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The Verge:

Apple appears to be testing a pool of cars near San Francisco that are equipped with powerful camera rigs. A Claycord blog has published photos of a car that CBS affiliate KPIX 5 has confirmed is leased to Apple. The mysterious cars have been spotted a number of times over the past several months in and around San Francisco. A video, published on YouTube in September, also shows a complex camera rig mounted on the roof of a similar Dodge minivan in New York. Both of the cars near San Francisco and New York appear to be equipped with the same LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) camera system.

This is interesting but not hugely surprising. Apple is continuing to make its Map.app and technology behind it better all the time.

Re/code:

Researcher IDC said Amazon showed the steepest annual decline among the five major tablet makers, with worldwide shipments of its Kindle Fire devices falling by as much as 70 percent compared with the holiday 2013 period.

A spokesperson for the retailer criticized IDC’s methodology, saying “our most affordable tablet ever, the Fire HD 6 at $99, which is one of our high volume products, wasn’t included in the report.” She declined to discuss sales.

Well Amazon, you know how to solve the problem. Simply report sales figures.

Mashable:

Phone Expander is designed to make it easy for a user to easily save space on their iOS device by deleting cache files inside apps, easily remove large apps installed on the device, remove pictures or videos (backing them up to the desktop first) and soon, manage music on their devices.

I ran the app on my (backed up) iPhone and it allowed me to recover a little over 2.5 GB. Not a lot but every little bit counts.

Matt Richman:

With Apple Pay, Apple leveraged its business model, cultural influence, and customer base to enter arguably the most heavily-regulated international system on Earth in a way that everyone already in the system had a reason to like. This is an incredible accomplishment, and no other company could have done it.

Matt makes a great point, one often made by many others, that Apple will and can succeed because of its tight control and integration of both hardware and software.

Medium:

Giraffedata—a 51-year-old software engineer named Bryan Henderson—is among the most prolific contributors, ranking in the top 1,000 most active editors. While some Wikipedia editors focus on adding content or vetting its accuracy, and others work to streamline the site’s grammar and style, generally few, if any, adopt Giraffedata’s approach to editing: an unrelenting, multi-year project to fix exactly one grammatical error.

Henderson has now made over 47,000 edits to the site since 2007, virtually all of them addressing this one linguistic pet peeve. Article by article, week by week, Henderson redacts imperfect sentences, tightening them almost imperceptibly. “I’m proud of it,” says Henderson of the project. “It’s just fun for me. I’m not doing it to have any impact on the world.”

You’ve got to admire the dedication if nothing else.

The Atlantic: The story of how avocados went from being an obscure West-Coast cash crop to the juggernaut of the Midwestern produce section is one of extreme feats of marketing and major shifts in ideas about nutrition. It is a … Continued

DIY Photography:

Not many know this but Google Earth had a bigger brother called Google Earth Pro and while the ‘lil sibling was free, getting the pro version was $400/year. No small change.

I guess there were not too many hoppers on that offer and now Google is releasing Google Earth Pro for free.

What can you do with the pro version? For starters, you can export bigger images, the regular version supported only 1000×1000px photos, while the pro version enables you to dump 4800×3200px photos which should be good enough for 4K resolution.

You have to jump through a bunch of hoops to grab the software but for those who can put it to use, it’s pretty cool.

Now there are signs that the companies are more likely to be ferocious competitors than allies. Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project. Drummond has informed Uber’s board of this possibility, according to a person close to the Uber board, and Uber executives have seen screenshots of what appears to be a Google ride-sharing app that is currently being used by Google employees. This person, who requested not to be named because the talks are private, said the Uber board is now weighing whether to ask Drummond to resign his position as an Uber board member.

Google is a big investor in Uber, and has been from the beginning. However, this isn’t the first time a Google employee sat on a company’s board and then decided to enter the same market. Eric Schmidt sat on Apple’s board and witnessed the development of the iPhone.

John Biggs:

Sources tell us Uber is hiring more than fifty senior scientists from Carnegie Mellon as well as from the National Robotics Engineering Center, a CMU-affiliated research entity. Carnegie Mellon, home of the Mars Rover and other high-profile robotics projects, declined to comment at this time, as did scientists mentioned by our source. Uber has “cleaned out” the Robotics Institute, said the source.

So, who isn’t building a self-driving car?

Great idea, great looking app.

Elgato Thunderbolt 2 Dock enables you to connect everything to your MacBook or Ultrabook at once. With two Thunderbolt 2 and three USB 3.0 ports, simultaneously connect all of your devices with only one cable. Built-in HDMI enables you to directly connect a display of your choice up to 4K resolution, while enjoying increased network performance with built-in Gigabit Ethernet and crystal-clear conference calls through the separate microphone input and amplified audio output.

Ars Technica:

“You know how every once in a while you buy the $40 bottle of wine instead of the $8 one, thinking you’re gonna have a special dinner or something?” Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson wrote over instant message. “And you get home, and you make the salmon or the pasta or whatever and you light the candles? And you pour the wine, swirl it like they do in Sideways so that it looks like you know what you’re doing… you bring it to your lips and after smelling it—it smells like wine—you have a sip? And it’s like… yeah, I guess this tastes good or something, but really it just tastes like wine?

“The Pono Player is kinda like that, but for music.”

I’m not an “audio snob” so I have no need for the Pono Player but is it of interest to any of our sharp-eared Loop readers?

