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Casey Newton, writing at Platformer: Telegram is often described as an “encrypted” messenger. But as Ben Thompson explains today, Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted, as rivals WhatsApp and Signal are. (Its “secret chat” feature is end-to-end encrypted, but it is not en...

Apple Newsroom, yesterday:

Apple today announced that Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri will transition from his role on January 1, 2025. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. As part of a planned succession, Kevan Parekh, Apple’s Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis, will become Chief Financial Officer and join the executive team.

Link: apple.com/newsroom/2024/08/apple-announces-chief-financial…

Matthew Ball has written an excellent deep-dive into Roblox: Compared to its most similar competitors — the social virtual world platforms, Minecraft and Fortnite — Roblox has about 5× and 2.25× as many monthly players. For non-gamers, Roblox has about two thirds as many...

From the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, What to Know About the Updated COVID Vaccine for Fall, Winter 2024–25. The updated shots are available now at US pharmacies and soon at doctor’s offices. Go get ‘em!

An extensive report by Erin Kissane and Darius Kazemi on how governance, moderation, and diplomacy works in the fediverse. “We think the fediverse’s structure can allow for particularly humane and high-context moderation…”

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Oasis is reuniting after 16 years with a 14-stop tour of the UK & Ireland in 2025. “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.”

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Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to rewatch a movie called ‘Purple Rain.’ The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Wesley Morris dive deep into Prince’s 1984 acting debut, staring Prince, Apollonia, and Morris Day. Watch this episode on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel! Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I just got back from attending the XOXO Festival in Portland, OR. What a whirlwind few days — I talked to more people than I have in literally years. I feel grateful for the opportunity to attend and participate this year, so I wrote some thank yous. Thanks to Craig Mod f...

Chris Welch, in a thread on Threads: The “Reimagine” feature on Google’s new Pixel 9 lineup is incredible. It’s so impressive that testing it has left me feeling uneasy on multiple occasions. With a simple prompt, you can add things to photos that were never there. And ...

Jay Peters, writing for The Verge last week: If you want the old Sonos app back, it’s not coming. In a Reddit AMA response posted Tuesday, Sonos CEO Spence says that he was hopeful “until very recently” that the company could rerelease the app, confirming a report from T...

My thanks to 1Password — which, earlier this year, acquired frequent DF sponsor Kolide — for sponsoring last week at DF. The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) found that “the human element” (accidental breaches caused by human error, or victimization in p...

Faruk Korkmaz, on his iPhonedo YouTube channel:

Shot on iPhone 15 Pro Max. No gimbal, extra lens or filter is used. I shot all the footage using the stock camera app to an external drive in ProRes format. Edited in Final Cut Pro X. I put this video together from over 1000 video clips I shot between September 2023 and August 2024.

A lovely little 3-minute film on its own, and a great source of inspiration showing how good footage can look from a modern iPhone.

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=wuGba6Cw4lY

Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld, writing for The New York Times: This summer, I agreed to a literary experiment with Times Opinion: What is the difference between a story written by a human and a story written by artificial intelligence? We decided to hold a contest between ...

The limited edition 2024 XOXO Field Notes are available to the public for a very short time (limited supplies and all that). I know some of you collect…hop on it.

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I just got back from the XOXO Festival and one of things that happened was that Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou showed their new short film The Second and their first new Every Frame A Painting video essay in eight years!! And now the video essay is on YouTube:

It’s a quick one about the sustained two-shot, a type of shot that was used a lot in the olden days but still has its uses today — and gives actors room to actually act.

So happy to see Ramos and Zhou back at it. I’m not sure if I should even say this, but they indicated during their XOXO appearance that there will be more to come (in fewer than 8 years).

Here’s my post about them shuttering the channel and a few of my favorite videos of theirs.

Tags: film school · movies · Taylor Ramos · Tony Zhou · video

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today announced plans to hold its annual iPhone-centric event on Monday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The event is set to start at 10:00 a.m., and select members of the media have been invited to attend.

Looking at my notes, I don’t think Apple’s ever before held a September iPhone event on a Monday. Sometimes Wednesdays, but usually Tuesdays. Update: The first (and currently the only scheduled) debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is on Tuesday 10 September — I’ll bet Apple set this one for Monday to give them a better chance at leading the news during the 24 hours after the event.

As for the theme, “glowtime” seems pretty obviously a reference to the new Siri-with-Apple-Intelligence interface in iOS 18.

Link: macrumors.com/2024/08/26/apple-september-9-iphone-event/

Reuters: Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody, three sources told Reuters. The arrest of ...

This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.

I wasn't planning on joining Nicole when she put on this movie. But then the characters and plot drew me in. I wanted to know how and why the three ended up where they ended up (the film is very non-linear, which I liked for the most part). The acting was great, too.

But unfortunately, it's downhill from there. It's increasingly less about Art - the only really likeable person - and only very slowly unveils more and more about the relationship between the other two. The soundtrack was irritating. And the ending is not very plausible and it's a collage of infuriatingly endless slow-motion shots.

February 1976. A flight out of California turned catastrophic when it crashed into a farm in rural Nebraska. What happened that night at the local hospital, and crucially, what went wrong, would inspire a global sea-change in how emergency rooms operate and fundamentally alt...