Reading this review will take you a while. There’s a lot of detail, but that’s only a good thing.

While many people, mostly of the troll variety, will be running around the Web screaming “so expensive!” the new Mac Pro is anything but when considering what’s in the package. I joked on Twitter that Apple’s Mac Pro deal is this: “buy two discounted FirePro W9000 cards and get a workstation for free,” and that’s not an exaggeration. The AMD FirePro W9000 retails on Newegg for $3400, $600 under MSRP. Apple’s FirePro D700 is similar to this card, and the company ships two of them in the machine for $600 more than the D500 that comes stock with the 6-core configuration.

If you are at all considering the Mac Pro, go ahead and read the whole review.

This post is a bit more than a year old, but I just came across it this morning. Paul Graham uses a variety of threads to explore the concept of what makes a good startup.

The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way.

Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.

A thoughtful read that rings true for me.

I like the idea of Sony’s “mostly lens” camera system. The QX10 and QX100 are lenses that contain all the smarts and communicate with your smart phone via WiFi. 3.6x optical zoom, 5472 x 3648 image size, and Carl Zeiss f/1.8 lens. But the available mounting bracket is limited to 75mm, big enough for a smart phone but not big enough for a tablet.

This new SPA-TA1 tablet attachment will solve that problem, catering for devices between 85mm and 190mm in width. Six arms are available in various sizes (see below) weighing 31 grams. The Sony SPA-TA1 tablet attachment will launch on 4 April 2014 in Japan at a suggested retail price of 3,675 Yen (£21, €26, $36). We would hope to see a western launch of this useful attachment soon after.

Hmmm. Shooting with a lens mounted on my tablet sounds a little clumsy to me. Looking forward to seeing the reviews.

USA Today:

Johansson is the face of SodaStream’s newest commercial, which the company’s CEO says is too risqué for Fox. The television network isn’t banning the commercial because of any sexual innuendo or objectionable content. Rather, because of a parting shot to Coke and Pepsi.

Lame. Not the controversy. The commercial itself.

Huffington Post:

It’s not easy coming back home to America when your name is Ahmed.

I want to look forward to returning home from a trip abroad, but thanks to my name or as the TSA officer put it — my “profile” — I’ve come to dread it.

“Security Theater” at its finest.

Being a dog lover, I had to post this. These companies put poison in the dog food and they are some of the most well-known brands in the world.

Jim and Dan talk about profiling amps, Fender guitars, Apple’s first quarter results, Samsung and patent settlements, Bitcoin, and 30 years of Mac.

Sponsored by lynda.com (visit lynda.com/quit to try it free for 7 days), Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME114 for 25% off), Squarespace (use code DANSENTME1 for 10% off), and Hover (brand new customers use code IGLOO for 10% off your first purchase).

The Kemper Profiler enables you to do what generations of guitar players have been waiting for: to capture the soul of all your amps (and so many more) inside a lunchbox-sized amplifier.

So, how does it work? We use cutting edge technology to capture the sonic DNA of virtually any guitar amp. The resulting profiles are as living, vivid and dynamic as the original amps.

I’ve been watching this company for the last few years and I’m quite impressed. I haven’t tried one outside of NAMM, but everything I’ve read about the amp has been very positive.

A report by Japanese newspaper The Nikkei has been making waves this morning, claiming that Nintendo plans a marketing effort that will bring ads and mini-games featuring its franchise characters to smart phones.

This is from the linked post by Japanese mobile and social gaming consultant Dr. Serkan Toto:

Japanese newspaper The Nikkei just reported on its website (2am Tuesday JST) that Nintendo is finally going mobile within this year.

According to the country’s biggest business publication, Nintendo will make such an announcement this Thursday, the day it holds a briefing for investors.

But Nintendo will not simply put Mario, Pokemon or other games on smartphones. According to the report, Nintendo plans to use Android and/or iOS devices (not confirmed at this point) to market its console games.

To be more concrete, The Nikkei writes that Nintendo wants to use smartphones to expand its potential user base by spreading information about new game releases, i.e. by using video to introduce future titles. (This will probably happen through some kind of official Nintendo app.)

In addition, Nintendo is said to be planning to put so-called “mini games” on smartphones, playable demos of console games – content that can only be purchased in full on Nintendo hardware. The reasoning here is to give smartphone-only players a taste of the experience without making the actual game available on non-Nintendo devices and convert these users into Nintendo customers.

