Porsche looks at all-electric SUV, hybrid 911

Porsche may offer an all-electric version of its Macan compact SUV and could turn models such as the iconic 911 into hybrids, its sales chief said on Tuesday, amid a push by parent company Volkswagen to move on from dieselgate.

I understand this is where the industry is going, but there’s just something about the roar of a Porsche engine that gets my heart pumping.

Self-driving bus being tested in San Francisco

A pair of $250,000 autonomous buses began driving around an empty San Francisco Bay Area parking lot on Monday, preparing to move onto a local public road in California’s first pilot program for a self-driving vehicle without steering wheel or human operator.

I’m not convinced the technology is ready yet, but okay.

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Apple will begin accepting WWDC scholarship applications on March 27

WWDC Scholarships reward talented students and STEM organization members with the opportunity to attend this year’s conference. Developers selected for a scholarship will receive a WWDC17 ticket and lodging free of charge.

Instructions for submitting your application are on Apple’s Web site.

My favorite guitar pick

The guitar, strings, amp, and even the picks all have a part to play in how comfortable you feel playing guitar. I’ve used these picks for over a decade now. They are strong enough to do pinch harmonics and I can get a good grip on them. I bet I have hundreds of them in my guitar room.

Transform your acoustic’s piezo pickup into a multi-miked acoustic

The Wood Works plug-in for UAD-2 and Apollo interfaces gives you exceptional studio microphone sound from any piezo-equipped acoustic guitar. Now you can easily track multi-dimensional acoustic tones in real time — even in situations that would challenge physical microphones.

Oh my, this looks incredible.

Trying out the Google Wifi Mesh network

Like many people I’m using Apple’s Airport base stations (I’m running two of them) in my home to provide wireless coverage. Again, like many people covering all the areas that I need a signal has proven to be difficult, so I started looking for solutions—the one I’m considering strongly is Google Wifi. […]

Spotify reaches 50 million paid subscribers

Spotify this afternoon announced that it has hit a new milestone, reaching a total of 50 million paying subscribers. That’s up from 40 million in September, suggesting Spotify is growing at a rapid pace despite the surging popularity of Apple Music.

I wonder where all of these people are coming from. Are the Tidal and Pandora users or are they new users that have never used streaming services before? Clearly, there’s still a lot of growth in the streaming business.

Spotify testing lossless audio versions for some users

Spotify is preparing to launch a lossless audio version of its streaming service, according to multiple sources. The offering, which is currently called Spotify Hi-Fi, will offer lossless CD-quality audio to users — similar to what Tidal offers in its Hi-Fi service.

I’m interested to see what the response will be to this service. Lossless isn’t something Apple ever seemed to be keen to offer users, but they may be forced into it if Spotify’s becomes popular.

Amazon S3 disruption was caused by human error

The Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) team was debugging an issue causing the S3 billing system to progress more slowly than expected. At 9:37AM PST, an authorized S3 team member using an established playbook executed a command which was intended to remove a small number of servers for one of the S3 subsystems that is used by the S3 billing process. Unfortunately, one of the inputs to the command was entered incorrectly and a larger set of servers was removed than intended. The servers that were inadvertently removed supported two other S3 subsystems.

It’s good that Amazon got to the bottom of this and let all of its customers know exactly what happened.

Appeals court rules in Apple’s favor in iTunes patent case

A federal appeals court has thrown out a jury verdict that had originally required Apple Inc to pay $533 million to Smartflash LLC, a technology developer and licenser that claimed Apple’s iTunes software infringed its data storage patents.

Not only did they win the appeal, the judge said the patents should have been ruled invalid.

Uber CEO gets in argument with driver

Uber Technologies Inc Chief Executive Travis Kalanick on Tuesday said it was time for him to “grow up” and get help after a video was published showing him getting into an argument with a driver for the ride service who complained about pay rates.

Uber has certainly been in the hot seat of late.

Pad & Quill’s Leather Apple Pencil Grip

This is truly one of those Apple Pencil accessories you never knew you needed until you see it in action. No more hunting for lost lightning caps, that pesky charging cap stays put, even when plugged in. No more rolling away from you when you set it down or storage difficulties, the custom pen clip keeps your Apple Pencil in place on the table and in the pocket. And no more slippery fingers, the leather grip provides a sturdy tactile feel while letting you be as precise as you want.

I do love Pad & Quill’s products.

