Posts in Linked

Tim Cook on Apple’s Social Responsibility→

Last week, Apple CEO, Tim Cook, toured the Midwest and Texas. Cook stopped in Ohio at a manufacturer of equipment used by Apple in the production of iPhones, announced a massive data center in Iowa, and capped off the week in Austin, Texas to spotlight Apple’s Swift curriculum for community colleges. In an interview with the New York Times, Cook put the trip in perspective:

The reality is that government, for a long period of time, has for whatever set of reasons become less functional and isn’t working at the speed that it once was. And so it does fall, I think, not just on business but on all other areas of society to step up.

One area where Apple is trying to make a difference is in education. Cook said,

…he had chosen to focus on getting the curriculum to community colleges, rather than four-year colleges, because “as it turns out, the community college system is much more diverse than the four-year schools, particularly the four-year schools that are known for comp sci.”

That’s a thoughtful approach designed to do more than just educate and bring a new generation of programmers to Apple’s software platforms. The courses are still in their infancy, but by bringing them to institutions that are already more diverse than four-year colleges, Apple hopes to address diversity in the tech sector too.

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Remaster, Episode 42: What Is Crunch?→

Pre-order systems fail because of the SNES Classic, Microsoft readies sale of the Xbox One X, and arguments for and against ‘Crunch’.

On this week’s Remaster, Shahid explains the concept of “crunch” in the videogame industry and how it differs between teams and individuals working on large projects. You can listen here.

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Connected, Episode 156: Planet of the Podcasts→

Myke and Federico discuss Apple’s supposed budget for original content, reviews of the Essential Phone, Apple’s iOS 11 marketing videos, and Federico’s unexpected trip to the Genius Bar.

A fun episode of Connected this week as the summer season keeps giving us new betas of iOS 11. You can listen here.

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Siri’s Co-Creator Shares His Vision for the Future of AI→

Earlier this year Tom Gruber, the co-creator of Siri and current member of Apple’s AI team, gave a TED talk focusing on his vision for the future of AI, which is rooted in a philosophy he calls “humanistic AI.” The video and full transcript for that talk recently became available, providing a broader audience with Gruber’s insights into the place of AI in our everyday lives. While he doesn’t offer any specifics regarding work Apple is doing in this space, it is clear that Gruber’s vision represents, at least in part, the vision of Apple for Siri and AI as a whole.

Gruber describes humanistic AI as “artificial intelligence designed to meet human needs by collaborating and augmenting people.” This theme of AI augmenting, complementing humans is fleshed out by Gruber in several ways; one example involves Siri serving as an accessibility tool, while another theorizes at the benefits AI can offer to the human memory. The full talk provides an interesting glimpse into how Apple sees AI evolving in the near future.

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Slack for iOS Gains Quick Replies for Notifications→

The latest update to Slack’s iOS app introduces a feature I’ve been waiting for since we started using the service for daily communications at MacStories: quick replies to notifications. Now when you get a Slack message, you can pull down on the notification banner – or, if you’re viewing an old notification, press on it – to send a reply without opening the app. I’ve tested this feature in the Slack beta over the past week, and it’s considerably reduced the number of times I have to open the app.

The fact that Slack’s native iOS app still feels so slow when loading and switching between channels makes this addition all the more welcome. It would be nice to have both quick replies and emoji reactions as options upon expanding a notification, but this will suffice.

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ESPN for Apple TV Launches MultiCast Feature, Enabling Multiple Simultaneous Streams→

Todd Spangler has a story for Variety on an improvement to the ESPN Apple TV app that should make the most avid sports fans very happy.

A new version of the ESPN App for Apple TV’s tvOS, available Wednesday, includes a feature called MultiCast that provides the ability to view up to four simultaneous live streams at once. On any given day, ESPN users can choose from 30 or more live events airing across its networks.

From everything I’ve seen, the implementation of this feature appears well designed and well thought through. As seen at the top of the image above, MultiCast makes a number of different customization options available to users. You can watch anywhere from one to four different streams at once, and depending on the number you have playing, the screens are resized and optimized for the best viewing experience.

While I don’t see myself using MultiCast often, I know there are bigger sports fans than me who constantly flip between different games at certain times of year, such as during the upcoming college and professional football seasons.

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Walmart’s Vudu Streaming Service Launching Apple TV App Soon→

Dani Deahl reports for The Verge:

Walmart has confirmed a native app for Vudu, its video streaming service, is set to become widely available on Apple TV beginning August 22nd.

Vudu is one of the major players in the video streaming space, so its arrival on Apple TV is welcome. What that arrival will look like, however, remains to be seen. The service offers a digital marketplace where users can buy or rent films, but it’s unlikely those options will exist on Apple TV due to Apple’s policy of taking a 30% cut of all In-App Purchases. More likely, the new app will simply serve as a way to play films that are already in your library.

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The Internet Archive Brings Back HyperCard→

Today is the 30th anniversary of the introduction of HyperCard, a system for building interactive media. HyperCard featured database features, form-based layouts, and a programming language called HyperTalk, which made it a powerful and flexible tool that had a loyal following. To mark the occasion, the Internet Archive has built on its previous Macintosh emulation project to bring HyperCard back through emulation.

As Jason Scott describes it on the Internet Archive Blog:

HyperCard brought into one sharp package the ability for a Macintosh to do interactive documents with calculation, sound, music and graphics. It was a popular package, and thousands of HyperCard “stacks” were created using the software.

Additionally, commercial products with HyperCard at their heart came to great prominence, including the original Myst program.

The Internet Archive already has a collection of HyperCard stacks that you can try using its browser-based emulator, and if you have stacks you created, you can upload them to add to the collection. HyperCard played a big role in exposing a generation to programming and influenced the architecture of the web we use today, so it’s fantastic to have the opportunity to take it for a spin again.

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