It has been a few years since a decision by a major tech company last turned me into a green rage monster, but it just happened again. Code42 Software has announced that it’s discontinuing its consumer backup product, CrashPlan for Home.

Joe Kissell is pissed.

Product Graveyard:

Product Graveyard is a fun way to keep track of and commemorate our favorite products that are with us no more. I worked on this as a side project during my summer internship at Siftery. Hope you enjoy and please join in by contributing a funny story or eulogy for one of the featured products!

It’s a little depressing to see how many of these products I used over the years that are no more.

Gizmodo:

Congratulations to those of you who used proper solar eclipse glasses and witnessed the phenomenon without permanently damaging your vision. Good job! But now you’re probably wondering what to do with those flimsy pieces of cardboard and black polymer that were basically priceless just hours ago.

Fortunately, Astronomers Without Borders has offered to take them off your hands so that children will be able to use them in future eclipses. The organization says it will soon announce a program dedicated to redistributing glasses to schools in Asia and South America, where there will be solar eclipses in 2019.

What a great idea and wonderful service by Astronomers Without Borders.

Of the estimated 2.4m apps available on the App Store, we believe less than 1% leverage ML today – but not for long. We believe Core ML will be a driving force in bringing machine learning to the masses in the form of more useful and insightful apps that run faster and respect user privacy.

It’s going to be interesting to see what we will be able to do with our devices in the next three years as machine learning and artificial intelligence make their way into our lives in a bigger way.

After touring with his prototype models throughout 2016 and 2017, Slash is proud to announce the release of these limited edition Gibson Custom Slash Anaconda Burst Les Pauls.

It’s very nice, but I’m more of an Appetite for Destruction Les Paul guy.

This is a major drop in shipping time, from 6 weeks (down to 4 weeks recently) down to 2-3 weeks. This is on the US Apple Store. Not sure about other countries.

A fun stroll through history from the Git Tower blog. I LOVE the illustrations. Anyone know who did them?

Kirk McElhearn, Intego blog:

Your Mac contains a lot of personal information, and is connected to a number of Apple accounts. When you plan to dispose of your Mac — whether you sell it, give it away, or send it for recycling — there are a number of things you should do to make sure your data and your accounts remain secure. There are also a few steps you need to take to remove that Mac from Apple’s accounts.

In this article, I go over the 8 steps you should take before getting rid of a Mac.

Some basic, common sense advice here. Bookmark, pass along, especially to folks you know who are relatively new to the Mac.

Wall Street Journal:

Forget fiddling with passwords or even fingerprints; forget multiple layers of sign-in; forget credit cards and, eventually, even physical keys to our homes and cars. A handful of laptops and mobile devices can now read facial features, and the technique is about to get a boost from specialized hardware small enough to fit into our phones.

Using our faces to unlock things could soon become routine, rather than the purview of spies and superheroes.

And:

Depth-sensing technology, generally called “structured light,” sprays thousands of tiny infrared dots across a person’s face or any other target.

By reading distortions in this field of dots, the camera gathers superaccurate depth information. Since the phone’s camera can see infrared but humans can’t, such a system could allow the phone to unlock in complete darkness.

And:

Teaching our phones what our faces look like will be just like teaching them our fingerprints, says Sy Choudhury, a senior director at Qualcomm responsible for security and machine-intelligence products. An image of your face is captured, relevant features are extracted and the phone stores them for comparison with your face when you unlock the phone.

As with fingerprint recognition, the facial images are securely stored only on the device itself, not in the cloud. History — from Apple’s battles with domestic law enforcement over unlocking iPhones to Amazon’s insistence that the Alexa doesn’t upload anything until it hears its wake word — suggests companies will use this privacy as a selling point.

My fingerprints don’t change, but moisture, sweat, and dirt can make my fingerprints unreadable to Touch ID. I wonder if a haircut, beard trim, shift in makeup patterns will have a similar impact on facial recognition.

Fascinating read.

“Breakout” was created by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak with help from fellow co-founder Steve Jobs as a successor to “Pong,” and requires a player to knock down rows of colored bricks with a paddle.

Nestle simply replaced the bricks with brown Kit Kat bars, used in a Kit Kate Bites commercial titled “Kit Kat: Breakout,” showing adults and children using paddles to knock the bars down, according to Atari.

