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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.”

You are being watched.

I just want to know how they got Van Damme into space.

Film School Rejects:

The “In Memoriam” segment (of the Oscar telecast) is always a must-watch portion of the show, even if its biggest draw isn’t always a desire to honor the deceased talents of Hollywood, it’s to see who leads off and ends the piece, who was left off, and who you totally forgot passed away this year.

But how does one actually land on the list? Not surprisingly, it involves a paper trail, voting, and plenty of hurt feelings.

As expected, the first requirement is “Be dead”.

code:deck:

code:deck is a standard playing card deck sporting a stylish modern design. Each individual card features a code excerpt describing it in one of many programming languages.

Ever heard someone described as a “card carrying geek”? Well now, you can be a card playing geek.

For my part, I have no clue how the code relates to the card it is on.

The Atlantic:

The time that ends up on your smartphone—and that synchronizes GPS, military operations, financial transactions, and internet communications—originates in a set of atomic clocks on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Chief Scientist for USNO’s Time Services, gives a video tour.

A little dry (and oddly shot/edited) but still an interesting overview of “the nation’s time keeping”.

Wired.com:

We need to consider the consequences of this latest batch of apps and tools that remind us to contact significant others, boost our willpower, provide us with moral guidance, and encourage us to be civil. Taken together, we’re observing the emergence of tech that doesn’t just augment our intellect and lives — but is now beginning to automate and outsource our humanity.

Leaving aside the juvenile frat boy “bro” word, the app they talk about (which I’m really hoping is a parody app) is offensive because being in an adult relationship means committing to it – not outsourcing it to some app.

Nikon Rumors:

Nikon published a new technical service advisory where they announced a free cleaning and free shutter replacement for all D600 owners, even those with expired warranty. You can send your camera even if you do not have a problem.

If you have an affected D600, go to the Nikon site and schedule your free service. If your D600 isn’t exhibiting any of the (sadly common) dust/oil issues (mine isn’t), hold off on scheduling the service until the first mad rush is over but make sure you definitely do it some time in the next three to six months.

There’s a bit of backstory here but all you really need to know is, when boys have unlimited funds, we will pull awesome pranks on our buddies. The best line in the video is when the friend says, “Travis was pretty rough on Jeff and Travis and I are friends so I was excited to help Jeff respond.” Ladies – that’s how men think. Thanks to Rob Griffiths for the link.

Google’s Android head Sundar Pichai:

“We cannot guarantee that Android is designed to be safe… If I had a company dedicated to malware, I would also be addressing my attacks on Android.”

Those are the first true words to come out of Google in a long time.

Forbes has become the place to write if you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Such is the case with one of their latest articles, but Zach Epstein at BGR does a good job pointing out the mistakes and reality of the iPhone business.

This is the seventh year in a row.

The developers behind Castro shared some numbers after figuring out a great way to ask for App Store reviews.

Go and sign-up.

Arizona Governor Governor Jan Brewer on Wednesday vetoed a controversial bill that would have, in effect, legalized wide-ranging discrimination of homosexuals as an extension of religious freedom. Apple, along with a number of other major U.S. corporations, banded together to have the bill shot down.

Good.