This is the COOLEST. A Google Earth-type representation of the planet. Every green dot is a radio station. Click any dot to listen in. It’s like cultural teleportation. You could spend hours with this thing…
OMG, I cannot believe that people are complaining about the camera notch on the new MacBook Pros. You do understand that you’re GAINING screen area, right? Apple extended the image up into what used to be blackness. (And put the menu bar there. The notch doesn’t block anything.)
My exclusive test drive: A software update gives Tesla cars the ability to pass slow cars, get on highways, merge, shift into the correct exit lane, and take exit ramps—all autonomously.
In case you missed my prime-time "
@CBSSunday
Morning" story tonight, on how online pet videos have moved from entertainment to activism and compassion, it’s now online!
@MarinusTrades
@tomokc405
To be clear, I was not on the sub that day—I was on the ship at the surface, in the control room. They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was. It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship’s internet to prevent us from tweeting.
EXCLUSIVE: Fitbit has now accumulated 150 BILLION hours’ worth of heart-rate data—the biggest dataset in history—and gave me a look at what it reveals! Some real surprises in there.
You may remember that the
@OceanGateExped
sub to the
#Titanic
got lost for a few hours LAST summer, too, when I was aboard…Here’s the relevant part of that story.
@tomokc405
This submersible does not have any kind of beacon like that. On my expedition last summer, they did indeed get lost for about 5 hours, and adding such a beacon was discussed…
In as many as 16 states, you can’t buy a Tesla. They actually have laws that ban Tesla dealerships! How did this bizarre situation arise? Here’s my in-depth report.
Remember my voyage to the Titanic last last summer? In OceanGate’s homemade carbon-fiber sub? () They took passengers out again this summer—but as of today, the sub is lost. Coast Guard is doing a search and rescue.
The new MacBook Pros (14” + 16”) are remarkable. New M1 chips, 3 USB-C jacks, 17-hr battery, 6 speakers, etc. But also: the RETURN of SD card slot, MagSafe charger, and Fkey top row! (TouchBar is gone!) When has Apple EVER restored a feature it once eliminated—let alone 3? BRAVO!
Well, after five great years—407 articles, 352 videos, 46 live appearances—I’m saying farewell to the Yahoo family. I’ll be redoubling my efforts at “
@CBSSunday
Morning”—and returning to the
@NYTimes
to launch a new column! Details soon!
22-yo hockey fan (and nursing volunteer) spots cancerous mole on Vancouver Canucks equipment manager’s neck—writes “cancer,” “mole,” and “doctor” in red on her phone—holds it up to the glass—saves his life. What a story!
INCREDIBLE!
@NASA
’s
@MissionDART
struck the asteroid DEAD CENTER, entirely autonomously, 7 million miles from earth. An asteroid moonlet we’d never even seen, moving 51,000 mph around the sun. THAT, my friends, is science!
This year,
@AMCTheaters
bought all of the theaters near me in CT. I hate the thought of local businesses getting swallowed up by conglomerates…but I will admit that AMC’s website and app and frequent-goer programs are OUTSTANDING. Super easy and informative and logical.
As you evaluate your opinion on the MacBook Pro’s notch, keep in mind that it houses more than just a 1080p camera. It also houses the TrueTone sensor (colors consistent in all lighting conditions), light sensor (adjusts brightness/keyboard illumination), and “camera on” LED.
@SaraOHara16
@OceanGateExped
Communication with the sub is lost (for 7 hours, I’m hearing) AND they don’t know where it is. Yes, they could still be OK. They have 4 days of oxygen, and 7 ways to rise to the surface. The question is, why HAVEN’T they?
This
@McSweeneys
article appears to be a sillier and sillier excursion into making a sentence more passive and less meaningful. It gets funnier and more absurd…until you reach the punch line at the bottom. Where’s George Orwell when we need him?
Twitter is now shutting down 1 million fake accounts a day. It’s trying to fight the bot/troll/spam/Russian problem. It may hurt their reported membership, but it’s the right thing to do!
WOW. A bar-tailed godwit (that’s a bird, in case you’re wondering) just flew from Alaska to New Zealand—7,500 miles—without stopping, according to its GPS tag. That’s a record, and a really impressive little dude.
