For kids of a certain age — say, 35 and up — it’s the stuff dreams are made of: more than 900 vintage pinball and arcade games, with almost no duplicates among them.
Although many of these machines once sucked quarters out of pockets at a dizzying pace — Dragon’s Lair alone likely drained more piggy banks of allowance money than anything else in 1983 — they’ll all be available to play for a single price this weekend at the Museum of Pinball in Banning.
How much fun would it be to spend a weekend in this place?
I believe this was originally written in 2011, but so appropriate now.
I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time. On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma, and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.
Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.
It is an ancient need to be told in stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.
Billy Joel and J. K. Simmons were both guests on The Tonight Show. During one of the commercial breaks, they got together with host Jimmy Fallon and some other folks for an improvised doo-wop rendition of The Longest Time.
One extremely interesting tweak comes in the form of an updated Wi-Fi Assist feature that now shows granular usage of data when called into action.
Apple’s changes to Wi-Fi Assist as introduced with iOS 9.3 beta 1 means that users can actually see exactly how much data the feature has utilized as part of its services. The Wi-Fi Assist option has been updated to include a small label underneath the main header to show an approximate amount of data that has been chewed through in MBs.
Apple CEO Tim Cook lashed out at the high-level delegation of Obama administration officials who came calling on tech leaders in San Jose last week, criticizing the White House for a lack of leadership and asking the administration to issue a strong public statement defending the use of unbreakable encryption.
The White House should come out and say “no backdoors,” Cook said. That would mean overruling repeated requests from FBI Director James Comey and other administration officials that tech companies build some sort of special access for law enforcement into otherwise unbreakable encryption. Technologists agree that any such measure could be exploited by others.
And:
Cook has been outspoken in his opposition to the idea that we need to sacrifice privacy and digital security for the sake of public safety. During an episode of 60 Minutes on December 20, he said, “We’re America, we should have both.”
I know of no other tech company whose CEO has taken as strong a position on privacy as has Tim Cook.
Time Warner Inc. isn’t even on the block yet, but Apple is staying extra close to any possible movement on this front, The Post has learned.
The tech giant is among a handful of companies, all possible suitors of the entertainment company, which has recently come under pressure from activists to sell itself or spin off assets, sources familiar with the situation said Tuesday.
With Time Warner shares closing at $71.06 on Tuesday — well below the $85 offer from 21st Century Fox that its board rejected 18 months ago — the New York company is seen as a sitting duck among media companies because it, unlike its peers, doesn’t have a dual-class shareholder structure.
Note that in that last paragraph, Time Warner rejected an offer by 21st Century Fox, owned (mostly) by the same Rupert Murdoch whose newspaper printed this story. Not saying the rumor is not true, but do consider the source.
The current company consists largely of the assets of the former Warner Communications, as well as HBO (a Time Inc. subsidiary prior to the Warner merger) and the assets of Turner Broadcasting (acquired in 1996). Time Warner currently has major operations in film and television, with a limited amount of publishing operations. Among its assets are New Line Cinema, HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, CNN, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, Hanna-Barbera, Esporte Interativo, Castle Rock Entertainment and NetherRealm Studios.
Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories, walks through a proof-of-concept for iOS that uses drag and drop. Read the post, but be sure to watch the video. This is a terrific use of multi-touch.
Holly Brockwell received a screenshot, out of the blue, with the text “Boom! Holly Brockwell belongs to you now.” laid over a picture of her Twitter info page.
She writes:
My response was less than eloquent: “WTF? WTF is that?!”
As it transpires, it’s from an app called Stolen. I’d never seen it before, was entirely unaware of its existence, and certainly hadn’t opted in. Stolen is a new iOS app that allows you to buy and sell real people’s Twitter accounts as if they were trading cards. Now, before anyone gets too panicky, this doesn’t give you access to their account – it’s more of a bragging rights thing. “I now own @Jack! Yeahh!” – like being the Mayor of somewhere on Foursquare.
