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.

From the Internet History Podcast:

Filo had discovered the Mosaic browser shortly after it was released, and this led the pair to an all-consuming obsession with the World Wide Web. In those days, it was still possible to visit every single website in existence in a matter of a few hours. But new websites were popping up every day. So, in the hours when they should have been doing research, they were browsing the web instead, trying to find and catalog the new. Always a bit intellectually competitive, the two began collecting and trading links to the new websites they found. They started compiling these favorite links into a list, each trying to outdo the other by finding the coolest new site of the day. “I kept bugging Dave to show me the sites he had found,” Yang remembered later. “So he made his hot-list, and I made my hot-list, and he wrote some software to combine both our lists.”

This was right at the moment when Mosaic was lighting the fuse under the powder keg that was the early web. As the web grew that summer, things got a bit more complicated. Because Yang’s workstation was hooked up to Stanford’s public Internet connection, other people could view the list the two were generating by going to http://akebono.stanford.edu. The list was called Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web (initially, Filo didn’t want his name attached) and it proved popular among Yang and Filo’s group of friends. Word of mouth spread news of the list even further and soon complete strangers were emailing in suggestions of new sites to be included.

On the Yahoo! name:

The pair decided that their project needed a better name. A convention among software developers at the time was to name projects “Yet Another Something Something.” For example, YAML was Yet Another Markup Language. So, Yang and Filo settled on the name Yahoo!, which they claimed stood for Yet Another Hierarchical, Officious Oracle. The exclamation point was irreverent and entirely intentional—as Filo put it, “Pure marketing hype.” The url became http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo.

On leaving Stanford’s hallowed halls:

Stanford had a long history of being supportive toward student-run projects that may or may not evolve into startups at some later date. So, at least initially, Stanford was a generous host of Yahoo’s traffic and content, free of charge. When Netscape launched its beta browser late in 1994, it decided to make Yahoo the default link when a user clicked the “Directory” button on the top menu of the browser. No one could have anticipated it beforehand, but it turned out that having a button in Navigator’s menu bar was almost as valuable as having an icon on the Windows desktop. All those early web users who surfed the web via Netscape were introduced to Yahoo as the defacto search utility. The flow of curious web searchers grew into a flood. Yahoo had its first million hit day late in 1994. By January of 1995, soon after the domain Yahoo.com was registered, Yahoo had grown into a directory of 10,000 sites and was getting more than 100,000 unique visitors a day. The servers began to struggle under the deluge. And it turned out that there was a limit to Stanford’s generosity. The university asked Yang and Filo to find another host for their website.

I absolutely loved this read. Fascinating to relive this chapter in tech history.

Fantastic.

Apple:

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.

This is a gorgeous gallery of images that are hard to believe were all taken with the iPhone 6.

New York Times:

When Apple releases its watch in April, it will enter a market already flooded with smartwatches running Android Wear, a version of Google’s Android software system tailored for wearable computers.

The results so far for Android smartwatches have been disappointing. About 720,000 smartwatches with Android Wear were shipped in 2014, according to Canalys, the research firm.

How is that “flooded”? Chen doesn’t even back up the premise of his story’s headline. I’ve spoken to dozens of “normal” people who are very excited to see the Apple Watch. Chen writes another of his typical poorly written and thought out New York Times hack jobs.

Thanks to John Molloy for the link.

Pretty cool. Reminds me of Wendy’s which, back in the day, had these old-timey ads (scroll about halfway down the page) embedded on all their table-tops.

This Wikipedia page is for the more modern version. Interestingly, it is marked for deletion, so visit while you can.

Thank you to Algoriddim for sponsoring The Loop this week. djay Pro for Mac provides a complete toolkit for performing DJs. Its unique and modern interface is built around a sophisticated integration with iTunes and Spotify, giving you instant access to millions of tracks. Pristine sound quality and a powerful set of features including high-definition waveforms, four decks, audio effects, and hardware integration give you endless creative flexibility to take your sets to new heights. Special introductory pricing (40% off) for a limited time.

Jim’s Note: I had the opportunity to test djay Pro for Mac and loved it. I’m still using it.

A few highlights from yesterday’s Tim Cook Telegraph interview:

The watch has also been designed and engineered to be a great time-keeper: it will be correct to 50 milliseconds, he promises.

No traditional watch mechanism will ever be as precise as a digital watch. Great precision is to be expected.

The Watch will operate a special rewards system: users will get credits if they exercise enough. They will also be encouraged to increase their metabolic targets if they meet their exercise targets consistently. Consumers will clearly have an incentive to wear the watch for as much of the day as possible, and even in the shower.

Clearly the Apple Watch is waterproof if you are being encouraged to wear it in the shower.

The watch is designed to be able to replace car keys and the clumsy, large fobs that are now used by many vehicles

Love this idea. I wonder about the security involved. Will Apple Watch work with any car fob, or just those from companies that do a deal with Apple?

The watch’s battery life will last the whole day, Cook says, in another revelation that will please potential users, and it won’t take as long to charge as an iPhone.

