The floral wire services, FTD and Teleflora, were very relevant in 1910 and 1934 when they began, respectively. These companies, along with 1980s upstart 1-800-Flowers, now dominate the industry by advertising their national brand and squeezing local florists. While these companies, and mail-order services like Proflowers, blanket the airwaves and Web pages with ads showing off their great deals before major flower-giving holidays, they are not the best choice to get the best bloom for your buck.
We have long recommended that flower-givers follow this basic process
Definitely buy your significant other, male or female, a flower arrangement. But do your best to support your local flower merchant.
Apple’s record-breaking holiday quarter, which brought in $18 billion in earnings, allowed the company to capture 93 percent of the profit in the handset industry, according to a new report from Canaccord Genuity, an investment firm.
Samsung took the rest, but its share is shrinking, the report said.
A hidden treasure trove of gear flown on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon sees the light of day after Neil Armstrong’s widow shares the find with the Smithsonian.
In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it’s unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective.
This visualization of the speed of light and the realization that, on a galactic scale, it’s actually really slow, is all kinds of mind boggling.
Unlike other affordable photo-editing apps out there, which are usually dumbed down offerings with only a subset of Photoshop’s usefulness, Affinity Photo is trying to set itself apart by offering the power of Photoshop in a program that’s blazing fast and ridiculously affordable.
Looks very interesting and for free, there’s no harm in giving it a try.
After three and a half hours of the Grammy telecast, you may feel like you saw everything that could possible be imagined – even Kanye West hilariously rushing the stage in defense of Beyoncé, yet again. But although the show was tailored for the home audience, those actually in attendance at Los Angeles’ Staples Center were privy to a few jokes, celebrations and candid moments that didn’t make the CBS broadcast. These were our favorites.
There were some great moments on TV but, as always, the best often happen away from the cameras.
Once a week, inside the 142-square-foot apartment he shares with his parents and two siblings in a rural California farming town, a two-year-old has a standing appointment with an iPad.
Born deaf, the toddler received cochlear implants seven months ago. He and his mother use FaceTime video chat to have hour-long sessions in Spanish with a speech therapist who is helping the boy learn how to listen and understand the new sounds.
I just can’t get over how good they are after all these years. Interesting to note that drummer Phil Rudd wasn’t with the band—try to hire one hitman and you lose your job.
Many of you have noticed that The Loop Magazine hasn’t published as often since mid to late last year. I tried to make up for missing issues by publishing double issues once a month, but the schedule was still erratic. Clearly, this isn’t fair to the subscribers of the magazine.
I have been going through a personal crisis that has affected my ability and commitment to publish the magazine. I have kept the details private, but my problems are no excuse for letting a fine publication falter. I want to apologize to all those that put their faith in me to put out a quality product—I failed.
That said, I believe in The Loop Magazine. I believe the magazine app developed by Chris Harris and Mateusz Stawecki is second to none in the App Store. I believe the content we publish is engaging and different from everything else put out on Newsstand. I believe The Loop Magazine can work.
I am moving the magazine to a monthly publication that will contain double the amount of stories that the bi-weekly edition published—that’s 8-10 stories per month. I’m currently finishing up the latest issue and it should be published this week. This will be the start of a new chapter for The Loop Magazine, and I’m sure it will be a successful one.
Although I have no right to ask for it, I need your support to make the magazine successful. If you haven’t subscribed, take a look at the magazine and the content and see what you think—if you like it, subscribe. If you tried it before and were disappointed in me, try again. It’s available for both iPhone and iPad.
I have a lot to prove to you, the readers, but I believe this will work.
Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.
HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.
With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.
Netflix is taking a pretty big gamble, albeit with other people’s money. They’ve floated two senior notes totaling $1.5 billion in debt. The goal is to ramp up their content production. At the center of all this is a live action “Legend of Zelda” series.
So far, Netflix has kept the bar raised pretty high, with series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. The question is, can they find a way to bring Zelda to the small (but growing) screen without dissing legions of Zelda fans.
Netflix is said to be working closely with Nintendo, the Japanese game developer that has made about 20 “The Legend of Zelda” games since the original, which was released in the U.S. in 1987.
Nintendo is very protective of its intellectual property and has allowed few adaptations over the years. An animated “Legend of Zelda” series ran for just one season in 1989. A 1993 movie based on Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros.” was an infamous bomb.
