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The Making-a-Noise Edition Monday, May 10, 2021

I Tracked My Kid With Apple's Airtags To Test Its Privacy Features, by Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN

The safeguards are a work in progress as the software rolls out and users begin interacting with the devices. When my babysitter recently took my son to an appointment, using my set of keys with an AirTag attached, she was not informed that she was carrying an AirTag — separated from my phone. (She hadn't yet updated her phone's software to iOS 14.5.)

Non-iPhone users can hold their phones close to the AirTags and, via short-range wireless technology, information pops up on how to disable the tracker, but that's if the person knows they're being tracked and locates it. In addition, three days is a long time for an AirTag to keep quiet before making a noise.

An App That Swiftly Sends CPR Volunteers To Heart Attack Sufferers Has Made A Big Difference In Denmark. Could This Be Copied In The U.S.?, by Martin Selsoe Sorensen, Washington Post

Denmark has seen a dramatic increase in survival from heart attacks after it began recruiting volunteers and arming some of them with smartphone technology that alerts them to nearby cardiac emergencies and helps them locate automated external defibrillators, or AEDs. The volunteers are then asked to enter residences and perform CPR until an ambulance arrives.

Stopping Time: An Appreciation Of Objective-C, by Ken Kocienda

The real idea I had on that morning months earlier wasn’t about making a word game. It was about stopping time, capturing a moment, making the fast-moving world of technology come to rest for a moment, so I could savor one small piece of it one last time before it disappears.

On App Stores

Is Epic Games' Showdown With Apple Turning Into A Mismatch?, by Michael Liedtke, Associated Press

If Epic Games hopes to dismantle the fortress surrounding Apple's iPhone and its app store, the video game maker probably will need to roll out some heavier artillery heading into the second week of a trial threatening Apple's $2 trillion empire.

So far, at least, Epic has been having trouble proving its allegations that the iPhone maker's 13-year-old app store has turned into an illegal monopoly.

Stuff

TripMode 3 Review: Modern Tool For Watching And Limiting Mac Internet Bandwidth Use, by Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

The idea in this version is the same as with the previous two releases: TripMode tracks data usage by app and lets you create lists of blocked and allowed apps, as well as set an overall limits of bytes transferred to and from the internet. Very few Mac apps make any effort to understand or throttle how much data they use, and TripMode fills that gap.

New Kensington StudioDock Coming For 2021 12.9-inch iPad Pro, by Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac

We’ve learned that a new Kensington StudioDock is in the works, after it turned out that the model for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro isn’t compatible with the 2021 model.

Notes

Apple Increases Corning Manufacturing Investment, Maker Of iPhone 12 Ceramic Shield, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Apple has already awarded $450 million from Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund, and today it announced an additional $45 million investment. Apple says that its prior funding helped Corning to develop the resilient and durable Ceramic Shield glass, which debuted as the cover glass in the iPhone 12.

AirTag Successfully Hacked To Show Custom URL In Lost Mode, by Tim Hardwick, MacRumors

The inevitable race to hack Apple's AirTag item tracker has reportedly been won by a German security researcher, who managed to break into the device's microcontroller and successfully modify its firmware.

Smartphone Is Now ‘The Place Where We Live’, Anthropologists Say, by Alex Hern, The Guardian

A team of anthropologists from UCL spent more than a year documenting smartphone use in nine countries around the world, from Ireland to Cameroon, and found that far from being trivial toys, people felt the same way about their devices as they did about their homes.

“The smartphone is no longer just a device that we use, it’s become the place where we live,” said Prof Daniel Miller, who led the study. “The flip side of that for human relationships is that at any point, whether over a meal, a meeting or other shared activity, a person we’re with can just disappear, having ‘gone home’ to their smartphone.”

Bottom of the Page

I missed the days of just doodling around in Turbo Pascal, and I missed the joy of having finally figure out Tower of Hanoi. :-)

~

Thanks for reading.