Amazon is entering the Go-to-Meeting and Skype space with Chime, now available on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. From this Android Police post:

Conference calls and video meetings have almost been synonymous with Skype for the longest time, but Amazon is looking at changing that. Chime, a new Amazon Web Services platform, wants to simplify communications between teams and individuals and cater to their different aspects in one app: video call, voice call, chat, and screen sharing.

And:

There’s also a chatroom component to chime, with attachments to share important documents. Chime is free to try for 30 days, but after that, there are three plans to choose from. Basic Edition gives access to all of these options, minus screen sharing and with a 2 attendee limit, for free. Plus Edition is great for companies who want to manage users, but it costs $2.50/user/month and still keeps the 2 attendee limit. Pro Edition costs $15/user/month, but makes it possible to have meetings with up to 100 users and brings a host of add-ons.

Wondering if this will become a tool for podcast interviews.

Sign up here.

Popular Mechanics:

Up, up and away: Dubai hopes to have a passenger-carrying drone regularly buzzing through the skyline of this futuristic city-state in July.

The craft can carry a passenger weighing up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and a small suitcase. After buckling into its race-car-style seat, the craft’s sole passenger selects a destination on a touch-screen pad in front of the seat and the drone flies there automatically.

Yes, this is the future. But, even if I weren’t too big (1’m 110 kilograms), I still wouldn’t fly in one.

Fast Company:

The year was 1996.

Apple wasn’t doing well, suffering through the awkward years between the Mac and the iPod. Jobs would return officially in 1997, but in the meantime, Apple was contemplating how to make some fast cash by licensing its name. In this gap leading to its renaissance, Apple considered a concept that feels wild, yet, in retrospect, almost inevitable: the Apple Cafe.

Like many of you, I’m old enough to have been around when this idea first came to light in 1996. I’m also old enough to remember thinking, “Well, that’s not going to fly”. But perhaps the germ of this idea came to fruition in today’s Apple retail stores.

Apple has climbed 50 percent from lows in the first half of last year and is up 15 percent so far in 2017. It was still short of its all-time intraday high of $134.54, set on April 28, 2015.

Impressive.

For anyone familiar with Kurstin’s track record, his hand in Adele’s repeat success was no surprise. A multi–Grammy Award nominee, Kurstin is known in the industry as an “artist whisperer” who brings out the best in performers like Sia, Beck, Katy Perry, Foster the People, and many more. He does it by bringing a unique set of producing skills to his sessions — world-class ability as an instrumentalist, deep understanding of music and song structure, and a highly effective writing and producing process that runs through Logic Pro X.

It is truly amazing what talented people can do when they get together to write music.

Ars Technica:

The next time you’re in a parking lot, or when you’re walking on the sidewalk along a street with lots of parked cars, take a look at the windshield wipers. On some cars, the wiper arms are mounted fairly close to each other and are designed to move in unison. On others, the arms are mounted at opposite sides of the car and face each other in the center of the windshield. Some wiper arms are short and some are long. Some are straight, and some, especially on newer cars, are curved or bent.

But the reality is that wiper design is driven primarily by practicalities, not aesthetics.

Dave tweeted this earlier today. I love these articles about common, everyday technology that most of us give no thought to.

Solid trailer. The energy feels about the same as the ones in the Late Late Show with James Corden. From the video’s info page:

Based on the segment that has become a global, viral video sensation on The Late Late Show with James Corden, the new CARPOOL KARAOKE series features 16 celebrity pairings riding along in a car together as they sing tunes from their personal playlists and surprise fans who don’t expect to see big stars belting out tunes one lane over.

And:

Featuring James Corden, Will Smith, Billy Eichner, Metallica, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Ariana Grande, Seth MacFarlane, Chelsea Handler, Blake Shelton, Michael Strahan, John Cena, Shaquille O’Neal, and many more.

Here’s a link to the series home page.

Chris Hauk, MacTrast:

You can, in fact, make phone calls from your Mac. Wi-Fi (WiFi) calling is one of the perks you get when you choose to go with Apple’s complete eco-system. If you own an iPhone 5c or newer devices and one of the “Wi-Fi Calling” compatible devices (Mac, Apple Watch, iPod touch or iPad), you’re one step closer to making what Apple named “Wi-Fi calls on other devices.” It’s imperative that all your devices are properly registered under one Apple ID connected to one iCloud account.

If you own a Mac and an iPhone, this is worth setting up. It may already work and, if not, getting this to work may solve some other problems for you.

I actually prefer the audio quality of calls on my Mac. I find the sound subtle, nuanced when compared to my iPhone.

The Telegraph:

In an impassioned plea, Mr Cook, boss of the world’s largest company, says that the epidemic of false reports “is a big problem in a lot of the world” and necessitates a crackdown by the authorities and technology firms.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, he calls for a campaign similar to those that changed attitudes on the environment to educate the public on the threat posed by fabricated online stories.

And:

“It has to be ingrained in the schools, it has to be ingrained in the public,” said Mr Cook. “There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic.

