In a few hours, the chief executives of four major technology companies — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are going to be hauled up in front of our politicians. I am surprised to see Microsoft omitted from this list, though they should be in here with the big four. They will have to defend themselves from the charges that they stifle competition as a result of their market dominance.
And:
The short version (in case you want to skip reading the piece) — all sizzle no steak. In other words, you could (and should) avoid even thinking about it. You are not going to see the four chieftains say anything that damages their business or upsets the status quo. It is not going to impact the employees or the stocks of these companies. Hell, it is not even a photo-op: the whole non-drama is going to play out on Zoom.
Read the whole piece. A number of hot takes, all worth reading. I’m not convinced these hearings will turn into any meaningful change, especially with an election coming up with the potential to upend all political plans.
In a stunning reversal, AMC Theatres has struck a historic agreement with Universal that will allow the studio’s movies to be made available on premium video-on-demand after just 17 days of play in cinemas, including three weekends, the two companies announced Tuesday.
The deal — which presently only covers AMC’s U.S. locations — shatters the traditional theatrical window, a longstanding policy that has required studios to play their films on the big screen for nearly three months before making films available in the home.
Key to this deal is that AMC will get revenue from the video on demand showings. In effect, AMC’s theaters will be paid to let someone else show movies.
Will we see a return to normal movie-going behavior once COVID-19 is in the rear view mirror? Or are we seeing a behavior changing milestone in the model of going to a theater to see a movie? I suspect the latter, given the incredible wealth of quality content available on all our excellent screens, available without requiring us to leave our homes.
When Apple TV+ hit The Morning Show had its Season 2 production stopped by COVID-19, no one rested on their laurels. According to Emmy nominee Mark Duplass, who played beleaguered producer Chip Black, the show is in rewrites to reflect the current global situation—something they also did in Season 1 as a response to #MeToo.
Follow the headline link to read the short interview with Duplass.
Some shows have returned to very cautious production, but most are taking the approach of The Morning Show and using this time for rewrites. I suspect when Hollywood does get the all clear to return to full scale production, we’re going to see a boom in creativity, some informed by the learning that comes along with all the remote collaboration, and some based simply on the massive amount of uninterrupted writing time.
Apple today previewed Apple Central World, its second and largest retail location in Thailand. Nestled in the heart of Ratchaprasong, Bangkok’s iconic intersection, the store provides a completely new and accessible destination within the lively city.
Another Apple Store. Another canvas for Apple’s architects. Read on.
Apple Central World’s distinctive architecture is brought to life with the first-ever all-glass design, housed under a cantilevered Tree Canopy roof. Once inside, customers can travel between two levels via a spiral staircase that wraps around a timber core, or riding a unique cylindrical elevator clad in mirror-polished stainless steel. Guests can enter from the ground or upper level, which provides a direct connection to the Skytrain and the city’s largest shopping center.
These words to not do this design justice. Follow the headline link, check out that image. Don’t miss that transparent wrap-around staircase that takes you to the second level. An incredible design.
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will tell U.S. lawmakers probing his company’s market power that the iPhone maker’s App Store has opened the “gate wider” for developers and doesn’t stifle competition.
In a prepared opening statement for Wednesday’s hearing in the House antitrust subcommittee, the longtime Apple executive positions the Cupertino, California-based technology giant as a “uniquely American company” that does “not have a dominant market share in any market where we do business.” He cited Google, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. as examples of competitors in the smartphone market.
Cook is giving no ground on the company position. Tomorrow’s hearing won’t actually solve any of the issues in play but it will be interesting to see how the testimony is received by the House members from both sides of the aisle.
The House Subcommittee will question Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg about anti-competitive behavior. The execs will give virtual testimonies on Wednesday beginning at noon ET. They’ll also be questioned by committee members.
Apple TV+ has earned its first Emmy nominations this morning, with nominations for “The Morning Show,” “Central Park,” “Defending Jacob,” “The Elephant Queen,” and “The Beastie Boys Story.”
In total, Apple has earned well over a dozen Emmy nominations this year. Apple TV+ launched last fall, so this marks the first time Apple has been eligible for entry into the Emmys.
