Very smart. A place for Siri in your home so anyone can make use of the service.

In operation, a user would perform an initial setup that would include assigning an audio prompt, such as a spoken word or hand clap, that will be used to activate the unit and its services. For example, a user may want to set the prompt as a finger snap. When in listening mode, if the dock “hears” a finger snap, it will activate the iPhone’s voice recognition feature.

This opens up a lot of possibilities. Since Siri is constantly monitoring the airwaves, listening for a “go” command, why not let Siri settle arguments?

“I never said that.”
“Yes you did.”
Voice from the living room says, “Sorry, Dave, but you did say that, at 749 am this morning”
“Damn.”

A problem that occurs in small island nations:

There are only about 320,000 people living in Iceland. A small island nation, it’s also isolated from the rest of the world, so you don’t have a lot of immigration, historically, and therefore, you don’t have a lot of genetic diversity. In some sense, the vast majority of Iceland’s population are branches from the same family tree. So In 1997, a medical genetics research company called deCODE teamed up with the makers of computer anti-virus software to map it out. Using data from virtually every available source, the company now claims to have “genealogical information about the inhabitants of Iceland, dating more than 1,200 years back.”

If you have an Icelandic ID number (called a “kennitala”), you can log onto the Islendingabok (literally, “the Book of Icelanders”) and look up your genealogy. It’s a great tool if you’re single and want to avoid likely embarrassment before taking the relationship to the next level. As one Icelander told USA Today, “everyone has heard the story of going to a family event and running into a girl you hooked up with some time ago. It’s not a good feeling when you realize that girls is a second cousin.” Check the database, though, and you can avoid that.

This is interesting, certainly. But more importantly, as far as I can tell there’s no iOS app that mines this data, only an Android solution. So get cracking, iOS devs, Iceland needs you.

When you are in a face-to-face conversation, the person on the other side is constantly reading and interpreting your facial expressions, looking for feedback. If you offer a puzzled look, they might rephrase their words, without you having to ask.

Ever since Darwin, scientists have systematically analyzed facial expressions, finding that many of them are universal. Humans are remarkably consistent in the way their noses wrinkle, say, or their eyebrows move as they experience certain emotions. People can be trained to note tiny changes in facial muscles, learning to distinguish common expressions by studying photographs and video. Now computers can be programmed to make those distinctions, too.

Pretty interesting stuff. This seems like a natural evolution to existing facial recognition algorithms. Seems to me, the first company that comes up with a consistent solution to this problem will be ripe for acquisition.

There are privacy concerns, of course. Reading facial expressions is clearly a form of surveillance. And constantly reading my expression feels awfully close to reading my mind. Lots of unwanted thoughts flit across my face. But if it’s just me and my computer, I think I’m OK with that.

Wall Street Journal:

China Mobile Ltd. has signed a long-awaited deal with Apple Inc. to offer iPhones on its network, a person familiar with the situation said, an arrangement that would give the U.S. technology giant a big boost in the world’s largest mobile market.

Take this with a tiny grain of salt because of the “a person familiar with the situation said” line but we’ve been expecting this deal for several months.

Mashables:

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences on Tuesday revealed the new inductees into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The 27 recordings inducted bring the total in the hall to 960, including albums and singles that span from Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind” (1930) to Run-D.M.C.’s cover of “Walk this Way” (1986).

Like most lists of “Best of…” this one is likely to cause at least a little controversy. Which of these songs do you think don’t belong in the Grammy Hall of Fame?

A global ad campaign to promote Samsung devices, involving soccer stars and an alien invasion story, instead revealed that the fantasy campaign’s star manager Franz Beckenbauer tweets from his iPhone, not a Galaxy device.

Perfect.

Although the term is still whispered in cobweb-infested hallways to this day, it pretty much fell out of public favor once people realized you could affect “the fold” by simply turning your space phone sideways.

I chuckled when I read that, mostly because I spent years dealing with it. I’m glad that’s gone, but there are new ones to replace it.

I love reading Hemingway’s letters.

