FYFD:

FYFD is dedicated to sharing the awesomeness that is fluid dynamics with the world—whether or not you care for calculus. It is a science and engineering outreach blog with a new post about the physics of liquids, gases, plasmas, or granular materials—anything that behaves like a fluid—five times a week. It features photos, videos, and research from scientists, engineers, and artists around the world along with a short explanation from FYFD’s author, Nicole Sharp.

If you’re new, try exploring the archive to see some of the awesome physics FYFD has covered. You can also follow FYFD on YouTube or Twitter.

Their NSFW name aside, this is a fascinating site with great, easy to understand descriptions of the phenomenon represented.

This is a nice tool for playing with logo ideas, homing in on a design you might then pass along to a professional designer to refine.

To get started, click the Make a Logo link in the top bar. Fun and useful.

This is a new feature. Easy enough to do. And once pinned in macOS, the note stays pinned in iOS.

To pin or unpin a note in iOS, swipe the note to the right. You’ll see a pin/unpin button. Nice.

Nice look back at the critical role the world’s first spreadsheet had on Apple’s early success.

Steven Mallas, Seeking Alpha (free regwall) on Apple and Steve Spielberg inking a deal to bring the series of Amazing Stories to Apple TV:

The plan is for there to be 10 episodes at a cost of $5 million each. That’s nothing to Apple, a drop in the bucket.

And:

Spielberg could shift some of his slate over to streaming services that are aching to differentiate themselves from the pack, primarily the alpha Netflix. Again, here’s where Apple and its cash hoard and its enormous market cap and its platforms that need to be programmed come in – they could help Spielberg distribute concepts that might not find a place elsewhere. Netflix arguably already does this. Think the recent Stephen King adaptation Gerald’s Game. On Netflix, it stands out. In theaters, maybe it wouldn’t have. There’s no way that Cook and Spielberg don’t understand that.

The whole article is interesting, especially when Mallas chews on the possibility of Apple buying the rights to James Bond, both existing movies and the rights to new content:

Comparison was made to Disney and its purchases of Marvel/Lucasfilm; Lucasfilm was all about Star Wars, and that cost billions of dollars to consummate. If either Amazon or Apple won the rights to Bond, then those companies could release new films and episodic series on their respective platforms, as well as release movies to theaters on a worldwide basis.

And:

Bond, though, doesn’t necessarily, in my mind, lend itself to capital investment in the same way that Star Wars or Marvel do. I’m not sure about how valuable a merchandising program for Bond would be, as an example.

Interesting comparison. Not sure Netflix thinks about merchandising at all.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Starting on Monday, October 23, iPhone Upgrade Program customers will be able to get a “head start” on the iPhone X pre-order process by getting pre-approved for an iPhone Upgrade Program loan.

If you are part of the iPhone Upgrade Program, this is worth a look, will get you through checkout that much quicker this Friday.

Over the weekend, Alex Dobie, Executive Editor of Android Central, posted this tweet, showing what appears to be screen burn-in on his Google Pixel 2 XL review unit.

From this Android Central post:

Viewing a grey image on the screen, you get a clear look at where the navigation bar has started to settle in on the display. You also interestingly see the portions of pixels where the back, home, and recents buttons go — those don’t seem to be burned in themselves (displaying white instead of black), but the outlines clearly show where they are compared to the black portion that’s burned in. Or that may be some optical trickery and the buttons are burned in. We’re just not sure what we’re seeing here.

Deiter Bohn, Executive Editor of The Verge, following with this article, reports that he is seeing similar burn-in on his review unit, and:

Screen burn-in isn’t an uncommon issue, but it does seem especially worrisome that it’s showing up within a week or so of these units coming into usage. It’s also possible that what we’re looking at here is image retention instead of actual screen burn-in. If that’s the case, then it’s not as permanent. Neither one is good, but “ghosting” goes away where burn-in may not.

From Google:

We put all of our products through extensive quality testing before launch and in the manufacturing of every unit. We are actively investigating this report.

Hopefully for Google, this will turn out to be fixable.

CNBC:

Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts has a new vision for these stores: They should be “town squares,” places where people meet up with friends, attend concerts and take classes.