Still, it’s tremendously unnerving to have someone tell you out of nowhere that they “own” you now. That your name and likeness is being traded on an app you had no knowledge of and hadn’t given permission to. The whole concept of people being able to own, buy and sell other people without their consent is absolutely abhorrent to us, and raises a slew of problems that it’s clear the team at Stolen haven’t anticipated.
Shortly after the first message, I got another one from the person who ‘bought’ me letting me know that I’d now been sold to a stranger.
Alan Rickman, one of the best-loved and most warmly admired British actors of the past 30 years, has died in London aged 69. His death was confirmed on Thursday by his family who said that he died “surrounded by family and friends”. Rickman had been suffering from cancer.
A star whose arch features and languid diction were recognisable across the generations, Rickman found a fresh legion of fans with his role as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. But the actor had been a big-screen staple since first shooting to global acclaim in 1988, when he starred as Hans Gruber, Bruce Willis’s sardonic, dastardly adversary in Die Hard – a part he was offered two days after arriving in Los Angeles, aged 41.
Have you ever fired up an iOS device and been prompted to enter the password for some Apple ID that’s not yours? This is especially likely to happen on a newly purchased device, when bulk music and apps are being loaded for the first time.
Typically, this happens when you have apps or music on your computer purchased by someone else’s Apple ID (obviously), but which your computer is no authorized to play.
If you know the offending track or app, you can just delete it, or rebuy it under your usual Apple ID. But there are situations where you are prompted to enter a password without context. And that’s the tricky part, especially if your library is big.
If you know your library pretty well, one path you can take is to select each app or track in iTunes and select File > Get Info, or type ⌘-I. When the info window appears, click on the File tab and you’ll see the Apple ID that made this purchase.
If you’ve got a ton of music tracks to sort through, get yourself a copy of Track Down Purchases, from Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes. For free, it will sort through your music library and report a list of Apple IDs along with the number of tracks for each. And for $1.99 (in application purchase), it will build playlists for each Apple ID so you can easily delete the ones to which you no longer have access.
Note that in El Capitan, iTunes scripts go into your user folder > Library > Scripts > Applications > iTunes.
Know of another approach to solving this? Please leave a comment.
It’s tough times for GoPro’s fledgling empire. The action camera maker is cutting the jobs of about 7 percent of its workforce (roughly 105 people) after poor sales during the fourth quarter, particularly in the first half. It doesn’t have a detailed explanation for the drop, but it recently slashed the price of the notoriously expensive Hero4 Session — clearly, it misjudged how much people were willing to pay for the tiny cube cam.
As my very smart friend Ben Bajarin said on Twitter, “GoPro simply maxed their user base, peaking essentially. No reason for base to buy new ones and no product to expand their TAM.”
In other words, everyone who wants a GoPro likely already has one. As a motorcyclist, I always thought it would be cool to have one until I realized, I’m never going to watch/edit/post the video so why bother?
While reasonable people can disagree about Apple’s iPhone sales, Global Equities Research Co-Founder Trip Chowdhry pulls no punches with his newest Apple commentary. Instead of discussing the merits or limitations of the company as an investment, Chowdhry resorts to ad hominem attacks, calling Apple CEO Tim Cook “completely clueless.” If you set aside the unnecessary rhetoric, and dig into Chowdhry’s concerns, his argument doesn’t pass muster.
Chowdhry is known for making wild and mostly wrong predictions about Apple. Remember his 2014 claim that Apple “…only (has) 60 days left to either come up with something or they will disappear”? But, as the article points out, these claims are more about Chowdhry and his company’s profile than they are about any accuracy about Apple. Which makes his pointless name calling even more disgusting.
Apple Music has surpassed 10 million subscribers across iOS, Mac, PC, Android and Apple TV in just six months, a milestone that took its largest rival Spotify around six years to accomplish.