If you’ve never seen a quick-change act before (where costumes change instantly before your eyes), you’ll love this one—and you HAVE seen one, you’ll still love this, because she combines the act with magic. Really great.
1) My MacBook Pro keyboard doouubblle types. Apple Store fixes it. 2) Happens again. Store: “3-5 days to order the part.” 3) “We ripped a cable trying to fix it. 3-5 days to order THAT part.” 4) “Still doesn’t work. Sending away to Apple. 3-5 days.” 15 days, no computer? COME ON!
Holy moly. Apple Watch 4 has sensors built into the back and crown that lets you take your own ECG (electrocardiogram)—first ever over-the-counter device. Detects atrial fibrillation. A HUGE lifesaving development.
#AppleEvent2018
As we monitor the lost
@OceanGateExped
sub to the
#Titanic
, two reasons for hope. First, they have 96 hours of oxygen on board. Second, they have SEVEN different ways to rise to the surface—multiple redundant ballast and air-bladder systems.
Two weeks ago, 27 customers who weren’t wearing masks in a Starbucks got COVID infections. All of the employees working there were wearing masks, and none of them got sick. A useful A/B test.
My new book, "How to Prepare for Climate Change,” is about where to live, what to grow, where to invest, how to insure, and how to build—and preparing for fires, floods, droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, ticks, and social unrest. The time has come, folks.
@JamesTimmins
@MarinusTrades
@tomokc405
Yes. The company gave us a different rationale for shutting off the Internet… That this could be an emergency, and they needed all channels open… And we had no idea how to confirm whether or not that was true.
This new app from Brickit scans your heap of random old Lego pieces...and produces a list of things you can make with them. Including step-by-step instructions!
Just shy of his 23rd birthday, Wilbur the Wackjob Cat has gone to the great laptop keyboard in the sky. He was known to many as the hilarious, inexplicable cat who inserted himself into every TV story and Zoom call. A video tribute:
Tim Klein noticed that “jigsaw puzzle companies tend to use the same cut patterns for multiple puzzles. This makes the pieces interchangeable.” So he’s combined puzzles to create these amazingly bizarre hybrid images…
Why do hotels need your credit card at check-in, when they already got it when you booked the room? Why do they have to fuss with making you key cards, when they knew perfectly well you were coming?
New iPhone Xs models (say it with me, now—“Ten-S”) have upgraded camera. Better, faster HDR. Also, you can now ADUST the depth of field (blurriness in background) of a Portrait-mode shot after the fact. OK, THAT is pretty great.
#AppleEvent2018
Last night, a truck jackknifed and blocked the entire Van Wyck Expressway. I was stuck there for over an hour en route home from JFK airport. It’s THOSE moments when you’re grateful that Netflix and Hulu are build into the
@Tesla
Model 3 (available only in Park, of course).
The ad that announces Budweiser’s contribution to assisting the coronavirus crisis is so beautifully done, so powerful, and so clever (every word has a double meaning—you’ll see), it tops anything I saw during the Super Bowl.
YouTuber releases a simple animation of a human struggling forward, challenges CGI artists to incorporate it into a 4-second scene. Click the link to see the top 100. Just incredible talent + imagination. You wind up wishing each could be a whole movie!
Dear hotels: Thank you for the cardboard sign emphasizing your commitment to the environment through reusing towels. Now, about those 10 million empty mini-fridges running all year, or the 500 million plastic shampoo bottles you throw out...
I just renewed my contract with "
@CBSSunday
Morning" for three more years! And loved every click of it. I get the best bosses, producers, and editors in the business…building the best news show on TV. This is the BEST. JOB. IN TELEVISION!
TONIGHT'S MEDITATION: A boy asked his dad for 1 bitcoin for his birthday.
Dad: What? $15,554??? $14,354 is a lot of money! What do you need $16,782 for, anyway?
Dear
@Apple
: Your press release for the Apple Vision Pro uses the term “user” 104 times. Why would you choose such a distancing, dead, disrespectful term for the people who use your products? Only two industries refer to their customers as “users.”
Here’s my suggested edit.
