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LG's UltraFine 4K Display Not Listed in Apple Stores in Europe

Charlotte Henry ·

LG’s UltraFine 4K is not available in Apple Stores online across Europe, MacRumors reported. The Mac Observer took a look at found that indeed in some countries, like the UK, the 5K model is available. However, in others, nothing is listed.

This isn’t the first time LG’s UltraFine Displays have been unavailable to order on Apple’s online stores in some parts of the world. However, on previous occasions, the displays were out of stockand eventually replenished, and at no time were the listings removed. That they have been this time round could suggest that one or both are set to be discontinued. Introduced in May 2019, the UltraFine 4K features a 23.7-inch display with a 3,840 x 2,160 pixels resolution, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, three downstream USB-C ports, up to 500 nits brightness, P3 wide color gamut support, and built-in stereo speakers. The display is priced at $699.95 on Apple’s online store in the United States.

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Save us From a Portless iPhone

Charlotte Henry ·

Rumors are swirling that future iPhones may not have any ports. Ed Hardy at Cult of Mac explains why a portless iPhone would be a horrible idea.

First off, there’s iPhone recovery. If something goes seriously wrong with your iOS handset, the cure is to hook it to a Mac or PC and use recovery mode. The need for this is rare, but occasionally crops up when operating system updates go horribly wrong. Without a Lightning port, this is impossible. The only option would be to send the iPhone to Apple or an authorized repair tech. A minor hassle suddenly becomes a major one. Next, even assuming the future portless iPhone comes with MagSafe, wireless charging will still be slower than wired. And the handset itself will cost more to make because Apple will (probably) put a MagSafe charger in the box. And they’ll cost users extra because most people will want to buy extras to have additional chargers at work, in the car, etc. Plus, you can say goodbye to some great accessories…

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How, and Why, Laurene Powell Jobs Became a Force in U.S. Media

Charlotte Henry ·

In recent years Laurene Powell Jobs has become a major presence in U.S. media, investing millions. The Colombia Journalism Review has a really good profile of Steve Jobs’s widow and looks at what her Emerson Collective is trying to achieve.

The organization started small; in the early years, it was focused primarily on advocacy work in education, climate, immigration, and gun violence prevention. Powell Jobs gave money to a handful of nonprofit newsrooms engaged with those subjects, such as Chalkbeat. She also invested in Ozy Media, a millennial news site cofounded by a friend of hers. But it was not until 2016, around the time of McGray and Edwards’s visit to Palo Alto, that Emerson started a major expansion that included, for the first time, a determined focus on media. In the years since, Emerson’s media investments have grown quickly in scale. Through Emerson, Powell Jobs has acquired equity in a number of Hollywood production companies, including a controlling share of Anonymous Content, which helped create Mr. Robot, Spotlight, and George Clooney’s Midnight Sky. Since 2015, according to a person familiar with Emerson’s finances, she has spent roughly a quarter of a billion dollars on journalism

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YouTube Hashtag Landing Pages Now Available to All Users

Charlotte Henry ·

YouTube made hashtag landing pages available to all users on Tuesday, Techcrunch reported. Although these operate differently from how they do on other social networks, they still provide another way for users to find content, and creators to get eyeballs.

Going forward, when you click on a hashtag on YouTube, you’ll be taken to a dedicated landing page that contains only videos that are using the hashtag. This page is also sorted to keep the “best” videos at the top, YouTube claimed. The ranking algorithm, however, may need some work as it’s currently surfacing an odd mix of both newer and older videos and seems to be heavily dominated by Indian creator content, in several top categories. The result, then, is not the equivalent to something like a hashtag search on a social network like Facebook or Twitter, for example, where more recent content gets top billing. For that reason, it may be difficult to use these hashtag landing pages for discovery of new videos to watch, as intended, but could still serve as an interesting research tool for creators looking to better leverage the hashtag format.

This New App Brings iMessage to Android and Windows
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This New App Brings iMessage to Android and Windows

Andrew Orr ·

Beeper is a new chat app that combines 15 different messaging platforms into one interface. One of those messaging apps includes iMessage and there’s “some trickery” involved, as Eric Migicovsky says. You can install the Beeper Mac app to act as a bridge for iMessage. If you don’t have a Mac, Beeper will send you a jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed to act as a bridge. “Just in case you thought Beeper was joking, in a followup tweet, Migicovsky said that he currently has 50 old iPhone 4S’s at his desk, ready to be upcycled for use with Beeper.”

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HomePod mini, Arcade, and Waiting for M-Processor Macs, with Bob LeVitus - ACM 542

Bryan Chaffin · · Add Comment

Bryan Chaffin and Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus have both spent time with the HomePod mini, and they offer their thoughts on what it sounds like, where it’s useful, and who should consider it. They also talk about the value of Apple’s Arcade, especially now that it’s part of Apple One. They also talk about the power of Apple’s new M1 Macs, and discuss if people should buy Intel Macs at all any more.

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Google Still Doesn’t Have iOS 14 Privacy Labels

Andrew Orr ·

I’ve been hesitant to keep sharing these stories. At the time this news first appeared I was skeptical, saying that we just got over the holidays so give Google a break. But as the days turn into weeks, this is when it does start to look damning and now it’s time to give Google some heat.

On January 5, Google told TechCrunch that the data would be added to its iOS apps “this week or the next week,” but both this week and the next week have come and gone with no update. It has now been well over a month since Google last updated its apps.

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EU Fines Valve And Five Other PC Games Publishers

Charlotte Henry ·

The European Union Commission issued fines totalling €7.8 million ($9.4 million) to Valve and five other games publishers on Wednesday, Techrunch reported. It followed a lengthy investigation that found that firm’s had broken the bloc’s rules.

The geo-blocking practices investigated since before 2017 concerned around 100 PC video games of different genres, including sports, simulation and action games. In addition to Valve — which has been fined just over €1.6 million — the five sanctioned games publishers are: Bandai Namco (fined €340,000), Capcom (€396,000), Focus Home (€2.8 million), Koch Media (€977,000) and ZeniMax (€1.6 million). The Commission said the fines were reduced by between 10% and 15% owing to cooperation from the companies, with the exception of Valve, which it said chose not to cooperate (a “prohibition Decision” rather than a fine reduction was applied in its case).

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Linux Now “Completely Usable” on Apple Silicon M1 Macs

Charlotte Henry ·

A version of Linux now works on Apple Silicon M1 chip, AppleInsider reported. Security researchers at Corellium ported the operating system, and plan to release it under an open-source license.

The Linux version is a full Ubuntu desktop operating system booted from a USB, according to Corellium Chief Technology Officer Chris Wade. Although details are scarce, he said that Linux is now “completely usable” on Apple Silicon machines. Network compatibility is possible through a USB-C dongle, and the current update to the platform will support USB, I2C, and DART. The Ubuntu operating system is one initially meant for the ARM-based Raspberry Pi, Wade added.

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The Story of the 30-Year-Old PDF Format

Andrew Orr ·

The Portable Document Format (PDF) has been around for thirty years. But how did it become so ubiquitous? Rob Walker shares the interesting story.

The PDF keeps spreading not because Adobe or any company forces others to use it, but because of “millions of people all over the world,” Parmenter says, “just doing their thing.”