“We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will.”

Read the post, watch the embedded video, which shows Tim being asked some pointed political questions, handling each with some truly deft diplomacy.

Dan Moren, Macworld:

Even as the company continues to push its Apple Music venture, there are a few places where Apple would be better served by re-examining the way it approaches music. From services to software to hardware, Apple’s gotten pretty comfortable about where it stands with music—but not necessarily because it has the best solutions out there.

Dan digs into three specific areas: Fixing iTunes and Music apps, improving AirPlay, and improving the speaker situation.

One particular snippet I found intriguing:

Granted, perhaps it would be more effective to just snap up Sonos—especially if Apple could find a way to integrate Siri.

I can’t imagine this isn’t on an Apple drawing board somewhere.

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

While early rumors suggested that Apple was holding out for long-range charging, without the need to place the iPhone on a charging pad, those hopes appear to have been dashed by more recent reports. These suggest that Apple will, like other manufacturers, use simple inductive charging.

Apple is now listed as a member of the Qi Wireless Power Consortium. Qi is an inductive wireless charging standard that is already in use in more than a thousand products.

Ben quotes IHS Technology analyst Vicky Yussuff:

The success of wireless charging adoption from Apple’s competitors is something that Apple can no longer ignore. IHS Technology consumer survey data shows over 90% of consumers want wireless charging on their next device.

Note that the Apple uses Qi charging for the Apple Watch:

Apple already uses Qi charging for the Watch, but as The Register noted back in 2015, it uses a tweaked version that means you can’t use other Qi chargers. It seems likely it will do the same with the iPhone.

Conjecture, but reasonable conjecture.

Apple:

Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the ’80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums, wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music was inconsistent, in part because of his eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeeded; no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.

I know what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day.

Today:

U.S. News & World Report just unveiled their list of 2017 Best Places to Live in America after ranking the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas.

The new list took into account several factors, including affordability, job prospects and quality of life. A public survey of thousands of individuals across the country was also used to determine which qualities people consider important in a hometown. Then, data from the United States Census Bureau, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Labor Statistics — as well as U.S. News rankings of the best high schools and best hospitals — were considered to make up the final ranking.

These lists are always wonderfully subjective. Did your city make the top 20?

PBS:

The “In Memoriam” segments made for the major televised award shows are usually notable for their exclusions. The Grammys are no exception, as perceived “snubs” draw commentary the next morning.

On average, two and a half to three minutes are set aside during the hours-long telecast to pay tribute to the late-greats of the music industry. And, inevitably, it’s a bit of posthumous politics that decides who wins a spot in the photo-and-film sequence.

This is always the saddest part of the show. This year’s segment will be especially poignant for me.

Basement Geographer:

Generally, left-driving countries are isolated from right-driving countries by water, mountains, desert, or large stretches of deep forest. While this provides for relatively little traffic crossover between the two mode, there are still numerous roads (about 86 or so) where the issue of having to exchange lanes due to crossing over a border exist. These occur mostly in Africa and Asia, along with a handful of roads leading out of Guyana and Suriname in South America. To ease the transition for drivers so that they don’t suddenly find themselves hurtling headlong into oncoming traffic, there are a number of ways of handling the issue.

This is an old article but it talks about something I’ve never thought about. I’ve driven in countries that are right-hand drive but never had to cross a border and make the described transitions.

Wired:

Move 37 showed that AlphaGo wasn’t just regurgitating years of programming or cranking through a brute-force predictive algorithm. It was the moment AlphaGo proved it understands, or at least appears to mimic understanding in a way that is indistinguishable from the real thing. From where Lee sat, AlphaGo displayed what Go players might describe as intuition, the ability to play a beautiful game not just like a person but in a way no person could.

But don’t weep for Lee Sedol in his defeat, or for humanity. Lee isn’t a martyr, and Move 37 wasn’t the moment where the machines began their inexorable rise to power over our lesser minds. Quite the opposite: Move 37 was the moment machines and humanity finally began to evolve together.

Fascinating article about the rise of AI and what it means for humanity.

Rogue Amoeba:

The Mac App Store previously made up about half of Piezo’s unit sales, so we might have expected to sell half as many copies after exiting the store. Instead, it seems that nearly all of those App Store sales shifted to direct sales. It appears that nearly everyone who would have purchased Piezo via the Mac App Store opted to purchase directly once that was the only option. Far from the Mac App Store helping drive sales to us, it appears we had instead been driving sales away from our own site, and into the Mac App Store.

Obviously, this is not applicable to every developer or every app but it is interesting nonetheless.

Amateur Photographer:

The orcas were now very close and fast approaching a small group of eider ducks on the water. I realised there could be the potential for an action shot, so I tried to concentrate my attention on the eiders, which is easier said than done with five or six black dorsal fins cutting through the water and getting closer. I moved my focus point low in the frame and focused on the closest duck (in AI servo/continuous focus mode).

Suddenly, the eiders looked panicked and scattered in all directions.

