Philips Sleep Expert Snags Dream Job With Apple Wearable Team

I've been interested in a sleep tracker for some time, so it's interesting (and logical) to hear rumours that it's a part of Apple's thinking for the mythical iWatch. One thing's clear though: If it's going to spend all night tracking my sleep, and all day tracking my walking, it's going to need one hell of a battery. When do I get to charge it?

Tracking sleep patterns is one area that has been a focus for some of the popular fitness tracking products on the market such as the FitBit and could be one feature Apple attempts to incorporate into iWatch. The FitBit products, for example, are capable of tracking movements to provide data on sleep patterns and calculate sleep efficiency. It also offers the ability to silently wake the user through vibrations without disturbing others. There are also a number of third-party iPhone connected devices and apps designed to improve and track sleeping habits.

Deaf Composer Faked His Work For A Decade

Pretty amazing story. There's something enormously compelling about well-executed fakery, though this seems to have a grain of tragedy at its heart too.

Much like Beethoven, Mamoru Samuragochi managed to become a famous and successful composer despite the fact that he's deaf — but it turns out someone else has been doing the work for him. In a statement released through his lawyer, Samuragochi has admitted that for more than a decade a mystery composer has been writing music released under his name.

Mobile Data Looks Set To Explode

Though the UK is still well behind the US and Japan the direction is clear, driven by 4G/LTE on Phones and Tablets. I'm personally getting through 1.5 gig of data a month on just my iPhone, and probably the same or more on my iPad, and although I'm not exactly average I'm also not doing anything particularly data-heavy. 

The global total, and Cisco's projection for five years' time, is astonishing.  

Mobile users the world over came close to doubling their mobile data consumption between 2012 and 2013 as average monthly usage peaked well over 1 GB in the U.S, and several other countries, according to Cisco Systems’ new Visual Networking Index report on global mobile data trends.

WiFi From Space

I so want this to happen.

By leveraging datacasting technology over a low-cost satellite constellation, Outernet is able to bypass censorship, ensure privacy, and offer a universally-accessible information service at no cost to global citizens. It's the modern version of shortwave radio, or BitTorrent from space.

Decades-Old Games Should Be Public Domain

John Walker's thoughts on copyright have sparked somewhat of a storm, but they deserve to be heard.

What about the electrician who fitted the lighting in your house. He requires a fee every time you switch the lights on. It’s just the way things are. You have to pay it, because it’s always been that way, since you can remember. How can he be expected to live off just fitting new lights to other houses? And the surgeon’s royalties on that heart operation he did – that’s the system. Why shouldn’t he get paid every time you use it?

So why should a singer get to profit from a recording of his doing some work thirty-five years ago? The answer “because it’s his song” just isn’t good enough. It was PC Ironburns’ arrest. “But creating that song may have taken years!” PC Ironburns spent years investigating the crimes before he caught that pesky crim! The electrician had to study for years to become proficient enough to rig up lighting. The doctor spent seven years in medical school! Imagine if this system we wholly accept from creative industries were accepted elsewhere – the ensuing chaos would be extraordianry. Take Broussard’s claim above, that “Creatives have a right to be paid indefinitely on their work”, and switch out “Creatives” for any other job. “Dentists”, “teachers”, “librarians”, “palaeontologists”… It starts to appear a little ludicrous.

Jake & Ridley Scott Collaborate On Apple's "1.24.14"

Beautiful film, shot across five continents, with iPhones.

One of the first phone calls at the beginning of the project was from Lee Clow, the ad agency creative director behind the iconic commercial that launched Macintosh in 1984, to Ridley Scott, who directed it. From the start, they knew the right director this time around was Scott’s son Jake. Collaborating with his father, Jake assembled 15 crews around the world, each led by an outstanding cinematographer.

After the footage was shot in each location, it was handed over to Angus Wall, one of the most sought-after editors in Hollywood. Because so much footage had to be edited so quickly — over 70 hours shot on 100 iPhones — he employed a team of 21 editors to piece the story together.

Studio Ghibli To Make a TV Series

If this doesn't come to Netflix or otherwise air in the UK this year, I'm moving to Japan.

Ronia lives with her father, a robber chieftain, and his band of men in their fortress on the top of a mountain. On the night Ronia was born, a bolt of lightning split the stronghold in two, leaving a huge chasm – Hell’s Gap – in between. Soon Ronia is old enough to explore the forest around her, but she must beware of the grey dwarfs and wild harpies that live there. One day she meets Birk, the son of a rival robber leader who has claimed the other side of Hell’s Gap, and upon whom Ronia’s father instantly declares war. Ronia and Birk develop a friendship that is as indestructible as the mountain fortress itself. But with their families sworn enemies they are forced to keep their friendship a secret until one fateful day when Ronia’s father catches Birk . . . prompting Ronia and Birk to escape into the woods and fend for themselves. How long can Ronia and Birk survive in the magical forest? And will their fathers ever put aside their differences to get their beloved children back?

