When a mission launches into space, whether it is to Venus, Mars, or as far out as Pluto, we have to be able to track it, send commands, and receive data — all over a signal about as powerful as the wattage of a refrigerator light bulb. These faint whispers are hard to hear, and losing track of them for any length of time can be a harrowing experience. If the Deep Space Network goes down, if we permanently lose our connection to Cassini, it would not only be a loss of billions of dollars but also two decades of work.
The heart of the Deep Space Network started beating on Christmas Eve 1963, when JPL confirmed their long-term intentions of sending missions into deep space. It hasn’t been turned off since. Its dishes, operators, and radio astronomers around the world have worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 54 years. The DSN has many vital roles, but one of its biggest is to serve as the communication link between Earth and its robotic emissaries in deep space — anything from the moon and beyond. Every image we’ve ever received from deep space, every relay of scientific data, even those famous words the Eagle has landed, was collected by the dishes of the Deep Space Network.
I love these stories of scientists quietly working behind the scenes to provide us with information like this.
Born on a farm and named in a field by her parents―artist Chrisann Brennan and Steve Jobs―Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s childhood unfolded in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. When she was young, Lisa’s father was a mythical figure who was rarely present in her life. As she grew older, her father took an interest in her, ushering her into a new world of mansions, vacations, and private schools. His attention was thrilling, but he could also be cold, critical and unpredictable. When her relationship with her mother grew strained in high school, Lisa decided to move in with her father, hoping he’d become the parent she’d always wanted him to be.
Small Fry is Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents’ fascinating and disparate worlds. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the seventies and eighties, Small Fry is an enthralling book by an insightful new literary voice.
> Tommie King could be the next rapper to breakout from Atlanta. He’s well-connected, has obvious swagger, and he’s been quietly building a successful collection of singles on Spotify. His latest, “Eastside (feat. Cyhi the Prynce),” has already clocked more than 110,000 streams, driven largely by its placement on 14 independent playlists.
And:
> In the modern music economy, in which streaming services account for nearly two-thirds of the total revenue generated by recorded music, emerging artists are increasingly being tracked via big data. Spotify streams, YouTube views, Twitter interactions, and even Wikipedia searches are all being used to discover the proverbial next big thing. That’s why King’s manager has worked to land his music on a staggering 594 Spotify playlists to date. Parallel to this, in the digital gaming world, platforms like cash app casinos are gaining traction by leveraging technology to provide secure and convenient transactions, appealing to the digitally-savvy user looking for seamless entertainment experiences.
And:
> There’s just one catch: King essentially paid to be added to those Spotify playlists. He’s one of countless artists who have compensated curators to check out his tracks—or in the case for some of his contemporaries, to be added to specific playlists—to gain valuable streams and attention. > > The black market for Spotify playlists is booming. It’s cheaper than you might expect to hack the system—and if it’s done right, it more than pays for itself.
No doubt, Spotify’s playlists are its secret sauce. They’ve quietly built the modern big data equivalent of the Billboard top 100 genre charts.
If the pay-to-play is true, I’m surprised that Spotify would tolerate that behavior. They have an opportunity to own a significant chunk of music’s future. But if they allow artists to buy their way in, they’ll squander that chance, all credibility gone.
Notably absent from this article is Apple (just a single mention, in passing). Is this simple bias? Or is Spotify truly owning this space? Very interesting.
“I have yet to meet anyone who owns an Apple Watch who’s passionate about the product,” he told investors at the Roth Investment Conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., adding that sales of the Apple Watch have mainly just piggybacked off sales of iPhones.
“If you don’t have an Apple phone, you’re not buying an Apple Watch… [and] 80% of the world is Android, not Apple,” he said.
Someone nudge John Gruber. A good candidate for the claim chowder vault of honor.
We’ve brought the richness of Google Maps to the Unity game engine. We turn buildings, roads, and parks into GameObjects in Unity, where developers can then add texture, style, and customization to match the look and feel of your game. This means that they can focus on building rich, immersive gameplay without the overhead of scaffolding a global-scale game world.