As expected.

shop floor staff treated their CEO like a visiting guru. It could have been embarrassing or cringe-inducing- but for some reason wasn’t.

One member of the sales staff put his hand up: he wouldn’t ask a question, he said, but wanted to deliver a short statement.

He thanked Cook for coming, and for his hard work and that of the senior staff in California. The staff then mobbed their hero, taking selfies with him and shaking him by the hand.

Tim Cook has really taken on the hero’s role at Apple. Seems like all the reverence that used to be directed at Steve Jobs is now finding a new direction.

The Grand Budapest Hotel won the Academy Award for Best Production Design (an award that combines the categories of art direction and set decoration). In my opinion, no other movie even came close.

To get a sense of the elements involved, take a read through this interview with the film’s lead graphic designer Annie Atkins, who was responsible for every graphic prop in the movie.

Wes is completely involved in every aspect of his filmmaking, and I worked very closely with him and the production designer, Adam Stockhausen, every day. This film was particularly fun, I think, from a graphics point of view, because we were creating this entirely fictional country that Wes had written – the State of Zubrowka. It meant that every little detail had to be made from scratch – flags, banknotes, postage stamps, everything. Adam had already collected a huge amount of reference from 1930s Eastern Europe when I joined them, and I would start each graphic prop by showing Wes a real artefact from the time. I would show him redrafts of designs sometimes 20 times a day. Wes has a very graphic sensibility – that’s evident in all his films, of course.

Once the layout of each design had been decided, then it was time to make the prop physically, and make something that will work on set in an actor’s hands. I use traditional methods in graphic prop-making wherever possible: a real 1930s typewriter for typewritten documents; a dipping pen and ink and for any handwriting. Pieces have to be aged, too, as nothing should look like it was made in an art department five minutes ago. Madame D’s last will and testament took a lot of ageing, for example, as it contained over 600 pieces that were scripted as being some 46 years old. I have some tricks of the trade that I’ve learnt over the years… mostly involving a big vat of tea and a hair dryer.

This shows how much time and craft Wes Anderson puts into his movies, and it shows.

[Hat tip to Bryan Hart]

New York Times:

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

He was a wonderful actor in many roles but will obviously always be known for the iconic Spock. A very sad loss.

Mic:

Some of the most mythic songs in history have never before been heard. Music has long played an integral role in literature and myth — forms that imperfectly captured the sounds described. What follows is a list of some of the most compelling songs that no living being has ever heard. These are songs that, without any music, testify to the true power of the art form

When I first read the headline, I thought it was poorly written but upon reading the story I realized they were right – there are many famous “songs” we’ve never actually heard.

When computers become an integral part of a movie or TV show, I usually get the feeling that the computer was force fit into its place in the writing, that the writers don’t really know the computer well, don’t get all the little details right.

I watched this all-Apple episode of Modern Family with low expectations. I loved it. The screens were captured fluidly, the content was perfectly placed, all the little details were spot-on. Kudos to the team that put this together.

You can watch this episode of Modern Family, entitled Connection Lost, on demand here (at least in the US). That link may require you to login through your cable/satellite provider.

Zac Hall, over at 9to5mac, lays out other options, like Hulu Plus, the ABC iPad App, etc., in this post. Happy viewing.

Apple Insider:

In its first ever quarterly study, customer service analytics firm StellaService ranked Apple as the fastest and most most efficient online retailer in terms of shipments for the fourth quarter of 2014, taking an average of 2.5 days to send out orders.

Detailed in a StellaService’s Benchmark report published Thursday, Online Apple Store customers saw their packages arrive an average of 1.5 days faster than the four-day delivery time average aggregated from the Web’s top 25 retailers. The number is down slightly from a one-month period sampled in June 2014, when Apple ranked No. 1 for the first time with a 2.3-day order fulfillment average.

Apple-centric data provided to AppleInsider covering the period between February 2014 and January 2015 shows 85 percent of Apple orders were fulfilled on the day they were placed, compared to 41 percent for the rest of the Top 40. All Apple orders tracked by StellaService were shipped within one business day.

From the official George Washington University announcement page:

Apple CEO Tim Cook will deliver the George Washington University’s commencement address May 17 and will be awarded an honorary doctorate of public service, the university announced Wednesday night.

Mr. Cook, whose invitation was suggested by GW students during the nominating process, has led Apple since 2011.

“I am delighted that Tim Cook has accepted our invitation to give this year’s commencement address on the National Mall,” George Washington President Steven Knapp said. “I know our graduating students will be inspired and enlightened by his reflections on the lessons he has garnered from his distinguished career as a highly effective leader at the forefront of technological innovation.”

By far the best part of this is the video showing the back and forth between the school and Tim Cook. The video is so well done, I suspect that Apple made it. Take a look.

Apple Insider:

Firehouse joins fellow nationwide food chains Panera Bread, Subway, and McDonald’s in rolling out Apple Pay support. A number of supermarkets accept Apple Pay as well, including FoodMaxx, Harvey’s, Meijer, Save Mart, Shaw’s, Sprouts, and Whole Foods, with support from Albertsons coming soon.

