When we recently reviewed the Moto Z, we said that the device would not be getting Android’s monthly security updates. Motorola doesn’t make this information officially available anywhere, but when we asked Motorola reps at the Moto Z launch event if the company would commit to the monthly updates, we were flatly told “no.”
And:
Motorola has clarified the update situation of the Moto Z and Moto G4, calling Android’s monthly security updates “difficult” and deciding not to commit to them.
Tough to say no to an update that patches a known security vulnerability.
From Moto:
We strive to push security patches as quickly as possible. However, because of the amount of testing and approvals that are necessary to deploy them, it’s difficult to do this on a monthly basis for all our devices. It is often most efficient for us to bundle security updates in a scheduled Maintenance Release (MR) or OS upgrade.
In a rather extraordinary move, four of Australia’s largest banks have written to Australia’s competition regulator requesting permission to join together in a collective boycott whilst they negotiate with third-party mobile wallet services including Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay.
And:
At the heart of their request is the claim that third party wallet providers have the power to “impose highly restrictive terms and conditions”. The banks point out that 90% of smartphones sold in Australia run iOS or Android, and Samsung is the leading manufacturer of Android phones. Therefore, they claim, Google has significant bargaining power over Android, Samsung over Galaxy phones, and Apple over iPhones. But it is Apple that the banks say “has particularly significant bargaining power in negotiations relating to Apple Pay due to its control of both a key operating system and key mobile hardware”. They point out that in Australia the iPhone has a share of 41.2% of the market and Apple sells the two most popular phones on the market.
And:
The banks also make the argument that Apple has refused to permit third-party apps from accessing the NFC functionality contained in recent iPhones, unlike other manufacturers. They argue that it is inconsistent with other hardware and software features Apple has introduced such as the iPhone camera, accelerometer, and Touch ID sensor which are available to third-parties.
Cowarobot R1 is a fully autonomous smart suitcase, that follows its users while avoiding any obstacles in its path. We have merged upcoming technology with the suitcase in hopes that our new invention can allow people to travel more conveniently.
With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Dave Mark, I think “rideable luggage” is a silly idea. Now, luggage that follows you around like a puppy? I’d buy that. But this is yet another Indiegogo campaign I don’t expect to be delivered on schedule or, for that matter, delivered at all.
Apple on Tuesday announced its fiscal third-quarter results. The company posted quarterly revenue of $42.4 billion and quarterly net income of $7.8 billion, down from the $49.6 billion revenue and profit of $10.7 billion reported in the year-ago quarter.
Apple sold 40.3 million iPhones in this quarter, down from the 47.5 million in the year-ago quarter. The company also sold 9.95 million iPads this quarter, down from the 10.9 in the year-ago quarter, and 4.2 million Macs, down from the 4.7 million in the year-ago quarter.
“We are pleased to report third quarter results that reflect stronger customer demand and business performance than we anticipated at the start of the quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We had a very successful launch of iPhone SE and we’re thrilled by customers’ and developers’ response to software and services we previewed at WWDC in June.”
If there is one bright spot for the company, it was in services.
“Our Services business grew 19 percent year-over-year and App Store revenue was the highest ever, as our installed base continued to grow and transacting customers hit an all-time record,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We saw unusual spikes in user engagement from smaller app segments—including a surge in downloads from no min deposit casino games—suggesting how broad the demand for low-friction platforms has become.” “We returned over $13 billion to investors through share repurchases and dividends, and we have now completed almost $177 billion of our $250 billion capital return program.”
The Atlantic: >Several popular brands of wireless keyboards have been betraying their owners, broadcasting their keystrokes for savvy hackers to intercept from hundreds of feet away. > >According to research published Tuesday by Bastille, a cybersecurity company, eight wireless keyboards manufactured by major electronics companies transmit information in a way that makes it possible for a hacker to eavesdrop on every sentence, password, credit card number, and secret typed on them.
