The seven-track demo (Metallica’s second overall) dropped during the summer of 1982, when the band members themselves (which then included Dave Mustaine on guitar in the pre-Kirk Hammett days) sent the copies out to friends and the underground metal cognoscenti.
Yeah, I’ll be picking this one up.
Jim, Shawn and Dave talk about the Apple Watch, healthier lifestyles and guitar amp software!
Sponsored by lynda.com. (Start learning something new in 2015 by visiting the link to get a 10-day free trial and access their 2400+ courses)
A newly-discovered flaw in some implementations of cryptographic protocols SSL and TLS — including those used by Apple’s Safari and Google’s Android AOSP browsers — could allow an attacker to force clients to use older, weaker encryption that would make it significantly easier to intercept secure communications.
Apple has promised to distribute a client-side patch for the issue on both iOS and OS X by next week, while the researchers who discovered the flaw — from INRIA, IMDEA, and Microsoft Research — have been working to notify hosts who still serve export ciphers.
“These products are the result of a simple philosophy,” Samsung CEO J.K. Shin said. “It comes to two words: Relentless innovation.”
Here are two more accurate words: Copying Apple.
Here’s some news from the Zeppelin camp: A film offering a bevy of Led Zeppelin live footage is coming to a movie theater near you. The movie, appropriately called Led Zeppelin, will feature Zeppelin performing several concerts that happened throughout their career and play in more than 300 U.S. cinemas March 30.
This is going to be a must-see film. I hope they make it available on iTunes because I’ll be buying it.
This piece by Federico Viticci is moving. It is equal parts a cancer survival story, full of harrowing detail and heroic triumphs, and, at the same time, a detailed look at the HealthKit ecosystem. But the best part for me is the denouement, the upshot of his journey:
The iPhone is an object that we buy. It’s made by Apple, which is a company that wants to make money. But that’s not how I look at this. Call me naive and romantic, but I dropped cynicism a long time ago. Think about it this way: there are people who found a way to make a tiny computer that’s always with us. Then, there are other people – indie developers and big companies – who make software that can help us work and live better. We get the chance to experience all this and tweak our lifestyles with the aid of apps. And even if some of these people are driven by greed or questionable motives, the end result is that today we can use a phone to be healthier.
And:
I believe that Apple’s interest in health is genuine. With the iPhone, the App Store, and the upcoming Apple Watch, they have created an ecosystem of hardware and software that, beyond productivity and games, can help people live healthier lives. I ran this experiment on myself, and I know this because I’m seeing the results. I’ve almost reached my ideal weight, my physical therapist is happy with my muscle tone, and my MRIs show clear improvement in the area where my femur was reconstructed. I’ve never felt healthier or stronger. I honestly believe that I wouldn’t have been able to find the motivation and tools to reimagine my lifestyle if I didn’t trust my iPhone.
Here’s to a long and healthy life, Federico. Thank you for the inspiration.
From the International Forum web site:
Apple Watch features revolutionary new technologies, a pioneering interface, and a design that honors the rich tradition of watchmaking. Apple Watch’s design and interface were created specifically for a smaller device. The Digital Crown is an innovative way to navigate, the display features Force Touch, which senses the difference between a tap and a press, and the Taptic Engine enables a new vocabulary of notifications you can both hear and feel. The beautifully designed and durable Apple Watch enclosures are crafted from custom alloys of polished or space black stainless steel, space gray or silver anodized aluminum, and 18-karat gold.
Pretty good, for a product still in preview.
[Via MacRumors]
Have you ever had the need to come up with a new domain name? When I’m wearing my startup hat, this need strikes often. And though it might seem frivolous, the Impossibility domain name generator is a real boon to creativity.
Impossibility has you provide the core word you want in your new domain name, then give it a focus by specifying it as either an adjective, verb, noun, or wild card. It then spits out a series of available domains, providing links to Go Daddy, Namecheap, and Company Name as registrars, though you can, of course, just take the name to your registrar of choice.
