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The Globe and Mail:

This investigative report reveals that shortly after the release of the first iPhone, Verizon asked BlackBerry to create a touchscreen “iPhone killer.” But the result was a flop, so Verizon turned to Motorola and Google instead.

Mr. Lazaridis opposed the launch plan for the BlackBerry 10 phones and argued strongly in favour of emphasizing keyboard devices. But Mr. Heins and his executives did not take the advice and launched the touchscreen Z10, with disastrous results.

Fascinating article about the demise of a once great brand.

Thought this was fascinating. Since July 1, 2010, Professor Staffan Normark has been the permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and one hell of a cold-caller. He’s the one who calls folks to tell them they’ve won a Nobel Prize.

Sometimes the subjects of his research have an inkling that it could be their time; but when their phone rings, they try not to let themselves believe it. Serge Haroche (physics, 2012) was out walking with his wife when he saw a Swedish code appear on his mobile. “I realised it was real and it’s, you know, really overwhelming,” he says. “I was lucky—I was in the street and passing near a bench, so I was able to sit down immediately.”

Pretty cool job.

Grantland:

Twenty years ago, people talked about Myst the same way they talked about The Sopranos during its first season: as one of those rare works that irrevocably changed its medium. It certainly felt like nothing in gaming would or could be the same after it.

If you remember the game, you remember that feeling of landing on Myst Island for the first time, staggeringly bereft of information in a way that felt like some kind of reverse epiphany, left with no option but to start exploring.

People who had never gamed before in their lives bought new computers so they could play Myst.

I remember playing Myst and being dumbfounded, confused, exhilarated, frustrated and fascinated all at the same time.

BBC News:

In the early hours of the 26th of September in 1983, the Soviet Union’s early-warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the United States. The protocol for the Soviet military would have been to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own.

But duty officer Stanislav Petrov – whose job it was to register apparent enemy missile launches – decided not to report them to his superiors, and instead dismissed them as a false alarm.

His decision may have saved the world.

Chilling story and terrifying to think what might have happened.

In this issue, Philip Michaels takes a humorous look at bad songs from otherwise great artists; Michael T. Rose looks at raising children in the modern day of TV; Marcus Mendes wonders why people aren’t as fanatic about what guitars people play as they are about what gadget you use; Chris Domico surveys friends and family to see what they do for backups; and Matt Dusenbury gives us a guide to coffee shop co-working.

In a tweet from its official Twitter account, Product (RED) revealed today that Apple has raised more than $65 million to support the fight against AIDS. U2 lead singer, Bono, commented that “Apple is certainly leading the crew,” referring to the Product (RED) partners.

The update fixes a bug that allowed someone to bypass the lock screen and reintroduces a Greek keyboard. The update is available by going to Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 won’t work outside of its geographical region. Just like your old DVD player. What a piece of shit.

Behold the latest in beard innovations – the beard ramen bowl.

Scouting NY:

the properties in Monopoly were in fact named after the streets of Atlantic City. Monopoly itself has a long and complicated history, but the addition of Atlantic City-based street names can be traced to one Ruth Hoskins. Hoskins had learned a version of the game in Indianapolis, and upon moving to Atlantic City in 1929, made her own copy from scratch naming properties after streets where her friends lived.

This past weekend, I was driving through south Jersey, and decided to make a quick detour through Atlantic City to see what the Monopoly board looks like in real life.

I had forgotten that the Monopoly properties were real. Sadly, none of them match up to what I imagined them to look like.

Chuck Wendig:

You don’t want books to be pirated; you implement DRM. DRM mostly just pisses off regular users who suddenly have reduced access to the thing they thought they owned. They decide to become pirates, instead, because it’s easier and it gives them the access to the content in the way that they want it.

DRM creates — and then challenges — pirates.

It punishes regular readers.

Funny, interesting piece from the writer about publishers and publishing.

I’m not even going to link to ABC or WSJ. Instead you can read Daniel Eran Dilger’s fine story. Spoiler: ABC and WSJ think Apple’s record iPhone sales are bad news.

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WANT!

One thing I’ve learned—everyone has different thoughts on what makes a great calendar. Here’s another alternative that looks pretty good.

BlackBerry was sold for $4.7 billion or about what Apple made on iPhone sales last weekend.

New York City’s Police Department is looking to cut back crime by informing iPhone-owning residents that they should update their devices to the latest version of iOS in order to obtain new security features designed to thwart potential thieves.

I find this sort of thing fascinating.

Healthy Choice was having a promotion on their frozen entrées section. The offer was as follows: for every 10 bar codes of their product a person sent in, they’d be awarded 500 Air Miles. However, the company had an early bird stipulation that people who redeemed the offer within the first month of the competition would receive double that, meaning a person could potentially receive 1000 Air Miles for buying just 10 of their entrées.

Upon catching wind of the deal, David scoured his local supermarkets to see which, if any products offered the best potential return. After some legwork, he found what he was looking for- a discount grocery chain that was selling individual chocolate pudding cups for 25 cents each. This meant that for a measly $2.50, he could get 1000 Air Miles.

He spent $3,000 on pudding, donated all the pudding, then turned in the bar codes and got more than a million air miles (about $150K in value). Loophole!

There’s a new rule in hockey that mandates a two minute penalty if a player takes off his own helmet prior to engaging in a fight. And then this happened.

Two players, Krys Barch and Brett Gallant, were about to get into a bit of a scrape-up, when they very purposely took each others helmets off. Really happened. I love hockey.

BlackBerry has halted the planned rollout of their BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app for iPhone and Android, and pulled it from those regional App Stores that already launched it, like New Zealand.

There are just no words.

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How to start up a Boeing 737:

Not nearly as easy as strapping in and turning the key!

Curtis Rush at the Toronto Star has done a fabulous job of doing absolutely nothing worthwhile. As John Gruber puts it, this article is “Mind-bogglingly misinformed.”

It turns out you can reduce the motion effects in iOS 7 by going to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion.

Quartz:

…if you’ve downloaded Apple’s iOS 7 you could be using Multi-path TCP already.

Multi-path TCP allows your phone to send data by whatever way it’s connected to the internet, whether that’s Wi-Fi, 3G or ethernet. This is the first time that this new means of connecting to the internet has appeared in a commercial product.

An annual gathering of technologists passionate about creating great things.

I’ll be speaking at this conference next week in Chicago. Join me and a lot of other great speakers—tickets are on sale until midnight tonight Pacific time.

This week, Jim is joined by Back to Work’s Merlin Mann to talk about hands-on experiences with Apple’s new iPhone 5s and 5c and iOS 7.

Including a deep dive on Touch ID; how easier security measures could boost iTunes sales; Jim’s new-found photo skills with the 5s camera; what Jim looks for in the wiring under his wood; and more.

Time is running out for BlackBerry. The company announced on Friday that it is cutting 4,500 jobs and that it will report a net operating loss of roughly $1 billion in its next quarterly earnings report.

I certainly feel bad for the people that lost their jobs, but we all knew this was coming.