Jacksonville, Fl.-based Firehouse is a rapidly growing fast casual chain with a footprint stretching across 43 states. The company plans to open more than 2,000 restaurants by 2020, making them an ideal partner for Apple’s nascent mobile payments system.

A nice win for Apple Pay.

That growth was led by Apple and its blockbuster iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which captured the overwhelming majority of the industry’s profit. Android, meanwhile, was relegated to a record-low of 11 percent global smartphone profit share during the quarter.

Apple had 89 percent and Android took 11 percent. It’s hard to argue with numbers like that.

Web-only access is a free level of iCloud service that’s available to anyone, including people who don’t own or use Apple devices. It includes access to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iCloud and 1 GB of free storage for any documents you create.

This is such a great idea.

Bloomberg:

For almost a century, Kellogg defined the American breakfast: a moment when people would be jolted out of their drowsiness—often with a stupendous serving of sugar.

The sales of 19 of Kellogg’s top 25 cereals eroded last year, according to Consumer Edge Research, a Stamford (Conn.) firm that tracks the food industry. Sales of Frosted Flakes, the company’s No. 1 brand, fell 4.5 percent.

Kellogg executives don’t expect cereal sales to return to growth this year, though they hope to slow the rate of decline and do better in 2016. But some Wall Street analysts say cereal sales may never fully recover. In Battle Creek, so-called Cereal City, that would be the equivalent of the apocalypse.

I haven’t sat down to a bowl of breakfast cereal in more than a decade but my favourite was always Apple Jacks.

Ars Technica:

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to enforce net neutrality rules that prevent Internet providers—including cellular carriers—from blocking or throttling traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.

The most controversial part of the FCC’s decision reclassifies fixed and mobile broadband as a telecommunications service, with providers to be regulated as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. This decision brings Internet service under the same type of regulatory regime faced by wireline telephone service and mobile voice, though the FCC is forbearing from stricter utility-style rules that it could also apply under Title II.

This is a big step but the fight isn’t over yet.

Apple updated its web site today confirming it will live stream the March 9 event.

Reuters:

China has dropped some of the world’s leading technology brands from its approved state purchase lists, while approving thousands more locally made products, in what some say is a response to revelations of widespread Western cybersurveillance.

Others put the shift down to a protectionist impulse to shield China’s domestic technology industry from competition.

And:

China’s change of tack coincided with leaks by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden in mid-2013 that exposed several global surveillance program, many of them run by the NSA with the cooperation of telecom companies and European governments.

“The Snowden incident, it’s become a real concern, especially for top leaders,” said Tu Xinquan, Associate Director of the China Institute of WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. “In some sense the American government has some responsibility for that; (China’s) concerns have some legitimacy.”

Apple continues to be a favorite among Chinese consumers, so it’s not clear how big an impact this will have on Apple’s inroads in China.

Zac Hall, writing for 9to5mac:

it’s no secret that Final Cut Pro X, the overhauled follow up to Apple’s widely used video editing software, wasn’t exactly a hit with its users when the app was first released in 2011.

A comprehensive change in the way the software functioned and a lack of legacy features from the prior version gave the app a reputation for being “iMovie Pro” rather than a true professional desktop video editor. Soon after its launch, Apple addressed the flood of criticism with an FAQ site and a promise that more features would slowly become available in the new version.

Nearly four years later, the first Hollywood film edited in Final Cut Pro X is set to be released. To showcase the movie debut and FCPX’s role in the film, Apple has launched a microsite detailing the production.

Astonishing that there’s not been a single film edited with Final Cut Pro X to hit the theaters in the last four years.

From this USA Today article:

Focus directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa choose Final Cut for a simple reason: “We wanted to do the edit in a way that was quicker,” says Ficarra.

The move produced “a lot of eye rolling and sympathetic prayers,” he adds. But the negativity about FCPX was based on “old information,” and not informed, he says.

He says the speed of the new FCPX enabled the directors and editing team to be able to cut the film as they were shooting, instead of after production wrapped. “It’s a totally different way to look at the process.”

Maybe the likening of Final Cut Pro X to an iMovie Pro is a good thing:

Many editors called the new FCPX “iMovie Pro,” when it was released, and not ready for the big leagues, but Ficarra says he likes that FCPX is easier to use, and that it’s look and feel is akin to iMovie.

“We have a whole generation of kids learning on iMovie,” he says. “They’ll be familiar with this tool when they get into the real world.”

Here’s a link to Apple’s Final Cut Pro X Focus page.

This is exactly what I’d expect from Apple—lots of room on the page with the focus being on the product, and not on a bunch of needless words. It speaks for itself.

Jim, Shawn and Dave talk about Steve Jobs, Apple Watch pricing and Roadie Tuner!

Sponsored by WALTR (Visit the link and use the code BIGBEARDSPECIAL for 33% off).