Free U2 Track Gets (Red) $1 Per Download

Whatever you think of U2, you should probably download this.

A Solar-Powered iPhone? Don't Hold Your Breath

Apple is certainly investigating all kinds of advanced battery technology, but I'd put money on the next devices iterating on its already-leading-edge power optimisation, rather than solar or kinetic charging.

The Times guesses that Apple may use solar in a watch, somehow getting enough energy out of a small surface worn on the wrist under a sleeve. They go on to postulate that Apple could use the motion of your arm or wireless charging tech or some other charging method to get power to the watch.

Me? I don’t buy any of these pie in the sky ideas. These don’t feel like informed sources and it feels like a lot of guessing going on. My money is on Apple optimizing everything from the battery to the chips as much as science will allow and then putting a super efficient OS on top of it and eeking out a full day’s power– which is the gold standard.

Siri's Co-creator Ponders "Her"

 Siri might not be Samantha yet, but she's great at boiling my eggs.

Hollywood has always shown the way to the future. It’s a little known fact that, for decades, the bigscreen inspired many forward-looking technologies long before their day. (The reverse has also been true: Steven Spielberg asked his way around Silicon Valley to find out where technology was likely to be in 50 years prior to filming “Minority Report.”)

My line of business was no exception to this trend. Siri was seriously influenced by Stanley Kubrick’s HAL 9000 character in “2001: A Space Odyssey” as well as the talking computers from “Star Trek” and KITT from “Knight Rider.” I’ll bet David Hasselhoff is using Siri right now.

iPhone Healthbook

Intriguing rumours around Apple's entry into the growing health & fitness market, centred around an iPhone "Healthbook" app. We can be pretty sure Apple is exploring the wearables/sensors space, but wouldn't it also be interesting if they were to support data from the rapidly expanding collection of third-party devices too? There are so many of these now, each with their own set of incompatible apps, that someone needs to bring that data together in a meaningful and usable way. If that's going to happen, I don't want it to be Google that's looking after that data.

Besides fitness tracking, a marquee feature of “Healthbook” will be the ability to monitor a user’s vital signs.

The application will be able to track a person’s blood pressure, hydration levels, heart rate, and potentially several other blood-related data points, such as glucose levels, according to our sources.

The software is also programmed to allow users to enter details about their medications so that they could be reminded to take pills at scheduled times. This will likely integrate with iOS’s existing Reminders application.

Reducing Data To Bits

E-End provides pretty impressive levels of data security. Important work, as more and more of our personal data ends up lying around on decommissioned server drives and backups.

Need to destroy a rugged Toughbook laptop that might have been used in war? E-End will use a high-powered magnetic process known as degaussing to erase its hard drive of any memory. A computer monitor that might have some top-secret images left on it? Crushed and ground into recyclable glass. Laser sights for weapons? Torn into tiny shards of metal. E-End adheres to the government's highest demilitarization standards and NSA guidelines, Steve Chafitz said, and documents every step the data "sanitation" with photographs and paperwork.

Click Wheel iPod Games

I'd forgotten all about these, but I had quite a few on my old iPod U2 Special Edition. They were actually very good. I played the hell out of Apple's Texas Hold-Em game. It's certainly odd that they're still referenced in the iPod Classic promotional material, since Apple removed them over three years ago.

Reading Simon Jary’s delightfully snark-filled 10 reasons Apple will and won’t kill the iPod – is the iPod really doomed? on Macworld UK this morning, I was reminded that the iPod classic had, for a while, games. They were pretty simplistic, but they worked. I recall buying a couple of them, and they got lost somewhere between one old Mac and my current computer.

Thirty Years Done Right

John Gruber's contribution to the Mac's thirtieth anniversary is thoughtful and beautifully written. It's hard to overestimate how important these early details have been in the longevity of the platform, and in how influential it was over pretty much all modern computing paradigms.

So Copy was awarded the mnemonic ⌘C, and Cut the sort-of-mnemonic ⌘X, but Undo and Paste were assigned the semantically meaningless but ergonomically convenient shortcuts ⌘Z and ⌘V. Not only was the idea of Undo a novel invention, the Mac team found a shortcut to invoke it that was as easy to type as possible. And what is the most common thing to do after copying? Pasting. So what could be a better shortcut for Paste, ergonomically, than the key right next to the one for Copy? You remember these shortcuts not by letter, but by physical position.

Even these four commands’ order in the Edit menu corresponded to their shortcuts’ order on the keyboard: Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste — Z, X, C, V. Simply brilliant. Every one of these design decisions has persisted through today.