This hack doesn’t affect non-wireless or Bluetooth keyboards and none of the more popular keyboards used by Mac or iPad users are included on the list of affected keyboards. At least, not yet. This is one of the main reasons why cybersecurity jobs are in high-demand. Future-proof your career now by mastering top cybersecurity skills.
Apple has emerged as the surprise buyer of the unscripted TV series based on the “Carpool Karaoke” segment of CBS’ “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”
Under the deal, Vizio will be operated as an independent subsidiary, with the company’s current management team staying in place and working out of its offices in Southern California. Vizio’s data business, Inscape, will be spun out into a privately held company, with Vizio CEO William Wang serving as chairman and CEO. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
With this Lightroom for Apple TV release, you’ll be able to share your photos one by one in a slideshow, with the ability to stop and zoom in to see all the detail within your photo. Quickly navigate through all your photos to find that exact memory you’re looking for.
All your photos, are always available with your latest edits. In Lightroom for Apple TV, you can view and share all of your synced Lightroom photos including photos you’ve uploaded via Lightroom CC on your desktop, Lightroom on mobile, or Lightroom on the web.
Lightroom for Apple TV requires an Apple TV 4th Gen as well as a Creative Cloud subscription to login. The app can be downloaded for free from the App Store on your Apple TV, and is available right now.
I use Flickr right now as a way to show off my images on an Apple TV but this would allow me to keep up with any edits I may make to them.
The smartphone platform wars are pretty much over, and Apple and Google won. But it’s interesting, in passing, to note the final score, and think about what it means.
Six people from New York state have been charged in “an organized criminal enterprise” during which fraudulent transactions allegedly were attempted at an Apple store in Deer Park, according to Lake County authorities.
The sheriff’s office obtained information last week that the enterprise was attempting to make fraudulent purchases at various Apple stores in the Chicago area, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office. Further investigation revealed the suspects were using stolen identities and stolen credit card numbers of victims throughout the country to make the purchases, police said.
Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said the suspects would fly into O’Hare International Airport, rent a car and go to Apple stores to attempt to make purchases.
I do a lot of long drives, and over time, have made the shift to Apple Maps. Apple Maps has made obvious, continuous improvements since its rollout and it serves me well. I made a long trek this weekend and was pleased when Apple Maps weighed in, mid-route, with a suggested alternate route to save me time due to an accident ahead.
Accepting this new guidance took a single tap and the new route got me there faster. How do I know? Because Apple Maps shows me my expected arrival time, and with the new route, that expected arrival time changed. And proved accurate.
Add the Apple Watch to this mix. I love the fact that as I drive, I get steadily updated turn by turn directions on my Apple Watch, with haptic taps on my wrist to remind me of upcoming turns.
Apple Maps does a terrific job of getting me where I need to go.
Is this new version of Google Maps better? Here’s an experiment to try. Go to the announcement page, then scroll down to the video that shows off the interface. Use Apple Maps to head over to Oakland, California, then follow the video as it zooms in to the Rockridge area. Zoom in as the video zooms in, eventually revealing places of interest on College Ave, south of Route 24.
What do you think? Which shows more, Google Maps or Apple Maps? Is one noticeably better than the other? If anything, I’d say that Google Maps is catching up to Apple Maps, where it used to be the other way around.
I’m glad to see these improvements to Google Maps, good to have an alternative. But it was definitely enlightening to see them side by side. As always, give this a try, judge for yourself.
Nicholas Windsor Howard shares his thoughts on what he perceives as a decline of the OS X interface. There’s a lot to process here, a reasoned, well thought out essay.
Just a taste:
In Apple’s view, an icon depicting a camera and a photo was too literal for an application that handles photos. Therefore, when iPhoto gave way to its replacement in 2015—Photos—the previous carefully-rendered icon gave way to this bland, meaningless rainbow abstraction.
Is the move from the obvious to the minimalistically abstract a step up? A step down? Read this, decide for yourself.