This is fascinating. Google has taken their real world maps data and offered it up to game developers. No need to invent a world for your game, just use the real one.
To truly get this, watch the video embedded below. Is this a potential path for Apple and Augmented Reality?
Iranian users have not been able to access Apple’s App Store all day today, in what appears to be a ban put in place by the US company.
And:
Users were not able to connect to the Apple App Store to install or update applications. When visiting the App Store, they were instead greeted with the message “The App Store is unavailable in the country or region you’re in”.
This ban appears to be IP-based. Meysam Firouzi —an Iranian security researcher— told Bleeping Computer that he successfully connected to the App Store while using a VPN, despite having Iran-related details set on his account.
And:
In August 2017, Apple removed all apps created by Iranian developers from the App Store, attributing the move to US-imposed economic sanctions.
Interesting. Wondering if we’ll ever know the behind-the-scenes on this.
UPDATE from Bleeping Computer:
As of around 1 AM EST, Bleeping Computer received a message from Firouzi stating that the App Store was once again accessible in Iran. Apple has still not comment or returned our queries, so we are unsure if this was a mistake or something else that caused the outage.
Malwarebytes: >In late 2017, word of a new iPhone unlocker device started to circulate: a device called GrayKey, made by a company named Grayshift. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Grayshift was founded in 2016, and is a privately-held company with fewer than 50 employees. Little was known publicly about this device—or even whether it was a device or a service—until recently.
One-click to unlock your iPhone without a password. You may worry about forgetting the password on your iPhone or the second-hand iOS device you buy. With iPhone Unlocker, you can easily remove Apple ID, Face ID, and screen passcode. The iPhone passcode unlocker can unlock a locked or a cell phone with a broken screen. It will also grant you permission to factory reset your phone’s data without the passwords. It is fully compatible with your iPhone and will help you unlock your cell phone in various situations.
>Thanks to an anonymous source, we now know what this mysterious device looks like, and how it works. And while the technology is a good thing for law enforcement, it presents some significant security risks.
This is not a “the sky is falling!” situation but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. I’m sure Apple is.
Toys ‘R’ Us Inc, the iconic toy retailer, will shutter or sell its stores in the United States after failing to find a buyer or reach a deal to restructure billions in debt, putting at risk about 30,000 jobs.
The closure is a blow to hundreds of toy makers that sell their products at the chain’s U.S. stores, including Barbie maker Mattel Inc, board game company Hasbro Inc and other vendors like Lego.
“This is a profoundly sad day for us as well as the millions of kids and families who we have served for the past 70 years,” Chief Executive Officer Dave Brandon said.
Devastating news for the industry, the employees and all of us, young or old, who loved going to Toys ‘R’ Us.
Chances are, you know the name Alexey Pajitnov. Arguably the most famous game designer to come out of Russia, he gave the world Tetris, which is regularly referred to as one of the greatest video games of all time.
However, the name Vladimir Pokhilko might be less familiar – despite the fact that he is often credited as co-creating the game alongside Pajitnov, and would later work with him on other video games. While Pajitnov continues to live off the fame of his most famous creation, Pokhilko has faded into history.
A quick read, well worth your time if you are interested in the history of video games. Tragic indeed.
From a development perspective the Series 3 is a delight to work with. It is fast, capable and LTE allows a wide variety of new applications.
And:
In daily use the Series 0 is probably “good enough” for many customers, especially with the speed/stability improvements added in watchOS 4, but as a developer I can’t wait until I no longer have to support it.
And:
The Series 3 is being adopted incredibly quickly and just last week became the most popular Apple Watch overall amongst my users with 33% of the overall user-base. The Series 0 is steadily falling, currently at around 24%.
Lots of interesting Apple Watch adoption data in this post. Will Apple drop Series 0 support? I hope Apple continues to offer a path for Series 0 buyers to receive watchOS updates, even if 3rd party apps stop supporting Series 0.