The key here is the word “available”. Impossibility does prune the tree of possibility, limiting you to a set of algorithmic choices, but all of its suggestions are available, which will save you the time of coming up with a list of candidates, looking them up, only to find that they are already taken.
Definitely worth a look.
A week or so ago, an Android developer posted this proof of concept video showing an iOS notification triggering a notification on an Android Wear watch. Now there’s news that Google is said to be planning official iOS support for Android Wear, meaning you’ll soon have a choice to make when it comes to iPhone compatible watches.
So take a moment and scan through this gallery of Android Wear watches. As you might expect from the loosely controlled Android ecosystem, there are a number of different designs, shapes, finishes, and bands.
Now spend a minute to look through this Apple Watch gallery. One thing that certainly strikes you is the uniformity of fit and finish. There’s variety in the design, but every finish, every band, every aspect of the line meets the high standard of design found in all Apple products.
Finally, ask yourself this question: If price was no object, if every single watch in both of these collections cost exactly the same, and if both watch lines worked equally well with your personal choice of platform, which watch would you choose?
Personal preference is personal preference. Me, I just love the power of focused design that is the Apple Watch. This consistent level of excellence in every small detail of both the watch body and variety of bands is the result of a company with design in their DNA. Apple values design as much as they value functionality.
The price of that highly focused design ethos is the consistency found in all Apple products. While you might think of the Android Wear line as a hodgepodge of design, the Apple Watch is striking and similar, just like the iPhone.
And just like the variety of cases and accessories are the splash of color that lets you personalize your iPhone, the variety of case finishes and bands (and no doubt, the eventual arrival of accessories to decorate the Apple Watch) are what allow you to make your Apple Watch your own.
Samsung ditched almost all of its hardware differentiation to go all in on iPhone 6-style design — though layering in, iPhone 4-like, with glass on both sides.
Does this company have no shame? Can they not come up with anything on their own? Pathetic.
I’ve been waiting for this version since I saw it at NAMM in January. The new software includes Apollo Expanded featuring Console 2.0 Software; Sound Machine Wood Works Plug-In; Distortion Essentials Plug-In Bundle; Friedman Amplifiers Plug-In Collection; and (Mac) Support for OS X Yosemite. This is a great update.
Kanye talking to Oxford students:
“I love Steve Jobs, he’s my favourite person, but there’s one thing that disappoints me. When Steve passed he didn’t give the ideas up. That’s kinda selfish. You know that Elon’s like ‘yeah, take these ideas’. Maybe there are companies outside of Apple that could work on them and push humanity forward. Maybe the stock brokers won’t like that, the stock holders wouldn’t like that idea, but ideas are free and you can’t be selfish with them.”
What a moron.
This is a really nice looking app. I just downloaded the trial and it works great too—if there’s one thing I would add, it would be access to custom fields in WordPress. Otherwise, I really like it.
Steve was wicked smart. I was always amazed at how sharp he was and how quickly he could focus on what was important. I don’t know ANYONE that even comes close to how good he was at being able to do that.
Don’t just read the story, read the comments too. I miss Steve.
I don’t know why I found this so cool, but I did. Working CSS Clocks.
Sports Illustrated:
Eleven-year-old Jordyn Leopold misses her dad. NHL defenseman Jordan Leopold started the season with the Blues and was traded to the Blue Jackets in November. Jordyn and the rest of her family have been living in Minnesota, so she wrote a letter to the Wild asking them to trade for her dad.
Such a sweet story. And the daughter’s letter shows she knows more than a little bit about hockey.
Petapixel:
A photographer and birdwatcher in London has captured a strange and rare photo that has the Internet abuzz: an image showing a weasel riding on the back of a woodpecker as it flies through the air.
Perfect example of what I teach in my photography class – always be ready to shoot.
Remember Crystal Quest? It was one of the first color Mac games, one of the first games ever with a user modding tool and a level editor. And that sound it made. If you ever played the game, you know what I mean.
