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What do you get when you take some of the best Apple dev authors, trainers, and speakers and combine them with the most passionate, engaged developers in a region? You get a learning and networking experience that will not soon be forgotten! You get CocoaConf!

CocoaConf is back this Spring and better than ever! We’ll be bringing the newest and best iOS and Mac developer technology training to five U.S. cities over the next few months:

Since readers of The Loop are just the kind of attendees we’re looking for, we’re offering you a special discount. Register for any CocoaConf event and use the promotional code LOOP to save 20% on your ticket!

Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity—tickets are going fast!

Note: This article first appeared in The Loop Magazine Issue 17. 867-5309. 911. And… that’s about it. Those two seemingly random strings of digits just so happen to be phone numbers. One is the emergency line for U.S. citizens, established … Continued

Missed the Oscars last night? Tivo on the fritz? Didn’t care enough to watch live? Well, here’s the TL;DR version of last night’s show.

Interesting when you break it all down.

From Volvo integration of CarPlay announced this morning.

Apple on Monday introduced CarPlay, a new way to use the iPhone in your car. CarPlay allows the user to access Maps, Messages, Music, and make phone calls with a touch of the screen in your car. You can even press the voice button in your car to activate Siri. […]

The Guardian:

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: seven keys, held by individuals from all over the world, that together control security at the core of the web. The reality is rather closer to The Office than The Matrix.

What a bizarre, convoluted system. But it seems to work.

Big hat tip to Nick Arnott for this terrific Reddit resource. Nick suggests the “Collapse all comments & just show parents” bookmarklet to hide the answers from the Reddit riddle page, posted earlier today.

Biblical delivers crushing riffs drenched in cinematic atmosphere.

Yeah, that caught my attention for sure. I previewed to the first couple of singles on iTunes and then pre-ordered the album.

Dave Etchells:

Try to imagine this scenario occurring in the US, or perhaps most any country other than Japan: You leave a camera bag with US$7,000+ of gear in it sitting in a train station. Station personnel may find it that night, or it more likely sits there till morning. The rail line people go looking for it, find it, & forward it to a more convenient location for you to pick it up the next day. When you retrieve & open it, everything is exactly as you left it, all US$7,000+ of gear undisturbed & still inside.

This is a common story in Japan. It’s a generalization but you are more likely to get your gear back in Japan than you are in many other countries.

Lots to enjoy here, especially if you have kids. Some of these are pretty difficult. All are thoughtful.

Vanity Fair:

Just who are those unrecognizable Oscar audience members sandwiched between the stars this Sunday? To get a better understanding of the behind-the-scenes responsibilities of these glammed-up Oscar gophers, we tracked down a seat-filler from last year’s Seth MacFarlane-hosted ceremony.

I’ve read a lot of stories about these people and it always strikes me as so odd. Does anyone watching on TV really care if there’s an empty seat next to Jennifer Lawrence?

Quartz:

The suggestion to mask or obscure email addresses to avoid spam has been around for more than a decade. References to replacing the @ with (at) or .com with (dot) com to reduce spam can be found on online message boards and archives dating back to the 1990s.

But there are two realities here.

Do you agree? Do you still bother to conceal your email address in this way?

The Wall Street Journal:

A competition that was expected to be humdrum turned into one of the most remarkable ever. This account of how that happened was pieced together through extensive interviews with the sailors, engineers and other team leaders.

As a Nova Scotianer, I’ve always been fascinated by any kind of sailing. The America’s Cup yachts are the highest expression of sailing and amazing pieces of technology. Throw in the unbelievable comeback of Oracle Team USA last year and the story just gets better. Make sure you check out the embedded videos on the page for some incredible video highlights.

My thanks to Gestrument for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop. Gestrument is a powerful tool for the professional musician but also an intuitive app for the beginner. Gestrument lets you delve into the “musical DNA” of a genre, artist or song. With full control over all musical parameters you can play and compose music with just the swipe of your finger.

Visit www.gestrument.com to see Gestrument perform music by Meshuggah, Richard Devine, Claude Debussy or see keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater demo his own preset.

Apart from our artist we have videos and presets showing how to play for instance Dubstep, Cool Jazz, String Quartet and Indian Raga – all with just the swipe of your finger.

Gestrument is developed by contemporary classical composer Jesper Nordin and software developer Jonatan Liljedahl – Kymatica (the developer behind AudioShare, Sector, AUFX, NordBeat, BitWiz and many more iOS music apps).

