I’ve used a lot of tuners over the years, but this is one of my favorites. I have one of these that I use with my electric and acoustic guitars.

VOX:

To get more insight into the making of Planet Earth II, and the “Snake Island” sequence in particular, I spoke with series executive producer Mike Gunton and director Elizabeth White. The short version? Nature is pretty thrilling (and unforgiving) all on its own, but they’ve honed some techniques to better capture it anyway.

We all saw the amazing clip of the baby iguana being hunted by a terrifying army of snakes. Here’s how they shot it. I can’t wait for the DVD of Planet Earth II. There will be lots of behind the scenes stuff I find so fascinating.

Washington Post:

On Wednesday, the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the two largest trade groups for the grocery industry, announced that they’ve adopted standardized, voluntary regulations to clear up what product date labels mean. Where manufacturers now use any of 10 separate label phrases, ranging from “expires on” to “better if used by,” they’ll now be encouraged to use only two: “Use By” and “Best if Used By.”

The former is a safety designation, meant to indicate when perishable foods are no longer good. “Best if Used By” is a quality descriptor — a subjective guess of when the manufacturer thinks the product should be consumed for peak flavor.

That’s what most “use-by” dates indicate now, though studies have shown that many consumers believe they signal whether a product is okay to eat. In fact, it’s totally fine to eat a product even well after its so-called expiration date.

Great to hear there will be more clarity on what the “sell by” dates mean. I’ll throw out less food now.

Reverb:

You can use Alexa through your browser. Amazon’s AVS cloud services are now available to access through Reverb. AVS is Amazon’s cloud service that allows Alexa to be accessed through a web browser on macOS or Windows operating systems. You can talk to Alexa to play music, ask questions, get news and use your installed Echo Skills.

I’ve been playing around this morning with Reverb, seeing how it compares to Siri on the macOS desktop. If you don’t have an Amazon Echo-type product but want to see what all the hype is about, this will give you a taste.

Did you know that Time Machine stores a backup on your local hard drive if it can’t connect to your laptop’s backup drive? Those backups can consume a fair amount of space (say, 100GB or so) over time.

If you use Time Machine, take a few minutes to read this post from Lory Gil. You’ll learn how to disable and re-enable those locally stored Time Machine backups.

And if you are wondering where on your machine those backups are stored, start here. That article is a few years old but, as far as I know, still accurate.

Reuters:

Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was arrested on Friday over his alleged role in a corruption scandal rocking the highest levels of power in South Korea, dealing a fresh blow to the technology giant and standard-bearer for Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

The special prosecutor’s office accuses Lee of bribing a close friend of President Park Geun-hye to gain government favors related to leadership succession at the conglomerate. It said on Friday it will indict him on charges including bribery, embezzlement, hiding assets overseas and perjury.

Samsung’s leadership has failed them. Thanking the stars above Apple has Tim.

Android Headlines:

Samsung Electronics filed for a “Bixby Reminder” trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The filing was made on Thursday and seemingly describes one feature of Bixby, the company’s upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that’s heavily rumored to debut with the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus this spring.

Add Bixby to your list of the major digital assistants you’ll hear people talking with on the street.

Economic Times:

Apple will kick off its India manufacturing plans by initially assembling 3-4 lakh units of its iPhone SE model at the Karnataka plant being set up by contract manufacturer Wistron, as the maker of the iconic iPhones looks to take a deeper bite of a key market amid slowing global smartphone growth.

The Cupertino-based tech giant is likely to go ahead with the Bengaluru assembly plan without waiting for the government’s nod for the list of tax concessions that it had sought along with other demands. The company wants to “experience manufacturing in India”, a person familiar with the company’s plans told ET.

And:

The iPhone SE, launched amidst much fanfare in April 2016, was widely anticipated to be aimed at emerging markets, including India, as it was priced lower than all other iPhone models. But even the lower price tag of Rs 39,000 for a basic model of SE was too much for the mass market.

The handset is currently retailing at less than Rs 30,000 in India and would become cheaper still if produced here.

Makes sense. Start with the SE, get a sense of response, tweak follow-on models aimed to grow that market.

Last October, Google introduced something called the Fact Check tag. The idea is, publishers include the tag in a story for it to be considered for the tag. When the story is posted on Google News, a fact check-approved story will appear with the Fact Check label.

Here’s the original post about the Fact Check tag. And here’s an update from Google on the current state of Fact Check.

This is a great start. But it is far too limited. We need fact checking to spread beyond the Google News bubble. We need a Fact Check standard to spread to every single source of news, across the political spectrum.

When you go food shopping, you know you can check the standardized ingredients label to see how much sodium or fat is in a product. We need a reliable, verifiable label like that for the news. Sites could achieve an “All Fact” label if they achieve a set minimum percentage of fact checked stories.