While iAd itself isn’t going anywhere, Apple’s direct involvement in the selling and creation of iAd units is ending. “It’s just not something we’re good at,” one source told BuzzFeed News. And so Apple is leaving the creation, selling, and management of iAds to the folks who do it best: the publishers.
I think this is good news. Ads are just not where Apple’s focus should be.
The Oristand is a standing desk made of cardboard that easily collapses and requires no complicated assembly. It’s made out of industrial grade cardboard that is light, strong and affordable. Not to mention it is 100% recyclable. Meaning you can save some cash and we can save some trees.
I’ve been interested in standing desks for a while but most are over $200. At $25, this looks like something you could test out inexpensively. It’s being produced by the folks behind the Vancouver, BC based Hootsuite.
The Canal Saint-Martin is north of the Seine, towards the east side of Paris. As part of periodic maintenance, the canal was completely drained, leaving behind years of detritus and debris. Follow the link to see a series of pictures showing the process of draining the canal and some of the junk that people somehow decided to dispose of into the water.
No big surprises, but I did find the whole series fascinating. They were so careful to save all the fish.
Apple thinks you have — or want — multiple Apple Watches. With iOS 9.3 beta and the watchOS 2.2 beta, you can pair multiple wearables to the same phone.
For developers, this is a solid feature. If you’ve got a 38mm and 42mm Apple Watch you want to physically test a glance on, this is cool.
When it comes to consumers, I can’t see how this is handy. Unless you’re buying an Apple Watch for the kids (which is a bit silly), why would anyone have two? More to the point, what prompted this feature?
Answering his own question:
It could be a forward-facing addition, though. Over time, I can see some using an older Apple Watch for little more than proper fitness tracking during workouts. So long as HealthKit can cobble together data (and it does a decent job with my Apple Watch/iPhone, so Ic an’t see why it wouldn’t be able to handle multiple watches), it may work out just fine.
Of course. As Apple releases new models, I can only imagine that people will still want to use their older Apple Watches, perhaps for workouts or messy work, something to wear while working in the yard, painting, soldering, etc., keeping the newer model for less messy occasions.
As is, I suspect there are not a lot of people who own more than one Apple Watch. Many Apple Watch straps, for sure, but not more than one Apple Watch. But with the eventual release of new Apple Watch hardware, the ability to pair your phone to multiple watches is a natural evolution.
A customer can be engaged by a product in many ways, but compare the basic customer experience of buying an Apple product at an Apple Store vs. buying any other product anywhere else, and then compare the customer experience when using the product.
Have you ever talked to a Google employee? Walk into an Apple Store and you’re likely to be greeted by an Apple associate multiple times before you leave. If not always technically proficient, they are friendly, courteous, and helpful. Google does not have an experience to match.
For the most part, you won’t have that face-to-face customer experience with Samsung, Google, HTC, Motorola, Dell, Lenovo, or any other tech gadget maker. Microsoft has their own stores, but they’re few and far between, and usually more populated by sales associates than customers.
Apple is not afraid to help customers face-to-face, whether through the initial purchase, personal setup, personal training on new products, or the Genius Bar for technical support. The experience is open and transparent.
This is a huge part of the modern Apple experience. And at its core is the fact that Apple makes the hardware and the software, something Steve Jobs insisted on from the very beginning. This gives Apple complete control over the customer experience.
From the Autoblog Press release [Autoplay, pun sadly not intended]:
This year, the winner of the Technology of the Year Feature Award was awarded to Apple CarPlay. “Apple’s CarPlay represents the impact technology is having on our connected lives and brings an experience that is easy to use and enhances the lives of consumers who use this product” said Stephen Rouse, Autoblog’s Director of Product and Technology.
There’s a video on the press release page (linked above) that does a nice job showing off the current version of CarPlay. The CarPlay walkthrough starts at about 3:15 into the video.