@Rddesjardin
@MarinusTrades
@tomokc405
Yes, many red flags! That’s why both the TV story and the “Unsung Science“ podcast episode spent so much time challenging the CEO about the safety and construction of the submersible.
Have you seen that meme where people add new captions to an old Mexican talk-show clip? This one, about Apple’s new $1000 monitor stand, is freaking hilarious…
40 years ago today, Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh. Tonight, I'm hosting an astonishing event that reunites many of its creators: Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Susan Kare, Steve Capps, Bruce Horn, Guy Kawasaki, many more. Free livestream at 7 pm PT:
This animation is helpful in illustrating the difference between how many votes a candidate gets… and how red/blue state maps may look like the vote went lopsidedly the other way.
In 22 years at “
@CBSSunday
Morning,” I’ve never loved a story as much as this one: How
@NASA
’s side project, a cheap, tiny helicopter for Mars, was meant to fly 5 times and then die. But then—twist upon twist, miracle upon miracle, for three years!
My daughter pointed out today that this sign says EXACTLY the opposite of what it’s supposed to mean. (It currently says that if you’re a “dumping violator,” you will not be prosecuted.) Punctuation matters!
At this hotel and its restaurant, the staff wore photo buttons to show what their faces look like behind the masks. Kind of a great idea… for everyone!
I know I’m not the first person to point out that the cycle of a COVID-19 infection is 2 or 3 weeks. If the whole country fully locked down for 3 weeks, the whole thing would be over. A crazy idea? Sure. But the more months go by, the less crazy it seems!
If this works, it’s just nuts. Nvidia has come up with a video compression algorithm that lets you do Zoom calls with a tiny fraction of the bandwidth usually required. Could be a game-changer for people with poor internet connections. (Via
@chrismessina
!)
Oh wow. After Apple blocked cookies in its Safari browser, Google has now built, RIGHT INTO CHROME, a tracker that "track[s] the web pages you visit and generate[s]a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask."
Today, a select few (hundred) journalists and techies got 30-minute tryouts with the Apple Vision Pro. It’s mind-blowing tech, it really is—but the pros and cons probably aren’t what you imagine. Here’s what I experienced!
This is SO BRILLIANT.
@Apple
and
@Google
are teaming up to develop completely private, opt-in, Bluetooth contact tracing. Example: if you’re exposed to someone who’s tested COVID positive, you’ll get a notification, so you can get yourself tested…
Night after night, this guy’s security camera was catching a 3-year-old riding a little bike on his driveway apron…he finally decided to do something about it. This is fantastic.
My 8th grader has figured out how to make his 530-word essay appear with only 500 words: He’s using some nonbreaking spaces (Option-Space on the Mac), so that Word counts the two surrounding words as a single word. Not sure whether to be appalled, or admire him for his genius.
Here’s a good explanation of why canceling events and concerts is useful. The idea is not to stop coronavirus spread—only to slow it enough that the hospital system can keep up.
OMG.
@Tesla
’s latest software update offers a driving simulator (available in Park only) and, I kid you not, a prank feature that lets you trigger a fart sound from a passenger seat of your choice. Can you see GM doing that!?
More news from the
#AppleEvent
: iPhone 13 (and Mini) will get 1.5 hours more per charge. Slightly smaller “notch” at top of screen. Smoother refresh rate. Portrait Mode (blurry background) for video, not just stills. Pretty minor changes (and no new Macs).
Vegas airport, Southwest boarding lounge. Agent on the PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s now our boarding time, but we can’t start yet, due to FAA Rule 173-57B, which states that the airplane actually has to BE here before we board...”
Delta flight attendant on the PA: “We have some of the finest flight attendants in the business working at Delta. Unfortunately, they’re not on tonight’s flight. But we have four pretty good ones...”
Dear electronics industry:
@Sonos
has figured out how to ship and package a product, attractively and well protected, with NO PLASTIC WRAP! It can be done.
Dear web: Could you PLEASE stop forcing “sign up for our newsletter” interrupty boxes every time we visit your site? If we wanted your newsletter, we’d click the Get Our Newsletter button. You’re just being obnoxious.
I have ALWAYS wondered why we can’t re-time old, jerky movie footage to make it smoother. Look what Peter Jackson has done with these WWI clips! INCREDIBLE>