CNBC:

Apple needs an iWatch sooner rather than later, or the company will risk losing its innovative edge to rivals, analysts say.

“They only have 60 days left to either come up with something or they will disappear,” said Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research.

The single stupidest thing ever written about Apple. When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you’ll know that’s saying something.

Microsoft went through a blogger’s private Hotmail account in order to trace the identity of a source who allegedly leaked trade secrets.

A March 17 court filing by federal prosecutors reveals that Microsoft’s Office of Legal Compliance approved the decision after confirming that the leaked data in question included proprietary Microsoft code.

Wow.

I usually don’t link to concepts, but these ones for the Apple TV and remotes that go along with it are pretty good.

This is really cool. I wish they had some for hockey, I’d get one for the Boston Bruins.

I can’t say I disagree. Tim has done a tremendous job running Apple in the last few years.

I met Pat a number of times during my 10 years working at Macworld. He built an empire with IDG and will be missed.

This is so true. It drives people crazy.

Have an app or icon to design?

Have you ever wondered what the most popular colors are in each category of the iOS store? We did. So we crawled the iOS app store and grabbed the top 5 app icons in each category and ran a histogram analysis on each one to find which colors were used most often. What we found was very interesting.

Before you design you next app icon, take a look at the color palettes below.

Great idea. Pass this along to your dev friends. [Via Joost van der Ree]

To be clear, by book-less I mean an absence of printed books, a completely digital library.

The unlikely visionary in San Antonio was Nelson Wolff, the top county official, who in Texas is known as the county judge.

“It all started with my reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs,” said Wolff, who is in his 70s and was taken with the speed of technology developed by the late co-founder of Apple Inc. as he introduced a succession of products.

So, within about a year, Wolff raised the radical idea of a no-books library in a poor part of San Antonio with limited Internet service, used available space in a county-owned building and had it operating by last September.

This is not the same as an internet cafe, a room filled with computers for general use. There actually is a library of eBooks for loan to library patrons.

“We’ve had a 100 percent return rate,” said Laura Jesse, Bexar County’s public information officer.

Downloaded e-books simply disappear from devices after two weeks, so there are no library late fees.

Heh. I wonder if they will add other media, such as newspapers, magazines, and music. That could be disruptive.

[Via CultOfMac]

Vulfpeck, a small-time funk band with a couple of retro-styled albums under its belt, recently released Sleepify, an album made up of nothing but silence. This isn’t a completely new concept: Anyone with a pompous theory streak will insist that it’s really the silence between the notes that matter—and congratulations if you’re already thinking of John Cage’s 4’33,” a composition performed by sitting there without playing.

OK, that’s cool. John Cage is a highly regarded artist and his 1953 composition 4’33” is a highly regarded work. In fact, there’s a fantastic exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art dedicated to the creation and performance of 4’33”. It runs until June 22nd.

But I digress.

Vulfpeck’s latest album is a business experiment, not a musical one. The idea behind the project is for fans to stream the “songs” constantly, generating royalties for the band in their spare time. Vulfpeck plans to use the proceeds to go on tour. It’s an ingenious publicity stunt and, if you squint hard enough, a commentary on the way music is valued in the digital age.

Um, what? Is this art or is it theft?

At first blush, I immediately went to the latter. But then I thought, what if this music was more traditional. What if Vulfpeck did the traditional thing and pushed their fans to listen to their music via Spotify to help fund their tour. Nothing wrong with that, right? So if the music is composed of silence, does that cross some line?

Interesting.

Take a look at the two videos embedded below. The first one is more of a commercial, showing different aspects of life with a Google watch. The second one is more detailed, a bit more of a mission statement.

The linked blog post lays out four keys to Google wearables:

• Useful information when you need it most. Android Wear shows you info and suggestions you need, right when you need them. The wide variety of Android applications means you’ll receive the latest posts and updates from your favorite social apps, chats from your preferred messaging apps, notifications from shopping, news and photography apps, and more.


• Straight answers to spoken questions. Just say “Ok Google” to ask questions, like how many calories are in an avocado, what time your flight leaves, and the score of the game. Or say “Ok Google” to get stuff done, like calling a taxi, sending a text, making a restaurant reservation or setting an alarm.


• The ability to better monitor your health and fitness. Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk.


• Your key to a multiscreen world. Android Wear lets you access and control other devices from your wrist. Just say “Ok Google” to fire up a music playlist on your phone, or cast your favorite movie to your TV. There’s a lot of possibilities here so we’re eager to see what developers build.

It’ll be interesting to see how these devices actually perform once they actually appear in the wild. Some questions:

How is the battery life? How do you recharge them? I assume the answers to these will vary by manufacturer.

Most importantly to me, do I have to have an Android phone in my pocket in order for a Google watch to work?

I assume the answer to this last question is yes. If so, where does this leave Samsung? Has the first giant splintering begun?