Yesterday, Apple won Daytime Emmys for “Ghostwriter” and “Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10.” In total, Apple was nominated for 17 awards overall, eight of which were for “Ghostwriter” alone.
Not bad for the little streaming service that could.
CES, one of the world’s largest tech events, will be fully virtual next year amid continued concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. The Consumer Technology Association announced the change Tuesday after previously saying CES 2021 would continue to be an in-person event, with additional virtual and digital experiences.
“Amid the pandemic and growing global health concerns about the spread of COVID-19, it’s just not possible to safely convene tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas in early January 2021 to meet and do business in person,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the CTA, in a release Tuesday.
The CTA said it plans to return to Las Vegas for CES 2022.
After trying to put on a brave face, CES bowed to reality with a justifiable overabundance of caution and made this announcement well in advance so that everyone involved can bet prepared for a very different CES. Will it return to in-person in 2022? That will depend entirely on how successful the virtual 2021 show is perceived by CTA.
I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether short or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order?
And:
I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Wait, WHAT? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? Well, I’m not saying I’m like, ALLOWED to do this, I’m just saying this is what I do when I try to learn about staging, and this filmmaker forgot more about staging by the time he made his first feature than I know to this day.
Follow the link, watch the movie. That soundtrack is “In Motion” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Fascinating how beautiful this film is, even with the loss of color, dialog, and that amazing score.
Was this used by permission? And, if not, how has it escaped a takedown all these years?
The world’s first commercially viable fast charging platform to support more than 100W charging power in a smartphone, Quick Charge 5 is engineered to allow users to charge devices from 0 to 50 percent battery power in just five minutes – representing the fastest mobile phone charging capabilities available.
Students will receive an Apple iPad Pro with available Wi-Fi and cellular data connectivity (activated and covered by the College for those students who have internet connectivity needs), an Apple Pencil 2, and the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad, which includes a trackpad.
And the teachers?
All interested faculty members and the staff who support teaching and learning will receive iPads that use Wi-Fi only to connect to the internet.
This is great. The college is covering the cost of the cell plan for students with no WiFi access. Well done, Bowdoin.
ON WEDNESDAY, AFTER a brief delay, the CEOs of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple will testify together in front of Congress for the first time ever. Well, sort of: Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, the executives will appear via video, presumably from some bland settings that belie the fact that the group includes two of the world’s richest people. Even so, the event could be historic, with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos making his congressional hearing debut. The theme: whether the four companies, each among the most valuable in history, have built their economic power, or are using it, in ways that harm American society overall.
Remarkable to think that this testimony will include the richest person in the world, commanded to appear in front of Congress.
And this, on Apple:
The case against Apple should be the simplest to follow, and it is likely to revolve around the App Store. App developers have complained—all the way to the Supreme Court—that the 30 percent cut Apple takes of all revenues from its App Store is unfair. They have also accused Apple of discriminating against or ripping off apps that compete with Apple’s own offerings. The CEO of Tile, which makes hardware and software to help people keep track of things like their keys and wallet, has testified that Apple changed its Find My iPhone app to mimic Tile—and then decided to stop selling Tile products in its stores.
Apple TV+ and Oprah Winfrey today announced “The Oprah Conversation,” a new series that will continue to explore impactful and relevant topics with fascinating thought leaders from all over the world. “The Oprah Conversation” will debut on Apple TV+ on Thursday, July 30.
And:
Filmed remotely and incorporating audience engagement, Oprah will lead timely and intimate discussions with today’s foremost newsmakers, thought leaders, and masters of their craft.
“Incorporating audience engagement.” — I wonder what that means.
First, there’s the question of audience. Surely this can’t be a typical, filmed before a studio audience thing.
And what will the engagement consist of? Will the audience be online, and have the ability to ask questions, a la Inside the Actors Studio?
Target stores will be closed on Thanksgiving, the retailer said in a blog post Monday, outlining its plans for the holiday season.
“There’s no question, the holiday season is going to be very different this year,” the post said, explaining that Target will offer its holiday deals throughout the season, starting in October.
“This year more than ever, a joyful holiday will be inseparable from a safe one, and we’re continuing to adjust our plans to deliver ease, value and the joy of the season in a way that only Target can,” CEO Brian Cornell said in the post.