Netflix has shown they have a solid sense of pitch when it comes to original content, earning them a big benefit-of-the-doubt here. Here’s hoping this follows the House of Cards path and doesn’t end up on this list.
A little over 30 years ago, the Japanese photographer Kishin Shinoyama walked through Central Park with one of the most famous couples in the world. It was sunset, autumn; they sat on a bench just in front of the pond, bordered by trees, a sliver of New York skyline visible in the distance, including the building where they lived. He asked them to kiss, and he clicked the shutter. Three months later, on Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was fatally shot at the entrance to the Dakota, home to him and his wife, Yoko Ono. Just three weeks prior to Lennon’s death, Shinoyama’s photograph of John and Yoko’s kiss at Central Park Pond had appeared on the cover of what would be their final studio album, “Double Fantasy.” Shinoyama made other photographs that day, of course — 800 in all, in fact — but many of them have never been shown until now, on the occasion of Taschen’s forthcoming publication of “Kishin Shinoyama. John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Double Fantasy” ($700), out this month.
I find this appalling. Who would buy such a book? Someone with strong emotional ties to John Lennon (and, of course, with $700 to burn). This feels like emotional blackmail. I have rare photos of your hero. You will only see them (and copies of them, not original prints you might hang in your home) if you pay out $700.
Amazing to me that the review makes no mention of the price.
This is not necessarily my cup of tea as an iPad stand (the angle is not adjustable), but I find the technology behind the stickum fascinating.
Slope is an elegant, minimal tabletop stand that gets your tablet upright and out in front of you with an easy in/out attachment. It works by way of a unique suction technology, mimicking the specialized toe pads common to the Gecko lizard. The foam of the two pads grip the flat surfaces of both table and tablet with microscopic suction to give a firm mounting experience and solid feel. The pads are extremely durable and replaceable.
Dust and dirt have got to be the big bugaboos here. Interesting idea.
Geoffrey Goetz, writing for GigaOM, digs into the concept of code signing:
One of the benefits that curators like Apple and Google can gain from code signing apps is that it provides a means of stopping malware from spreading, especially when the platform only allows code signed apps to be installed. Just this past week Google took measures to suspend a particularly malicious group of apps labeled as malware from being distributed in Google Play. With 99 percent of all mobile malware targeting the Android platform, preventing such threats from spreading is something that any app store operator like Google would want to ensure its customers it has the situation under control.
If Apple and Google both use code signing, why does “99 percent of all mobile malware” target Android?
On the one hand, Apple enforces code signing and they completely control the code signing process. Apple is the only code signing authority. Short of jail-breaking your phone, if you are running an iOS app, Apple has vetted that app.
Android, on the other hand, offers code signing as a suggestion:
While it is true that Android developers can sign apps before deploying them to device, they don’t really have to. There are plenty of ways that developers can deploy apps to Android devices that do not require any level of code signing at all. Side-loading apps by tethering the device with a USB cable, downloads apps from web sites or even install apps from an attachment in an email message are some examples. While Google may have some control over Google Play, it does not control the Android platform as a whole.
Apple’s insistence on total control is an inconvenience for developers, certainly, but it is a boon to users and the ecosystem as a whole. If you care about security, the best existing solution requires this level of control.
The article makes the case that the process of getting your app on the App Store is a difficult, arcane process:
The goal of most developers is getting their app into the App Store. This requires one to work through the intricacies of creating an AppID, TeamID, Distribution Certificate, and Provisioning Profile from within an Apple Developer account. Once this is completed, developers soon realize that the battle is only half over, as they then need to create an iTunes Connect account and register for an available App Record which is necessary to upload and submit your app for review. It never goes quite as planned the first time around and you end up spending a fair amount of time troubleshooting what step you missed. When all is said and done, you realize that you could actually make a career out of helping developers shepherd their apps through this process.
All I can say to this is, when the App Store launched (along with iPhone OS 2.0) back in 2008, the process of getting an app on the app store truly was an incredibly arcane, confusing process. The current process does feature hoops to jump through, but in my opinion, it is head and shoulders better than the way it used to be.