Before there were Apple Stores, before big box retailers like Best Buy, there were the mom and pop computer shops. It’s where you’d go to buy your first Apple computer, where you’d get supplies like floppy disks and perforated computer paper (one long sheet of paper, perfed into individual pages, sprocket feed holes on the side). More importantly, it’s where you’d go to get your questions answered, buy your software (or find shareware), and get your computer fixed.

The very first of these shops was FirstTech in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

When Apple first began selling its pioneering personal computers in the late 1970s, its first batch of machines went to Team Electronics in the Twin Cities.

Team Electronics eventually morphed into FirstTech, a Minneapolis tech dealer that has prided itself on being the world’s first Apple reseller — and being symbiotically associated with the Cupertino, Calif.-based personal-technology giant.

Soon, though, FirstTech will be no more.

The independent Uptown purveyor of Macintosh machines and Apple iOS mobile devices said Wednesday it is closing. Its last day is March 29. A going-out-of-business sale begins Thursday.

A sad, sad day.

Big, big fan of Seth MacFarlane. He is one talented individual.

Some favorite questions:

Q: How is it recording an extended scene with yourself, like the episode of family guy where Stewie and Brian get locked in a bank vault? Do you do it all at once? Is there anyone else around? Is it weird?
Seth: Often I’ll record one voice first, leaving pauses for the other character’s lines. I’ll then play back the first character in my headphones while voicing the second character, so it feels like I’m playing opposite another actor.

Q: If we were to discover evidence of alien life in the next 50 years which would you prefer it to be; intelligent life somewhere in our galaxy, or microbial life somewhere in our solar system?
Seth: I’d like to see intelligent life discovered here in Los Angeles. (slowly takes a sip of beverage while never breaking eye contact with you)

Q: What is the one MAIN thing you want viewers to take away from watching Cosmos?
Seth: Always think critically. The more incredible the claim, the more concrete the proof we should demand before accepting it. Oh, and let’s rebuild our space program.

Lots more. Follow the link and enjoy.

I’ve always been a voracious reader. When I was a kid, I spent a good amount of time reading every single Hardy Boys book I could get my hands on.

This piece on the true nature of Franklin W. Dixon, whose name was on the cover of every one of these books, was crushing. Not just because Mr. Dixon was a complete fiction, but because of the appalling treatment of the people who actually did write these books.

There have been moments, as an adult, when I’ve thought about rereading one of the books, perhaps The Tower Treasure, which was the very first one. But after reading the linked article, not so much.

As you’d expect, these are some great pictures. But the national winner, the first one on the page, just blows me away. It looks like a painting. Incredible capture.

From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and Google, many big Internet successes depend on coaxing people into sharing every last bit of information about themselves and their lives.

But a five-week old social app, Secret, is testing the limits of just how much sharing Silicon Valley thinks is a good thing. That’s because the sharing is done anonymously. And, as it turns out, much of the chatter is about Silicon Valley itself — offering a rare, unvarnished look at the ambitions, disappointments, rivalries, jealousies and obsessions of the engineers and entrepreneurs who live and work there.

Interesting writeup on the industry’s reaction to Secret. Personally, I feel like I need to wash my eyeballs after reading some of these posts. Anonymous posting brings out the worst in people. And maybe that’s why they found it so easy to raise $8.6 million.

Good luck with that.

Benjamin Mayo (from 9to5Mac): I am slightly obsessed with the anecdote about Jobs throwing a pen in your face. Is the story true?

Eddy Cue: No it’s not.

‘Nuff said.

No way to verify this (at least not yet) but take extra care if you find yourself heading over to the EA Games site.

The phishing site attempts to trick a victim into submitting his Apple ID and password. It then presents a second form which asks the victim to verify his full name, card number, expiration date, verification code, date of birth, phone number, mother’s maiden name, plus other details that would be useful to a fraudster. After submitting these details, the victim is redirected to the legitimate Apple ID website.

Seems like a pretty obvious phishing attempt, but people still fall for this or they wouldn’t keep doing it.

Ars Technica:

Screen protectors: don’t use ’em, don’t want ’em, don’t need ’em. I’ve been rocking a naked smartphone since 2007, and I don’t ever anticipate changing. And yet the screen protector PR pitch that landed in my inbox last week proved difficult to resist:

Subject: Preview the bulletproof iPhone? On March 18, Sir Lancelot’s Armor will announce the first reusable screen protectors for iPhones and iPads made of bulletproof glass….If interested in getting a sample to use or test, please let me know the model and color of your iPhone.

The only word I needed to hear was “bulletproof.”

I got the same PR email and thought, “Bull.” Glad to see testing proved me right.

Heart surgery is a big deal. Doctors frequently have to use a reciprocating saw to cut through your breastbone, often have to flip over your heart to get at the backside of it. Any tech that makes this unnecessary, or even a bit easier, is a real boon.

This camera is threaded to your heart via an artery and produces high resolution images in real time.