According to The Nikkei, this content will be entirely free, and Nintendo is not planning to offer paid or freemium games on smartphones at the moment.

To make it clear again: this information is not coming from Nintendo itself. Expect further details during the company’s briefing on Thursday.

I think, if true, this is a brilliant move on Nintendo’s part.

UPDATE: according to this report from Engadget, Nintendo is denying this rumor.

“Nikkei’s article contains information previously stated by Mr Iwata during past press conferences, including statements which relate to Nintendo’s willingness to make use of smart devices to promote our products.

However during such past announcements Mr Iwata has also stated that Nintendo’s intention is not to make Nintendo software available on smart devices and as such, we can confirm that there are no plans to offer minigames on smartphone devices. “

For more than 50 years, Mr. Seeger roamed America, singing on street corners and in saloons, migrant labor camps, hobo jungles, union halls, schools, churches and concert auditoriums. He helped write, arrange or revive such perennial favorites as “If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” and popularized the anthem of the civil rights movement, “We Shall Overcome.”

Tall and reed-thin, Mr. Seeger was a recognizable figure for generations of listeners. And with dozens of top-selling records and albums, he became one of the most enduring and best-loved folk singers of his generation. He also was one of the few remaining links to two of the 20th century’s early giants of American folk music: Huddie Ledbetter, the black ex-convict from Texas and Louisiana better known as Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie, the minstrel songwriter from Oklahoma.

Tough, tough news. He was a giant.

Interesting article on the emergence of Massive MIMO, the next stage in wireless communications.

MIMO, or “multiple-input, multiple-output,” is a wireless networking technique aimed at transferring data more efficiently by having several antennas work together to exploit a natural phenomenon that occurs when signals are reflected en route to a receiver. The phenomenon, known as multipath, can cause interference, but MIMO alters the timing of data transmissions in order to increase throughput using the reflected signals.

MIMO is already used for 4G LTE and in the latest version of Wi-Fi, called 802.11ac; but it typically involves only a handful of transmitting and receiving antennas. Massive MIMO extends this approach by using scores or even hundreds of antennas. It increases capacity further by effectively focusing signals on individual users, allowing numerous signals to be sent over the same frequency at once. Indeed, an earlier version of Argos, with 64 antennas, demonstrated that network capacity could be boosted by more than a factor of 10.

The ability to project a large holographic image has been around for a while now, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard it being used by a high ranking politician or head of state. Pretty cool.

The Company sold 51 million iPhones, an all-time quarterly record, compared to 47.8 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 26 million iPads during the quarter, also an all-time quarterly record, compared to 22.9 million in the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.8 million Macs, compared to 4.1 million in the year-ago quarter.

Holy shit, what a quarter.

Scouting NY:

On March 29, 1971, The Godfather, considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made, began principal photography in New York City.

Because the film is a period piece, The Godfather actually presents a fascinating record of what 1940s-era New York City locations still existed in the early-1970s. Sadly, many of them are now gone. What still remains? Let’s take a closer look.

I’m a complete junkie for these kinds of “before and after” stories. I use to date a woman from Greenwich Village and whenever we’d watch TV shows set in New York, I was constantly stopping the show to ask her, “Is that real? Do you know where that location is? Have you been there?” Drove her nuts.

Wall Street Journal:

All you need to know about multibillionaire Carl Icahn is how he describes himself on his Twitter page: “Some people get rich studying artificial intelligence. Me, I make my money studying natural stupidity.”He has purchased billions worth of Apple and eBay stock. But he’s not making a bet on these companies; he’s making a bet he can get these companies to do what he says. Recently, his attention shifted toward the booming online gaming industry after he reviewed a detailed list of social casinos, seeing potential to leverage these platforms and encourage these corporations to explore new, profitable digital avenues.He is smarter than the people who run them, you see, even though he has never produced much more than harassment and misery for most of his life.

Icahn’s moves are very obvious and easy to predict and understand.

Bloomberg:

MillerCoors…(will)…unveil the beer, Miller Fortune, over the next two months. The brew, with a more malty, complex flavor hinting at bourbon.

Developed with guys aged 21 to 27 in mind, the flavor is moderately bitter with hints of sweetness.

Just like guys that age.

Here’s an idea, MillerCoors. Instead of asking, “How would Jack Daniels or Maker’s Mark do a beer?”, why not make the beer you already make simply taste better?

