Motorola Smart Safe with Secure Wall Mounting: $109.99

We have a deal on the Motorola Bolt Smart Safe. It mounts to your wall using the included hardware, and it also offers a water-resistant keypad, humidity and odor control system, remote open capability, an intelligent reminder system, and other security features. It can be remotely opened via an app, and it will send the same apps alerts if it is opened. It’s $109.99 through our deal.

Repairing iCloud Syncing — Mac Geek Gab 825

Should you update? That’s always the question, isn’t it, regardless of whether it’s hardware or software or both. This week John and Dave answer your questions about both, specifically when it comes to Apple’s offerings. That’s not all, of course. Your two favorite geeks roar through a tour of your questions, tips, and Cool Stuff Found, including segments on repairing iCloud syncing, backing up your music the right way, diagnosing CPU spikes, and more. Press play, and enjoy learning at least five new things, all while remaining perfectly socially-distanced!

APHL Wants to Build Central Server for COVID-19 Data

The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) wants to build and host a national server to hold data collected from exposure notification apps. It’s partnering with Apple, Google, and Microsoft to do so.

Rather than each state and territorial public health agency bearing the burden of building and hosting its own key servers, a national server can securely host the keys of those affected users, eliminate duplication and enable notifications across state borders. APHL is also championing the effort to build and host a national key server on behalf of the public health community. This will allow users to continually benefit from exposure notifications as they travel across state lines, and help state and territorial agencies deploy their apps quickly.

Just two days ago, Trump removed control of public COVID-19 data from the CDC, and now someone wants to build a national server? What could go wrong?

Reflections From The Cast of ‘Hamilton’

On Broadway, London’s West End and other places around the world, Hamilton has long been a big deal. With its arrival on Disney+, a whole new set of people have been able to see it. In a new video, the cast and crew, including writer Lin Manuel Miranda, reflect on what the show means to them.

The Yale Economist Helping Apple and Amazon Navigate Antitrust Probes

Yale economist Professor Fiona Scott Morton has written papers about bringing antitrust cases against Google and Facebook. She’s also been hired by Apple and Amazon to help them navigate such probes (although that was not revealed in the recent papers). There’s an interesting profile of her on Bloomberg News.

Scott Morton, hailed in a 2019 article in the New Republic as an “antitrust crusader,” said she began consulting for Amazon in the last year, while her work for Apple dates back several years. She said she usually discloses her clients when speaking at conferences. The lack of disclosure on the Google and Facebook papers, she said, shouldn’t be an issue because Apple and Amazon didn’t pay her to write them. What’s more, she added, those papers didn’t focus on either Apple or Amazon.

Behind the Design of ‘Sky: Children of the Light’ Game

“Sky: Children of the Light” is an iOS game with some beautiful visuals. Apple shared the story behind the design in its latest developer update.

Early on, it was clear that Sky would be an ambitious title for Chen and the creative team. This would be their first game for a mobile device, the first that relied on touch instead of console controllers, and their first attempt at an online multiplayer experience — one that celebrated connection over conflict. The team ultimately worked for seven years before bringing Sky to life, with more than 70 people contributing to the game over its creative development.

‘Little Voice’: How J.J. Abrams Got Sarah Bareilles to Sign-up

Musician Sarah Bareilles wrote all the songs in Apple TV+ newcomer, Little Voice. She explained to the South China Morning Post how fellow executive producer J.J. Abrams got her to sign-up to the project.

Bareilles was a huge fan of Felicity, the Keri Russell university-set TV series that Abrams co-created. And Abrams was a big admirer of Waitress, based on the 2007 movie that also happened to star Russell. “Apparently I have a Keri Russell thing,” Bareilles jokes. Abrams didn’t have a plan, but he wanted more of what Bareilles and co-writer Jessie Nelson did with their 2016 Broadway show about a waitress in an abusive marriage. “I started thinking about, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to see that same sort of tone [as Felicity], but what if Felicity was a songwriter?’ – the idea of a young woman, a young person, finding their voice as an artist and as a person,” Bareilles says.

MOGICS Power Bagel Travel Power Strip: $36.95

We have a deal on the MOGICS Power Bagel, a power strip in the shape of a bagel designed to be portable. It features five international AC outlets (UK, EU, AU, 2x US), and two USB charging ports. The power chord rolls up onto the device, too. It’s $36.95 through our deal.

EU Commission Still Angry at Apple Over Tax

Despite its court defeat vs Apple earlier in the week, the European Commission doesn’t seem to be changing its approach when it comes to taxing tech firms. EU Observer reported comments from top EU officials.

“We do not consider it normal that the largest corporates get away with paying one percent tax at most,” European Commission executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters. “It is just not sustainable from a tax-fairness point of view, it is not sustainable from a public revenues point of view and it needs to be addressed,” he said. Paolo Gentiloni, the EU commissioner for economy, made similar comments. “A single ruling is not discouraging our commitment in this sense. I would say the contrary.”

Google’s ‘Fabricius’ Tool Uses ML to Decode Hieroglyphs

Here’s something cool that Google has created: A web tool called “Fabricius” that uses machine learning to decrypt hieroglyphs.

So far, experts had to dig manually through books upon books to translate and decipher the ancient language–a process that has remained virtually unchanged for over a century. Fabricius includes the first digital tool – that is also being released as open source to support further developments in the study of ancient languages – that decodes Egyptian hieroglyphs built on machine learning.