Apple has an opportunity here. Join with Google to spread the fact check concept to Apple News. And beyond. My two cents? This is incredibly important.

[H/T John Kordyback]

Top five?

• Apple
• Amazon
• Starbucks
• Berkshire Hathaway
• Disney

Works for me.

Just a heads up to rocket fans. SpaceX is launching an International Space Station resupply mission Saturday morning at 10:01 EST. You can watch the launch here.

NOVA show about battery technology. David Pogue hosts, very watchable, if a bit corny. Watch online here.

[H/T Steve Nygard]

Jalopnik:

Have you ever noticed cars shutting off one of their front lights to activate a blinker? Well, I certainly have, so to find out why I see awkward one-eyed vehicles signaling turns at seemingly every intersection. I decided to dig into it to find out what’s going on.

I’d noticed this a while ago and thought it was odd and a little annoying. Now that I know the reason, it’s just annoying.

The latest issue of Billboard features Camila Cabello on the cover in a stunning photo shot outside a rental home in Beverly Hills — with an iPhone 7 Plus using the new Portrait mode.

That is really remarkable. I love using Portrait Mode on my iPhone 7 Plus—even though I’m not a great photographer, Apple helps give my photos depth and polish that I wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise.

AT&T Inc said on Thursday it would make its unlimited data plan available to all wireless customers who pay a monthly bill, days after rival Verizon Communications Inc announced an unlimited option.

I really dislike the fact that we have to wait for a price war in order to get access to something like an unlimited plan. I don’t trust any wireless company.

Associated Press:

Every Oscar fist-pumped or tearfully cradled by Academy Award winners is first cast, buffed and fussed over at a foundry far from Hollywood.

Workers at the Polich Tallix fine art foundry, about 50 miles north of New York City, began work in late September on the awards to be handed out Feb. 26. Each of the 60 Oscars shipped from the hangar-like production floor is 13½ inches tall with the same distinctive Art Deco features polished to a mirror finish. Each glossy black base lacks only a winner’s nameplate, which is added after the ceremony.

Polich Tallix, which began making the awards last year, tweaked the look of the stylized knight with an eye toward the original statuettes handed out in 1929. The path of these new statues from a small town in upstate New York to center stage in Hollywood might not be the stuff of movies.

I didn’t realize there was a nameplate created for each nominee.

This is a good article by Abdel Ibrahim that takes you through some apps and hardware you’ll need if you want to watch TV using the Apple TV. I still wish it was easier than what it is.

Jalopnik:

Near Munich, Germany, a man in a Tesla Model S saw a Volkswagen Passat swerving erratically on the Autobahn, slamming against a guardrail multiple times. When he noticed that the person behind the wheel was unconscious, the Tesla driver sprang into action.

Muenchner Merkur reports that this “action” involved the 41 year-old driver in the Tesla calling the fire department, and then pulling his Model S in front of the out-of-control Passat.

He then tapped the brakes so the Passat was contacting his rear bumper, and slowly, the two cars came to a halt. Shortly thereafter, the fire department came to assist the unconscious driver, who, the German daily newspaper says, likely suffered a stroke.

Great, selfless action.

Elon Musk got wind of the story and tweeted:

Congrats to the Tesla owner who sacrificed damage to his own car to bring a car with an unconscious driver safely to a stop!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2017

And then:

In appreciation, Tesla is providing all repair costs free of charge and expedited. https://t.co/D68HNJcCoQ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2017

Good stuff all the way around. Going out on a limb, I assume that a driverless car would do the same thing. At least, I hope that’s the case.

Yesterday, we posted a link to this HTML reference. Here’s a CSS reference from the same folks. Good stuff. Pass it along.

Yesterday, we posted a link to a Bloomberg article with the title, Apple Struggles to Make Big Deals, Hampering Strategy Shifts.

John Gruber took Bloomberg to the woodshed in his post. A perfect take, well worth the read.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Earlier this month, Apple Inc. poached the chief of Amazon’s Fire TV unit to run its television operations. Timothy D. Twerdhal brings hardware and content experience to his new gig, and his hiring suggests a renewed focus on the Apple TV set-top box.

Twerdhal’s arrival comes as the company tests a new, fifth-generation Apple TV that it may release as soon as this year. Internally codenamed “J105,” the new box will be capable of streaming ultra-high-definition 4K and more vivid colors, according to people familiar with the plans.

A bit of a doom and gloom take, but worth the read. Apple is clearly feeling their way here.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

Ticketmaster for iOS was today updated with Apple Music integration, allowing users to more easily find upcoming concerts based on what’s in their Apple Music library.

The update pushes the app 1.10.2 and makes it significantly easier to quickly know when an artist you love is touring.