Hawking lost his ability to speak in 1985, when, on a trip to CERN in Geneva, he caught pneumonia. In the hospital, he was put on a ventilator. His condition was critical. The doctors asked Hawking’s then-wife, Jane, whether they should turn off the life support. She vehemently refused. Hawking was flown to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge, where the doctors managed to contain the infection. To help him breathe, they also performed a tracheotomy, which involved cutting a hole in his neck and placing a tube into his windpipe. As a result, Hawking irreversibly lost the ability to speak.
This is a fascinating story, starting with a program that ran on an Apple II, then evolving over the years, all while keeping that original synthesized voice.
Spotify has a new voice search interface that lets you say “Play my Discover Weekly,” “Show Calvin Harris” or “Play some upbeat pop” to pull up music.
If this was an app that someone created as an experiment, that’d be one thing. But this comes from Spotify’s own R&D.
Hard to say what kind of impact this will have on Apple’s music and smart speaker ambitions. After all, Apple Music, HomePod, and Siri are all part of a much larger ecosystem. And though Spotify does dominate the paid music sector, it’s reach does not extend into anything larger. Yet.
I can’t help but think that Spotify would be an enticing partner for Google or Amazon, more so if they built a bridge to marry their musical intelligence (they have access to a massive trove of user data) with intelligent musical speech command processing and, say, Amazon’s Echo installed base.
This is an interesting development, worth keeping an eye on.
A new page on Apple’s website details its efforts to make Macs and iPhones family friendly, including parental controls and other safety features. The move comes as Apple and other tech giants are under fire over whether their products are addictive, especially for children.
We have reviewed the evidence and we believe there is a clear need for Apple to offer parents more choices and tools to help them ensure that young consumers are using your products in an optimal manner. By doing so, we believe Apple would once again be playing a pioneering role, this time by setting an example about the obligations of technology companies to their youngest customers.
Apple’s new page is here. Definitely a step in the right direction, a single stop for learning about tools and resources for keeping your family safe.
To demonstrate the power of iMac Pro, Apple invited a group of renowned filmmakers, CG artists, and motion graphics designers to create a personal piece of work using its advanced technologies. The project was an opportunity for each of them to use this incredibly capable tool to define power through the films they made. From concept development through final preparations for render, iMac Pro proved to be the ultimate creative partner.
How cool must it have been to have Apple come to you and say, “Could you give us a hand with something?”
When you’re researching for travel, Wikivoyage is a great place to start. You’ll get a better sense of a place’s vibe from Wikivoyage’s conversational pages than from Wikipedia’s dry encyclopedic text. Wikivoyage contributors are allowed to insert opinions; they just have to be “fair.”
Wikivoyage pages include lists of landmarks, restaurants, bars, hotels, things to do, and sections like “Understand,” which describes a location’s history and je ne sais quoi, and “Stay Safe,” which tells you where to watch out for pickpockets or scams or other dangers. City pages, like the page for Brooklyn, break down neighborhoods and districts. There are also directions from major airports, trains, and highways.
Whenever I travel, I do research on the city and country I’m going to, no matter how big or small. I like learning new things about new places and Wikivoyage can help a lot.
Next week, at YC’s “demo days,” Nectome’s cofounder, Robert McIntyre, is going to describe his technology for exquisitely preserving brains in microscopic detail using a high-tech embalming process. Then the MIT graduate will make his business pitch. As it says on his website: “What if we told you we could back up your mind?”
So yeah. Nectome is a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company. Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass. The idea is that someday in the future scientists will scan your bricked brain and turn it into a computer simulation. That way, someone a lot like you, though not exactly you, will smell the flowers again in a data server somewhere.
This story has a grisly twist, though. The product is “100 percent fatal,” says McIntyre. “That is why we are uniquely situated among the Y Combinator companies.”
At first blush, this seems idiotic but on reading the article, I understand and appreciate the point of the “service”.
Here you have songbird Stevie Nicks, every makeup artist’s worst nightmare, belting out an early version of her song “Wild Heart” during an Annie Leibowitz cover shoot for Rolling Stone in 1981.
This is a little gem. Think about how hard it is to sing when you are sitting down. Stevie Nicks really lets us have it, making the whole thing effortless.
And listen for the other folks joining in. This is off-the-cuff, and wonderful.