Many thanks to Elgato for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Elgato Thunderbolt 2 Dock enables you to connect everything to your MacBook or Ultrabook at once. With two Thunderbolt 2 and three USB 3.0 ports, simultaneously connect all of your devices with only one cable. Built-in HDMI enables you to directly connect a display of your choice up to 4K resolution, while enjoying increased network performance with built-in Gigabit Ethernet and crystal-clear conference calls through the separate microphone input and amplified audio output.
This time every year, the Sapporo Snow Festival draws millions of people to Sapporo to see hundreds of intricately detailed snow sculptures and to participate in snow-themed cultural festivities.
The festival features an International Snow Sculpting Contest with teams from 12 countries around the world. 6,500 tons of snow is transported to the three festival sites throughout the month of January from locations in and around Sapporo.
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College released a study on Thursday that mapped DNA found in New York’s subway system — a crowded, largely subterranean behemoth that carries 5.5 million riders on an average weekday, and is filled with hundreds of species of bacteria (mostly harmless), the occasional spot of bubonic plague, and a universe of enigmas. Almost half of the DNA found on the system’s surfaces did not match any known organism and just 0.2 percent matched the human genome.
I’m never taking the New York City subway ever again.
Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp (RSHC.PK) filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Thursday and said it had a deal in place to sell as many as 2,400 stores to an affiliate of hedge fund Standard General, its lender and largest shareholder.
Wireless company Sprint Corp (S.N) would operate as many as 1,750 of those stores under an agreement with Standard General, Sprint said separately.
RadioShack’s bankruptcy, which has been expected for months, follows 11 consecutive unprofitable quarters as the company has failed to transform itself into a destination for mobile phone buyers. But its sale agreement with Standard General could spare it the fate most retailers suffer in Chapter 11, liquidation.
RadioShack said in a statement that the Standard General affiliate, called General Wireless, would acquire between 1,500 and 2,400 of its 4,100 stores.
Sprint would occupy about one-third of each RadioShack store, selling “mobile devices across Sprint`s brand portfolio as well as RadioShack products, services and accessories,” Sprint said in its statement.
According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple has made a major push to recruit talent from the electric carmaker, offering massive bonuses and significant salary bumps for those willing to come to work in Cupertino.
Musk said Apple’s attempts have not been successful. I do have a lot of respect for Musk and the work he’s done.
Measles has been a scourge for centuries, afflicting millions of people. It has been blamed, in part, for decimating native populations of the Americas as Europeans explored the New World. In modern times, before a vaccine was developed, nearly every American contracted the virus, with its telltale skin blotches and fever. Measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but has staged a comeback as the inoculation rate has dropped. Here’s a history.
Many people think of measles as an innocuous childhood disease but it’s actually incredibly dangerous and sometimes deadly.
The device will communicate via a form of technology known as NFC and won’t have to be charged, Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek said in an interview. The Swatch smartwatch will also let consumers make mobile payments and work with Windows and Android software, he said.
I really like the not having to be charged bit.
Hayek is ready to go head-to-head with Apple Inc., which has scheduled its smartwatch introduction for April.
Between 1974 and 1979, the Canadian government tested the idea of a basic income guarantee (BIG) across an entire town, giving people enough money to survive in a way that no other place in North America has before or since.
For those four years—until the project was cancelled and its findings packed away—the town’s poorest residents were given monthly checks that supplemented what modest earnings they had and rewarded them for working more. And for that time, it seemed that the effects of poverty began to melt away. Doctor and hospital visits declined, mental health appeared to improve, and more teenagers completed high school.
Providing many of the features found in its mobile sibling, the Yosemite-only Photos for OS X offers an interface less cluttered than iPhoto, improved navigation, simpler yet more powerful editing tools, the ability to sync all your images to iCloud (though it doesn’t require you to), and new options for creating books, cards, slideshows, calendars, and prints. I’ve had the opportunity to take an early look at Photos, and this is what I’ve found.
This is the developer preview but, in my experience, it’s pretty stable with few true glitches or bugs. Keep in mind, this is not (yet at least) a professional Aperture or Lightroom level app. But, that being said, it’s still pretty good.
Beginning today, the Draw, Sketch, Outline, Write, Color, and Mixer tools in Paper are available for free for everyone.
I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler but Paper is my favourite app for doodling and showing off the iPad’s drawing capabilities to others. Go grab these apps now.