Is Touchscreen Technology Good For Toddlers?

If you've a child under the age of three, this research project is looking for folks to help find out more.

I am currently potty training my little boy and we are both finding it a rather challenging time. But wait a minute, there’s an App for that! Within minutes he is being congratulated by a total stranger on his ability to perform a bodily function and being awarded virtual stickers that he can drag over to his high definition reward chart. My feelings are mixed. Am I being a ‘good’ mum finding up to the minute ways to help my child reach early milestones as well as en-culturing him into the digital world in which he will grow up? Or am I a being a ‘bad’ mum, jettisoning my parental responsibilities onto a pixelated piece of programming, a high resolution load of nonsense that adds nothing to my son’s experience of life and potentially confuses his emerging ability to socialise and build relationships?

Singapore, City Of The New

I've not been to Singapore in over a decade, and I imagine it's changed significantly in that time. Even back at the beginning of the twenty-first century it felt like an old colony stretching out to meet the future. I adored the place, and long to return.

To be a resident of Singapore is to be a resident of the new. Cars can only run on the roads for 10 years. There are more mobile phones than people. An apartment built 30 years ago is considered old. It’s a city of technology. What tech the government implements generally just works (although breakdowns in the newest train line forced commuters to walk the tracks twice in a week). My passage through Changi Airport, short as it is, is shaved further by electronic turnstiles that have replaced actual immigration officers. Scan my passport, recognize my right thumbprint, see you in a week.

Preserving Voices For The Future

Fantastic work from friend Andy Mabbett on setting up this project. If anyone has any notable guest speakers at events coming up, perhaps you'd like to ask them to contribute.

Generations to come will be able to hear what celebrities and notable individuals actually sounded like, starting with Stephen Fry, thanks to Wikipedia’s new voice recording project. The Wikipedia Voice Intro Project (WikiVIP) aims to add the voice of celebrities, scientists, artists and other people of note from around the world to their Wikipedia biographies, providing 10 seconds or so of audio to enable current and future readers to know what they sounded like.

This Is The Mac That Started Things For Me

The Macintosh Plus computer was the 3rd model in the Macintosh line. Launched in 1986 with a retail price of US$2,600, the ‘Mac Plus’ shipped with 1MB RAM, an external SCSI peripheral bus and could run System 7.

When the original Macintosh launched in 1984 I was a college student studying for A-Levels (Design, English Language & Literature, Theatre Studies, since you ask) and a $2,500 computer was way off my radar. By the time the Macintosh Plus was launched in 1986 I was entering university, and Apple's vision of a computer for the rest of us made much more sense to me. I first encountered the Mac Plus when a much more computer-savvy friend invested in one to boost his programming skills and help with his maths degree. To say that I was bowled over is an understatement. The computers that I'd encountered before were intriguing but opaque beasts that talked in arcane command-line languages and output primitive graphics (if at all). Here was an entirely different kind of device, one that could be switched on and whose operations could be divined from looking, touching, and observing—an appliance for computing, or in Steve Jobs' words "a bicycle for the mind".

 I adored that computer even though it wasn't mine, and indeed I took ever opportunity to use it, borrow it, and look after it when my friend went away for vacations. I practically lived in HyperCard (which, truth be told, I still miss), designing covers for my audiocassettes, cataloging my music collection, setting up contact databases and printing them out for my paper organiser, and even programming rudimentary games and multimedia. A few years later I even bought the same Mac Plus second-hand and designed my first actual seven-inch single sleeve using MacDraw II.

I've owned plenty of Macs since then—in fact I've never owned any other kind of PC—and they've all been important in one way or another, but the Mac Plus is what started it for me. The spirit of empowered, humane, personal computing that little machine embodied is what drew me to work in design, education and technology, and what makes me continue to believe in their potential for transforming human lives.

Which Sites Have The Best Password Policies?

Apple did well here, but it's worth reading the article for important caveats.

Apple.com was the only site to receive a perfect score of 100, which was based on 24 criteria, such as whether the site accepts "123456" and other extremely weak passwords and whether it sends passwords in plaintext by e-mail. Microsoft and academic supplier Chegg tied for second place with 65, while Newegg and Target came in third with 60. By contrast, MLB received a score of -75, Karmaloop a -70, Dick's Sporting Goods a -65, and Aeropostale and Toys R US each got a -60. Each site was awarded or deducted points based on each criterion, leading to a possible score from -100 and 100. The study was conducted by researchers from password manager Dashlane based on the password policies in effect on the top 100 e-commerce sites from January 17 through January 22.

Guilty Pleasures In Film

Speaking of podcasts, I've been Stuart's co-presenter on his film chat podcast It's Alive! for the last two weeks. If two grown men talking about movies is your thing, check it out via Futurilla Radio.