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The Frantic-Removal Edition Friday, September 16, 2016

Apple Frantically Removing Potential NSFW Terms From iMessage GIF Search After Initial Oversight, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

While Apple seemingly banned a variety of obviously NSFW terms from GIF search at the start, a handful of words with double meanings were still resulting in NSFW results. First noticed by Deadspin, Apple neglected to think of how words like “huge” could potentially return inappropriate results when pulling from third-party sources. Other words that still returned results, however, were far more obvious in their NSFW meaning, including “shlong” and “sideboob.”

Now that iOS 10 is available to the public, though, and these NSFW results have become noticed, Apple is frantically blocking any term from being searched that could potentially return an NSFW result. For instance, searching for “huge” no returns any results, while earlier it would return a plethora of images, some NSFW and some not. The more obvious terms such as “nipslip” and “futa” also now return no results.

Make Enemies For Life With This Grammar Snob Sticker Pack For iMessage, by James Vincent, The Verge

If you thought dropping endless Hello Kitty stickers into conversations was a good way to end a friendship, just wait until you can make handwritten corrections appear on your loved ones' phone screens.

Apple Makes Changes To News App, by Lukas I. Alpert, Wall Street Journal

A year after its introduction, Apple News will now allow publishers to sell subscriptions through the app.

Readers who have upgraded to iOS 10 will be able to subscribe to 14 publications through Apple News and pay using their iTunes accounts.

How Apple Will Use AirPods And Data Science To Create The World’s Most Powerful Bot, by Dave Goodsmith, VentureBeat

Apple’s dual hardware/software AirPod launch will, if the smartbuds become as ubiquitous as the iPhone, allow Siri to jump from novelty to the preeminent A.I. bot platform in the world. Since Apple clearly intends for users to leave their buds in throughout all of their daily activities, from work to commuting to travel to exercise, Siri will be able to make suggestions at any point based on geolocation, a particular iPhone activity, a Bluetooth pairing (i.e. with a car or entertainment system), and more.

Collecting the language inputs and responses from users as they interact with Siri across activities will potentially give Apple data that surpasses what Google and Amazon are already collecting. As one example, an unnoticeable Siri in your ear would allow for positive or negative responses to different prompts — like a nod or shake of the head — to be collected. The data resulting from a few head nods per user per day alone could boost the robustness of Apple’s supervised learning models on a massive scale by providing the company with a new wealth of training data sets.

Stuff

Logitech Create Keyboard Case For iPad Pro 9.7 Review, by Steve Duncombe, Choice

Logitech's experience with making several generations of folio covers for iPad shows clearly in the Create version.

'Sit With Us' App Finds Lunch Buddies For Lonely Children, by Cox Media Group

Natalie Hampton developed the idea for the Sit With Us app, which launched Sept. 9, to help students find kindness and welcoming groups with whom to eat in school lunchrooms across the country.

Need A Babysitter? There's An App For That, by Linda Nguyen, The Canadian Press

BookJane founder and chief executive, Curtis Khan, describes the app as the Uber for babysitters and elderly caregivers.

"People are ready. Uber has paved the way. Airbnb has paved the way," said Khan, a former marketing executive. "They're looking more and more to technology."

Notes

The iPhone 7 And Third-party Battery Pack Cases, by Rob Griffiths

I was curious how the case makers were going to address this for the iPhone 7, because blocking the Lightning port means that users will have to use wireless headphones when using a battery pack.

Secret Life Of A Seven-Year-Old Instagram Star, by Britta Lokting, Narratively

Haileigh Vasquez has 129,000 followers and a runway show at New York Fashion Week—that is, if her second-grade teacher lets her out of class on time.

Bottom of the Page

Someone should make an anti-wireless iPhone battery case that have all sorts of ports -- headphones jack, VGA, HDMI, SD Card, and all sorts of USBs.

And we will call it, "Jack of All Trades.""

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Thanks for reading.