The surprising history of Canada’s most iconic designs

Try naming an iconic Canadian designer. You can’t? Here are three: Allan Fleming, who created the Canadian National Railway logo. Georges Huel, the guy behind the symbol for the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. And Burton Kramer, whose work includes branding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I’m embarrassed to say, but I couldn’t have named three designers.

Notes from Apple’s shareholder meeting

I attended Apple’s shareholder meeting in the company’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters this morning as a member of the media. Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the meeting and received a standing ovation before giving a few brief remarks, including a look at next year’s meeting. […]

Megadeth’s David Ellefson opening a coffee shop

April 7-9, Ellefson Coffee Co., the boutique Coffee brand of Grammy-Winning Megadeth bassist David Ellefson will hold a GRAND OPENING for its first brick and mortar ELLEFSON COFFEE CO shop in David’s hometown of Jackson, MN. In addition to Ellefson himself, who will be in attendance, the event will be co-hosted by special guest comedian, and THAT METAL SHOW co-host, Don Jamieson.

I have to order some of this coffee. The blend names are amazing.

Microsoft unveils Xbox Game Pass gaming subscription

Today, we’re continuing our commitment to give you more options to diversify and expand your library of games with Xbox Game Pass, a new gaming subscription service coming later this spring. Xbox Game Pass gives you unlimited access to over 100 Xbox One and backward compatible Xbox 360 games – all for $9.99 per month.

I’m betting this will be popular.

Shopping for St. Patrick’s Day

There are some great things for the entire family and friends too. Scroll to the bottom to find a variety of categories, which may make it easier to narrow in on what you’re looking for.

Mozilla buys Pocket

Mozilla has acquired Pocket, a kind of DVR for the internet, for an undisclosed sum. The nine-year-old company, which makes tools for saving articles and videos to view them later, is Mozilla’s first acquisition. It represents a homecoming of sorts for Pocket, which began life as a Firefox extension before eventually expanding its team and building a suite of apps for every major platform. Pocket has been Firefox’s default read-it-later service since 2015.

My other favorite fictional detective

Earlier this week I posted about Jeremy Brett being my favorite Sherlock Holmes. I received a lot of great feedback from that, so I thought I’d tell you my other favorite fictional detective, Poirot.

David Suchet is absolutely spectacular in his depiction of Agatha Christie’s famous detective. I have watched these shows over and over again, enjoying them each time.

Apple addresses unexpected iPhone 6, 6s shutdowns with iOS 10.2.1

For a while now there have been reports of some older iPhone models, namely iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s, shutting down unexpectedly. Apple introduced some diagnostics into iOS 10.2 back in December to try and determine what was happening and, with iOS 10.2.1, they’ve rolled out a fix.

Glad to see they figured out what was going on.

Post producing an Oscar nominated short film on Final Cut Pro

In the busy week in the run up to the awards, the director of Timecode, Juanjo Giménez, very kindly answered our questions about the post production process.

What’s amazing to me is that this was his first project using Final Cut Pro.

Google sues Uber over self-driving trade secrets theft

Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving car unit sued Uber Technologies and its autonomous trucking subsidiary Otto in federal court on Thursday over allegations of theft of its confidential sensor technology.

Oh boy.

ColorWare’s colored AirPods

I usually don’t go for these types of colored Apple products, but damn I’d love to have a set of purple AirPods.

Fitbit paid just $23 million for Pebble

The price tag was just $23 million, according to figures disclosed Wednesday as part of Fitbit’s quarterly earnings report. Fitbit also spent $15 million on the assets of Vector Watch, another smartwatch company.

I’m not sure that Fitbit can do any more with Pebble than what Pebble did.

Amazon gives everyone a discount on purchases today

Celebrating its 86.27 score in the Harris Corporate Reputation Poll, Amazon is giving everyone a discount of $8.62 on orders of $50 or more today only. Hey, celebrate whatever you want if I can save money.

Field Notes Utility Edition

“Utility” features your choice of two often-requested but rarely-available body pages: Engineer Graph or Ledger. Engineer Graph features an 1/8-inch grid with bolder lines each half-inch. It awaits your schematics, assembly drawings, geometry homework, or dungeon maps. The Ledger version, of course, is ultra-handy for mileage logs, parts lists, to-do lists, or any sort of handwritten accounting.

I’ve used these notebooks for years for all of my interviews and notes while on the road. I’d highly recommend them.