This really brought back memories. I was working at Metrowerks, and we were building a version of CodeWarrior for the new operating system. I remember how jarring it felt moving from Mac OS to Mac OS X, especially going from the Finder to the browser interface (what became the modern Finder). The Unix underpinnings made all the difference in the end.
Kudos to Christopher Phin for finding a way to wake up the beta and get these excellent screenshots off his machine and into the article.
After having a runaway hit with the Mo-Fi Headphones (check out our review here), Blue is back at it again with a new pair of passive, closed-back isolation headphones. The Lola headphones promise to deliver much of what is loved about the Mo-Fi model, but at a more budget-friendly price and without compromising on some of the forward-thinking design features. I used Lola for a few weeks to see if they were able to live up to the promise.
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. But someone has to win, right? We decided to put that idea to the test.This game starts with $100 to play against multiple lottery drawings. Pick your numbers and watch the money disappear.
I spent $10,000 and “won” $814. That being said, I will still very occasionally buy a lottery ticket, even knowing the odds are stacked against me if only because it’s fun to dream, even if only for a little while, about that kind of money and what I’d do with it.
There are two Apples: AAPL, the stock, and Apple, the company. While it would seem logical that one is merely a reflection of the other, in reality, the two are guided by vastly different parameters. Over the long run, Apple and AAPL will likely be at odds with each other due to the very nature of Apple’s long-term mission of making products that people love. It is the classic Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley battle, and 2015 was likely just a taste of what is to come.
It would be an understatement to say that AAPL had a weak 2015. When looking at stock price performance, AAPL’s underperformance was quite striking. While GOOG, FB, and AMZN saw strong double-digit stock price increases, AAPL reported a rare 3% decline, the first annual decline since 2008. Even more striking, AAPL’s performance meant that the market removed $46 billion of market cap from AAPL in 2015, whereas AMZN and GOOG were given nearly $350 billion of additional market capitalization.
Wall St never ceases to amaze me and I don’t mean that in a good way. From the outside, it looks like Apple – with record profits, sales, market share and category ownership – would be a Wall Street success story, Cybart does a good job of explaining why the exact opposite is true.
This is a beautiful, video-laden project from the New York Times. It highlights 52 different cities to visit, a sort of bucket list, each accompanied by a writeup, a small map, and a sparkling photo or short video. Lovely job by the Times’ travel team.
Elon Musk, in a BBC interview, talks about the Tesla Model 3, in production next year, designed to be affordable for the masses. When asked about Apple’s plans, he (almost reluctantly, it seems) makes the point that it is an open secret that Apple is working on a car of their own.
The owner of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com has donated the news organizations to a newly created media institute, the core of a complicated transaction designed to ensure that quality journalism endures in Philadelphia for generations.
The move places the region’s dominant news-gatherers under the auspices of the nonprofit Philadelphia Foundation.
“Of all the things I’ve done, this is the most important,” said H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, sole owner of Philadelphia Media Network, which runs the newspapers and website. “Because of the journalism.”
Most importantly:
The new alignment – while unique and untested – sets out mechanisms by which public-interest reporting can be preserved and enhanced while new electronic distribution methods are developed.
This is a groundbreaking business model for newspapers. The skeptic inside me questions the financial aspects of the deal. If the paper lost money as a for-profit vehicle, how will it pay the bills as a non-profit? But there are answers to these questions, apparently. Time will tell. If this works, this could be a way for the news business to survive while still serving the public interests.
This is a great read. Veteran journalist Steven Levy got the chance to interview Ford’s Executive Chairman Bill Ford (former CEO and namesake Henry Ford’s great-grandson). Like everything Steven Levy writes, this is well written, thoughtful, and entertaining.
The most highlighted element from the post is this quote:
“To me, Silicon Valley is an interesting culture, but in its own way it’s every bit as insular as the Detroit culture has been accused of being. There’s a feeling that if something doesn’t originate in the Valley, it’s not worthwhile.”
I see Apple and Ford as two great institutions moving towards each other. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple makes cars and if Ford moves into digital devices.
