Such a great article by Dan Hon at Wired.

I wish I understood how these sorts of mosaics are created. This must start life as a photo, no? Amazing work.

Tim Cook’s Q&A with the Chinese media and the Wall Street Journal is an interesting read. My favorite quote is this one:

When you really back up and look at what’s happening in China the usage numbers are staggering. Fifty-seven percent of the mobile browsing in China is done on iOS devices. Now there are many different views of unit market share and you can choose to look at whichever one you think is most reputable, but for us that is not our North Star, we don’t get up in the morning saying we want to sell the most, we get up saying we want to make and create the best, and so that’s our strategy and it doesn’t change.

To me, that has always been Apple’s strength, a focus on making the best possible product, one that changes people’s lives.

Umoove Experience: The 3D Face & Eye Tracking Flying Game starts off by registering your eye and head position, then lets you use very subtle movements to fly around a virtual world.

I downloaded the game, took it for a spin. I suspect there’s a bit of a learning curve here as I spent more time crashing into the ground or moving randomly than I did going where I wanted. But I definitely get the concept.

I love the fact that this tech is completely software driven. It’ll be interesting to see where it heads next. The company released an API in closed beta back in March, 2013, so third party developers can add the technology to their own apps.

Interesting list.

In this interactive storybook app for kids, step into a dog’s world and experience the arrival of a family’s first baby from a lovable canine’s perspective.

As a father and a dog lover, I love this.

I bet this will get a lot of use.

After switching back to iOS from Windows phone, Eric Shupps praises and chastises Apple and Microsoft for things they did right and wrong with their respective hardware and software.

John Siracusa:

Geekdom is not a club; it’s a destination, open to anyone who wants to put in the time and effort to travel there. And if someone lacks the opportunity to get there, we geeks should help in any way we can. Take a new friend to a meetup or convention. Donate your old games, movies, comics, and toys. Be welcoming. Sharing your enthusiasm is part of being a geek.

As the big dog of desktop publishing in the ’80s and ’90s, QuarkXPress was synonymous with professional publishing. In fact, it was publishing. But its hurried and steady decline is one of the greatest business failures in modern tech.

I don’t know I’ve seen so many professionals that relied on an application, hate the app and company as much as Quark.

Today I Found Out:

Before a story about toys, before monsters went corporate, before anyone went searching for Nemo, and before twenty seven Academy Awards, Pixar was a high-end computer hardware company whose clients included the government and the medical community.

Many think Pixar sprung fully formed from the genius of Steve Jobs. This story does a good job of showing the history of the company long before Jobs was ever involved.

Great conversational tone in this interview.

Tony Fadell:

This decision wasn’t made on a whim – Google has been in the mix in some way or another for about three years of our almost four-year history. In fact, my first meeting with Google as a Nester was before we’d launched. At the 2011 TED Conference, Erik Charlton and I huddled in a corner with Sergey Brin to show him a video and an early model of the Nest Learning Thermostat – he instantly got what we were doing and so did the rest of the Google team when we showed them. In May 2011, Google Ventures led our Series B round of financing, and in 2012, Series C. Time and time again, Googlers have shown themselves to be incredibly like-minded, supportive and as big of dreamers as we are. I know that joining Google will be an easy transition because we’re partnering with a company that gets what we do and who we are at Nest –and wants us to stay that way.

Best of luck. Continue making great products, you’ll be successful.

Great tip. I knew that tapping the power button on an incoming call silenced the ringer. I did NOT know that a double-tap sent the call directly to voicemail. And one more: tap the power button to lock the screen. Nice.

Washington Post:

Consider this, then, a collection of maps meant to inspire your inner map nerd. I’ve searched far and wide for maps that can reveal and surprise and inform in ways that the daily headlines might not, with a careful eye for sourcing and detail.

Maps have always fascinated me and the ones pictured here cover the span from “Cool!” to “Oh, that’s not good.”

TIME:

A gigantic percentage of what makes the trek to Vegas worthwhile for those 150,000 participants is what I think of as Shadow CES — the show beyond the show, largely carried on behind closed doors.