Now there’s a Kickstarter in the works to bring Crystal Quest back to life for Mac, PC, and Linux. I’m definitely in.
Now where did I put my old copy of Lode Runner?
[H/T to Rudy Richter]
The Guardian:
Criminals in the US are using the new Apple Pay mobile payment system to buy high-value goods – often from Apple Stores – with stolen identities and credit card details.
Banks have been caught by surprise by the level of fraud, and the Guardian understands that some are scrambling to ensure that better verification and checking systems are put in place to prevent the problem running out of control, with around two million Americans already using the system.
The crooks have not broken the secure encryption around Apple Pay’s fingerprint-activated wireless payment mechanism. Instead, they are setting up new iPhones with stolen personal information, and then calling banks to “provision” the victim’s card on the phone to use it to buy goods.
Bottom line, this is not a flaw in Apple Pay, this is a flaw in bank card verification. I suspect the banking industry will react quickly to this.
Apple’s reaction:
“Apple Pay is designed to be extremely secure and protect a user’s personal information,” the spokesman said. “During setup Apple Pay requires banks to verify each and every card and the bank then determines and approves whether a card can be added to Apple Pay. Banks are always reviewing and improving their approval process, which varies by bank.”
Why this won’t be a problem as Apple Pay moves beyond US shores:
Dave Birch, a UK-based mobile payments expert, told the Guardian: “in the UK there probably won’t be a ‘green path’” – meaning that people would have to call their bank to add any card to Apple Pay once it is introduced here.
The US lags behind much of the world in its adoption of secure retail payment systems and mobile payments. “Chip and Pin” systems, used throughout Europe for years, will only become compulsory in the US later this year. As retailers replace old magnetic stripe systems, which were vulnerable to widespread fraud, with new ones, they are also adding NFC capabilities, already used in the UK for Oyster cards and in many shops.
Just in time for the rollout of Samsung’s mag-strip dependent LoopPay. Hope they didn’t pay too much for that.
Interesting reactions from around the auto industry. From Volkswagen:
“If these two companies intend to solely produce electric vehicles, it could go fast,” Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn said at the Geneva International Motor Show. “We are also very interested in the technologies of Google and Apple, and I think that we, as the Volkswagen company, can bring together the digital and mobile world.”
From Germany’s Center for Automotive Management:
“The competition certainly needs to be taken seriously,” said Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. “The closer we get to autonomous driving, the weaker the connection becomes between the customer and the car. And Google and Apple aren’t burdened with old technology but can start fresh.”
From BMW:
“We never underestimate any competition,” said Ian Robertson, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s sales chief. “The entry barriers, which were in the past maybe more substantial, are now slightly lower. But at the same time, the complexities of the car industry are still there as well.”
From Jaguar Land Rover:
“The traditional thinking in the automotive industry isn’t suited to exploit the opportunities in the Internet community,” Wolfgang Ziebart, Jaguar Land Rover’s head of engineering, said in an interview. “If you need committees and so on to make decisions, then you’ve lost before you started.”
From Toyota:
“The key element is to make sure that when we’re working with them — and we’re totally open to work with any of them — it’s a real win-win,” said Didier Leroy, Toyota Motor Corp.’s European chief. “The carmakers don’t want just to become a kind of commodity, where somebody will only deliver an empty box and somebody will put in the box something which will be the real added value.”
The common elements to all of these? Respect, with a tinge of fear.
This is a fantastic idea. Apple started by scrounging the internet, looking for candidates for its Shot on iPhone 6 campaign. Some incredibly beautiful shots there. Great composition, crisp colors, wonderful lighting, all do a great job showing off the iPhone 6 camera.
Next up, take some of the best of the best and hang them on the sides of buildings. And not just any buildings, but big buildings, some of them giant skyscrapers. Follow this link to see this for yourself. Pretty cool.
