Dengue is a scourge of a disease. It’s spread by mosquitos and kills more than a million people every year. For more hints on how to spot if your home is infested with mosquitoes, you can check out the articles published online.

The disease is carried by mosquitoes, mostly the Aedes aegypti. Found in urban areas, Ae. aegypti has proven a particularly difficult mosquito species to control—it has developed a resistance to common insecticides and, because it bites during the day, bed nets are no protection against it. But now Brazilian health officials are running a pilot program using genetically modified mosquitoes to breed the population to death. The mosquitoes are the invention of British biotech company Oxitec, and they’ve had a gene inserted into them that kills them. In the lab, the mosquitoes can be fed a sort of antidote: a supplement that keeps them alive until it’s time to release them. Once they’re released, the clock starts ticking.

To get rid of them you can try using  an indoor insect fogger or indoor insect spray to kill mosquitoes and treat areas where they rest. These products work immediately, and may need to be reapplied. When using insecticides, always follow label directions. Only using insecticide will not keep your home free of mosquitoes. If you need more help, you can try this out. > > Oxitec’s mosquito-suppression solution consists of releasing the modified male mosquitoes into the wild—male mosquitoes don’t bite; it’s the females who do. The Oxitec males mate with female mosquitoes and create progeny that also have the lethal gene. Without the supplement, those progeny die. “By applying the Oxitec Control Programme to an area,” the company’s website says, “the mosquito population in that area can be dramatically reduced or eliminated.”

Remarkable. Here’s hoping this works, with no hidden consequences.

If you’ve ever kicked a soccer ball around, hit one with your forehead, you’ll appreciate this animated take on the evolution of soccer ball construction.

I found this profile frustrating, vexing. The tone is objective, but the prose manages to be damning at the same time, working in all the standard, shopworn stereotypes the Apple community has gotten used to having thrown their way.

Mr. Cook, who is 53, took over leadership of Apple nearly three years ago, after the death of Steve Jobs, the company’s revered founder. Like Walt Disney and Henry Ford, Mr. Jobs was intertwined with his company. Mr. Jobs was Apple and Apple was Jobs.

There’s this sense that Tim Cook is an empty shirt. I don’t have a problem reflecting on Steve Jobs and comparing Tim Cook’s approach to Steve’s. But there’s an undertone of snark to this profile, very well hidden. Except that it rises to the top in the title of one particular section, taken from this quote:

Mr. Brown’s colleague Chad Zeluff, 27, who saw Mr. Jobs deliver the keynote in 2007, put it this way: “Jobs is to Lennon what Cook is to Ringo.”

Leaving the question of Ringo Starr’s talent off the table, the comment is intended as a straight-out insult. Where’s the balance in posting a single negative quote? And then promoting that quote to a headline status to make it more prominent.

Consider this:

Ryan Scott, the chief executive of Causecast, a nonprofit that helps companies create volunteer and donation programs, called Mr. Cook’s charitable initiatives a “great start.” But Mr. Scott added that its programs are “not as significant as what other companies are doing.” Apple’s ambitions “could be much higher,” he said, given its money and talent. By comparison, Microsoft says that, on average, it donates $2 million a day in software to nonprofits, and its employees have donated over $1 billion, inclusive of the corporate match, since 1983. In the last two years, Apple employees have donated $50 million, including the match.

At first blush, this appears to be a crushing inditement of Tim Cook’s charitable initiatives. But the measurement is of employee gifts, not Apple’s. Apple matches in exactly the same way as Microsoft. More to the point, the author includes two numbers in the comparison, $1 billion for Microsoft versus $50 million for Apple. That is a huge difference, indeed. But let’s do a little math. That $1 billion was given over 31 years and is a self-reported number. The Apple number is over 2 years and no source for the number is given. Do that math and you’ll find that the numbers are much closer. To be truly objective, you’d really need to know the Microsoft donation numbers over the same 2 year period as the quoted Apple numbers.

Is Tim Cook perfect? No, of course not. But this article misses the point entirely. Take a few minutes and read this piece by John Gruber, entitled Only Apple. To me, this piece really captured the spirit of Apple under Tim Cook.

During the keynote last week, John Siracusa referenced The Godfather, quipping:

Today Tim settles all family business.

I’d say it’s more that Cook settled the family business back in October 2012. Last week’s keynote was when we, on the outside, finally saw the results. Apple today is firing on all cylinders. That’s a cliché but an apt one. Cook saw untapped potential in a company hampered by silos.

And:

Jobs was a great CEO for leading Apple to become big. But Cook is a great CEO for leading Apple now that it is big, to allow the company to take advantage of its size and success. Matt Drance said it, and so will I: What we saw last week at WWDC 2014 would not have happened under Steve Jobs.

