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Andrew Orr

Since 2015 Andrew has been writing about Apple, privacy, security, and at one point even Android. You can find him most places online under the username @andrewornot.

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Articles by Andrew Orr

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Botanists Use Drone to Find Flower Thought Extinct: Hibiscadelphus woodii

Andrew Orr ·

How about some wholesome news for once? Recently, botanists in Hawaii used a drone to find a flower they thought was extinct: Hibiscadelphus woodii.

During the expedition that led to the rediscovery of H. woodii, Wood and Nyberg had hiked hundreds of feet down the Kalalau Valley cliffs, but the difficult terrain prevented them from going any further.

It was then that Nyberg deployed the drone, flying it further down the cliffs, toward the sea, to take a closer look at a specific area of interest. Able to get within a meter or two of the sheer cliff face, he was able to confirm the continued existence of H. woodii.

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All of the Apple Product Placements in Television

Andrew Orr ·

The Product Placement Blog compiled a list of all of the Apple product placements in movies, TV shows, and music videos.

You will find here the most complete list on the web about brands seen in Hollywood movies, TV shows and official music videos, embedded marketing examples and information about them.

It’s 80 pages long, which is notable since Apple doesn’t pay for product placements in television.

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Microsoft Employee Says Whites, Asians Discriminated Against

Andrew Orr ·

Messages posted by an unknown female Microsoft programmer in internal Yammer boards say that white and Asian men are being discriminated against.

To be clear, I am referring to the fact that senior leadership is awarded more money if they discriminate against Asians and white men. I have an ever-increasing file of white male Microsoft employees who have faced outright and overt discrimination because they had the misfortune of being born both white and male.

Microsoft’s 2018 demographic report shows that 55.1% of employees are Caucasian, 31.9% are Asian, and 73.4% are male. Personally, I think it’s a bit telling if you feel oppressed by more equality and diversity.

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JCPenney Explains Apple Pay Removal

Andrew Orr ·

This morning we heard that JCPenney quietly removed support for Apple Pay from its stores. Now we have a better idea why.

The retailer now claims the move was necessitated by the April 13, 2019 deadline in the U.S. for supporting EMV contactless chip functionality. As of this date, all terminals at U.S. merchants locations that accept contactless payments must actively support EMV contactless chip functionality, and the legacy MSD (magnetic stripe data) contactless technology must be retired. JCPenney was not ready to comply, it seems, so it switched off all contactless payment options as a result. However, it hasn’t ruled out re-enabling them later on, it seems.

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Joshua Cohen, Apple’s Philosopher, is not Available for Comment

Andrew Orr ·

Apparently, Apple employs a full-time philosopher named Joshua Cohen. But he doesn’t have permission to talk to the media.

The company hired Joshua Cohen, formerly a political philosophy professor at Stanford University to work at Apple University, an institution created by Steve Jobs in 2008 to offer employees the kind of training typically available at university programs. The specifics of this university are kept tightly under wraps.

Know Your Carbon Footprint With Carbon
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Know Your Carbon Footprint With Carbon

Andrew Orr ·

Everything we do has an effect on the planet. Research shows that we’re causing devastating damage to the planet by releasing extravagant amounts of CO2 gas into the atmosphere. The only way to jump-start the solution is to take matters into your own hands. The aim is to inform and inspire people to minimize the carbon emissions caused by their energy use. You might not see it, but thousands of pounds of CO2 are being released into the air when you use energy in your home, or drive your car to work every day. The algorithm asks you some questions about your energy lifestyle and gives you a unique carbon footprint score. It determines which power plants your energy comes from and identifies how much CO2 they produce. It also knows how much CO2 your car produces, so it tallies those up to give you a good idea of how much CO2 your energy use produces. App Store: Free

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4 Privacy Features Apple Should Add

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has made a good start when it comes to privacy, but there are more private features the company can add. Here are four.

…based on Apple’s marketing focus as of late, which has centered on privacy, it’s reasonable to assume that the company will unveil additional privacy protections for users and their data in its next operating systems. What those privacy protections might be is anyone’s guess–but here are my hopes.

End-to-end encryption for iCloud backups is definitely on my wish list. But it should remain optional, because people who forget their password would be unable to access this kind of backup.

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News+ Efficiency is Aesthetically Pleasing

Andrew Orr ·

In Wired’s latest magazine, Clive Thompson writes that for some programmers, efficiency isn’t just a way to make a job easier. It’s aesthetically pleasing.

Many of today’s programmers have their efficiency aha moment in their teenage years, when they discover that life is full of blindingly dull repetitive tasks and that computers are really good at doing them.

I’m not a programmer, but I’m a big fan of efficiency and optimizing my life. I don’t go as far as the “optimized self” movement, but I like to automate whenever possible. The less time you spend doing repetitive tasks, the more you can spend enjoying life.

This is part of Andrew’s News+ series, where he shares a magazine every Friday to help people discover good content in Apple News+.

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500M iOS Users Affected by Cyberattack via Chrome Bug

Andrew Orr ·

Roughly 500 million iOS users have been affected by a cyberattack that takes advantage of an iOS Chrome bug.

The attacks are the work of the eGobbler gang, researchers said, which has a track record of mounting large-scale malvertising attacks ahead of major holiday weekends. Easter is coming up, and the crooks are banking on consumers spending a lot more time than usual browsing the web on their phones.

Another research firm says this attack can also affect Safari users. Be careful this weekend.

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eBooks and the Nature of Ownership

Andrew Orr ·

Microsoft closed its eBook store several weeks ago. People lost their books, but at least the company refunded them. Because of this, Michael Kozlowski of Good e-Reader says people are experiencing a “crisis of confidence” in eBooks.

I believe that ebooks are suffering from a crisis of confidence.  It is beginning to be quite difficult to trust a retailer to not disappear overnight with your ebooks, no matter how big they are…A recent study published in the journal Electronic Markets found that the vast majority of  people felt a constricted sense of ownership of ebooks versus physical books, based on the fact that they don’t have full control over the products.

He also mentions how a lot companies use DRM on eBooks, which factors into the “You license, not own, your eBooks” argument. I’d like to point out that Apple Books doesn’t apply DRM to most if not all of its books. I can take books I buy on there and move it to another service if I want, which makes me feel as if I truly own them.

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The Redacted Mueller Report is Here

Andrew Orr ·

The Mueller Report has now been uploaded and released to the public, and it has been heavily redacted. It’s 448 pages long.

This report is submitted to the Attorney General pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c), which states that, “[a]t the conclusion of the Special Counscl’s work, he…shall provide the Attorney General a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions [the Special Counsel] reached.”