Buzzfeed:
Apple’s latest ad campaign, Shot on iPhone 6, is crowdsourced using iPhone photography from around the world. It is taking photos found online, typically seen in a browser window, and plastering them up in massive sizes out in the real world.Apple found them by scouring online communities for photos that were tagged as having been taken with its newest iPhones.
Looks like keywording paid off for these folks.
The Workflow Video Field Guide starts with a few, easy workflows and builds upon them over the course of an hour to turn you into a Workflow pro. By the time you get to the end, you’ll be able to roll your own workflows and change the way you work on your iPhone and iPad.
I always like David Sparks’ work.
People take incredible photos and videos on iPhone 6 every day. And here are some of our favorites. Explore the gallery, learn a few tips, and see what’s possible with the world’s most popular camera.
A new page from Apple highlighting some great shots taken with the iPhone 6. These are quite impressive.
A note from John Gruber on Vesper device support and pricing.
This is a new project from the very talented Khoi Vinh. I think this is such a great idea and will make things much easier for a lot of people. You can get a deal after the 30-day trial by using code LOOP.
A new book by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli that John Gruber had the opportunity to read and he likes it.
This was an interesting article from Om Malik on his recent apartment purge of items that were cluttering his life. We all have so much “stuff” that a purge is good once in a while.
Editor’s Note: This story was written by Steven Aquino and first appeared in The Loop Magazine Issue 31, which is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
My maternal grandmother died in 2007, about a month after Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone at Macworld Expo. Toward the end of her life, she suffered effects from dementia, a disease that robbed her of memories of herself and of her family. That her memory was getting progressively worse hit me hard, as my grandma was a seminal figure of my childhood. She effectively raised me, and it was painful for me to reconcile the person she was to the barely recognizable shell of herself she became. During this difficult time, I found solace in small distractions, one of which was exploring trang casino trực tuyến. The memories of her with dementia still haunt me to this day, despite all the happy times.
It was my grandmother who immediately came to mind when I was alerted to the film Alive Inside. Alive Inside is a documentary — winner of the Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival — which follows Dan Cohen, a medical social worker and executive director of Music & Memory, as he works to introduce music to residents of a New York nursing home. Cohen’s belief is that music is instrumental in helping the elderly with memory loss “rediscover” lost memories, the effects of which help them in being more socially interactive.
Cohen introduced patients to the iPod shuffle, loaded with music that the recipient listened to when he or she was younger. The impact was apparent right away: soon after putting on the headphones and hitting Play, patients were bopping their heads to the tunes and even humming along with the songs. These moments were breakthroughs in the truest sense of the word, insofar that music really does have tremendous power in eliciting a slew of emotions and memories in people. Music is meaningful to everyone, but the fact that it works so well for people with brain-related diseases such as dementia or Alzheimer’s means that they no longer have to live withdrawn into themselves all the time. Experiencing music allows patients to be “human” again: singing, moving, being one with the world. It’s powerful stuff, not only for the afflicted, but also for their loved ones.
In the film, Cohen interviews doctors and nurses at the nursing home, who all speak effusively about the influence that music has on residents. And as important as unlocking forgotten memories and facilitating pro-social behavior is, there is another, unique angle to this story: accessibility.
In terms of accessibility, Alive Inside is, at its core, about access. The music — and the iPod itself — gives patients a lifeline to the memories they’ve lost and to the opportunity to open up socially and emotionally through those memories. Furthermore, it is perhaps the quintessential example of just how abstract and far-reaching accessibility truly is. Accessibility is not something that’s limited to just people with physical disabilities or just children in schools. It can also benefit the elderly, as is the case here, and even users with no challenges at all.
The conduit through which this music gets delivered to patients, the iPod shuffle, deserves a look from an accessibility point of view. It was a brilliant choice for two reasons. For one thing, the shuffle has only a few buttons for controlling playback, practically eliminating any learning curve. Patients needn’t worry about which button does what, so there’s less chance of someone becoming frustrated and abandoning the device. Second, the shuffle includes VoiceOver, which is very helpful in announcing artist and song information (not to mention battery status) to listeners. That’s a lifesaver to those who can’t remember what’s currently playing and who’s singing it. In essence, the shuffle is the easiest and simplest iPod of them all.