How does Nestle possibly defend themselves against this lawsuit? They seem guilty as hell.

Be safe.

The Guardian:

MPs are expected to gather outside parliament to witness Big Ben’s final bongs at midday on Monday before the chimes are silenced to allow repair work to begin, amid a political furore about the four-year renovation project.

From the Big Ben Wikipedia page:

Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London and is usually extended to refer to both the clock and the clock tower as well. The tower is officially known as Elizabeth Tower, renamed to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2012; previously, it was known simply as the Clock Tower.

When completed in 1859, it was, says clockmaker Ian Westworth, “the prince of timekeepers: the biggest, most accurate four-faced striking and chiming clock in the world.” The tower had its 150th anniversary on 31 May 2009, during which celebratory events took place.

A British cultural icon, the tower is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and is often in the establishing shot of films set in London.

Hope we hear that famous bong again as soon as possible.

UPDATE: Feedback on the original article ranged from calling it silly (the clock is undergoing maintenance, pure clickbait) all the way to anger (this story is nothing, Brexit is where the focus should be). If you’re interested, here’s a Twitter moments’ peek at the crowds gathering to watch the bell fall silent:

Bloomberg:

Movie studios are considering whether to ignore the objections of cinema chains and forge ahead with a plan to offer digital rentals of films mere weeks after they appear in theaters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some of the biggest proponents, including Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures, are pressing on in talks with Apple Inc. and Comcast Corp. on ways to push ahead with the project even without theater chains, the people said.

And:

Deals with potential distributors such as Apple and Comcast could be reached as soon as early next year to sell digital downloads of major films as soon as two weeks after they debut in theaters, the people said.

This seems inevitable, part of the evolution of the content consumption model. Apple is easing into this business on several sides, tweaking their iTunes movie and TV streaming business, as they also build their own content creation business.

I see Apple as the irresistible force here, fueled by the deepest pockets in the biz.

PR Newswire:

Deloitte today announced that Chipotle Mexican Grill has selected Deloitte Digital to help transform its mobile customer experience. Deloitte Digital, the creative digital consultancy within Deloitte Consulting LLP, will redesign Chipotle’s iOS and Android ordering apps as part of Chipotle’s focus on digital ordering and enhancing the customer experience. Chipotle plans to launch the new apps in the fall of 2017, with additional channels by the end of the year.

And:

The redesigned mobile experience will also include enhanced payment options including Apple and Android pay.

Whether or not you are a fan of Chipotle, this is a sign of the continued expansion of Apple Pay. Slow and steady.

The New Yorker:

The Voyagers’ scientific mission will end when their plutonium-238 thermoelectric power generators fail, around the year 2030. After that, the two craft will drift endlessly among the stars of our galaxy—unless someone or something encounters them someday. With this prospect in mind, each was fitted with a copy of what has come to be called the Golden Record. Etched in copper, plated with gold, and sealed in aluminum cases, the records are expected to remain intelligible for more than a billion years, making them the longest-lasting objects ever crafted by human hands. We don’t know enough about extraterrestrial life, if it even exists, to state with any confidence whether the records will ever be found. They were a gift, proffered without hope of return.

A fascinating story about a remarkable project.

Mashable:

Apple aired the finale of its first original series this week. If you missed it, don’t stress.

It’s just a pretty undramatic, very-edited reality show about dozens of entrepreneurs, people who were trying to make careers off a business based around an app.

Not unlike Shark Tank, viewers learn a little about what it takes to build an app-based company and raise venture capital. But unlike Shark Tank, it’s really not that thrilling.

That’s OK, though. For Apple, the whole ordeal can be seen as a success.

I couldn’t/didn’t watch all ten episodes. If you did, what did you think? Would you watch another full season of the show?

Mashable:

Prepare for some seriously epic Sunday brunches, because the PancakeBot makes it possible to essentially 3D print your own pancake designs at the touch of a button. The proprietary batter dispensing system will draw your customized pancake perfectly every time.

This is utterly insane and stupid and I want one so bad.

Last week, I met Louis and we walked down a memory lane, talking about our publishing lives, disappointments and emotional challenges of breaking up with something you create. We pondered about the state of the media, the emergence of President Trump and why we need to be optimistic about the future.

