Fraser Speirs offers a voice of reason about kids supposedly “hacking” their iPads in Los Angeles.

Sonoma Wire Works is holding its annual RiffRumble competition and are giving away thousands of dollars in prizes. This time the RiffRumble theme is Metal and I will be judging the top five songs, after public voting has been completed.

Big days of change are clearly ahead for Microsoft. The Board of Directors has some big decisions to make as the largest activist investors are applying pressure to see their particular agenda enacted.

The main issue is that Ballmer himself is leaving Microsoft in the next 12 months — he offered a tearful goodbye to employees at last week’s annual companywide meeting — and finding a new CEO to execute such a dramatic shift in the company’s strategy while maintaining its existing 16 billion-dollar businesses will be no easy task.

That task has been made substantially more difficult in recent days by activist investors — reports surfaced last week that a group made up of “three of the top 20 investors” was pushing for Ford CEO Alan Mulally to take over the top spot, and yesterday news leaked that Microsoft’s board was seriously considering him. At the same time, “three of the top 20 investors” were also credited yesterday with pushing to remove Bill Gates from the Microsoft board, which he currently chairs. That would include his removal from the CEO search committee, which is presumably moving forward on the Mulally recommendation at the same time. None of that feels particularly suited to a smooth transition.

Every time I hear someone complaining about Apple’s lack of innovation or pending doom or the crime of having too much cash, I just think about Microsoft, Dell, and Blackberry and thank heavens for Tim Cook and the rest of the team.

Apple added a setting for iOS 7 to display short names (Lynn) or full names (Lynn Fullerton) at the top of your Messages window. This change to a short name default can be an issue, especially if you’ve got more than one Lynn in your life. Good tip.

Seems like something in iOS 7 is stripping the filters that schools set up to prevent students from accessing adult content.

“Apple did not realize that installing iOS 7 would remove our (and thousands of organizations across the country) safety protection measure, which now makes the iPad devices unfiltered when accessing the Internet away from school,” said a memo from the Manitou Springs (Colo.) School District 14 to parents, verified by AllThingsD. “In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled.”

And Manitou Springs School District 14 is not an isolated case. According to Apple’s support forums and some external IT discussion boards, schools across the United States are grappling with the issue, which is causing a lot of angst and frustration for administrators.

Hopefully, Apple can get this fixed quickly, before it injures their reputation with schools.

Personally, I trust Mercedes more than Google.

Great quote. I actually stopped and thought about this one for a few minutes.

I love this. Expensive, but you pay for great design.

Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug uncover just how bad companies are cheating in benchmark tests. Personally, I’m shocked that such reputable companies would do this. What’s next, are they going to rip off Apple’s UI?

The New York Times:

I visited Steven A. Witherly, a food scientist who wrote an insider’s guide, “Why Humans Like Junk Food,” and we raided his lab to taste and experiment our way through the psychobiology of what makes Nacho Cheese Doritos so alluring.

Anyone else love these things but feel dirty inside after scarfing down a bag?

Lodsys decided over the weekend to dismiss its case against Kaspersky with prejudice. Instead of facing a jury, Lodsys will slink away instead. It was an unconditional surrender.

Good.

Isn’t this like admitting you’ve gone too far?

Scott Buscemi:

For pre-iPhone 5s devices, ARGUS usually drains about 20-30% of battery life per day while running in the background. The app continually checks for motion and calculates the distance and number of steps using the accelerometer and GPS. With the M7, however, the app does not need to be running in order to keep track of the number of steps – all of that data is tracked by the M7. As such, ARGUS no longer takes up any battery power while running in the background and the stated battery life from Apple – 10 hours 3G talk time, 250 hours of standby – will stay exactly the same.

This is just huge.

Sam Radford talks about Apple’s 5GB of iCloud storage space and how the company has to increase the limit. I agree with Sam. Years ago 5GB was a lot of space, but if Apple wants users to utilize iCloud and all of its services, they are going to have to increase the limits.

Part of me marvels at the coolness of this water slide. But the other side of me is just plain scared.

Click on the link and a web page with a piece of cloth (looks like a piece of graph paper) will appear. Click and drag across the cloth and you’ll rip it. The simulation is very realistic, complete with gravitational physics.

Even better, if you right click (hold down the control key), your mouse turns into a cutting tool.

And as a pièce de résistance, all the code is there to play with and learn from, including the HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Absolutely brilliant.

Twitter has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the Iranian government, giving the world a seldom seen view of the political unrest in the country, especially during the 2009-2010 election protests, the so-called Green Revolution.

Social media is still banned in Iran, which made the Twitter exchange between Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and newly elected President Hassan Rouhani so newsworthy.

Dorsey first tweeted, “Good evening, President. Are citizens of Iran able to read your tweets?” And, in response, Rouhani said, “Evening, @Jack. As I told @camanpour, my efforts geared 2 ensure my ppl’ll comfortably b able 2 access all info globally as is their #right.”

Social media still banned. Will this exchange signify coming change? To me, this is a perfect litmus test. Turn on the social media for the people, or it’s just words.

There’s a reported fix that works for some, though not 100%:

AppleInsider reported on Monday that a simple procedure has successfully eliminated the bug for many users:

• Disable iMessage in Settings -> Messages

• Reset the iPhone’s Network Settings under Settings -> General -> Reset

• Reenable iMessage.

While the method worked, and continues to work, for most iPhone owners afflicted with the iMessage bug, some have reported that the message failures reappeared after a few hours, forcing them to repeat the steps above.

There’s conjecture that the upcoming 7.03 update will contain this fix. Let’s hope so.

Gizmodo:

This video shows the culmination of the work being funded mainly through public donations, including the massive, yet-to-be-finished 564-foot tower at its center.

The Sagrada Familia is probably the most famous unfinished building in the world and its design is fascinating whether you like it or not. This video of the finished building shows even more radical changes in the future.

The New York Observer:

Colin Powell makes the case: pissing people off is both inevitable and necessary. This doesn’t mean that the goal is pissing people off. Pissing people off doesn’t mean you’re doing the right things, but doing the right things will almost inevitably piss people off.

Understand the difference.

I piss people off on a regular basis. It’s rarely my goal but I honestly don’t care if it happens. This article explains it well.

If you were wondering how to use the information collected by the M7 chip on the new iPhone, you can download a new app from David Smith that turns your iPhone into virtual Pedometer.

MASCHINE STUDIO is the flagship music production system for tactile, creative beatmaking with an acclaimed sound library.

“We fought hard for iPad,” a pilot working for the airline told AppleInsider. He described the Delta deal as being about money, travel contracts, and Delta’s Information Technology staff historically being “in bed” with Microsoft.

Why would Delta want to listen to the people actually using the devices at 30,000 feet in the air.

With all that’s been written about The Beatles, I’m amazed that I’ve never encountered this story before. This is well written and really gives you a sense of what George was going through at the time, a time before The Beatles had broken through in the US.

George asked the salesperson if they carried any records by the Beatles and was met with a blank stare of complete unawareness and non-recognition. This introverted George slightly, along with the jarring moment when he saw England’s biggest rock star, Cliff Richard, in his recent move Summer Holiday being played as a second string feature at the local drive-in. These two incidents stayed with George, and when he reported back to the other Beatles upon his return to England, we wondered if they could make it in the States, and actually thought they would flop.

Addy is a startup that lets you embed your own customized turn-by-turn directions (Go about a mile, make a left at the pizza place with the green awning, my house is at the top of the hill, last house on the right) behind a custom URL.

For instance, if you were having people over to your home, an Addy could include details about nearby stores for food and drinks, a buzzer code, and parking instructions.

Good idea.