A U.S. jury in Texas on Wednesday ordered Facebook Inc, its virtual reality unit Oculus, and other defendants to pay a combined $500 million to ZeniMax Media Inc, a video game publisher that says Oculus stole its technology.

Ouch.

Inspired by a typewriter—I think this will certainly have its fans when released.

I had no idea there was a firmware update available for the AirPods, but I followed the instructions on TidBITS and sure enough it updated. To be clear, the way the update is done, you’ll eventually get the update, but I did it manually anyway.

Tesla Motors Inc changed its name to “Tesla Inc” as Chief Executive Elon Musk looks to transform the Silicon Valley firm from an electric car maker to a diversified energy products company.

It’s weird, I never really considered Tesla as just an automobile company. I always just referred to it as Tesla, knowing that the company had its fingers in a lot of different tech.

Apple on Tuesday reported results for its fiscal first quarter and they were really good. The company posted all-time record quarterly revenue of $78.4 billion and all-time record quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.36. These results compare to revenue of $75.9 billion and earnings per diluted share of $3.28 in the year-ago quarter. […]

All of us know that animals respond to music (my cats Roger and Chloe love to hang with me when I mix), but are there certain genres that they like better? A new study by the University of Glasgow in conjunction with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found out that shelter dogs definitely had some music preferences.

My dogs loved Ozzy.

A group of technology companies plans to meet on Tuesday to discuss filing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging U.S. President Donald Trump’s order restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, said a spokesperson for a company organizing the gathering.

That’s some talent.

Vance Powell is a friend and an amazing audio engineer. He’s worked with some of the best artists in the music industry over the years and at NAMM, he gave a session on how he recorded a project. He goes over the mic choice and even placement of the amps. This is well worth watching.

As the Super Bowl countdown begins, Siri is gearing up for the Big Game. For the first time, Apple TV users can now ask Siri to tune in live to the Super Bowl just by saying, “Watch the Super Bowl.” Whether you’re at home, at a local sports bar or at a friend’s party, Siri is available everywhere you are and provides even more football insights including team rosters, player comparisons, historical stats, season records and more.

What a great idea by Britain’s Royal Mail.

An Argentine prosecutor asked a judge on Monday to jail local executives of ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc and a court ordered the company’s mobile application to be shut down following protests from taxi drivers’ unions.

On one night — November 5, 2016 — iPhone photographers canvassed the globe, from Arctic ice caves and Indonesian volcanoes, to the clubs of Johannesburg and rooftops of Shanghai. For the latest “Shot on iPhone” campaign, Apple enlisted a group of photographers to capture life from dusk to dawn using the low-light camera on iPhone 7. The people, sights and scenes they encountered over the course of the night resulted in a spectacular display of nighttime photography, which will be displayed in 25 countries beginning today.

Very impressive.

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Apple has joined the Partnership on AI as a founding member. The company has been involved and collaborating with the Partnership since before it was first announced and is thrilled to formalize its membership alongside Amazon, Facebook, Google/DeepMind, IBM, and Microsoft.

Thanks to Ingage for sponsoring The Loop this week.

A new iPad app called Ingage hit the App Store this week that lets anyone easily create and share interactive presentations, portfolios, real estate listings, product catalogs and more, without needing a designer or developer.

Simply drag and drop photos and videos into Ingage’s interactive page templates to bring your content to life. Videos become touchable product 360s, virtual walkthroughs or time lapse demonstrations. Images are layered with pop-up hotspots or scrubbable before and afters.

While you build on an iPad, the software automatically creates a responsive HTML webpage of your interactive presentation that can be viewed by anyone, on any device. Sharing is done with just a tap with an instantly formatted text message, email or social media post. Any changes to your content are instantly reflected anywhere it’s been shared.

The app is free to download from the App Store, where you can currently find it featured on the homepage under “New Apps We Love.”

Click here to download Ingage.

I love this song—great heavy groove and chorus.

Doyle is a great guitarist. I love the way he plays left-handed, but with the strings upside down.

Factoring in time for parking can make or break a night out, let alone making it to that big meeting on time. So in 25 metro areas throughout the U.S., we’ve introduced a new parking difficulty icon in Google Maps for Android that’ll give you a heads up on what kind of parking crunch to prepare for when you’re on the go.

That’s helpful.

Upwork, the world’s largest freelancing website, today released its latest quarterly index of the hottest skills in the U.S. freelance job market. The Upwork Skills Index ranks the marketplace’s 20 fastest-growing skills being hired for among freelancers — now 35 percent of the U.S. workforce.

The 20 fastest-growing freelance skills in Q4 2016 all experienced more than 100 percent year-over-year growth with the top 10 experiencing more than 200 percent year-over-year growth.

A new app for the iPad just launched that allows anyone to easily create and share interactive presentations, portfolios, real estate listings, product catalogs and more, without needing a designer or developer. It was built by digital publishing pioneer Scrollmotion to help anyone create a stronger connection with customers by using content that really stands out.

Simply drag and drop photos and videos into Ingage’s interactive page templates to bring your content to life. It’s really that easy to create a touchable video called a “scrollmotion,” or use two pictures to create an awesome before-and-after effect with a slider.

When you want to share your presentation with the world, you can do so via text message, email or social media. Ingage automatically creates a responsive HTML webpage of your interactive presentation that can be viewed by anyone, on any device. And when you need to update your presentation, it automatically pushes everywhere it’s being shared. Your content is always up-to-date.

Download the app for free to try it out.

Introducing Ingage from ScrollMotion on Vimeo.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed that Duffy has been hired by Apple, but didn’t share details on his role at the company.

As I said before: people come, people go.

NV Energy and Apple announced today they have reached an agreement to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by early 2019. The projects will support Apple’s renewable energy needs for its Reno data center.

We always talk about Apple products, but the company’s commitment to renewable resources is commendable.

It’s an age old question for guitarists. My answer is that it depends on what sound you’re looking for, and what feels good in your hands.

The Charvel Custom Shop unveiled some magnificent beauties during the 2017 NAMM Show in Anaheim, Calif. Here’s a look at 7 by Master Builder “Red” Dave Nichols.

Charvel to me is one of the most classic metal guitars ever made. I would love to have the first one on the list.

Apple Inc filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm Inc in Beijing, alleging the chip supplier abused its clout in the chip industry and seeking 1 billion yuan ($145.32 million) in damages, Beijing’s Intellectual Property Court said in a statement on Wednesday.

Apple also filed a second lawsuit against Qualcomm which accused it of failing to live up to promises made to license “standard essential patents” broadly and inexpensively.

Apple isn’t messing around with Qualcomm.

With the release of macOS Sierra and iOS betas on Tuesday, Apple also released a new tool for developers, allowing them to respond to reviews on the Mac and iOS App Stores. But the API goes deeper than just giving developers a process to respond to reviews, it also makes it easier for customers to leave reviews, Apple told me this morning when we talked about the new feature.

Apple on Tuesday released macOS Sierra 10.3 developer beta 1 and a new iOS beta, giving developers a chance to test out the new features of the OSes. There are quite a few changes, so let’s jump in.

The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Tuesday it will investigate a complaint by Nokia Technologies alleging that Apple Inc has imported smart phones, tablet computers and other electronics that infringe upon its patents.

It’s important to note that they haven’t even made a decision on the merits of the case yet.

Adam Engst asked TidBITS readers to share their automation stories, and they did. Adam published 73 of them to show how important automation is to Mac users.