In a broader sense, the fact that the iPod shuffle is the perfect vehicle for delivering music to the patients featured in Alive Inside underscores an important point: the iPod line has life in it yet. While there can be no denying that the iPod’s relevance (and sales) have steadily faded over the last few years, the truth of the matter is that it still has a place in the market. If nothing else, Cohen shows in the film that the iPod remains a useful device, particularly when we’re talking about the shuffle. The iPod does one thing, and it does it very well; twilight be damned, the iPod is alive and well in fulfilling needs and use cases like it does in Alive Inside.
I had the opportunity to talk to Cohen via email about the film and the role the iPod played in his project.
Q: Why help those with Alzheimer’s or dementia?
A: People with dementia — and their families — are in a tough spot. Not only is this a terminal illness, but the progression leads to no longer recognizing family, or even being able to communicate. People become agitated because they are frustrated and then all too often prescribed heavy antipsychotic medications to calm them down. But these drugs come with serious side-effects, and the government is encouraging doctors to stop using these mostly ineffective drugs. Music that holds personal meaning is a back door to one’s cognition and sense of self. Much of the time the drugs can be replaced by music, which is amazing. People become more social and happier. It is not guaranteed to work all the time, but it does mostly. And if it doesn’t work, the worst-case-scenario is no improvement. Forty percent of those with dementia have a more advanced form of the disease. That’s more than 2 million in the U.S. People view them as no longer being able to experience pleasure… and give up on them as a result. With musical favorites, we know we can reach them and change their quality of life for the better.
Q: Why choose the iPod shuffle for this project?
A: Without a screen or click wheel, it is the easiest to use, not just for nursing home residents who are able, but for staff who are managing the iPods for many they care for. Many direct care staff have never owned or used an iPod, so the shuffle makes for great “training wheels.” Once they master the shuffle, they more quickly adopt to other iPod models. Mary Grace Lynch, director of therapeutic recreation at A. Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility in Uniondale, Long Island, New York, has 250 iPods for that many residents. Although she has used all models, the shuffle continues to be her first choice.
Q: What was the response from the residents to the iPod? Was it easy for them to use?
A: The first residents were perfectly capable of using the iPods, as they were in for different physical as opposed to cognitive issues. They had no trouble learning.
Q: How did you choose which music to load onto each iPod? Did you create personalized playlists in iTunes for each person?
A: The key here is total personalization. Long-term care facilities already have no shortage of music from various genres. Just as we wouldn’t want anyone else to pick our favorite songs just because they know what genre we love, the same will be true when we’re older and someone else is doing it for us. We learn as much as we can from each individual if they are able to articulate their preferences. If they are unable, then we work with the family to learn what music they enjoyed when they were young.
Q: Do you see other Apple technologies/products being useful to the elderly? If so, are there any plans to explore them in the future?
A: As soon as the iPad first came out, I loaned mine to nursing homes asking them to “see what you can do with it.” The feedback? It’s better than the music alone. In my view, every nursing home, assisted living facility, and hospital should have iPads available for those they care for. It is part of Music & Memory’s charter to leverage digital technology for this digitally-isolated population.
For anyone interested in music, iPods, or simply who know of family member or friend suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia, Alive Inside is well worth a watch. (It certainly brought back memories of my grandmother and her battle with dementia.) And Music & Memory gladly accepts donations of old iPods to help with the program. (Speaking of donated iPods, a personal recommendation of mine is to consider creating a personalized playlist for a loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia; I wish I would have done so for my grandma as she was in the throes of the disease.) The iPod may no longer be the focal point of Apple’s business, long overshadowed by the iPhone and iPad, but even in decline, Apple’s music player still has the ability to make a tremendous impact.