The average encounter at Shadow CES is probably more interesting than the average CES one, for several reasons.

I’d venture to say more deals are made and more meaningful work is done at “Shadow CES” than on the actual show floor of CES.

Quartz:

Given that CES has become the preferred exhibition venue for a burgeoning category of advanced home technologies, why is there such a total absence of disruptive toilet innovation at the show?

I want my Internet of Things Toilet!

Ah fuck!

ESPN:

Seismologists say Seahawks fans shook the ground under Seattle’s CenturyLink Field during Saturday’s defeat of the New Orleans Saints, causing another fan-generated earthquake.

The scientists believe the small earthquake during a Marshawn Lynch touchdown was likely greater than Lynch’s famous “beast quake” touchdown run three years ago, which also came against New Orleans during a playoff game.

I went to a couple of Seahawks games in the late nineties in the old Kingdome and even though the team sucked, the fans loved to make noise.

Fast Company:

Samsung’s program known as “White Glove.” It’s a marketing effort designed to convert Apple-slinging celebrities and business influencers into Samsung evangelists. When Beyoncé whips out her phone on the street in Brooklyn, Korea’s largest business conglomerate wants the paparazzi to see that she’s playing Words With Friends on a Samsung.

The White Glove program is a cross between the social marketing of Tupperware parties (minus the pressure to buy something), the house calls of Mormon missionaries (minus the pressure to give up smoking), and the persistence of Green Eggs and Ham–but for gadgets.

It may seem like a lot of time, energy and money on Samsung’s part but, for better or worse, celebrities are “influencers”. And before you knock the program, keep in mind this is something else Apple has done that Samsung has copied. Apple’s program in the Nineties was called “Apple Masters“.

Quartz:

My wife and I had 12 children over the course of 15 1/2 years. Today, our oldest is 37 and our youngest is 22. I have always had a very prosperous job and enough money to give my kids almost anything. But my wife and I decided not to.

I will share with you the things that we did, but first let me tell you the results: All 12 of my children have college degrees (or are in school), and we as parents did not pay for it.

Congratulations to the Thompson family. Maybe not a blueprint for everyone but there are some good ideas in the article for new parents.

This is a big deal.

> In a decision that could reshape the rules for online consumer reviews, a Virginia court has ruled that the popular website Yelp must turn over the names of seven reviewers who anonymously criticized a prominent local carpet cleaning business. Experience top-notch carpet cleaning Dublin services with Eco Clean Solutions.

> The case revolves around negative feedback against Virginia-based Hadeed Carpet Cleaning. The owner, Joe Hadeed, said the users leaving bad reviews were not real customers of the cleaning service — something that would violate Yelp’s terms of service. His attorneys issued a subpoena demanding the names of seven anonymous reviewers, and a judge in Alexandria ruled that Yelp had to comply.

Should a person have the right to post an anonymous review critical of a business? Does the business have the right to the identity of that reviewer?

The court decided that a person has the right to post a negative review, if that is their opinion. But the business has the right to verify that the reviewer was indeed a customer. If not, then this is no longer opinion, but a false claim, and the reviewer’s comments are not protected by the First Amendment.

This is an important precedent.

In addition to posting its new TV ad last night, Apple also detailed on its Web site the stories shown in the ad.

Much respect beard.

I recorded a podcast last week with Charles Perry and Joe Cieplinski talking about The Loop Magazine and Newsstand.

Integrate iBeacon support in your iOS app or enterprise solution today. Twocanoes Software is now shipping Bleu Station beacons with full iBeacon support. Bleu Station beacons are a simple and secure way to add iBeacon support to your app or solution. Check out Bleu Station, the Bleu Starter Kit, sample code and white papers at Bleu Station from Twocanoes.

Bleu Station beacons are powered with a standard USB connection for maximum flexibility in deployment without requiring ongoing battery replacement.Bleu Stations can be securely configured during deployment and plugged into any standard USB port.

Bleu Stations are shipping today. Twocanoes offers hardware, software and integration support to quickly make iBeacons an integral part of your apps and solutions. Learn more at Bleu Station from Twocanoes.