Wired:

This week Wisconsin-ites were treated to a mayfly emergence. Just how many mayflies are there? Enough that they show up on weather radar.

The slippery goo created by millions of mayflies is blamed in a three-car pileup in Hager City, WI yesterday night.

Mother Nature is amazing and sometimes, disgusting.

A new book from Shawn Blanc, “Delight is in the Details” describes how to make good things great. Shawn says it’s “an audio book, eBook, and interview series for people who make things.”

Yesterday, The New Yorker magazine published “A Note to Readers,” announcing the new strategy behind its web site. The site now has a different look and feel. It will also be governed by a new set of economics, which will include putting the entire site behind a paywall. The editors write, “in the fall, we [will] move to a second phase, implementing an easier-to-use, logical, metered paywall. Subscribers will continue to have access to everything; non-subscribers will be able to read a limited number of pieces—and then it’s up to them to subscribe. You’ve likely seen this system elsewhere—at the Times, for instance—and we will do all we can to make it work seamlessly.”

Lots of great content to dig through, all free until the paywall is put in place in the fall. Here’s a list of suggested New Yorker reading from Slate.

And one of my favorites, this piece by John Updike, from 1960, about the love affair between Boston and baseball slugger Ted Williams and the twilight of his career. It’s called Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.

CNBC:

Microsoft posted earnings that fell short of expectations Tuesday while revenue topped Wall Street estimates.

The computer software maker earned 58 cents a share on revenues of $23.38 billion.

The company reported diluted EPS of 55 cents, but that figure included three cents worth of one-time charges. The 58-cent figure compares to analysts’ estimate of 60 cents a share, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

So much volatility, it’s hard to get any sense of direction from Redmond. A big part of this instability is the Nokia acquisition and pending layoffs.

Microsoft’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue rose, but its profit fell, partly due to the effect of incorporating the handset business of Nokia, which it acquired in April.

And the bigger problem is morale:

“Microsoft needs to detail what their strategy is,” said Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki, which has a stake in the tech firm. “Morale is down. They are firing a ton of people. The way he did it is very harsh. Nadella has to tell us where is Microsoft going, what’s the future growth for this company.”

Lots of interesting detail in the Apple Insider article and in the patent itself.

Notice the use of the word iTime, as opposed to iWatch. If you go to the patent’s image section, on page 4 (Figure 2) you’ll see the word iTime prominently displayed on the face of the watch. Might not mean anything or it might be the actual marketing term Apple has in mind.

From the linked article:

Operationally, the system is based on the idea of converting the square-shaped iPod nano into a smartwatch. Initial claims note the media player can be inserted into specially-made straps that integrate various electrical components to augment the device’s capabilities. The document mentions parts like accelerometers, GPS modules, wireless communication packages and haptic feedback mechanisms as potential candidates for inclusion in the advanced strap structure.

Things start to get interesting when Apple describes what it calls a “personal wireless environment.” In essence, the invention illustrates an ecosystem in which the electronic wristwatch can interact with nearby devices like an iPhone, laptop or desktop computer.

Apple goes on to detail how this “piconet” works. Through either wired or wireless communication protocols, the wristwatch can operatively connect to a cellular or Internet-connected device. In this way, information can be exchanged from iPhone to watch, or watch to iPhone, either automatically or at a user’s request.

The word piconet is actually used in the patent.

The patent goes further, noting the wristband can also be linked to an iPhone in order to alert the user when it is left behind, stolen or out of range. While not mentioned in the IP, an appropriate communications protocol for such functionality would be Bluetooth 4.0, which supports proximity-based operations.

A piconet is a Bluetooth network, by definition. Presumably, an iTime device would make use of whatever version of Bluetooth shipped with the most recent iPhone/iPad.

Another image shows the iTime connected to a mobile phone, portable computer, and desktop computer. Seems obvious, but the implication here is that you could own an iTime and a Mac and things would just work, no iOS device required.

Also in the article:

Finally, tacked on to the end of the document is a contingency for arm and wrist gestures. Instead of controlling the smartwatch via fingers, users would be able to shake, bounce, tap or otherwise interact with the device through physical movements. Gesture combinations can be assigned to certain device controls. For example, an incoming call may be answered by a single wrist shake, or declined with two shakes and a tap.

It’ll be interesting to watch this new class of gestures unfold. Clearly, the smart watch gesture domain will be different from that of existing iOS devices. While they might share some gestures (slide to unlock, perhaps), there’s a subtlety to the movement of your wrist that is different from that of your hand holding an iPhone or iPad.

Can’t wait.

“There has not been a single conversation about Google’s interest,” said one source. “There was never a price, never a negotiation, never anything.”

Good to see Kara Swisher put this one down.

I really enjoyed this article by Oscar Nilsson.

These are some impressive numbers.

iTunes Radio has been coming up with some great First Plays lately. The latest is a tribute to JJ Cale put together by Eric Clapton that includes Willie Nelson, Tom Petty and Mark Knopfler. Clapton should play iTunes Festival London—just sayin’.

Interesting piece by Dan Frommer. I know every one of these pieces, but never thought of them as wearables until I read this.

