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The Unbreakable-Encryption Edition Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Apple’s Tim Cook Lashes Out At White House Officials For Being Wishy-Washy On Encryption, by Jenna McLaughlin, The Intercept

Apple CEO Tim Cook lashed out at the high-level delegation of Obama administration officials who came calling on tech leaders in San Jose last week, criticizing the White House for a lack of leadership and asking the administration to issue a strong public statement defending the use of unbreakable encryption.

The White House should come out and say “no backdoors,” Cook said. That would mean overruling repeated requests from FBI director James Comey and other administration officials that tech companies build some sort of special access for law enforcement into otherwise unbreakable encryption. Technologists agree that any such measure could be exploited by others.

Content Content Content

Reuters TV Finds Value Not Just In Making Its Content Free, But In Giving It Away To Other Publishers, by Laura Hazard Owen, Nieman Lab

In a little less than a year, Reuters has completely changed the strategy around its news video product, Reuters TV. It’s gone from charging for its iOS app to not just giving its content away for free across many platforms, but also letting other publishers use that content on their own sites and in their own apps.

That strategy is paying off in terms of recognition — Apple calls the Reuters TV app one of its “essentials” — and uptake.

Out Of Many, NPR One: The App That Wants To Be The “Netflix Of Listening” Gets More Local, by Shan Wang, Nieman Lab

The newest update to the app, released Thursday, moves it another step in the direction of becoming a one-stop shop for all audio content, from local content to podcasts outside the NPR world.

Stuff

VLC Media Player Brings Its Multi-format Playback To The Apple TV, by Joseph Keller, iMore

VLC, the popular, versatile media player, is now available on the Apple TV. VLC can play a wide variety of audio and video files and automatically find storage devices attached to your network.

Easy Audio Converter 4.0.9 Released For OS X, by MacTech

It lets you quickly and simply convert any music or sound file to all popular formats. The app provides full iTunes integration and lets you edit the album, artist and track information.

Samba 4.3.4 Has Been Released For GNU/Linux And Mac OS X, Fixes 14 Bugs, by Marius Nestor, Softpedia

Skype To Bring Free Group Calling To iPhones, iPads, Other Mobile Devices, by Roger Fingas, AppleInsider

Develop

AgileCloudKit: iCloud Sync Gets Its Wings, by Agilebits

At the last WWDC, Apple announced some changes to CloudKit, the technology that enables an app to sync with iCloud. As many of you know, it was previously impossible for non-Mac App Store apps to sync with iCloud. The changes that Apple made to CloudKit have opened up some really exciting possibilities, and today, we’re happy to announce that we have been able to implement iCloud sync in the AgileBits Store version of 1Password.

FileMaker Launches SDK For Building Native iOS Apps, by Mikey Campbell, AppleInsider

Apple subsidiary FileMaker on Tuesday announced the FileMaker iOS App SDK, a set of coding tools that offer developers the means to build native iPhone and iPad apps.

Towards An Understanding Of Technical Debt, by Laughing Meme

All code is technical debt. All code is, to varying degrees, an incorrect bet on what the future will look like. You can address issues that are damaging to productivity, operability and morale, but only way to “fix technical debt” is “rm -rf”.

Notes

This One Photo Perfectly Sums Up How Frustrating It Is To Wear The Apple Watch, by Steve Kovach, Tech Insider

Apple was supposed to fix this problem in a new software update that came out last fall. The update let developers store their apps directly on the watch, which in theory helps them run faster. But that hasn't been the case in my experience. It still takes a really long time for the apps to load data. Part of this could be because developers haven't really taken the Apple Watch as seriously as they take the iPhone.

The Post-Mobile Era, by Ben Bajarin, Re/code

The smartphone has laid the foundation on which the future will be built, and will eventually give birth to that which displaces it. As we embrace the post-mobile era, it is time to shift our attention from the smartphone hardware itself to all the new things the smartphone will enable as the most pervasive form of personal computing in the history of our industry.

This Is What Today’s Popular Websites Look Like On The 1st Generation iPhone, by Luc Luxton, Medium

I received a 1st generation iPhone as birthday gift last year from a good friend of mine and I really haven’t done much with it. I started wondering if the phone could be used day to do if needed and if so, what the experience would be like today.

So, I thought it might be fun to have a look at what the most popular websites today look like on that incredibly revolutionary device.

Mapping Hundreds Of Power Disruptions Caused By ... Squirrels, by John Metcalfe, The Atlantic

Cyber Squirrel has created a map, based on news reports, showing places where squirrels have gotten caught in power equipment and disrupted electrical service.

Bottom of the Page

When I was in university, I couldn't wait to start work-life. Back then, I've had signed up for more classes -- closer to the imposed limits -- for every semester, so that I could graduate earlier. Looking back, I do wish I had slowed down just a little and smell the roses.

Right now, I can't wait to be retired, because, well, that's when I can really start up all my 'personal' projects. I guess I just need to make sure I am smelling enough roses today too.

~

Thanks for reading.