Wynken de Worde:

For months now I’ve been stewing about how much I hate @HistoryInPics and their ilk (@HistoryInPix, @HistoricalPics, @History_Pics, etc.) – twitter streams that do nothing more than post “old” pictures and little tidbits of captions for them. And when I say “nothing more” that’s precisely what I mean. What they don’t post includes attribution to the photographer or to the institution hosting the digital image. There’s no way to easily learn more about the image (you can, of course, do an image search through TinEye or Google Image Search and try to track it down that way).

Alexis Madrigal recently wrote a piece for The Atlantic revealing that @HistoryInPics is run by a couple of teenagers who are savvy at generating viral social media accounts to bring in money.

In the pas few months, dozens of these Twitter accounts have popped up, all RT’ing each other for money.

If you run Windows on your Mac with Boot Camp, check out Winclone and Boot Runner. Winclone is an easy and reliable way to make an image of your Boot Camp partition so that you can quickly restore, migrate, and mass deploy Windows in Boot Camp. Boot Runner provides a powerful way for both users and administrators to switch between OS X and Windows on dual boot Macs.

When you get a new Mac or have issues with your Windows installation in Boot Camp, reinstalling Windows is time consuming and difficult. Winclone makes it easy to make a complete clone of the Boot Camp partition, and restore it back to the exact same state on your existing or new Mac. Winclone supports migration of Boot Camp partitions over the network, moving your Boot Camp partition to an external drive and making it bootable, and much more. It also works great for mass deployment so deploying Boot Camp is as easy as deploying a package to a group of Macs.

If you manage lots of dual boot Macs, Boot Runner provides a great way to manage the OS selection. People can decide which OS to use by selecting OS X or Windows prior to logging in. Network administrators can fully customize and manage the selection screen, and can even remotely select the OS through network policy. Boot Runner also includes a scheduling feature to make sure that the Mac is booted into Windows during your maintenance window. Check out the intro video to learn more.

Winclone and Boot Runner are available for purchase and download today at twocanoes.com and have full phone, email and forum support options.

Get to the hotel, go directly to your room, unlock the door with your iPhone. Love it!

Up until now, a 3D print run was based on a single material of a single color. You could print different parts in different colors for later assembly, but the Stratasys Object500 Connex3 printer makes it possible to use multiple materials in a single run.

Anyone who has watched the inkjet printer emerge and evolve could have seen this coming, but this is an important step nonetheless.

This is written with the US postal system in mind, but I suspect most of the techniques will work just about anywhere. Likely, I’ll still buy my stamps from the post office, same as always. But I did enjoy the read.

This is worth reading even if you don’t have a specific problem you are trying to solve.

Marco Arment was the lead developer on Tumblr, then left to found Instapaper.

Follow the link for Marco’s take on long form publishing.

Skimming fluffy articles and social timelines all day is like eating junk food all day. Eventually, you feel horrible, burn out, and just want something real. After decades of evolution, experimentation, and testing, web producers have honed the formula for addictive junk content to perfection. We have infinite junk available to us on demand, on any subject, from small rectangles available in our pockets, all day, every day.

This prop is from one of my favorite movie scenes of all time, the opening of Jurassic Park. As of this post, 153 people have bid (on eBay) and the current price is $99,900.10.

Shoot her, shooooot her!

I have always been a little paranoid about my computer’s web cam and microphone. Here’s yet another reason why.

A user visits a site, that uses speech recognition to offer some cool new functionality. The site asks the user for permission to use his mic, the user accepts, and can now control the site with his voice. Chrome shows a clear indication in the browser that speech recognition is on, and once the user turns it off, or leaves that site, Chrome stops listening. So far, so good.

But what if that site is run by someone with malicious intentions?

Most sites using Speech Recognition, choose to use secure HTTPS connections. This doesn’t mean the site is safe, just that the owner bought a $5 security certificate. When you grant an HTTPS site permission to use your mic, Chrome will remember your choice, and allow the site to start listening in the future, without asking for permission again. This is perfectly fine, as long as Chrome gives you clear indication that you are being listened to, and that the site can’t start listening to you in background windows that are hidden to you.

When you click the button to start or stop the speech recognition on the site, what you won’t notice is that the site may have also opened another hidden popunder window. This window can wait until the main site is closed, and then start listening in without asking for permission. This can be done in a window that you never saw, never interacted with, and probably didn’t even know was there.

To make matters worse, even if you do notice that window (which can be disguised as a common banner), Chrome does not show any visual indication that Speech Recognition is turned on in such windows – only in regular Chrome tabs.

This is scary. Watch the video for a demo.