This is a big, brave move by these retailers to make the decision to forgo the biggest sales weekend of the year (Dave corrected me and pointed out they are only closed on Thanksgiving Day. Too much wishful thinking on my part) in favour of customer safety. It’s only July so they could still change their minds though. It will be interesting to see if retailers like Best Buy and Apple follow suit.
Join us here on July 30, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET to listen to the conference call live.
This will be an interesting report if only because this will be Apple’s first full quarter under the pandemic. They did well during the last quarter but don’t expect huge blockbuster numbers this time around. They will still have sold millions of products and earned billions of dollars though. I think they’ll be OK.
Put in the time and you can learn just about anything. You can learn how to program, learn how to play soccer, learn a new language, learn how to play a musical instrument.
And in COVID times, we’ve got the rare opportunity to lock in, get that focused practice and learning time every single day, no excuses.
This video shows the power of dedication. Skip through it, if you like, or watch the slow evolution. Congratulation, Rachel. You have accomplished something amazing.
Fall detection, aFib detection, encouraging fitness by closing your rings: These three things alone make the Apple Watch a great, ever improving investment, one that can save your life, and have saved many others.
Zach Gage has a knack for giving classic games an interesting twist. Sometimes that means turning the rules upside down and inside out like Flipflop Solitaire or Really Bad Chess. Other times, it means removing the tedious and boring parts of games to breathe new life into them, which is precisely what he and Jack Schlesinger have accomplished with Good Sudoku.
Follow the headline link for John’s review. I’ve been playing the hell out of the beta and I can tell you personally:
It’s become the number one played game on my iPhone
Apple TV+ was honored today by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with two Daytime Emmy Awards, and became the first streaming service to win a Daytime Emmy in its first year of eligibility at the 47th Annual Daytime Emmys.
Apple won Emmys for:
Outstanding Children’s or Family Viewing Programming for “Ghostwriter”
Outstanding Single Camera Editing for “Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10”
I remain bullish on Apple TV+. This is a sign of how seriously Apple is taking this service, an incredible achievement for a service that went live less than 9 months ago.
After seeing an edit by Gugga Leunnam on the marvel subreddit, I took my shot at making my own type of match cut edit. I did not at all realize the absolute mess and time commitment I was getting into but was extremely happy with the outcome. I hope everyone is staying safe during these difficult times!
What an incredible job of editing. Someone give this guy a job.
A trailer for the second season of Apple Original series “For All Mankind” has today been shared on IMDb, but it has not yet been officially released by Apple.
Apple TV+ trailers and promotional videos are usually shared on the Apple TV+ YouTube channel and via the Apple TV+ newsroom, but the “For All Mankind” season two trailer has yet to appear on either. It is possible that the trailer has been prematurely uploaded to IMDb today ahead of an official announcement from Apple. A release date for the second season has also not yet been announced.
Very odd to not see this released on the official Apple TV+ YouTube channel as of this writing but it is on the Apple TV+ Facebook page. I watched the first season and, while I don’t think it rose to the level of great TV, I’m still looking forward to season 2.
Intel Corp. Chief Executive Officer Bob Swan spent almost an hour on Thursday discussing an idea that would once have been unthinkable for the world’s largest semiconductor company: Not manufacturing its own chips. Intel’s shares tumbled as much as 18% Friday morning. Outsourcing is the norm in the $400 billion industry nowadays, but for 50 years Intel has combined chip design with in-house production. And until recently, Intel was even planning to churn out processors for others.
“To the extent that we need to use somebody else’s process technology and we call those contingency plans, we will be prepared to do that,” Swan told analysts on a conference call, after the company warned of another delayed production process. “That gives us much more optionality and flexibility. So in the event there is a process slip, we can try something rather than make it all ourselves.”
As the article says, outsourcing is the norm so, in the long run, this is unlikely to hurt Intel significantly. It will be their delays in production that hurt them.
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The examples of what the service offers are incredible. If you’ve got old, sepia-toned, poor quality photos, the photo enhancer does an amazing job of bringing out long lost details in the shots. You’ll see pictures of your great-grandparents in ways you never thought possible. As you preserve these precious memories, consider setting up a wedding registry online to start creating new memories that will last for generations. If you’re currently planning your wedding, you may hire wedding photographers Northern Virginia.
