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The Not-Rendered Edition Thursday, September 20, 2018

Apple Watch Series 4 Screen Designs Are More Than What You Might Think, by Josh Rubin, Cool Hunting

A colorful, new Infograph face houses up to eight complications. Apple has created many new options and third party developers will surely create more. Each complication is also a shortcut to its parent app and given that I use those key functions most of the time, I find myself pulling up the dock menu and main app screen less often than on previous Watch generations.

I vary between this info-dense watch face and the new ultra-minimal and very hypnotic Fire, Water, Liquid Metal and Vapor faces. And these faces are more special than Apple let on during their keynote. They’re not rendered—each face is high resolution video shot in a studio using real fire, water and vapor elements.

The Apple Watch Series 4 Takes Heart Monitoring To Next Level, by Vanessa Hand Orellana, CNET

Imagine, then, if those hundreds of thousands of people had an EKG-capable Apple Watch that could get them on the road to such treatment faster. Even previous pre-EKG Apple Watch models have already been flagging major, potentially life-threatening heart problems. Many of the beneficiaries are younger, seemingly healthy users who would've never suspected they had any kind of serious medical issues in the first place.

In fact, the Apple Watch has already started crossing over into the realm of medical monitor, whether users -- and doctors -- are ready or not.

Apple Watch Series 4, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

If you want a one sentence summary of what I think of the Series 4 Apple Watch, it’s this: Series 4 is to Apple Watch what iPhone 4 was to iPhone — the model that takes the original design to a new level.

Apple’s Measure App And Accuracy, by Kirk Mcelhearn

I tried measure a number of objects, and two things were apparent. The first is that Measure is not very accurate, and the second is that the same object measured twice can return different dimensions.

‘Alexa – Can You Teach My Kids Some Manners, Please?’, by James Ball, The Guardian

One BBC tech executive told a conference audience on Tuesday that her solution to children developing poor manners due to Alexa, Siri and their rivals (the AI will respond whether you say “please” or not) was for adults in the house to say “please” and “thank you” to the AIs at all times. With that first step in mind, here is our extensive and scientific list of etiquette do’s and don’ts when dealing with your AI assistant.

Jon M. Chu Shot This Short Film Entirely On An iPhone XS Max, by Michael Calore, Wired

To test the new hardware, we gave an iPhone XS Max to the film director Jon M. Chu. The Crazy Rich Asians director shot a short film for WIRED, and the results are truly special.

"I had literally zero equipment," says Chu. "I see a lot of samples of iPhone videos, and sometimes they use different lenses or professional lights. I didn't have any of that."

Chu shot the film—a view into dancer Luigi Rosado's rehearsal space, titled Somewhere—in 4K using the iPhone's native camera app. It was all shot handheld using the phone's default stabilizing system. And while he edited the video on a computer, Chu didn't apply any color correction or any post-production tricks. What you're seeing is the default output of the iPhone's camera.

Stuff

Drafts 5.4: Siri Shortcuts, WordPress, And More, by Tim Nahumck, MacStories

While there is support for iOS 12's Siri shortcuts and all that they have to offer, there are also other important features that have improved the app's capabilities significantly.

Ferrite 2: iOS Audio Editor Adds Templates, Noise Removal, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

You can now create project templates within the app, allowing you to get a project set up just the way you like it, with theme music, show art, audio tracks for guests, the works—even placeholders for things like filenames and episode numbers. Once it’s all set, you can just tap on the icon next to the template and Ferrite lets you fill in the blanks and open a fresh, new project based on the template.

Audible Updates iOS App With Support For Offline Audiobook Playback On Apple Watch, by Peter Cao, 9to5Mac

Audible today has updated its app to add support for syncing audiobooks to your Apple Watch, letting you listen to audiobooks without the need of your iPhone.

Latest Apple Music For Android Update Brings Android Auto Support, Lyric Search, More, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

After rolling out beta support to users last month, Apple Music for Android has today been updated with support for Android Auto. The update also brings lyric search, redesigned artist pages, and more. These features were all tested last month through the private Apple Music beta for Android.

Develop

3 Key Aspects Of A Killer App For Healthcare, by Tom Sullivan, Healthcare IT News

Wretling explained that means a few different things. The technology has to understand how a person prefers to interact with healthcare and make medical data available accordingly. An app also has to ensure that it makes relevant data available for care plans and education. "Health events are occurring for a person all the time," he said. "How they slept, blood pressure, mood, how they’re feeling that day, this needs to be transitioned to a push model to take advantage of the real-time tech available today. Systems should be built to publish data so it flows across organizations."

Notes

25 Years Of WIRED Predictions: Why The Future Never Arrives, by David Karpf, Wired

This past summer, I pulled up a chair—for a time at the Library of Congress—and read every issue of the magazine’s print edition, chronologically and cover to cover. My aim was to engage in a particular kind of time travel. Back when founding editor Louis Rossetto was recruiting the first members of the WIRED team in the early 1990s, he said he was “trying to make a magazine that feels as if it has been mailed back from the future.” I was looking to use WIRED’s back catalog to construct a history of the future—as it was foretold, month after month, in the magazine’s pages.

In part, the fun was in recognizing what WIRED saw coming—the flashes of uncanny foresight buried in old print. Back in the mid-’90s, a time when most Americans hadn’t even sent an email, the magazine was already deep into speculation about a world where everyone had a networked computer in their pocket. In 2003, when phones with cameras were just a novelty in the US (but popular in Asia), Xeni Jardin was predicting a “phonecam revolution” that would one day capture images of police brutality on the fly. Just as interesting were the things WIRED saw coming that never did. The November 1999 cover story held up a company called DigiScent, which hoped to launch the next web revolution by sending smells through the internet. (“Reekers, instead of speakers.”)

But more than just scoring hits and misses, I was interested in identifying those visions of the future that remained always on the horizon, the things that WIRED—and, by extension, the broader culture—kept predicting but which remained always just out of reach. Again and again, the magazine held that the digital revolution would sweep away a host of old social institutions, draining them of their power as it rendered them obsolete. In their place, WIRED repeatedly proclaimed, the revolution would bring an era of transformative abundance and prosperity, its foothold in the future secured by the irresistible dynamics of bandwidth, processing power, and the free market.

Amazon Probed By EU On Data Collection From Rival Retailers, by Aoife White, Bloomberg

The European Union is looking at Amazon.com Inc.’s use of data it collects from other retailers on its platform, with the possibility that the information gives it an extra edge for its own sales, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.

Bottom of the Page

Day 2 of using iOS 12: I can't get mobile data after I leave home in the morning. Not even I turn off and turn on mobile data. Not even I reboot the phone.

Turns out, it's the carrier that's was having problems, and not the phone nor iOS. But I did panicked a little.

~

Thanks for reading.