A terrific idea. I wish that Apple Music had a tour date interface built in, the ability to send me notifications when a band I specify announces tour dates. They could no doubt sell tickets to the concerts from within the notification. This exist?

Mikey Campbell, Apple Insider:

Display damage due to drops, impacts and other sudden shocks is the bane of many a smartphone user. Apple is working on technology to help users determine when a device is cracked and perhaps prevent such events from occurring in the first place.

Described in Apple’s filing for “Coverglass fracture detection,” the proposed system utilizes a comprehensive network of sensors and software to detect the formation of cracks, or potential cracks, in a protective display cover.

What I find most fascinating is the idea of crowdsourcing crack detection. When a crack is detected, the theory goes, Apple could contact the user to verify. The user would verify the crack (perhaps tracing it on the screen) and Apple could follow up to learn what type of impact caused the crack. Pretty cool idea.

CNBC:

Apple may replace its fingerprint scanner with a face scanner on the next iPhone, according to JPMorgan analyst Rod Hall.

A front-facing 3-D scanner could replace the home button, which could be phased out if Apple goes with a full-glass front this year, Hall wrote in a research note this week. Biometric facial scanning would be more secure for Apple Pay and could work better in “wet conditions” if the iPhones are more water resistant, JPMorgan wrote.

Don’t have a link to the original research note. If anyone has it, please tweet it at me, I’d like to read the original text. And I’ll add it here as an update.

UPDATE: Johannes Schaller points out that the Surface Pro 4 ships with Windows Hello, which is designed to read fingerprints but can also work with certain camera configurations to do facial recognition. So there’s the consumer starting point.

Bloomberg:

Apple has struggled for years to pull off bigger deals because of a series of quirks: an aversion to risk, reluctance to work with external advisers like investment banks and inexperience in closing and integrating large takeovers, said people who have worked on acquisitions with the company.

I don’t know if the article is correct but they don’t seem to take into account the fact that, as Tim Cook has often said, Apple buys companies for the usual reason but also because the company and people “fit” with Apple. That’s easier to do with a smaller company than it would be for a Netflix-sized acquisition.

BlackBerry has at last fallen to a rounded 0.0% share among smartphone operating systems, including iOS, Android, and Windows 10 Mobile, following an over seven year decline from its peak market share of approximately 20% in 2009, according to the latest quarterly data from research firm Gartner.

I remember the BlackBerry co-CEOs saying they weren’t worried at all about the release of the iPhone. Idiots.

Couldn’t resist. Good shots on both sides.

Jason Koebler, Motherboard:

Apple is planning to fight proposed electronics “Right to Repair” legislation being considered by the Nebraska state legislature, according to a source within the legislature who is familiar with the bill’s path through the statehouse.

And:

The legislation would require Apple and other electronics manufacturers to sell repair parts to consumers and independent repair shops, and would require manufacturers to make diagnostic and service manuals available to the public.

Nebraska is one of eight states that are considering right to repair bills; last month, Nebraska, Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Wyoming introduced legislation. Last week, lawmakers in Illinois and Tennessee officially introduced similar bills.

And:

The bills nationwide are being pushed by Repair.org, a trade organization made up of independent repair shops who say that their companies have been harmed by an attempt by manufacturers to gain a monopoly over the repair business. Even without readily available repair parts or service manuals, a healthy DIY repair hobby has thrived thanks to online crowdsourced instruction manuals on sites like iFixit and grey market parts that are available directly from factories in China or can be salvaged from recycled devices.

The idea that it’s “unsafe” to repair your own devices is one that manufacturers have been promoting for years. Last year, industry lobbyists told lawmakers in Minnesota that broken glass could cut the fingers of consumers who try to repair their screens, according to Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org.

First things first, this is a one sided post, almost a marketing piece from Repair.org. That said, repairability has become more and more of an issue. I’d like to hear Apple’s side of this. Macs, iPhones, and iPads have certainly become harder and harder to repair yourself.

But I think the claim that self-repair is unsafe is disingenuous. I think most self-repairers would agree to voiding their warrantee in exchange for self repair, and also be willing to hold Apple harmless for damage done doing a self-repair.

That said, let’s see what happens on March 9th:

According to the source, an Apple representative, staffer, or lobbyist will testify against the bill at a hearing in Lincoln on March 9. AT&T will also argue against the bill, the source said. The source told me that at least one of the companies plans to say that consumers who repair their own phones could cause lithium batteries to catch fire.

Until then, this is just a sourced rumor.

UPDATE: A little birdie told me about an Apple Store that had to be evacuated when a trained technician accidentally put a tiny screwdriver through the battery of an iPhone, starting a lithium fire that required special chemicals to stop. In another incident, those same chemicals were used in the repair room when someone punctured a MacBook Air battery.

Points well taken. Assuming these anecdotes are documented, I hope they are presented at that March 9th hearing in Lincoln.