If you are interested in Apple’s upcoming earnings call, spend a few minutes looking through these Above Avalon charts, which lay out the numbers, making it easy to see the numbers Apple needs to hit to meet expectations.
Terrific job by Neil Cybart pulling these together.
The “Celebration” Apple-1 is an original Apple-1 pre-NTI board that has many unique features, period correct power supply, original Apple-1 ACI cassette board (also populated with Robinson Nugent sockets), early Apple-1 BASIC cassettes, original marketing material, and the most complete documentation set of the known Apple-1 boards.
The “Celebration” Apple-1 is extremely rare not only because of the scarcity of Apple-1 computers, but according to Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, no known PCB boards of this type were ever sold to the public. At this time, this is the only known Apple-1 to show the signs of starting out as a blank original-run board and not part of the two known production runs, so this board appears to be unique from all other known Apple-1 boards.
The “Celebration” Apple-1 was authenticated by Apple Expert and Historian, Corey Cohen. Mr. Cohen believes The “Celebration” Apple-1 has the potential to be “powered up” with minor restoration, but has recommended against it to maintain the board’s unique configuration.
The Apple-1 Computer is considered the origin of the personal computer revolution and was built in Steve Jobs’ parents’ home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, CA. 200 were hand-built by Steve Wozniak, but it is believed that less than 60 are still in existence.
If you bid on this, please let me know. The current bid is US$270,000.
The world’s biggest online retailer, which has laid out plans to start using drones for deliveries by 2017, said a cross-government team supported by the UK Civil Aviation Authority had provided it with the permissions necessary to explore the process.
This infographic assembled by Explorecams meta-data, to collect and analyze 6,657,180 photos from year 2016 which have been posted on an assortment of websites, including Flickr, 500px and Pixabay, with ExifTool technology.
Interesting look at what cameras are popular among the millions and millions of photos the company has looked at. You can also check out the most popular lenses and camera settings.
Recently, there has been a virtual tsunami of articles about the so-called hidden dangers of using the Pokémon GO app. The vast majority of them concern potential violations of the privacy rights of both consumers and landmark-owners. The media’s Chicken Little-like take on this is that augmented reality apps are opening the door to a dystopian future.
However, what has not been widely discussed is the impact of all this on the developers of augmented reality apps.
There are so many things to consider, it’s almost mind boggling.
I’ve long recommended creating a bootable installer drive—on an external hard drive, thumb drive, or USB stick—for the version of OS X you’re running on your Mac. It’s great for installing the OS on multiple Macs, because you don’t have to download the ~5GB installer onto each computer, and it serves as a handy emergency disk if your Mac is experiencing problems.
Dan takes you through all the steps using Terminal.
Verizon has confirmed earlier reports that it will buy ailing Internet pioneer Yahoo in an all-cash deal with a price tag of nearly £3.7 billion ($4.8 billion).
The sale doesn’t include Yahoo’s shares in Alibaba, Verizon said. Yahoo’s Japan shares, its non-core patents, and minority investments are also set to be cut loose from the planned takeover.
Yahoo will be thrown into the mix with AOL—also a faded Internet star that burned brightly in the ’90s.
It’s been a long slow decline for Yahoo but the CEO who presided over it will make out like a bandit to the tune of a quarter billion dollars in salary and bonuses during her tenure. Personally, my biggest question will be what will happen to Flickr, the popular but also fading photo sharing service.
Many people suffer from depression—some people are in so deep, they don’t even know it. Sometimes it takes strong people like Robert Macmillan telling their story to make you realize that you’re not alone. If you know someone suffering from depression, help them.
There are many of us—errr, people—who build stuff with Legos at all ages. Having grown up with loads of hand-me-down Legos (and having a Lego Wall-E sitting on my desk right now), I started to wonder how Legos evolved from the sets I remember from my childhood to what they are today.
Bob Mansfield had stepped back from a day-to-day role at the company a few years ago, after leading the hardware engineering development of products including the MacBook Air laptop computer, the iMac desktop computer, and the iPad tablet. Apple now has Mr. Mansfield running the company’s secret autonomous, electric-vehicle initiative, code-named Project Titan, the people said.
