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The iPhone X cracked on the first drop

CNET: I took our Space Gray iPhone X out to the sidewalk in front of CNET’s San Francisco offices: a place where many screens have met their doom. Is it just me or are these kinds of “tests” utterly ridiculous? … Continued

The 37 best photography accessories

Got a photographer in your life you need Christmas gift(s) for? This is a varied list with all kinds of price points on some cool accessories for your shooter.

How much does a kilogram weigh?

These stories have always fascinated me. I bet most people don’t realize the “official” kilogram is an actual physical object.

This is what photos from a $63,000 camera look like

This may be blasphemous to professional photographers (or it may be because I’m looking at the images via a web browser) but the composition of the sample images (and the images on the video) is kind of boring and you can’t really see where the $63,000 value is.

Used car commercial for a 1996 Honda Accord

The video has gone viral and is one of the top trending videos on YouTube, and the car’s price has already exceeded $20,000 on eBay with over 80 bids and nearly a week remaining. If you find someone who loves … Continued

iPhone user guide

Apple has updated their online User Guide for iPhones with info about the iPhone X. A good read while you wait for UPS to arrive.

Differential Privacy paper from Apple

This is a really interesting paper from Apple describing how they gather data from users but anonymize that data. Of course, all you’re going to read from most media outlets is “Here are the most popular emoji!” And people wonder why Apple “dislikes” the media.

Final Cut Pro X, Swift among fastest-growing skills for freelancers

Upwork, the largest freelancing website, today released its newest quarterly index of the hottest skills in the U.S. freelance job market. The Upwork Skills Index ranks the site’s 20 fastest-growing skills and is part of a quarterly series that sheds light on new and emerging skills freelancers are providing. This comes on the heels of the “Freelancing in America: 2017” study, the most comprehensive measure of the U.S. independent workforce, which found that 57.3 million Americans (36 percent of the U.S. workforce) freelanced in the past year and also predicts that the majority of the U.S. workforce will freelance within a decade.

This is pretty interesting data because it comes from a freelance website. Demand for Final Cut Pro grew more than 200 percent year-over-year, while Swift grew 100 percent.

Apple financial results for Q4 2017

As usual, Apple will announce a metric buttload of profit and sales. And, as usual, expect a lot of unanswered and stupid questions from the assembled analysts on the call.

Photo enhancement is starting to get crazy

Petapixel: As the worlds of artificial intelligence and digital photography collide, we’re starting to see some mind-blowing technology emerge. The latest research in turning low-resolution photos into high-definition photos may drop your jaws — it’s starting to cross into the … Continued

The GOAT vs MOTOBOT Ver.2

Racing against Yamaha’s MOTOBOT Ver.2, an autonomous motorcycle, is an interesting test.

Apple releases GarageBand 2.3 for iOS

Apple on Wednesday released a major update for GarageBand, bringing compatibility with the iPhone X, new instruments, sounds, and a brand-new Sound Library. […]

The era of easily faked, AI-generated photos is quickly emerging

Dave Gershgorn, Quartz:

Three years ago, after an argument at a bar with some fellow artificial intelligence researchers, Ph.D student Ian Goodfellow cobbled together a new way for AI to think about creating images. The idea was simple: one algorithm tries to generate a realistic image of an object or a scene, while another algorithm tries to decide whether that image is real or fake.

The two algorithms are adversaries—each trying to beat the other in the interest of creating the final best image—and this technique, now called “generative adversarial networks” (GANs) has quickly become a cornerstone of AI research.

The term GAN is worth remembering. It is one of the new shinys in AI research.

But more importantly, jump to the article and scan through the images, watch the embedded video. The generated images are remarkably good. I cannot tell the difference between generated images and real ones.

This is fascinating and scary, all rolled into one.

First Look: iPhone X

I’ve had my iPhone X from Apple for less than a day, so it would be irresponsible of me to call this a review—instead I’ll give you my first impressions of a few of the main features, and then follow-up with more details later this week or next. […]

Auction of Steve Jobs’ 2000 BMW Z8

Sothebys: >While not known to be a car enthusiast per se, Steve Jobs did have a penchant for German automobiles and design, owning BMW motorcycles, as well as Mercedes-Benz SLs. According to legend, Jobs was convinced to buy the Z8 … Continued