It’s $49,999, but I want it badly. I’ve heard great things about The Music Zoo—I’m going to buy a guitar there someday.

Why do people uninstall apps? Appiterate conducted a survey and discovered one reason stands above the rest: annoying push notifications.

I get that.

Jim and Dan talk about Apple’s stock movement, Apple acquisitions, the Beard Calendar, Amazon’s Drones, Slash’s pickups, and more.

For the new PlayStation 3 racing game Gran Turismo 6, the Mercedes-Benz designers have developed the visionary concept of a super sports car – the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo.

Imagine driving that in real life.

Read this XKCD cartoon, then change your weak passwords, then read the linked article.

I really enjoyed Ben Moss’ take on this.

Depending on how you feel about the Free Software Foundation and about its founder, Richard Stallman, you’ll either find this license funny or infuriating. I definitely found it interesting.

EXCEPTIONS: Richard M Stallman (the guy behind GNU, etc.) may not make use of or redistribute this program or any of its derivatives.

Nice use of iBeacon tech. Walk into the Bar Kick pub in Shoreditch, London and the soccer magazine When Saturday Comes and the fashion and culture magazine Dazed & Confused will be available automatically, for free via Newsstand, as long as you are within range of the pub’s iBeacon.

The publisher is Exact Editions.

Terrific idea. I think this has legs. The key is discoverability.

Spotify prefers to break down payouts in terms of monthly activity. In July, a “niche indie album” garnered $3,300, whereas a “global hit album” awarded the unnamed artist $425,000. Based on the company’s projections, these numbers will increase exponentially as the subscriber base grows.

I have to admit, this is pretty good. I’ve been vocal about subscription services and making sure artists get paid, so these numbers are interesting. One question I do have—for Spotify or the artists—why is there such a difference between these numbers and the reported “$10 for a million plays” type of stories that were making the rounds.

I wasn’t going to watch the video, but I’m glad I did. All of the teddy bears are donated to local charities.

Mobile Miniatures, as the Spektral Quartet has dubbed its ear-tickling project, is part of its mission to provide living composers with new platforms for their music to be performed and heard.

Love it.

Very interesting article. Abdel Ibrahim has been updating it with recent fluctuations.

Bloomberg:

Icelandic police shot dead a man who refused to stop firing at them with a shotgun in the capital of Reykjavik earlier today — and then they apologized. It was the first time that anyone in the country was killed by police gunfire.

“The police regret this incident and wishes to extend its condolences to the man’s family,” said national police chief Haraldur Johannessen.

Details of the event have yet to emerge, but this much is clear: Iceland is a weird place.

Sad that you have to describe such a peaceful country as “weird”.

All profits from this issue of Five out of Ten are in aid of SpecialEffect, a charity that works to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

A great cause and an interesting magazine from Alan Williamson.

Not only that, according to the original report, the customer noticed that it was a demo unit after inspecting the sticker on the bottom, but instead of simply returning it to Target, she decided to call a local news agency. You know, for justice.

Sweet Fuck, people are stupid.

PDF Expert 5 is a must-have app for anyone who reads, annotates or edits PDF documents on the iPad. It allows you to markup documents with highlights and handwriting, insert text and stamps, sign and even merge PDFs. Moreover, PDF Expert is the best choice for filling out PDF forms right on your iPad.

Looks like a great app.

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Brent Simmons:

I don’t know how I could tell Amazon’s harmless, happy-day drones from Google’s real-time people-watchers — or those of the police or the NSA. It’s best to shoot them all down.

I laughed out loud when I read that. Seriously, how are they going to stop people from shooting them down. It’s got to be a problem, right?

Poynter:

When Planet Money embarked on a massive reporting project tracking the making of a simple T-shirt — from the cotton fields of Mississippi to Bangladeshi garment factories to shipping containers crossing oceans — an interactive, documentary-style presentation seemed like the obvious end result.

The NPR story is interesting in its “interactive documentary” style but this “story behind the story” is just as interesting.

BTW, the NPR story looks great on an iPad.