Great conceptual approach to logo mechanics. Go to this site, then shrink the width of the browser page, watch what the logo does in response.

Only thing that puzzles me is the clipping of the trademark registration mark ® in the Levi’s logo. That intentional?

Last week, security consultant and former iOS jailbreaker Jonathan Zdziarski made headlines with his talk, “Identifying Back Doors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices”. Here’s a link to a PDF of the slides.

Zdziarski:

Before the journalists blow this way out of proportion, this was a talk I gave to a room full of hackers explaining that while we were sleeping, this is how some features in iOS have evolved over the PAST FEW YEARS, and of course a number of companies have taken advantage of some of the capabilities. I have NOT accused Apple of working with NSA, however I suspect (based on released documents) that some of these services MAY have been used by NSA to collect data on potential targets. I am not suggesting some grand conspiracy; there are, however, some services running in iOS that shouldn’t be there, that were intentionally added by Apple as part of the firmware, and that bypass backup encryption while copying more of your personal data than ever should come off the phone for the average consumer. I think at the very least, this warrants an explanation and disclosure to the some 600 million customers out there running iOS devices. At the same time, this is NOT a zero day and NOT some widespread security emergency. My paranoia level is tweaked, but not going crazy. My hope is that Apple will correct the problem. Nothing less, nothing more. I want these services off my phone. They don’t belong there.

Apple responded to Zdziarski’s comments and presentation with this comment, posted on Twitter by Financial Times’ Tim Bradshaw:

“We have designed iOS so that its diagnostic functions do not compromise user privacy and security, but still provides needed information to enterprise IT departments, developers and Apple for troubleshooting technical issues. A user must have unlocked their device and agreed to trust another computer before that computer is able to access this limited diagnostic data. The user must agree to share this information, and data is never transferred without their consent.”

As we have said before, Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services.”

Rene Ritchie at iMore created a nice summary of Zdziarski’s concerns:

When you connect your iPhone or iPad to iTunes on Mac or Windows — and choose to trust that computer — a pairing record is created that maintains that trust for future connections. Zdziarski claims that if someone takes physical possession of that computer, they can steal those pairing records, connect to your device, and retrieve your personal information and/or enable remote logging. If they don’t have your computer, Zdziarski claims they can try and generate a pairing record by tricking you into connecting to a compromised accessory, like a dock (juice jacking), and/or by using mobile device management (MDM) tools intended for enterprise to get around safeguards like Apple’s Trusted Device requestor.

From an article we posted last year on juice jacking:

When you plug your smart phone into a USB cable, your device will try to pair with the device on the other end of the cable. If the only thing on the other end of the line is your personally owned USB charger, no worries. But if you plug into a public charging station or a stranger’s USB charger, you are opening yourself up to malware. The device on the other end can pair with your phone and cause all sorts of mischief.

This is all about trusted pairing. Apple is making the point that they’ve bottlenecked trusted pairing so that a user needs to agree to the pairing before data access is allowed.

The good thing about web-site cookies is that they are blockable. Cookies are the devil-you-know and web browsers are set up to deal with/delete them.

Now there’s a new insidious devil in town called canvas fingerprinting.

A new, extremely persistent type of online tracking is shadowing visitors to thousands of top websites, from WhiteHouse.gov to YouPorn.com.

First documented in a forthcoming paper by researchers at Princeton University and KU Leuven University in Belgium, this type of tracking, called canvas fingerprinting, works by instructing the visitor’s Web browser to draw a hidden image. Because each computer draws the image slightly differently, the images can be used to assign each user’s device a number that uniquely identifies it.

Like other tracking tools, canvas fingerprints are used to build profiles of users based on the websites they visit — profiles that shape which ads, news articles, or other types of content are displayed to them.

But fingerprints are unusually hard to block: They can’t be prevented by using standard Web browser privacy settings or using anti-tracking tools such as AdBlock Plus.

In a nutshell, canvas fingerprinting detects subtle variations in the way your specific browser renders a requested image to create a fingerprint for your specific computer.

The researchers found canvas fingerprinting computer code, primarily written by a company called AddThis, on 5 percent of the top 100,000 websites.

Here’s a link to the AddThis site, and another to their opt out page (which uses cookies as an opt out mechanism!).

If you’re like most people (myself included), when you see a license agreement, you don’t take the time to read it, you blindly click “agree” and move on.

In your defense, Carnegie Mellon researchers determined that it would take the average American 76 work days to read all the privacy policies they agreed to each year.

The linked article picks up some of the more important (and to some, chilling) things embedded in that Facebook license agreement you agreed to. Here’s a link to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, as well as to the Facebook Data Use Policy, in case you want to follow along at home.

If you are going to use Facebook, take a few minutes to read the article. Make sure you know what you are getting into.

Apple:

Apple will be announcing its Q3 2014 financial results on Tuesday, July 22 at 5pm Eastern time (2pm Pacific) followed by questions from analysts.

You can listen to the streaming audio via iPhone®, iPad®, or iPod touch® running iOS 4.2 or above, or any Mac® running OS X 10.6.8 or above or any PC running QuickTime 7 or later.