CNBC’s Josh Lipton caught up with Apple’s senior VP of retail, Angela Ahrendts, to talk about her vision for the company’s retail outlets.

Apple is usually pretty good about not “encouraging” customers to buy more than they need.

MacStories:

The store has moved south along Michigan Avenue to just north of the river at Pioneer Court, an open plaza between the historic Chicago Tribune Tower and the Chicago River.

It’s a space where the city’s hustle and bustle comes alive with a mix of Chicagoans and tourists, and you can take in some of Chicago’s finest architectural treasures like the Wrigley Building, the Tribune Tower, the DuSable Bridge, the 333 North Michigan Avenue building, and the London House hotel. Nestled in the center of it all is Apple’s new location, which was designed by Foster + Partners, the architects that designed Apple Park.

I’d love to visit this store. Chicago is a great city and these photos really show off the new space.

The Verge:

A Japanese company, which owns the trademark for “Animoji” in the US, is suing Apple for using the word to name its iPhone X feature.

The Tokyo-based company, Emonster, filed the suit on Wednesday in US federal court, saying, “Apple made the conscious decision to try to pilfer the name for itself.”

Although Emonster has owned the trademark for Animoji since 2015, Apple filed a petition this September to cancel the trademark, so the registration is now under review. Apple said that because of a filing error, Emonster registered the trademark to a nonexistent business and therefore can’t actually own “animoji.”

Apple plays hardball but $20 says this gets settled out of court for “an undisclosed sum”.

Photography Talk:

What some new photographers don’t realize is that many of the very best photography apps are totally free.

Photography is hard enough as it is, so having a little help never hurt anybody. And if it’s free, even better!

I’ve listed 13 of my favorite free photography apps. I hope you find them useful for your photography as well.

This is a great list of apps – I use almost all of them on a regular basis.

TechCrunch:

Apple, AT&T, the FCC and Alphabet’s X division have all put into motion efforts to give residents of Puerto Rico more cellular connectivity.

Apple has been working with AT&T to extend and activate cell service for users in Puerto Rico. To improve what is a terrible connectivity situation there, it’s going to enable a provisional band of LTE that has been recently approved, but not activated in the US and Puerto Rico, where it has not been licensed. This will allow iPhones to connect to Alphabet X’s Project Loon balloons in the region, which were activated today.

This should allow users to send text messages and access some critical online services.

This is great news and hopefully will ease some of the pain of the people in those affected areas.

Follow the link, take a look at those images, especially that last one. This is an incredibly beautiful storefront, perfectly incorporated into the surroundings.

Props to whoever did the site planning. Just wow.

Mikey Campbell, Apple Insider:

In a complaint lodged with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, plaintiffs emonster k.k. and Enrique Bonansea, a U.S. citizen living in Japan, registered for the “Animoji” mark in 2014, reports The Recorder. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office subsequently granted rights to the property in 2015.

And:

According to the complaint, Apple not only had knowledge of the Animoji app prior to September’s iPhone X launch, but attempted to purchase rights for the mark from emonster. Bonansea claims he was approached by Apple “fronts,” like The Emoji Law Group LLC., to sell the property this past summer. These entities allegedly threatened to file a cancellation proceeding if the developer failed to acquiesce to their requests.

This reads like a John Grisham novel.

Go to the KFC Twitter page and note that @KFC follows exactly 11 people. See where I’m going with this?

Go ahead, tap to check out the 11 follows. That is some subtle marketing.

Peter Kafka, Recode:

Facebook’s effort to help media companies sell subscriptions has hit a snag: Apple.

The two companies are butting heads over Facebook’s plan for a new subscription tool in its mobile app. The tool will put paywalls around some articles in Facebook’s news feed, and then send users to publishers’ sites to buy subscriptions.

The issue: Apple wants to take as much as 30 percent of any subscription revenue Facebook helps generate. Facebook wants all of the money to go to publishers.

This is nothing new. The 30 percent model has been in place since inception. But:

People familiar with Facebook’s plans say Google won’t take a cut of subscriptions users sign up for using its Android operating system.

And there’s the rub. I don’t think there are many people who will switch platforms because of this issue. This is about the publishers.