I think this might be the first time an iPhone accessory company has paid the big bucks for a Super Bowl ad. What did you think of it?

Macworld:

Go is about slowly-evolving strategies to surround the largest territory on the board. Each player, black and white, alternates placing stones on a board with a 19-by-19 grid. Building up territory, where the opposing player cannot get a foothold, each player attempts to enlarge his or her territory, and thwart advances and invasions by the opponent.

It’s easy to learn the rules of Go; it’s hard to become really good at the game.

Go is a fascinating game I’ve played (poorly) for years. If you’re looking for something different in your gameplay, check out the apps recommended in the article.

Vox:

Super Bowl commercials are a big deal.

At a cost of about $4.5 million for a 30 second spot that’s often filled with celebrities, pop music, and special effects, advertisers are clearly willing to pay a premium to be a part of the big game.

Here are the 2015 Super Bowl commercials, listed alphabetically by advertiser. We will update this post throughout the weekend, as new ads are posted online.

I love the game and will watch it (GO HAWKS!) but also admit to enjoying the commercials, too.

This looks really cool, I may buy one of these. It connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth and then you hold the hardware on the tuning peg of your guitar.

This is truly amazing. You can find out more from the DigiTech Trio Web page.

Zak’s own line of guitars, amps, and anything else audio. Count me in!

Atlas Obscura:

Around the world, there are trees that have been growing for a much longer period of time than famed arbors like Methuselah or General Sherman. Some of these beautiful ancients may not look like much — some appear to be mere saplings, compared to the gigantic redwoods.

Trees have always fascinated me. As a kid, I would climb the oaks in our neighbourhood and sit up there for hours. I still love walking among them and feeling their presence.

Om Malik wrote a great piece on the iPhone 6 Plus and also reflected on the upcoming Apple Watch and thoughts on Apple Pay:

It looks like Apple is going to ride the iPhone wave for a while, perhaps right through the launch of the Apple Watch, which I suspect is going to provide the big lift.

Agreed.

That said, I am not bullish on the watch, mostly because when I saw it, the software looked incomplete by a mile. It lacked that usual Apple software pop!

There is no doubt that when Apple introduced the watch, the software wasn’t ready. It’s ready now.

I wish Apple had spent more time making Apple Pay realize its true potential, because it could change how we purchase and thus define a new era for the company.

I believe they are, in the background. Typically, Apple will release something slowly and then it takes off. This is exactly the strategy I see Apple taking with Apple Pay—under promise, over deliver.

If you haven’t read the first 10 stories or so on Daring Fireball, you have to do it now. It’s some of the greatest “claim chowder” ever.

When I first read this, I thought they were crazy, but this is pretty cool.

Apple Inc has taken the number one luxury gifting spot in China from designer goods maker Hermes International SCA, according to a Hurun luxury report on Thursday, reflecting the iPhone maker’s recent hot streak in the country.

Apple’s strategy for China is on fire.

iTunes U is a great Apple resource. This particular one is Stanford University’s iOS programming course.

Samsung Electronics reported overall Q4 operating profits of 5.29 trillion won ($4.9 billion)—a 36 percent year-over-year drop—but its Mobile division suffered a 64.2 percent drop in profits, falling from $5 billion in the year ago quarter to $1.8 billion in the December quarter.

Clearly there’s nothing wrong with the market since Apple just sold 74.5 million iPhones, so maybe people are finally seeing through Samsung’s shit.

Jim, Shawn and our Special Guest, Dave Mark, talk Apple earnings, Swift programming, NAMM and “digital music”.

In the ad, the lost puppy returns home only to find that his owners have sold him using a website made with GoDaddy.

So now puppy mills are okay with GoDaddy. What’s wrong with this company?

Associated Press:

A law enforcement campaign to compel Google Inc. to disable a feature in its popular Waze traffic app that lets drivers warn others about nearby police activity shifted Wednesday when a sheriffs’ organization openly complained that the app not only puts officers’ lives at risk, it also interferes with the ability to write speeding tickets.

So it’s OK for government officials and corporations to track us but not OK for us to track them?

Vox:

There are huge benefits to salting the roads. One 1992 study found that spreading salt can reduce accidents by 87 percent during and after a snowstorm.But road salt also comes with major downsides: Salt is corrosive, chewing through cars, trucks, concrete, and steel bridges. Worse still, when all that salt dissolves and washes away, it steadily accumulates in rivers and streams. Other times, moose and elk get attracted to the salt and wander onto roads, raising the risk of crashes.

We have similar issues here in Canada with road salt and its affect on cars and the environment. That last sentence came to light for me while riding my motorcycle in the Banff National Park. I came around a corner and there was a herd of massive elk in the middle of the road, licking the salt off the pavement. It created a very high Pucker Factor, to say the least.

The Verge:

Plenty of amateur films have been shot using iPhones, but by all reports, this is the first movie at the Sundance Film Festival to be shot almost entirely on an Apple device. It was a decision that indie writer and director Sean Baker made to accommodate the film’s small budget. But you’d never guess the camera, to look at it: Tangerine was shot in a widescreen, 2:35:1 aspect ratio, and its camera zooms through the streets of LA with a fluidity you’d never expect from a handheld device. And yet despite his camera of choice, Baker says the iPhone made for a good partner. “It was surprisingly easy,” Baker says. “We never lost any footage.”

Another interesting story about the functionality and versatility of the iPhone.