Now that is a travel voucher.

Have you had to write a rent check lately? Or maybe fax some important documents? Despite things like Venmo and email that normal people use every day, these ancient bits of tech and culture just keep hanging on. There’s clearly better technology, it’s just that not everyone is using it.

I laughed a little reading this.

If the first rule of Pokémon Go is “Gotta catch ‘em all,” the second rule is you are going to need to bring an extra battery to do so.

One game driving the sales of another accessory—good for them.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band marked the Beatles’ cultural apex, effectively re-tuning the zeitgeist of Western society in 1967’s Summer of Love, but its predecessor – Revolver, released August 5th, 1966 – was the band’s biggest musical watershed. Never had the Beatles emerged with such a brace of high-quality songs.

Like many, Revolver is one of my favorites.

Now, 1.8 million miles of autonomous driving later, I’ve decided the time is right to step down and find my next adventure. Today will be my last day on the project as CTO. After leading our cars through the human equivalent of 150 years of driving and helping our project make the leap from pure research to developing a product that we hope someday anyone will be able to use, I am ready for a fresh challenge.

The history of Yellowstone Park is remarkably faceted with tales in various areas, not the least of which is transportation. From hiking to pack mule to stage coach to busses, the transportation story of Yellowstone is truly one for the books…

This is very cool.

ProCam:

ProCam 3 offers unparalleled control and quality with DSLR-like camera functionality and full featured photo / video editing capabilities.

I use ProCam in my beginner photography classes to show students in real time how making adjustments to shutter speed, exposure, white balance, ISO, etc., affects their images, whether they shoot with the iPhone or a DSLR. The app offers various in-app purchases and free tutorials on the web site.

Incipio:

Incipio Group, a global consumer technology solutions platform, announced today the acquisition of Griffin Technology, a creator of innovative mobile accessories for people who depend on their tech to work, play, and connect. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

With its inventive mobile solutions serving the consumer, business and education channels, Griffin Technology represents the latest addition to Incipio Group’s growing portfolio of global brands and licensed properties.

Personally, this is sad news. Paul Griffin was responsible for me moving to Nashville many years ago and I know a lot of the people at Griffin. Hopefully, Incipio will leave Griffin Technology to its own devices but we all know that’s not very likely.

Amazon is shipping enough packages across the U.S. that it is starting to need its own planes. Now we know what they look like.

It’s truly amazing how many packages Amazon ships. They are a trusted brand for so many people.

Recorded during their stand at the Zenith in Munich in November 2015, this concert shows the band raging just before its final conclusion.

Miss you Lemmy.

Built to deliver the ultimate in vocal production, the Manley VOXBOX channel strip combines the best of Manley’s ultra-boutique audio designs, including their high-fidelity tube mic preamp, vactrol optical compressor, Pultec-style passive EQ, and de-esser/limiter.

I can’t wait to try this.

We want simplicity back. This can be seen throughout the design world where distilled versions of logos are being created in order to cut through the noise of millennial living.

We are bombarded with information these days—cutting through is becoming so important.

511 Innovations is a Texas-based non-practicing entity that does not appear to sell any sensor-related products, but instead seeks to enforce its patented technologies through litigation. Eastern Texas is a common district for patent holding firms to target larger companies like Apple, which has fought similar lawsuits from VirnetX, Dot 23, VoIP-Pal, and others in recent years.

Something has to be done with these people.

Security researcher Rich Mogull:

It should surprise no one that Apple is writing their own playbook for bug bounties. Both bigger, with the largest potential payout I’m aware of, and smaller, focusing on a specific set of vulnerabilities with, for now, a limited number of researchers. Many, including myself, are definitely free to be surprised that Apple is launching a program at all. I never considered it a certainty, nor even necessarily something Apple had to do.

This is an article that Apple posted on its Web site today.

This company is just unbelievable.

The idea is to let users see what kind of programming is available in video apps made by the likes of HBO, Netflix and ESPN, without having to open up each app individually, and to play shows and movies with a single click.

This is a good idea, but I still want the television subscription.

Above Avalon:

After a tumultuous multi-year stretch that included massive unit sales declines, declining average selling prices (ASPs), and deteriorating margin trends, the iPad business has turned a corner. The combination of improving upgrade fundamentals, less severe iPad mini sales declines, and a stronger iPad lineup with the iPad Pro and accompanying accessories have positioned the iPad category that much closer to stabilization. The worst is likely over.

Interesting analysis but my concern would be that those folks who are “on schedule” to upgrade their old iPads will do no such thing. That, in fact, they’ve learned their other devices can easily replace their old iPads so there’s no need to upgrade.

Dallas News:

“While most vacationing email recipients keep it simple … some cannot resist the opportunity to inject a bit of their personality into their correspondents’ inboxes in absentia,” wrote Emily Gould.

Which, yeah, I guess that’s me. And I guess the story did well, because Facebook and Twitter have been telling me since I woke up today that it’s back on the front page of the Times’ site. So here’s a short story about how a ridiculously long out-of-office reply was born.

Most of us find those auto “out-of-office” replies mildly annoying. This one might make you cry.

Petapixel:

This is nuts. Curious what 24-4000mm equivalent zoom will get you? This demo video, shot with the 83x optical zoom Nikon P900 superzoom, will show you.

Basically, this camera can take you from a parking lot to the surface of the moon, because while its optical zoom maxes out a holy-crap 83x, the camera can keep going with digital zoom. The P900 features 166x ‘Dynamic Fine Zoom,’ putting the final equivalent focal length at a mind-numbing 4000mm.