Mansfield is a very smart guy and is well respected inside and outside of Apple.
This is the story about the ten levels John Hanke had to achieve in his life in order to create Pokémon Go.
Here are the first four levels:
1st Level up: In 1996, while still a student, John co-created the very first MMO (massively multiplayer online game) called ‘Meridian 59’. He sold the game to 3DO to move on to a bigger passion: mapping the world.
2nd Level up: In 2000, John launched ‘Keyhole’ to come up with a way to link maps with aerial photography, and create the first online, GPS-linked 3D aerial map of the world.
3rd Level up: In 2004, Google bought Keyhole and with John’s help, turned Keyhole into what is now ‘Google Earth’. That’s when John decided to focus at creating GPS-based games.
4th Level up: John ran the Google Geo team from 2004 to 2010, creating Google Maps and Google Street View. During this time, he collected the team that would later create Pokémon Go.
Read the rest. Interesting to watch this all unfold.
One of my favorite features of iOS 10 is the built-in magnifying glass, super useful if you need to read some small print or get a close-up look at something tiny.
Before iOS 10’s Magnifier, to get a close-up look at some small print, say, I would open the camera, do my best to focus close in, take a picture, then hop over to Photos, and pinch out to zoom in on the details. That is now no longer necessary.
If you’ve got access to the iOS 10 beta, give this a try:
Go to Settings > General > Accessibility. You should see an item called Magnifier.
Tap Magnifier, tap the switch to turn it on, then exit settings.
Now, triple click the home button to launch Magnifier (You might also see an alert asking you to choose between Assistive Touch and Magnifier – Tap Magnifier).
Just like a magnifying glass, move your iPhone or iPad over the thing you’re trying to magnify. Magnifier will keep the focus sharp and close in. The interface allows you to turn on the flash, slide to zoom in and out, and even grab a still image.
This is a brilliant addition to iOS. Very glad to have it around.
In the old days, circuits were prototyped by hand using a primitive breadboard. After the circuit was debugged and pronounced fit, it was translated into masks for printed circuit boards.
As integrated circuits grew to comprise thousands and then millions of logic elements, breadboards were virtualized: The circuit-to-be was designed on a computer, just as we model a building using architectural Computer Assisted Design (CAD).
A multibillion industry of software modules that could be plugged into one’s own circuit specifications soon emerged. Companies such as Synopsys, Cadence, and Mentor Graphics offered circuit design tools, and an ecosystem of third-party developers offered complementary libraries for graphics, networking, sensors… The end result is a System On a Chip (SOC) that’s sent off to semiconductor manufacturing companies commonly called foundries.
This was the fertile ground on which ARM has prospered. ARM-based chips aren’t simply more efficient and cheaper than Intel’s x86 designs, they’re customizable: They can be tuned to fit the client’s project.
And this on Intel’s reaction to ARM:
Intel didn’t get it. “Just you wait!” the company insisted, “Our superior semiconductor manufacturing process will negate ARM’s thriftier power consumption and production costs!” But that opportunity has passed. Intel miscalculated the iPhone, failed to gain any traction in the Android market, and had to resort to bribing (er…incentivizing) tablet manufacturers to use their low-end Atom processors. Earlier this year, they threw in the towel on mobile and are now focused on PCs and Cloud data centers.
To mark the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission, the Smithsonian has made available a high-resolution 3-D scan of the command module “Columbia,” the spacecraft that carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. This highly detailed model allows anyone with an internet connection to explore the entire craft including its intricate interior, which is not possible when viewing the artifact in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The Smithsonian is also making the data files of the model available for download so it can be 3-D printed or viewed with virtual-reality goggles.
This 3D re-creation of the Command Module is really cool, if terrifyingly analog. Click on the globe icon in the upper left to get a walkthrough of the various aspects of the module.
