwell.
ZZ Top’s early music was very blusey, and still is to be honest.
This is impressive.
Apple on Thursday updated its security procedures by adding two-step verification to both iMessage and FaceTime. This added step is meant to prevent someone from accessing your account, even if they know your password. […]
Scott Jordan:
While I am playing much of our strategy close to the (SCOTTe)vest – and keeping a few aces in my pockets (since I am Pocket Man) – I just have to tease some of our favorite developments in our bid to rescue SkyMall.More than just a catalog. Sure, it looks like a catalog. But SkyMall has always been entertainment first, and shopping second. That’s the secret sauce that made it so compelling. While the “social sharing” of SkyMall’s content was limited to just exposing your travelling companion yet another outrageous product, the content was always entertaining.
We will dial up that entertainment aspect of SkyMall by embracing it as a source of creative content.
I’m a big fan of SCOTTeVEST and, while this seems like an insane waste of money, I hope they pull it off.
BusyContacts brings to contact management the same power, flexibility, and sharing capabilities that BusyCal users have enjoyed with their calendars. What’s more, BusyContacts integrates seamlessly with BusyCal forming a flexible, easy to use CRM solution that works the way you do.
I really like the work these guys do. Great looking app.
Popular Mechanics:
The paper on which tonight’s edition is being printed arrived, as it does each week, from four different paper mills—two in Quebec, one in Ontario, and one in Tennessee—where it was packaged into rolls large enough to serve as the business end of a steamroller: 2,200 pounds each and fifty inches in diameter. Eighteen-wheelers carried them to a Times storage facility in the Bronx, where more trucks took twenty rolls each from there to the plant in Queens, where manned forklifts deposited each one in a four-story warehouse that can hold 2,231 just like it.
For all of its problems and issues, The New York Times is still my favourite paper and this is a really interesting story about how it ends up in physical form.
The Wall Street Journal:
Anki Overdrive is the latest proof that videogames are coming to real life. The tiny AI-powered cars, which surprised robotics and slot-car fans alike when they first hit the market in 2013, will get new customizable tracks—plus hotter designs and abilities—when they arrive this fall.But this second generation swaps out the simple roll-out mat tracks that the first cars drove on for a set of modular tracks that you can lay out any way you want. The new tracks are made up of plastic pieces that magnetically snap together. You can even create terrain—bridges, banked turns and dead-end cliffs.
I had the original track and, while interesting, it quickly lost our interest because of the track limits. This new setup looks fantastic.
Re/code:
Oh God, what is this?That’s the first thought you might have when a notification appears on your iPhone or iPad prompting you to download a “Carrier Settings Update.”If you’re like me, you’ll shrug and tap the Update button (YOLO!). But others might be a little more wary, and want to know what the update is for and whether it’s safe to download before taking any action.Unfortunately, getting answers to these questions is much harder than it should be.
I had this happen while setting up a friend’s phone yesterday. Finding info on what it is was frustratingly difficult.
The New York Times:
if you’re going to ever think about buying lottery tickets, a moment like this — when the Powerball jackpot has reached remarkable highs — is the best possible time.The biggest and most generally applicable reason buying lottery tickets is a non-terrible idea is this: It is fun to imagine one’s future after arriving at vast wealth.
I’ve always loved the Fran Leibowitz line of, “Your odds of winning the lottery are the same whether you play it or not.”
TED:
It’s a piece of cake. You can’t put lipstick on a pig. Why add fuel to the fire? Idioms are those phrases that mean more than the sum of their words. As our Open Translation Project volunteers translate TED Talks into 105 languages, they’re often challenged to translate English idioms into their language. Which made us wonder: what are their favorite idioms in their own tongue?
Many of these are even more nonsensical in English. My favourite is, “You sing like an elephant farted in your ear!” Hat tip to Lori Taber.
This weekend, a man wearing a skull mask posted a video on YouTube outlining his plans to murder me. I know his real name. I documented it and sent it to law enforcement, praying something is finally done. I have received these death threats and 43 others in the last five months.
This is just unreal. You have to read this piece.
The Led Zeppelin reissue campaign continues in 2015, turning the spotlight on the double album Physical Graffiti. The deluxe edition of the group’s sixth studio album will arrive 40 years to the day after the original debuted on February 24, 1975. As with the previous deluxe editions, Physical Graffiti has been newly remastered by guitarist and producer Jimmy Page and is accompanied by a disc of companion audio comprising previously unreleased music related to the original release.
It’s available for pre-order.
Heineken NV, the world’s third-largest brewer, forecast growth against a tough market backdrop in the year ahead after reporting higher revenue for 2014 and increasing its dividend.
I’ve done my part.
A Craigslist ad selling a guitar:
“THIS GUITAR WILL NOT PLAY DOOM METAL. This guitar needs to play GOOD RIFFS and not BORING doom riffs. If your favorite band is Black Sabbath, I can’t sell this guitar to you. If you own a Fender or Gibson and want to upgrade, I can’t sell this to you (Ibanez Japanese guitars are the PRIME of guitar craftsmanship crafted by the ancient Japanese wizards—if you think otherwise, you haven’t played one of these HEAVY METAL BATTLE TANKS.)
“If you want to play REAL GUITAR RIFFS, this guitar is for you! If you have a Marshall full-stack in your bedroom, THIS GUITAR IS FOR YOU. If you say you are ready to buy this guitar and show up to buy it wearing a Mastodon shirt, I can’t sell it to you. I MEAN RIFFS, not some banjo jangle pentatonic shit. If you own an HM2, this guitar is perfect. You can get the perfect chainsaw distortion with these HOT HIGH GAIN RAIL PICKUPS. Real riffs only.”
That’s some funny shit.
Good list of apps here from Lee Peterson. I use all of those and a couple more.
Each month, Foremost releases a limited-edition collection of clothing — three-to-five items per gender — alongside an interview series with some of the world’s most prominent, interesting, and creative personalities.
Good luck to my friend, Matt Alexander, on his new project.
Zak Wylde puts on such a great show. This is one of my favorite BLS songs.
Jim, Shawn and Special Guest Dave Mark talk Tim Cook, The Loop Magazine, The Grammys and Kanye West!