To get started, you have to create an account, including giving up your credit card info. But you can skip this step and go straight to the upload page here. You can upload a photo and the site will still ask you to create an account but there’s no need to enter any credit card info. From there, you choose your photo to be enhanced (FYI in my tests, it would only accept JPGs and at least 300 pixels by 300 pixels) and/or colourized.
The results are pretty incredible. I only have one old photo of my father (who I never met) and I ran it through the process and this is the result:
Notice the tiny watermarks on the lower left and right. If you are a paid-up subscriber, those aren’t present. Subscriptions are pricey at $17/month but you can cancel at any time, according to the site. Give it a try yourself but, when you sign up, use a throwaway email address. MyHeritage opts you into a buttload of their emails.
Apple Inc. told U.S. employees they can take as many as four hours off with pay on Election Day to vote or volunteer at a polling place.
The policy applies to retail employees and hourly workers and is similar to moves made by other companies, including Twitter Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. It was announced in a memo to Apple employees seen by Bloomberg News. Election Day is Nov. 3.
“For retail team members and hourly workers across the company, if you’re scheduled to work this Election Day, we’ll be providing up to four hours of paid time off if you need it to get to the polls,” Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail and people, told staff. “If they choose, our teams can also use this time to volunteer as an election worker at one of your local polling stations.”
Great idea but why isn’t this a nationwide law as it is in some third world countries?
Earlier this year, the Pentagon released three videos of UFOs recorded by the Navy — one taken in 2004 and the other two in 2015. The videos, which first leaked a couple of years ago, show … well, it’s not exactly clear.
There are various objects — two of which look like aircraft — spinning through the sky and moving in ways that defy easy explanation. As the images bop across the screen, you can hear the pilots’ excitement and confusion in real time as they track whatever it is they’re seeing.
I’m not what you would call a UFO enthusiast, but the videos are the most compelling I’ve ever seen. They seem to confirm, at the very least, that UFOs are real — not that aliens exist, but that there are unidentified objects buzzing around the sky.
Now, do I think aliens are real? Yeah, probably. Are they flying spaceships into our atmosphere? Who the hell knows?
I think this is really interesting in an entirely “thought experiment” kind of way. I do believe there is “alien life” out there but do I believe they’ve visited Earth? No. How about you?
Apple is donating its share of earnings from documentary film “John Lewis: Good Trouble” to the National Civil Rights Museum and National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“Representative John Lewis’s life and example compel each of us to continue the fight for racial equity and justice,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “This film celebrates his undeniable legacy, and we felt it fitting to support two cultural institutions that continue his mission of educating people everywhere about the ongoing quest for equal rights.”
Lewis was an important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement and this is a documentary everyone should watch.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the Power Mac G4 Cube, which debuted July 19, 2000. It also marks the 19th anniversary of Apple’s announcement that it was putting the Cube on ice. That’s not my joke, it’s Apple’s, straight from the headline of its July 3, 2001, press release that officially pulled the plug.
For one thing, the price was prohibitive—by the time you bought the display, it was almost three times the price of an iMac and even more than some PowerMacs. By and large, people don’t spend their art budget on computers.
That wasn’t the only issue with the G4 Cube. Those plastics were hard to manufacture, and people reported flaws. The air cooling had problems. If you left a sheet of paper on top of the device, it would shut down to prevent overheating. And because it had no On button, a stray wave of your hand would send the machine into action, like it or not.
I was at the Macworld Expo launch of the Cube in 2000 and not to toot my own horn but I (and to be fair, many others) predicted the demise of the Cube as soon as we saw it. Rather, as soon as we saw the eye-watering price of the little box of plastic. Then we saw what the display would cost (and you “had to” buy the display – why would you connect this beautiful cube to an ordinary monitor?) and the prediction was an easy one to make.
That being said, many of us lusted after the Cube – maybe less so when all the issues surrounding it became apparent but nonetheless, like the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, it was less a computer and more of a design statement and a way to show off your cool factor.
Dave and I kick off this week’s show talking about Peacock TV, which is probably the worst service I’ve seen in streaming TV. We also talk about the rumored iPhone periscope lens, the new $30 third-party Apple TV remote that has one major flaw, and the start of baseball.
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