Such a great interview. It’s like we’re listening in on two friends sitting down for a chat.

Getting the most out of your iPad Pro is as easy as it looks. Just watch and learn.

Great idea for Apple to put out these videos showing people how to get the most out of the iPad Pro and the upcoming iOS 11.

Thanks to BlackPods for sponsoring The Loop this week. At BlackPods, we’ve developed a proprietary coating system specifically for Apple’s AirPods. Our three-phase finishing procedure utilizes the latest in solvent-based painting technology to yield a luxurious finish that exceeds U.S. Military specifications. Every pair of customized AirPods we produce is hand-finished by a team of skilled artisans. Whether you purchase them through us or send yours in, each pair of AirPods is subjected to a rigorous visual and quality inspection.

BlackPods sells their AirPods in two colors: BlackPods Classic (high-gloss black), and BlackPods Stealth (matte black). BlackPods Classic are available for $279, and BlackPods Stealth are available for $299. Both finishes include free domestic shipping. BlackPods also allows its customers to mail in their own AirPods for customization– $99 for high-gloss black and $119 for matte black.

Use promo code THELOOP at checkout for $20 off anything in our store.

National Geographic:

Many cultures thought solar and lunar eclipses occurred when the celestial bodies were consumed by supernatural forces, like the fire dogs of Korea, the sky-wolves of the Vikings, or the disembodied head of a Hindu demon.

This year, sky-watchers are gearing up for the first total solar eclipse visible from the continental U.S. since 1979. Take a look through these photos of historic eclipses from around the world (including the one that made Albert Einstein famous).

There are some great photos here, some of which you’ll recognize.

Wired:

Potassium hydroxide is being mixed with water heated to 150°C. A biochemical reaction is taking place and the flesh is melting off the bones. Over the course of up to four hours, the strong alkaline base causes everything but the skeleton to break down to the original components that built it: sugar, salt, peptides and amino acids; DNA unzips into its nucleobases, cytosine, guanine, adenine, thymine. The body becomes fertiliser and soap, a sterile watery liquid that looks like weak tea. The liquid shoots through a pipe into a holding tank in the opposite corner of the room where it will cool down, be brought down to an acceptable pH for the water treatment plant, and be released down the drain.

Fisher says I can step outside if it all gets too much, but it’s not actually that terrible. The human body, liquefied, smells like steamed clams.

This, Fisher explains, is the future of death.

Unless you have a religious belief against it, is there really a need to have your remains put in a specific spot in the ground? I read a while back about burying people under trees, allowing their remains to fertilize and nourish the tree. I’d love to be buried under an apple tree in Nova Scotia.

As part of his new role, the legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist is currently developing new products with three of Gibson’s guitar brands, Gibson Custom, Gibson and Epiphone. Details of the new products will be announced beginning later this month.

Cheers, Slash.

On Wednesday, Apple confirmed to BuzzFeed News that it had disabled Apple Pay support for a handful of websites that sold sweaters with Nazi logos, T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “White Pride,” and a bumper sticker showing a car plowing into stick figure demonstrators. Following Saturday’s Charlottesville demonstrations, where one woman was killed by a car driven by a white nationalist, the iPhone-maker blocked three white nationalist sites from using Apple Pay.

Good.

Uber Technologies Inc on Thursday won a victory in its effort to keep unhappy customers from suing in court, persuading a federal appeals court to send a Connecticut passenger’s price-fixing case against the ride-service company into arbitration.

Meyer accused Uber and Kalanick of conspiring with drivers, whose earnings are shared with Uber, to charge “surge pricing” fares during peak demand periods.

It’s supply and demand. If he didn’t read the agreement when he signed up, that’s on him, not Uber. People will sue for any reason.

iDownloadBlog:

Say hello to macOS High Sierra, Apple’s newest operating system update for Macs. Whether you’re on an iMac or one of the Touch Bar-outfitted MacBook Pro models, there is a lot to love in this latest release of Apple’s desktop operating system.

This possibly may be the biggest macOS update to date, though not all of it is visible on the surface. We are going to take a look at some of the biggest changes, leaving the rest to our accompanying list and a hands-on video walkthrough.

There are several features I’m really looking forward to. Do you have a favourite?