Home is both too complex because of the way it splits things into rooms, zones, groups, scenes, and automations and too simple because it lacks features like robust state awareness and, in some places, timers. However, the problems with the Home app run even deeper. They are compounded by a generic UI and complex navigation.
Read John’s post to really get a sense of his point. Or just spend some time trying to edit the HomePod’s now playing queue.
All this said, it is early days still, both for HomeKit and HomePod. Even though HomeKit dates back to iOS 8 (a bit more than two years ago), I see it as still early in the adoption cycle, still in its infancy. As more and more people start using HomeKit compatible gear, the use cases are becoming better defined.
John makes the case that it is time for Apple to re-roll the interface.
Take a look, on the highest resolution screen you have. Beautiful work.
What’s it all mean? Are there clues in this art? The most common thing I’ve heard (and what sprang to mind for me, instantly) is a design language for Augmented Reality.
Now, if we want to play Cupertino-ology, does the graphic offer any hints about planned announcements (like, say, a unified cross-platform set of UI frameworks for Mac and iOS) or it just a cool graphic?
The fastest growing segment in global smartphones isn’t Google’s vision for super-cheap, simple Android phones. Instead, according to new market data, it’s refurbished high-quality phones that carry a desirable brand but can be sold at a more affordable price, a segment where Apple is “leading by a significant margin.”
The low growth of the new smartphone market in 2017 can be partially attributed to the growth of the refurb market. The slowdown in innovation has made two-year-old flagship smartphones comparable in design and features with the most recent mid-range phones. Therefore, the mid low-end market for new smartphones is being cannibalized by refurbished high-end phones, mostly Apple iPhones and, to a lesser extent, Samsung Galaxy smartphones.
This is a pretty interesting development. Apple has added another layer to this market, a layer that it dominates.
I read a number of appreciation articles this morning, but this Wired piece by Adam Rogers was my favorite.
A few highlights:
He and the physicist Roger Penrose described singularities, mind-bending physical concepts where relativity and quantum mechanics collapse inward on each other—as at the heart of a black hole.
And:
His calculations helped show that as the young universe expanded and grew through inflation, fluctuations at the quantum scale—the smallest possible gradation of matter—became the galaxies we see around us. No human will ever visit another galaxy, and the quantum realm barely waves at us in our technology, but Hawking envisioned them both.
And, perhaps my favorite:
He proved time travel didn’t exist by throwing a party for time travelers, but not sending out invitations until the party was over. No one came.
Notably, Stephen Hawking died on Albert Einstein’s birthday and on Pi-day (3.14).
Scott and Mark Kelly are identical twin brothers — at least, they were until Scott spent a year living in space.
When Scott Kelly returned to Earth after a 340-day voyage aboard the International Space Station (ISS) two years ago, he was 2 inches taller than he’d been when he left. His body mass had decreased, his gut bacteria were completely different, and — according to preliminary findings from NASA researchers — his genetic code had changed significantly.
While most of these genetic changes reverted to normal following Scott Kelly’s return to Earth, about 7 percent of the astronaut’s genetic code remained altered — and it may stay that way permanently.
This is all kinds of mind-blowing and may have real consequences as we go forward into space. Thaks to my friend Mike Rose for the link.
Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google corporate brands dropped in an annual survey while Amazon.com Inc maintained the top spot for the third consecutive year, and electric carmaker Telsa Inc rocketed higher after sending a red Roadster into space.
iPhone maker Apple dropped to 29th from its previous position of No. 5, and Google dropped from 8th to No. 28. Apple had ranked No. 2 as recently as 2016, according to the annual Harris Poll Reputation Quotient poll released on Tuesday.
John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll, told Reuters in an interview that the likely reason Apple and Google fell was that they have not introduced as many attention-grabbing products as they did in past years, such as when Google rolled out free offerings like its Google Docs word processor or Google Maps and Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
That reasoning seems odd. What does “attention-grabbing products” have to do with a company’s reputation? Especially given that “film production company The Weinstein Co made its debut at 99th out of 100 on the list”. So – its reputation got better?
