PDF Expert: $29.99

We have a deal on PDF Expert for Mac from Readdle. You can create and edit PDFs, work with large PDFs smoothly, and it allows you to annotate PDFs, merge them, and much more. This PDF editor also has a nice list of distinctions, including being 2015 App of the Year in the Mac App Store and Top Paid App in the Mac App Store. It’s $29.99 through our deal.

The 20th Anniversary of Internet Explorer 5 For Mac, And The Difficulty of Dealing With Steve Jobs

Sunday, January 5th, marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Internet Explorer 5 for Mac. One of the developers on the project, Jimmy Grewal, recalled releasing the product, and the difficulty of dealing with Steve Jobs.

I was 22 years old and I was thrown into the deep end of the browser wars, the Microsoft anti-trust trial, and the love/hate relationship between Microsoft and Apple. I don’t want to delve into the details of what made MacIE 5 special because my friend Tantek Çelik has already documented that on his blog. Rather I want to focus on the inside story of how and why it was developed, and some of the people and personalities that shaped it’s success and eventual demise.

Wi-Fi 6 Will Get 6 GHz Capabilities Under Name ‘Wi-Fi 6E’

The Wi-Fi Alliance is extending Wi-Fi 6 into the 6 GHz band for faster performance, faster data rates, and lower latency. It’s called Wi-Fi 6E.

Wi-Fi 6E devices are expected to become available quickly following 6 GHz regulatory approvals, utilizing this additional spectrum capacity to deliver continuous Wi-Fi innovation and valuable contributions to consumers, businesses and economies.

Wi-Fi Alliance: “We’re moving away from 802.11.xx because that’s too confusing.”

Also Wi-Fi Alliance: “Welcome to Wi-Fi 6E.”

How Pokémon Go Changes People's Lives

Pokémon Go may not be as high profile as it once was, but it remains hugely popular. The geo-location based game has also helped many people, including those with disabilities, as BBC News discovered.

Matthew Gibson, the proud collector of more than 500 Pikachu soft toys, “didn’t want to go out much” before Pokémon Go launched. “I was like, ‘mum it’s a bit windy,’… or, ‘mum it’s a bit rainy,’… I didn’t even want to go out in the sun because there was nothing to do,” said 26-year-old Mr Gibson, who has cerebral palsy and autism. But he was “fantastically excited” when the game was released and says it has led him to places he would never have explored otherwise. “I’ve [found] things in my neighbourhood that I didn’t know were there. I even go to places like the parks and the castles so I can do Pokémon while mum and dad are looking around.”

The Anki Vector Robot is Coming Back

Anki built little companion robots like Vector and Cosmo. But in early 2019 the company ran out of money and shut down. But the CEO of Digital Dream Labs announced it had purchased Anki’s assets and will continue to develop the Anki Vector robot.

1)  We will develop an “Escape Pod”.  This will, safely, expose settings and allow the user to move and set endpoints, and by doing so, remove the need for the cloud server.

2)  We will develop a “Dev Vector”.  Many users have asked us for open source and the ability to do more with their Vector even to the point of hosting him on their own servers.  With this feature, developers will be able to customize their robot through a bootloader we will develop.

CES – Igloohome Shows Remotely-Programmable Locks that Don't Require Wi-Fi at CES Unveiled 2020

LAS VEGAS – Igloohome’s smart locks shown here at CES Unveiled 2020 have a special feature: they don’t use Wi-Fi and yet they’re remotely programmable. This is accomplished by first pairing your phone with the lock, a process that also creates a rotating token like you might use with your bank. When you want to create a new code, everything is already set and the code is already active because of the pre-negotiated token, all happening behind the scenes. The deadbolt is US$299, the keybox is $189, and the padlock is $109. The other two dual locks will be available later this year.

A DNA Computer Just Computed Square Root of 900

Researchers at the University of Rochester created a computer that uses 32 DNA strands to store and process information. It can calculate the square root of square numbers 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 and so on up to 900.

To start, the team encodes a number onto the DNA using a combination of ten building blocks. Each combination represents a different number up to 900, and is attached to a fluorescence marker.

The team then controls hybridisation in such a way that it changes the overall fluorescent signal so that it corresponds to the square root of the original number. The number can then be deduced from the colour.

Over 90% of Postpaid Phones Sold are Apple and Samsung

Over 90% of the postpaid phones sold at the Big Four carrier stores in the U.S. are either iPhones or Samsung phones.

Apple and Samsung together sold 94 percent of phones at Verizon stores, 95 percent at AT&T stores, 94 percent at Sprint stores, and 91 percent at T-Mobile stores, according to the report. The most popular phone at all four carriers in December was the iPhone 11, the firm says. The top-selling Samsung Phone was the Galaxy S10.

I’d say it’s probably because the price of most iPhones and Samsungs are high enough to where the stores can make money off them.

BBEdit Just Keeps Getting Better

Dr. Mac is impressed with the latest release of Bare Bones Software’s venerable Mac text editor, BBEdit, saying it just keeps getting better and better, with the latest release (BBEdit 13), adding several extremely useful  features.

New iPhone Displays Could be Thinner And More Power Efficient

Reports coming from Korea, picked up MacRumors, indicate that the 2020 iPhone will likely have thinner displays. They could also be more power-efficient too.

This mirrors a recent report from Korean website ETNews, which claimed that so-called iPhone 12 Pro models will adopt a technology that allows touchscreen circuitry to be directly patterned on the OLED panel without the need for a separate layer, resulting in a thinner display and lower production costs. ETNews said a lower-cost 6.1-inch model, presumably the iPhone 12, will stick with a traditional film-based display. It is unclear if thinner displays would translate to thinner iPhones as a whole this year.