As usual, many sites will be liveblogging the call. The fun comes in seeing which of the analysts on the call (the press and general public can listen in but not ask questions) will ask the dumbest question of the day.

I don’t know how I managed to miss this earlier, but Robert Plant has signed on to perform at iTunes Festival London—Plant is one of my all-time favorite singers. His solo career has been great, but his vocals as the lead singer of Led Zeppelin are just incredible. I’m hoping for some classic Zep songs during that show.

About ten years ago, when Rory McIlroy was just 15 years old, his father places a bet with British betting firm Ladbrokes that his son would win the British Open within 10 years (before Rory turned 26). According to reports from the best online sportsbooks reviews in 2021, the bet was for £200 (about US$341), at 500-to-1 odds. This weekend’s British Open was Rory’s last chance to win under the terms of the wager.

Incredibly, Rory McIlroy won the Open, and his dad is about to win his share of £100,000 (about US$171,000).

Unbelievable story. Here’s the tweet from Ladbrokes confirming the bet:

CONGRATULATIONS RORY: We’re paying out 180k to Rory’s Dad and pals. There’ll be some party at the McIlroy’s tonight!

Amazon has unveiled a new subscription service called Kindle Unlimited, designed to give Kindle readers unlimited access to a limited library of eBooks, all for $9.99 a month.

From the Kindle FAQ:

Kindle Unlimited is a new service that allows you to read as much as you want, choosing from over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks. Freely explore new authors, books, and genres from mysteries and romance to sci-fi and more. You can read on any device. It’s available for $9.99 a month and you can cancel anytime.

The problem I have with Kindle Unlimited is the same problem I had with Amazon Prime Music. When I first dug into the Prime Music library, none of the music I looked for was included. There certainly was plenty to choose from, but it felt like looking through the cutout bin at the record store.

At least I could rationalize Amazon Prime Music, since I was already a Prime member and Prime Music was included at no extra charge. Kindle Unlimited, on the other hand, has a similar restricted choice, but runs about $120 a year. I spent some time digging through the Kindle Unlimited library and did not find a single title on my reading list. And it’s not like I was picking obscure titles. These were popular books with hundreds of reviews.

From the linked NY Times article:

The service, Kindle Unlimited, offers a Netflix-style, all-you-can-read approach to more than 600,000 e-books, including blockbuster series like “The Hunger Games” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” nonfiction titles like “Flash Boys” by Michael Lewis, as well as literary fiction and classics.

So far, however, none of the five biggest publishers appear to be making their books available through the service.

HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster, for example, are not participating, representatives from the three companies confirmed.

Penguin Random House and Macmillan declined to comment, but a search on Amazon suggests that they are not making their books available.

I think this is a bit of a stumble for Amazon, a money grab. I’m an insatiable reader and I would go for this if all of Amazon’s book library was included. But as is, no thanks.

Apple’s presence in China continues to grow.

Next weekend, Apple will be bringing up its official Apple Store count in China to eleven. The Cupertino-based company will be opening up a new store at the Paradise Walk mall in the Jiangbei District of Chongqing on Saturday, July 26th.

Chongqing is a critical base for Apple in China, as it is one of only five National Central Cities. From the National Central City Wikipedia page:

In February 2010, the ministry issued the “National Urban System Plan” and designated five major cities, Beijing and Tianjin in the Bohai Economic Rim, Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone, Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, and Chongqing in the West Triangle Economic Zone as the National Central Cities. Hong Kong was also included as a special National Central City.

The National Central Cities sphere of influence have great impact around the surrounding cities on modernizing and integrating services in fields such as infrastructure, finance, public education, social welfare, sanitation, business licensing and urban planning.

Ars Technica:

On July 20 1969, at about four minutes before 10:00 pm Central Daylight Time, former naval aviator and test pilot Neil Armstrong became the first human being to stand on the surface of the Moon.

About 20 minutes later, he was followed by Buzz Aldrin, an Air Force colonel with a PhD in astronautics from MIT (Aldrin had, quite literally, written the book on orbital rendezvous techniques). Armstrong and Aldrin’s landing was the culmination of almost a decade of scientific and engineering work by hundreds of thousands of people across the United States. Even though the lunar program’s goals were ultimately political, the Apollo project ranks as one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history.

The story of the program is an incredible one and I’d encourage you to watch the amazing “From the Earth to the Moon” series if you haven’t seen it.

Priceonomics:

Once heralded as the time-saving successor to stairs, the fire pole is, after 150 years, sliding toward extinction. In its heyday, the pole revolutionized the way firefighters responded to alarms, accessed their trucks, and, ultimately, saved lives. But fire poles came — and still come — with a caveat: they have the potential to be lethal for those who descend them.

As a kid, I always thought it would be cool to have a house with a Fireman’s Pole in it to get downstairs. After reading this article, not so much. I had no idea they were so dangerous.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were a mercurial supergroup. Each of the four members brought some specific individual skills that came together beautifully to form a harmonious whole.

If you’ve never listened to them before, this is a fantastic entry point. Here’s a link to the album on iTunes. Scroll to the bottom and hit Preview All.

The production is astonishing, especially considering that this was material captured live about 40 years ago.