I couldn’t agree more.

My thanks to Many Tricks for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop. Many Tricks offers a number of apps to make using your Mac easier, more productive, and even more fun. Check out Moom, their impressive window moving and zooming tool; Name Mangler, which makes renaming tens of thousands of files a snap; Witch, a tool to let you quickly switch to any open window; or any of their other apps at Many Tricks.

Everyone knows about Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe, the former drummer and bass player for The Beatles who missed out on perhaps the biggest opportunity in musical history. But here are some other candidates for the Mount Rushmore of lousy timing.

Who controls the cloud? Interesting article on the companies battling it out for cloud supremacy.

Kyle Russell writes for Tech Crunch and covers Google Glass, among other things. Worlds collide as Kyle appears on a crushingly satirical Daily Show piece (seen below) on Glass.

The linked article gives an insider’s view on the making of the video.

Rather than respond to the show’s criticisms of Glass (because, let’s face it, they have a point), I thought it would be fun to shed light on what it’s actually like to film a segment on The Daily Show.

First off, we all knew exactly what we were getting into. I was contacted by a producer of the show who identified himself as such. There were no attempts made to trick any of us with claims that they were a news team from out of town.

An entertaining read. Watch the video first.

I’ve long been a fan of Miles O’Brien. He’s my kind of journalist, always curious and digging for understanding. Though he has covered a wide range of stories in his career, his focus has always been science and technology.

Then this happened.

I was on a reporting trip in the Far East, first to Japan for a story about the Fukushima reactor and then to the Philippines for one about genetically modified rice. As I was packing up my TV gear, a heavy Pelican case of equipment fell on my left forearm. What began as a fairly bad bruise evolved, over a couple of days, into something life-threatening: acute compartment syndrome, which blocks blood flow. When I got to a doctor in Manila, he recognized the problem and sent me in for emergency surgery. He tried to save the arm, but it was too late. It was a life-or-limb decision.

The linked story is really about life after the loss of his arm. Great read.

Computerworld:

Samsung has now announced 11 different Android tablets since the start of 2014. Here’s the thing: Choice is beneficial only when it means something. Flooding consumers with a billion overlapping variations of the same basic concept does little more than cause confusion and dilute your brand.

Put another way, when faced with that menagerie of confusingly named and difficult to distinguish options, what’s a typical consumer going to do? You guessed it: Buy an iPad.

Amazing – and not in a good way.

Chicago Tribune:

A motorcyclist who shot video of himself speeding away from police was sentenced to four years in prison Friday.

The charges stem from an October, 2012, incident in which Hamza Ali Ben Ali tried to goad a Westmont police officer into a high-speed chase after the officer tried to stop him along Cass Avenue. A seven-minute video shot from a camera affixed to Ali’s Honda CBR 1000 shows a police car with flashing lights following the motorcycle into a gas station before the motorcycle zooms away.

Two weeks later, footage of the pursuit was uploaded to YouTube.

This guy can only be described as the stupidest person in the world right now.

Daring Fireball:

“Only Apple” has been Tim Cook’s closing mantra for the last few Apple keynotes.

Is this true, though? Is Apple the only company that can do this? I think it’s inarguable that they’re the only company that is doing it, but Cook is saying they’re they only company that can.

I’ve been thinking about this for two weeks.

I spoke at a MUG group this evening and made a similar point and there’s no doubt this is Tim Cook’s Apple.

TechCrunch:

App developers know that having good ratings and reviews means more users will be wiling to download their app. And thanks to ratings’ influence on Apple’s ranking algorithms, it will help their app be better discovered via the App Store’s Top Charts as well. Because of this, some — okay, many — developers manipulate their apps’ positions by posting fake ratings and reviews. It’s sort of common knowledge these days, in fact. Any brief, glowing, five-star review is immediately suspect.

As it turns out, it’s suspect to Apple, too. And now the company is doing something about it.

This is one of the reasons why I never pay any attention to ratings on the App Store. The only ratings I care about are from friends or trusted sources.

Politico:

Sports are a reflection of national character and aspirations, and it is no coincidence, I think, that soccer has had a hard time catching on in the United States. Simply put, soccer—call it “football” if you must—is a tragic game, and thus it cuts deeply against the grain of the American ethos.

Americans are an optimistic people. We like scoring too much to enjoy a game that is more about preventing success than achieving it.

We go through this conversation every four years.

MoMA:

Biophilia is a software app and music album with interactive graphics, animations, and musical scoring that reflects Björk’s interest in a collaborative process. It’s also the first downloadable app in MoMA’s collection.

This app looks fascinating and weird, just like Björk.