Though it’s roughly the size of a grain of uncooked quinoa, the images it produces are able to replace two people in the surgical theater. Prior to the invention of this speck-sized sensor, technicians would pore over lower-fidelity cross-sectional images and guide the surgeon verbally while she held the patient’s life in her hands. Degertekin likens his little invention to a flashlight that illuminates the obstructions in a blood vessel, giving doctors a direct look at what they’re up against.

This is a major leap.

Too many people focus on the short term wins in their life. This thoughtful piece, by Brian Fetherstonhaugh, CEO of one of the largest and most successful advertising agencies in the world, is valuable both as career advice and life guidance.

I think there’s incredible food for thought here, so very much worth the time to read.

I’m a long-time Strat fan and find this pretty amazing.

The sunburst-finish Strat bears the serial number 0100. Although some Strats have lower numbers that begin with 0001, Gruhn says they actually were manufactured later in that first year of production. He says the number-one Strat was sold to an amateur who evidently took good care of it.

Very interesting. I thought the earlier serial numbers were pre-production models. This is from the 0001 Strat Wikipedia entry:

The 0001 Strat is a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, with a white body, maple neck, three-way pick up selector and an unusual gold colour scratch plate and hardware. David Gilmour is the guitar’s current owner. He bought it from guitar technician Phil Taylor, who purchased it from Seymour Duncan. This guitar is one of the most notable in his collection as it has the 0001 serial number. Gilmour used the Guitar in the 2004 50th anniversary of the Stratocaster at Wembley Arena along with his Red Strat. It is not the first Fender Stratocaster ever made as prototypes had already been constructed before this one. The origin of the guitar is unknown, and isn’t clear whether it is the real 0001 Strat because the neck (which has the 0001 serial number on it) could have been taken off the original. The 0001 Strat, along with the Red Strat, was used in the 2004 Strat Pack show that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster.

I’d be very interested in knowing the true story here. Is a Strat with a serial number of, say #0019, a later model than the 0100 Strat? That hardly seems likely.

If someone is going to sell a Strat for $250K, there better be some damn well documented provenance.

UPDATE: Here’s a look at David Gilmour’s #0001 Strat (Hat tip to Pavan Rajam)

From Seeking Alpha (free reg-wall):

Google (GOOG) has announced ‘Android Wear’, a new extension of Android to power smart watches (it also realised some teaser renders of Motorola smart watches that are due for this summer). The Wear concept is that smart watches are remote touch displays for an Android smartphone. They will show the time, accept touch and voice input, display the Google Now feed and they will display all the notifications that apps on your phone produce.

Developers have options (which will be enhanced in future) to customise how the notifications their phone apps produce behave on the watch. But they don’t get native code at all – the developer isn’t running code on the watch, really. The device is really an extension of the phone’s Android OS itself, not an extension of your app.

In effect, the watch is a device for using Google Now and cards that apps on the phone send to it.

This is an interesting model. It means that a Google watch is a satellite device that locks you in to the Google ecosystem. Since the watch without the phone is just a wrist-watch, or less, if it does not have the built in smarts to do its watch and alarm thing without its master.

This is a chess move on Google’s part. If you’ve not had the chance, take a read of John Gruber’s ecosystem chess game post. I think he’s got it exactly right. This is an ecosystem chess match, locking in consumers to a particular ecosystem, making escape as difficult as possible.

If and when Apple comes out with an iWatch or other wearable, will it run iOS? Will it be a satellite device that is simply a tunable funnel for notifications?

There’s a lot at stake in this particular chess match.

This is truly gorgeous. A completely controllable, 360 degree, zooming view from atop the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere.

For years after the 9/11 attacks, nearly all the activity at Ground Zero was downward—digging through the piles of debris, excavating a vast pit to restore the ruined transit lines, preparing the foundations for the new buildings that would emerge there. Even the memorial that opened in 2011 was an exercise in the poetics of descent—two vast cubic voids, each with water cascading down all four sides, carrying grief to some underground resting place.

The memorial has turned out to be a lovely thing, but what the site still needed was something that climbed, something that spoke to the idea that emotional burdens might not only be lowered into the ground but also released into the air. Now we have it: One World Trade Center, the glass-and-steel exclamation point, all 1,776 feet of it, is nearing completion close to where the Twin Towers once stood. No doubt the new building’s official dedication will open the way to a necessary debate over its merits as architecture and urbanism, its turbulent design history and the compromises made over the long years it took to get the thing built. But in one important respect, One World Trade Center has already succeeded. It has reclaimed the sky. And this is the view from there.

Brilliant.

Well said, Mike. I feel exactly the same. I know I can turn these notifications off, but that’s an extra step I have to take and an annoyance.

One solution might be to add a bit of fine tuning to the Notification Center, a way to say, “I don’t want any notifications from apps that are purely to get me to come back, or marketing related.”

This is a nice app, I like it.