Quartz:

Diet soda was supposed to save the soda industry in a world worried by sugar. Instead it’s only dragging it down.

American consumption of fizzy drinks has dipped in each of the past five years, and by 30% since the turn of the century. By 2018, it is expected to have fallen by 40% since 2000.

Following on our previous story about America falling out of love with orange juice comes this one with the same issue regarding soda (or pop). While I still occasionally drink orange juice, I haven’t had a traditional soda pop in about ten years. Not out of any health concerns; I just “grew out of” drinking it.

With Samsung making the two OSes so closely resemble each other, some day it might be possible to quietly swap OSes in Samsung’s mainstream smartphone, just like it did with the Gear line. For the interface at least, the change-over seems like it would be pretty seamless.

I give Samsung credit, this is the smart way to transition to a new OS—make it seamless for the user. As noted in the article, apps remain the big problem. This is a nightmare for Google.

Bryan Chaffin:

the NCPPR representative asked Mr. Cook to commit right then and there to doing only those things that were profitable.

What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR’s advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

Cheers Tim.

Forbes:

If you’re one of the 1.14 million followers of the @HistoryInPics Twitter account, which posts delightfully obscure pictures of historical subjects and events, you may have asked yourself, “Are they making any money off this?”

The answer is yes. Quite a bit of money.

Is this one of those ideas you think, “Wow! I wish I had thought of this!” or do you bemoan the “watering down” of Twitter?

Salvador Rodriguez reporting the LA Times:

For the next week, customers who buy an Apple TV at one of the tech giant’s retail stores will reportedly receive a $25 iTunes gift card as part of a promotion that could signal a new Apple TV is on its way.

Nope.

Sports Illustrated:

The NFL locker room is the ultimate boys club. Yes, we talk about horrendously inappropriate things. Yes, we make fun of each other. And yes, we have a tendency to take pranks a bit too far. But at the end of the day, this is not a normal job.

Interesting point of view from a guy in the room. I only played high school football but there are still faint shadows of the locker room he describes.

clutter:

Allow me to summarize what it means when a company wants to handle all disputes in arbitration:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

Also, you can’t join a class-action suit against them.

Like the writer, I love Dropbox but I’m also recommending you go do this right now.

Ars Technica:

If you’ve been thinking about buying an Apple TV, Apple is trying to sweeten the deal for the next few days. Between now and March 5, anyone who buys an Apple TV in one of Apple’s stores or on its online store will get a $25 iTunes gift card with their purchase.

Anyone think this is a clearing out of stock ahead of a product refresh?

“Stripped”: The comics documentary:

Stripped is a full-length documentary on the world’s best cartoonists, featuring the first-ever recorded interview with Bill Watterson. The film explores the art of the comics strip, the cartoonists behind your favorite strips, and where the art form goes as newspapers die.

The trailer for this film looks really interesting if only for the different viewpoints of the traditional newspaper cartoonists vs the online ones.

Confidence is a powerful feeling. It makes countries strong, athletes perform amazing feats and it allows companies, like Apple, to release products that bring a smile to faces around the world. As strong as confidence can be, lack of confidence can be absolutely devastating. […]

NPR:

One 16-inch pizza has roughly the same area as 1.3 14-inch pizzas or 4 8-inch pizzas.

To get the same amount of pizza you get in a 16-inch pizza, you’d have to spend an extra $2.35 on 14-inch pizzas, or an extra $16.41 on 8-inch pizzas.

I always get the Large pizza if only because I’m a pig. Nice to know I’m getting better value to boot.

Digg:

You know that Meryl Streep is the queen of the Oscars, but do you know which fictional character has earned the most nominations? We’ll give you a hint, he was a king. We’ve put together this handy little guide because, let’s face it, even if you’re watching from home in sweatpants, spouting off weird trivia makes everyone feel like a winner.

I’m a huge Oscars fan (I’m tangentially related to an Oscar winner) and love these kinds of minutia stories that always pop up in the days ahead of the broadcast.

There are some great examples of using these new plugs with your Apollo.

CNN:

A lot of consideration goes into designing a font, but somehow we’re all able generally to accept the typefaces around us, ignoring their subtle design quirks as though they’re as ordinary as air. We read their content but don’t think too much about their form.

One of the people responsible for the popular use of Helvetica, Mike Parker, died Sunday at age 84.

Now would be a good time to watch the 2007 documentary “Helvetica.”