The Guardian:

One holiday snap has been manipulated thousands of times on thousands of computers. Here’s how a woman on a beach in Bora Bora taught the whole world to tinker with pictures.

If there’s a “Photography App Hall of Fame”, Photoshop would be the first inductee.

Everyone knows by now that Amazon is evil – except Amazon itself, it seems. That’s why I took the fight directly to amazon.co.uk, creating a fake book for sale called Living Wages for Amazon Workers.

Interesting way to get the word out.

Here’s the scoop on what happened. Let’s hope that this adventure is in the past. This business just makes me angry.

I thought this was a reasonably objective review. Worth reading for the details, but here’s the conclusion:

Modifications and additions such as these are dangerous; even if they’re useful, as some of Samsung’s tweaks appear to be, they introduce the risk of bloat and inconsistency. But the thing is, no matter how capably Samsung customizes Android, it can’t do anything about the most glaring weak spot of any competent Android tablet: the paucity of third-party apps designed to work well on a tablet.

And the kicker:

I happen to think that iOS has won the mobile app wars, but the selection of apps for Android smartphones, even if it’s in second place, is more than good enough. That’s not true for tablets: More than three years after Google first got serious about tablets with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, it’s not even the league next door to the league inhabited by the iPad, which now has more than a half-million apps designed especially for it.

Why would Google make a deal with Virgin’s space tourism arm?

Google is in talks with Virgin Galactic about a deal that will hand it crucial access to satellite-launch technology and an equity stake in Sir Richard Branson’s $2bn (£1.2bn) space tourism venture.

Google just spent $500 million to buy Skybox imaging. From Bloomberg:

Skybox has only a single satellite in orbit right now but plans to fly a fleet of them to cover the entire globe at all times.

If they consummate a deal with Virgin Galactic, Google will have the delivery vehicle they need to maintain and operate their fleet of satellites.

Apple is offering a free exchange for certain of its European USB power adapters:

Apple has determined that, in rare cases, the Apple 5W European USB power adapter may overheat and pose a safety risk. This adapter came with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S models shipped from October 2009 to September 2012 in the countries listed below. It was also sold as a standalone accessory.

Here’s how to identify an adapter that needs to be replaced:

Look at the label between the prongs on your adapter and compare it to the images outlined in red below. The model number and the color of the letters “CE” are the ways to identify an affected adapter.

An affected adapter features Model A1300 and the letters “CE” in solid gray. If you have an affected adapter, discontinue use and exchange it for a new one. You can charge your iPhone by connecting it via a USB cable to your computer until you receive a replacement adapter.

To learn more, visit Apple’s official adapter exchange page.

Fortune:

An entire decade passed before Fadell asked VCs for cash again. But what a decade it was. Fadell abandoned Fuse Systems and joined Apple to lead the team that created the iPod. That singular achievement–the iPod rejuvenated Apple and reordered the music industry–transformed him from a struggling startup guy to an accomplished executive who’d withstood the sound and fury of Steve Jobs. Fadell became known around Silicon Valley as the mercurial “godfather” of the iPod, and he added another dazzling line to his résumé by assisting in the development of the iPhone. When he stepped down from Apple’s management team in 2008, there was much speculation about his next move.

Terrific read.

NPR:

Jack White celebrated the release of his latest solo album, Lazaretto, with this live concert at the historic Fonda Theater in Hollywood, Calif.

I’ve always been a big fan of White. I’ll likely never see him in concert so this video is the next best thing for me.

The Guardian:

Before the live-music industry became a billion-dollar behemoth, being on the road was, for many bands, a wild west of sex, drugs and even some rock’n’roll. Hedonism was rife, and it wasn’t just the musicians who pillaged. Their road crews were right there with them, benefiting from a macho atmosphere where the expectation was that after they had unloaded the gear they would match their employers in debauchery.

But that era has long passed, and with it the idea of roadies as folk legends. They have since osmosed into “techs” – low-key professionals who often have degrees and treat the job as a job.

I was a roadie for one weekend. The gig damn near killed me.

CNET:

Do you love noodles? Could you eat them every day? Well, it looks like you now can with the Philips Noodle Maker.

As the name suggests, this kitchen appliance creates fresh noodles from scratch and takes about 15 minutes to make around 500g. All you need to do is toss in the egg, flour and water or more exotic ingredients such as carrot juice and the machine will take care of kneading the dough and then automatically extruding the noodles through a noodle-making cap.

OMG I would absolutely love this thing.

Scott Hurff:

If you build products for a living, there’s a lot to learn from iOS 8’s iMessage changes — both on the user interface side and on the customer development side. Let’s examine iOS 8’s changes, and let’s compare them to the status quo in iOS 7.

Some interesting info here from the POV of a designer who thinks about this stuff all day long.