Note that not every publisher likes Facebook’s subscription plan. Notable holdouts from the test plan the company is announcing today include the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

And you can see why. Both the NYT and WSJ have existing paywalls that work for them. This is a complex problem, one I hope gets resolved quickly.

Patently Apple:

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to displays having a substrate with a visually imperceptible texture that provides tactile sensations varying with an object contacting the surface. Apple is considering applying a new finish on displays for Macs and iDevices that acts as an added protection layer with a different texture to the glass. The glass may feel smooth to the touch but slightly rougher with a little drag when using it with an Apple Pencil.

Not clear if this difference in feel is what they were going for in the first place, or a side product of the finish. What would really be cool is if there was a way to control that texture electronically, adjust it based on context.

Fascinating.

Tim Cook:

“While it’s not time to share any details, we do plan for Mac mini to be an important part of our product line going forward.”

Well, good.

Popular Science:

Robots, smartphones, computational cameras, and a true pop culture phenomenon round out the list.

I’m sure we’ll have arguments about this list but I hope we can agree that if the fidget spinner is the “most ingenious gadgets of 2017”, we’re doomed.

Wall Street Journal:

For the first time, the Apple Watch can have an independent cellular connection, allowing people to use it to make voice calls, send and receive text and data even if the watch isn’t wirelessly connected to an iPhone.

But in China, the feature was abruptly cut off for new subscribers, without explanation, after a brief availability with one telecom company.

Industry analysts say the suspension likely stemmed from Chinese government security concerns to do with tracking users of the device, which uses different technology than standard mobile phones.

This is a stunning development. After all the approvals were in place, prototypes no doubt submitted for inspection, deals signed with all players, manufacturing process completed, product packaged and distributed, and cash laid on the table as promised product was delivered and paid for, the rug was pulled out from under.

Here’s hoping this is a temporary setback.

John Koblin, New York Times:

In the five years since Netflix started streaming original series like the Emmy-winning “House of Cards” and “Master of None,” the shows have had a question hanging over them: How many people are watching?

Outside of Netflix, nobody knows the answer.

But Nielsen (the people who, for decades, have been crunching data to tell us who is watching what) has worked out a scheme to tell us:

Nielsen announced the initiative on Wednesday morning, but it has been collecting Netflix viewership data over the last two months in a kind of test run.

The company said it was able to determine how many viewers were streaming Netflix content through audio recognition software in the 44,000 Nielsen-rated homes across the United States.

Yes. Audio recognition software. They are eavesdropping on Nielsen households, obviously with permission, and parsing exactly who is watching Netflix, and exactly when and for how long.

This is fascinating to me, but it also made me wonder about Amazon and Google. With the Amazon Echo and Google Home in more and more homes, this kind of data would be easy enough to gather. With permission, of course.

Here’s a link to the photo. I actually like the iPhone 8 design, but there’s no denying the extra screen real estate you get with the iPhone X, notch and all.

Read the article for Zach Epstein’s take on the photo.

There’s been a ton of controversy over the past few days as Pixel 2 XL reviews come in. Though some reviews are glowing, a number of reviews (here’s one launch point we posted yesterday) are taking the Pixel 2 XL to the woodshed.

Vlad Savov, The Verge:

Look at that New York Times icon in the image above. Stop flinching and really look at it, soak in the kaleidoscope of colors washing over it. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, I’m seeing a haze of green in the middle of the gothic “T”, which then blooms into a red that eventually transitions into the white that the icon is supposed to be. But the fun isn’t over; when you get up real close, you’ll see the edges of the icon are all fringed by a sort of purply-red and, again, green. The neighboring heart icon, which is also supposed to be white, presents us with a crosshatch of red and green and white micropixels.

Click to Vlad’s review and really get up close and personal with that image. Hard to argue with his logic.

If you own a Switch, you’ve no doubt wondered about the lack of save file portability. For example, if my Switch breaks, how do I recover my game progress? If my Switch is stolen, is there a recovery option? Or if I’m visiting a friend with a Switch, is there a way I can play my games on their Switch?

With other systems, I can back up my data and bring it with me. Not so with the Switch.

Until now. Sort of. Read the article. Baby steps.