Interested in reading the actual transcript of Apple’s recent earnings call? You’ll need to sign up for a free account via Seeking Alpha (you’ll have to jump through some minor hoops, but it’s not too bad) to read the whole thing, but I found it quite interesting, indeed eye-opening, to read Tim Cook’s actual words, as opposed to the translations of a journalist or analyst.

UPDATE: Turns out Macworld also runs transcripts of Tim’s part of the call and not behind a reg-wall. Here’s a link. Thanks to Serenity Caldwell for the heads up.

Be forewarned, the pictures in the linked paper are not for the squeamish. But they are fascinating if you have any interest in the structure of the brain. I could not tear my eyes away from Figure 1, “Ventral surface of H.M.’s brain”.

The linked paper details a postmortem exam of a patient’s brain. Back in 1953, a patient, known as HM, suffered from epilepsy. His doctor’s performed brain surgery. Inexplicably, after the operation, HM suffered from an inability to store short term memories. He could learn new skills, but could not remember how or when he learned them. This was an important case, but back in 1953 there just was not enough knowledge of how the brain operated to draw any conclusions.

Fortunately, technology was advanced enough to freeze and slice the brain, saving it for later use. Over time, technology improved and the ability to take pictures of, and eventually digitize and 3D render those slices, came into being.

The linked paper is the result of the most modern of these efforts. Fantastic.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata had a pre-scheduled strategy briefing to announce the companies planned direction. As expected, Iwata stuck to his guns, saying that Nintendo would continue on its path to make console and hand-held consoles and games. He did address the issue of porting hits like Zelda and Super Mario to mobile devices.

But Iwata was resolute that Nintendo would not take Mario mobile, just a day after Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd declared its mobile ambitions with a deal to buy Google Inc’s Motorola handset division for $2.9 billion.

He said mobile devices had a role as marketing tools to help potential customers “understand the wonder of Nintendo games,” although those games would still need to be played on Nintendo consoles.

The way I read this, that last bit seems to support the rumor (reported Tuesday) that Nintendo characters might appear on iOS and Android in some marketing form, perhaps as a mini-game or advertisement.

Iwata also teased a new personal health strategy.

The CEO was vague about the details of the new health business, hinting that the device or service could be used “beyond the living room” unlike the sports and fitness games available for its Wii and Wii U consoles.

“I’m sure you’re thinking of Wii Fit, but this is not like anything we have made before,” Iwata told a briefing of analysts and reporters.

“Looking after your health requires effort and many people quit quite soon after starting something. But we, as an entertainment company, can help people get over the difficulty of continuing their efforts in a fun way.”

Nintendo will continue down the path of more tightly binding the 3DS and Wii-U. Currently, the Wii-U has its own game pad. Not clear if that means merging the game pad and 3DS architectures.

He also said there would be a merging of handheld and home game console software architecture, suggesting that users would be able to download and play the same game across platforms in the future.

Iwata and his Board also announced that they would take a pay cut. I love this move. It signifies solidarity. I hate the idea of a CEO or President getting a big bonus while their companies languish.

Iwata announced on Wednesday that he would take a 50 percent pay cut for the next five months, while other board members would reduce their salaries by 20 percent, after admitting the company had failed to convince customers of the merits of its Wii U console.

Flag allows anyone (within the US to start) to print and mail a pack of 20 photos each month for free. You can keep the prints yourself, or send them to the people you love. If you want more than 20 a month you can buy as many as you need.

To make photo printing fun – for the first time by our reckoning – we’ve designed a photo finishing system ready for the 21st century. Museum quality (Giclée) printers, German 220 gram photo paper from sustainable sources, laser cutters, and robots with carbon fiber arms will allow Flag to deliver prints, for free, that are better than any you can pay for today. We want to turn your memories into mementos you can be proud of.

Our secret to making photo printing free? An advertisement on the back of each print. It will always be tasteful, and we are steadfast in our commitment to never sell or share your personal information with advertisers.

This is something I would use. I’m okay with an ad on the back of the photos. Samuel Agboola really came up with something interesting here.

You can sign-up for the MacTech BootCamp III, MacTech Conferences and Microsoft Office for Mac Accreditation programs right now. There is a special savings on the page for readers of The Loop.

TechCrunch has confirmed reports that Lenovo is buying Motorola Mobility from Google. This is the division within Google that the company purchased in 2011 for $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility will go to Lenovo for $2.91 billion.

First Google Reader, now this. Seriously, Google got what they wanted out of Motorola—the patents.

Fast Company:

The era of the pre-game Super Bowl strategy kicked off in earnest in 2011, when Volkswagen pre-released its excellent spot “The Force” before Super Sunday. The monster success of that spot spurred others to follow suit and this year the trend continued unabated, with teasers and entire bespoke ads created to stoke buzz before game day.

Here, all the spots (and accompanying content) released so far.

Some fun ads here but I gotta say, the Lawrence Fishburne ad for Kia was the most disappointing, the “Doberhuahua” the funniest and the Newcastle “The Teaser For The Trailer For Newcastle’s Mega Huge Football Game Ad” the most clever. Thanks to reader David Mark for the link.

A well reasoned article from Brian Rinaldi.

Medium:

I had a rare Twitter username, @N. Yep, just one letter. I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it. People have tried to steal it. Password reset instructions are a regular sight in my email inbox. As of today, I no longer control @N. I was extorted into giving it up.

The article includes several good suggestions on how to protect yourself online. But the biggest thing that needs to happen is companies who need our sensitive information need to be more vigilant about keeping that information safe.

extractCSS is an online tool which can extract ids, classes and inline styles from HTML document and output them as CSS stylesheet. All you have to do is to type or paste your HTML document and let extractCSS to do the rest for you!

ESPN:

If our children or our children’s children ever dig up a time capsule from the beginning of the new millennium, they will find that in February 2004, America collectively lost its damn mind.

For better or worse, America can be a remarkably puritanical society.

This is just incredible. When I first looked at the pictures, I thought he just did the outside of the plane, but no. He also has a YouTube Channel.

I’m a big fan of Stephen Fry. Love his acting, his writing, his intellect, the whole package.

Fry’s writeup on 30 years of Mac is so worth a read. But the best part is his telling of the missed connection between Steve Jobs and Tim Berners-Lee. It’s about halfway through the post. Don’t want to spoil this. Just go read it.

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.