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The Face-ID-on-a-Mac Edition Saturday, July 25, 2020

Want Face ID On The Mac? macOS Big Sur Suggests The TrueDepth Camera Is Coming, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

While Face ID is not yet available on any Mac, 9to5Mac found references to the TrueDepth camera on macOS Big Sur, which suggests Apple is working to bring facial recognition to its computers.

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However, the implementation is still in the early stages, so it might take some time before Apple announces a new Mac model with the TrueDepth camera to support Face ID.

Stuff

Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Cam Gains Support For Apple HomeKit, by Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider

With Friday's HomeKit integration, the camera shows up in the Home app, and so do the motion sensor, two-way communication, and the light. The light is adjustable too, allowing users to change the brightness of the LED panel.

Best iPad Drawing Apps For Drawing, Doodling And Everything In Between, by Shelby Brown, CNET

Trying out digital art on my iPad let me experiment with different artistic forms and figures, no real-life mess involved.

How To Back Up Your Digital Life, by Scott Gilbertson, Wired

If the perfect backup existed then sure, three would be overkill, but there is no perfect backup. Things go wrong with backups too. You need to hedge your bets. At the very least you should have two backups, one locally and one remote. For most people this strikes the best balance between safety, cost, and effort.

Notes

20 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Built Apple's G4 Cube. It Bombed, by Steven Levy, Wired

But here is something else about Jobs and the Cube that speaks not of failure but why he was a successful leader. Once it was clear that his Cube was a brick, he was quick to cut his losses and move on.

In a 2017 talk at Oxford, Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about the G4 Cube, which he described as “a spectacular commercial failure, from the first day, almost.” But Jobs’ reaction to the bad sales figures showed how quickly, when it became necessary, he could abandon even a product dear to his heart. “Steve, of everyone I’ve known in life,” Cook said at Oxford, “could be the most avid proponent of some position, and within minutes or days, if new information came out, you would think that he never ever thought that before.”

How Taiwan’s Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked The Pandemic, by Andrew Leonard, Wired

It’s safe to say that most governments are not staffed by officials who share much in common with Tang, a trans woman, open-source software hacker, startup entrepreneur, and the youngest (at 35, in 2016) person ever to be appointed a cabinet member in Taiwan. But when the topic is the successful integration of civil society, technological progress, and democratic governance, it’s also safe to say that most countries don’t share all that much in common with Taiwan, either. At least not yet.

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Since my first Quadra 630, I knew I wanted a Mac rather than a PC. But my purchase decisions were mostly dedicated by budget, and I really had no desire to buy beyond what I can afford. The G4 Cube -- with the display and the speakers -- was the only Mac that I desired but couldn't afford.

The Mac mini, which eventually filled the position of the third desktop computer after the iMac and the PowerMac / Mac Pro, was much more practical and cost-effective. But it was never as cool.

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I suspect Face ID on a Mac will be limited to iMacs and MacBooks. It will not be on Mac Pros nor Mac minis, just because you can't put the sensors on the same enclosure as the secure enclave.

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Thanks for reading.