There’s something strange going on with the International Photographer of the Year (IPOTY) photo contest. 11 of the 14 photographers listed as judges for the IPOTY 2017 contest say they weren’t asked to judge a single thing before the winners were announced in February (and the other 3 couldn’t be contacted).
IPOTY was founded in 2015 and is a “pay to play” type of competition. The website states that photographers need to pay between $15 to $30 (depending on photographer status and entry date).
On March 3rd, 9 of the 14 judges on the list penned a letter to PetaPixel and other publications, sharing “concerns” regarding the competition. Many of the judges had no idea they were listed as judges, and none of the judges actually judged anything — the winners were selected entirely without the jury’s knowledge or consent.
Another reason to be wary of “photo contests” in general and absolutely avoid paid contests.
Apple today announced it will host its 29th annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose from June 4 through June 8. The McEnery Convention Center will be home to the world’s most creative developer community, who come together every year to share unique perspectives and learn about the future of Apple’s breakthrough products and services.
Every year, WWDC provides an opportunity for millions of developers to learn more about how to create new experiences across Apple’s platforms for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Mac and HomePod. A broad range of robust developer APIs, including SiriKit, HomeKit, HealthKit, GymKit, MusicKit, ResearchKit, and CoreML, give developers new ways to help users take command of everything from their health and homes, to how they get around, shop and learn. Last year at WWDC Apple debuted ARKit, and since then, developers with apps in every category on the App Store have embraced inventive ways to engage customers with virtual experiences overlaid in the real world.
One of my favorite habits is strolling downstairs in the morning, and asking Siri to play some music while I make coffee, do my morning routine.
Yesterday, I asked Siri to play one of my favorite albums, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert. It’s a terrific morning album and, even though it came out back in 1975, it sounds terrific on HomePod. It’s all about the production.
The problem here is getting Siri to play this album. I started with:
Hey Siri, play the Keith Jarrett album The Köln Concert.
Siri’s response:
Sorry, I couldn’t find Keith Jarrett.
But if I say:
Hey Siri, play Keith Jarrett
Siri does her magic and plays all manner of Keith Jarrett.
Now, you might think this is a complaint about Siri’s ability to parse my spoken words. Not at all. I find Siri to be excellent at translating spoken word to text.
Instead, this is about Siri taking the next leap towards understanding and collaboration. If I asked a friend to play Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert and my friend did not understand what I meant, there’d be a couple of important points of interaction:
Did my friend know Keith Jarrett?
Did they understand the reference to the album The Köln Concert?
Does my friend have access to that album?
If it was a friend, I could follow up with some of these questions, and my friend could ask me questions right back. Maybe something like:
Hey friend, play the Keith Jarrett album The Köln Concert.
Sorry, I can’t do that.
Why not?
I know who Keith Jarrett is, but I don’t understand The Köln Concert.
Let me spell that out for you: K-O-L-N C-O-N-C-E-R-T.
Did you mean, The Köln Concert?
Yup, that’s the one. Go ahead and play it.
Spelling aside, I see the basic ability to go back and forth as a critical next step for Siri and, especially for HomePod Siri. And I think homing in on what music you want to play is a perfect sandbox for Siri to play and learn in.
The Apple Music domain is relatively limited. Typically, you ask for a song, an album, or an artist. The back and forth to help you home in on the music you’re seeking is relatively simple. I don’t mean to minimize the effort involved in taking that next step. Programming is hard, especially when you are trying to build something that millions of people will use.
But this might be an excellent place to start. And a bit of back and forth to help find a specific piece of music would, in my mind, greatly enhance the HomePod experience.
Neil Cybart, Above Avalon, in a post discussing Apple’s strategy on controlling sound:
The first iPod commercial highlighted the device’s mobility as the user danced around his house while listening to music via iPod and white earbuds. The kicker was found at the end as he stepped outside the four confined walls of his home and into the outside world without missing a beat. The iPod was about consuming sound not just around the home, but more importantly, outside the home.
Though the commercial is obviously dated (shown by aspect ratio, resolution, fashion, and tech), the sense of how deeply Apple gets music and its importance to people is clear.