This is a great example of something I teach in my class – great photographs often take a combination of hard work, knowledge, skill and luck. This story combines all of those elements.

Food and Drink:

We asked some whisky experts from across Scotland (and beyond) to help us pick ten of the best (reasonably priced) Scotch whiskies.

Just in time for the weekend. It’s easy to find good, expensive Scotch but the “reasonably priced” stuff is a lot harder. Spending $50-75 bucks on a bottle only to find out it’s not to your taste sucks. I’ve tried about a quarter of these and agree with the reviews of the ones I’ve tasted.

Zdziarski’s Blog Of Things:

With the current US administration pondering the possibility of forcing foreign travelers to give up their social media passwords at the border, a lot of recent and justifiable concern has been raised about data privacy.

What few protections citizens have in their home countries end at the border.

I am not a lawyer, and I can’t provide you with legal advice about your rights, or what you can do at a border crossing to protect yourself legally, but I can explain the technical implications of this, as well as provide some steps you can take to protect your data regardless of what country you’re entering.

The security issues he is discussing have always been in place for those who travel to more dangerous parts of the world. But there are some things every international traveler, regardless of where they are going, should keep in mind as well.

Thanks to Daylite for sponsoring The Loop this week. If you’re struggling to juggle business coming in while managing current projects, then Daylite is a tool you definitely want to check out.

If you need to be able to share client and project information, delegate tasks, share calendars and emails, and track projects – Daylite can help you do this all in one app.

Daylite is used by lawyers, consultants, real estate agents, photographers, designers, and other small businesses all over the world. It helps you organize and share information so you save time and get more done.

The best part about Daylite is it’s not a web app, so you can keep working even when you don’t have an Internet connection.

Try Daylite free for 30 days!

Dan Counsell:

I don’t usually write articles like this, but every so often something comes along that changes, or shifts the way things are done. Setapp from MacPaw is that something. I believe it has the potential to change the Mac app market in a big way, for better or worse.

So, what is Setapp? Basically at its heart, Setapp is a Mac app subscription service. Very much like Netflix, but for apps. The twist here is that it’s based on quality, not quantity. For a fixed monthly fee you get access to over 60 Mac apps. Sounds pretty good, right? Let’s dig a little deeper and find out.

The author is a developer himself (Product Designer and Founder of Realmac Software), so his thoughts on this subscription-based service are from a different perspective.

Interesting tip. The QuickType solution doesn’t seem to work for me. This a setting of some kind? Seems to me, the (c), (r), and TM shortcuts used to work, at least on the Mac. But no more.

The emoji solution always works. Copy and paste works too, especially if I do the copy on my Mac and paste on my iOS device.

UPDATE: Thanks to a big wave of Twitter response, I can see that there are some iOS installs with default text substitutions for (c), etc. But others do not have these substitutions. Perhaps they were replaced? Regardless, you can add them back in via Settings > General > Keyboards > Text Replacement.

Jason Snell, writing for Macworld:

Look out to 2025 and imagine a futuristic computing device made from Apple that’s larger than a phone, filling the ecosystem that currently is filled by laptops and iPads (and maybe even desktop Macs). This is a thin, light device, with battery life and sensors and other features that we can only dream about today.

And:

Apple seems to see the Mac as a rock-solid platform for laptop and desktop computers that people depend on to do their jobs. The Mac is, in many ways, defined by the fact that it’s a keyboard-and-trackpad-driven system with a windowed user interface. If you take that away and simplify the Mac, you might be able to get to something a bit closer to the iPad–but you risk losing some of the key attributes that make the Mac what it is.

And:

The iPad, on the other hand, seems not too far away from that 2025 device already. What’s required is an evolution of the very simple touch interface pioneered by the iPhone in order to provide the tools that sophisticated and demanding users need to get their jobs done. With the addition of iCloud Drive and support for other cloud services, Apple basically gave the iPad a browsable file hierarchy.

For the iPad to get there, however, Apple will need to up its game when it comes to growing iOS. After all, 2025 is only eight years away; a new iPad feature or two every other year between now and then won’t get it done. iOS needs better peripheral support, more sophisticated windowing and multitasking, improvements to file handling, better support for application and system automation, and a whole lot more. But if Apple puts the work in, the iPad could be that device in 2025–and still clearly be recognizable to a visitor from 2017 as an iPad.

Is the iPad the future? Will we continue to live in a hybrid world, with the Mac on the desk, the iPhone in pocket, and the iPad the larger portable device in between? Or will the iPad evolve into a device capable of filling its current slot as well as replacing the need for the Mac?

Interesting questions. Clearly, the answers will depend on the technology that comes our way over time. Will we see power sipping flexible screens that can fit into our pockets and unfold into large screens as needed? Will battery life become indefinite? Will quantum computing significantly raise the performance bar? Will gesture detection become sophisticated enough that our computers will allow us to type even if our hands are in our pockets?

If the answer to those questions are true, the computing devices of the future might bear little resemblance to what we have now. Though I’d bet that the Apple brand will still be just as strong.