I’ve seen this camera in action. Picture quality isn’t great but that zoom ins mind bending.

Federico Viticci:

Joonas Kiminki got his iPhone stolen in Italy last month. After a couple of weeks, he received an email saying that the device had been found. The email turned out to be a well-designed, meticulous phishing attempt.

Sadly the same thing happened to Viticci’s mother. Quite a scam.

The newly redesigned Apple Store app is a more personal way to shop for the latest Apple products and accessories. Get recommendations based on the Apple products you already own. Find out which accessories are compatible with your devices. Easily upgrade to a new iPhone from your current one. Keep track of your orders wherever you go. And reserve a spot in an upcoming workshop or event.

Actress-entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow will serve as a mentor to contestants in Apple’s “Planet of the Apps,” a reality-competition series designed to showcase the tech goliath’s iTunes App Store that is set to bow in 2017.

Tech investor Gary Vaynerchuk and will.iam are also involved in the show as advisers.

Reuters:

Apple Inc deserved the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages Samsung Electronics Co Ltd paid for infringing patented designs of the iPhone because the product’s distinctive look drives people to purchase it, a group of design industry professionals told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.

Setting up a clash with a number of Silicon Valley companies that have come out on the side of Samsung, more than 100 designers and educators signed on to a new court brief supporting Apple.

They include famous fashion names Calvin Klein, Paul Smith and Alexander Wang, the industrial design director at Parsons School of Design, the design director for Bentley Motors, and Tony Chambers, the editor-in-chief of Wallpaper magazine.

And:

Samsung asked the Supreme Court to review the case, and in March, the justices agreed to examine whether the total profits from a product that infringes a design patent should be awarded if the patent applies only to a component of the product.

The designers on Thursday said that in the minds of consumers, the “look of the product comes to represent the underlying features, functions, and total user experience.”

Stealing a design can lead to a lost sale, and Apple deserves to be compensated for that with the infringer’s entire profits, they said.

And:

Samsung has had a number of trade groups come out on its side, including The Internet Association as well as Silicon Valley heavyweights Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) unit Google, which makes the Android operating system used in Samsung’s phones.

The groups say the Federal Circuit decision is dangerous to the technology industry because it could empower companies that make money by suing over design patents.

From the amicus brief itself:

For a product that a consumer does not yet own, it is the visual design, rather than text or lists of features, that dominates print, television, and online advertisements, social media platforms, and e-commerce websites. And it the visual design that consumers encounter while walking on the street observing peers using the product — a powerful factor in purchase decisions. Thus, when a consumer encounters a product, the consumer identifies the look of the product with the underlying functional features and the visual design comes to represent the features, functions, and total user experience of the product.

I found the brief to be well put together and a fascinating read. Obviously, the only thing that matters is what the court thinks.

In this official Apple support document, Apple lists the limits on calendars and reminders, contacts, and bookmarks.

For example, here are just a few of the limits on contacts:

• Total number of contact cards: 50,000
• Maximum size of a contact card: 256 KB
• Maximum size of a contact photo: 224 KB
• Maximum size of a contact group: 256 KB

[Via 512 Pixels]

Jonny Evans, writing for Computerworld:

Every online photo, all those Apple Maps requests, Siri interrogations, FaceTime chats, Apps downloads and iMessage exchanges all use drops of water.

In most cases the data servers enabling all these Apple services are kept cool by pumping water through the systems.

Apple used 160 million gallons of water across its data centers last year. (It used a total 573 million gallons (2.1 billion litres) of water across its entire US business).

From Apple’s Environmental Responsibility Report:

We’re constantly working to minimize our water use, so we monitor it within our cooling, landscaping, and sanitation processes and at our manufacturing sites. Then we develop targeted ways to reduce it. That includes creating cooling systems in our data centers that can reuse water up to 35 times. Or, for facilities in drier climates, installing intelligent irrigation systems that monitor weather and deploy water only when needed.

In 2015, we started collecting even more sophisticated data to help strengthen our con- servation strategy. We’ve begun to measure the water it takes to manufacture each of our products, starting with iPhone. And now we’re identifying the high-, medium-, and low-scarcity areas where we use water, so we can focus our e orts where they matter most.

When we began to measure the water consumption footprint of iPhone, we learned that the story was similar to our product carbon footprint: the vast majority is during the manufacturing phase. This is primarily due to water consumed in energy pro- duction, such as for oil extraction, distillation, and processing, as well as non-energy sources, such as process water consumed during metals processing. That’s why we are focusing on reducing water consumption in our supply chain, primarily through our supplier clean water and clean energy programs.

Interesting article by Jonny Evans, glad to see Apple is on top of this problem.

J. D. Biersdorfer, writing for the New York Times, talks through the complexities of teaching Siri how to properly pronounce an unusual name.

A key step in teaching Siri:

If your Contacts list contains names with unusual spellings and pronunciations that Siri cannot accurately match up when you ask for them, you can try adding a phonetic version of the name to the person’s contact card. To do that, call up the contact, tap Edit in the upper-right corner and scroll down to Add Field.

Tap the Add Field option and on the next screen, select Phonetic First Name or Phonetic Last Name. Once the chosen field appears, type in the syllables of the name the way that they sound rather than how the name is spelled.

This works well in iOS, but Siri is also available on the Mac. In the Contacts application on the Mac, you’ll want to open a contact card, click Edit (lower right of the card) then, from the Contact menu bar, select Card > Add Field > Phonetic First/Last Name or Phonetic Company. [H/T Mark Hurty and HYAPhoto]