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Don Van Natta Jr. and Adam Schefter, reporting for ESPN:
President Donald Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name
their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him, multiple sources
with knowledge of the situation told ESPN.
A senior White House source said there have ...
Following up on the previous item, here’s Fred Vogelstein, at Crazy Stupid Tech:
Rivera says that he’s not naive about the long term, however,
“given the astonishing rate of improvement in AI capabilities
we’ve seen. So we just have to improve our own stuff. And a major
...
Gabe Rivera, back in September:
A milestone such as this demands that we reflect and generate
pithy takeaways, for the fans or at least for the perpetual gaping
maw of AI models. Fortunately, our 20 years of existence offers no
shortage of fodder. Perhaps the one major a...
Paul Kafasis, writing at One Foot Tsunami:
While Apple had previously urged developers to use squircle icons
on our apps, they’ve now taken things much further to ensure
compliance. It’s a shame.
Apple updated their own app icons on Tahoe, for both the squircle
shape as...
Tyler Hayes, writing for This Week The Trend:
The Razr+ 2024 model measures 3.46 inches tall, but still has a
4-inch diagonal screen size. For comparison, the smallest modern
(2021) iPhone is the 13 mini, and that one is 5.18 inches tall.
The Razr foldable is a legitimat...
An even better, more iconic, metaphor for this administration than the images of the East Wing being razed. When you watch the video, take note of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. performing his family’s signature dance move, “The Chappaquiddick”.
Before all the excitement, Trump fell asleep, right in front of the press.
Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg, “Apple Nears Deal to Pay Google Roughly $1 Billion a Year for Siri AI Model” (gift link):
Apple Inc. is planning to pay about $1 billion a year for an
ultrapowerful [sic] 1.2 trillion parameter artificial
intelligence model developed...
Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg, “Apple Nears Deal to Pay Google Roughly $1 Billion a Year for Siri AI Model” (gift link):
Apple Inc. is planning to pay about $1 billion a year for an
ultrapowerful [sic] 1.2 trillion parameter artificial
intelligence model developed...
The Tinted glass option generally has a relatively subdued impact
inside apps, making bars a bit frostier. But on the lock screen,
it transforms all the notifications into grey opaque blobs. I
would never choose this mode because that effect is just too ugly.
Now that I think about it, this is almost entirely why I don’t prefer the new “Tinted” option for Liquid Glass in iOS 26.1 — notifications look orthopedic, like an extra-high-contrast accessibility option for the vision impaired. Here’s a good side-by-side comparison in a post on Reddit. But as the top Reddit commenter points out, this severe over-correction from iOS 26.0 (where “Clear” was effectively the only option) is only with Light mode — in Dark mode, notifications in iOS 26.1 look good with the Tinted option.
Hannah Knowles, writing for The Washington Post (via Taegan Goddard):
Mamdani won two-thirds of voters under 45 in preliminary exit
polls, while Cuomo led him by 10 points with voters 45 and
older. The polls also showed an education divide: College
graduates backed Mamda...
WhatsApp:
In addition to reading and responding to messages, for the first
time WhatsApp on Apple Watch will now support many requested
features:
Call notifications: You can see who’s calling without needing
to look at your iPhone.
Full messages: You can read full Wh...
News from Apple’s Podcasts for Creators site, regarding new features in the iOS 26.2 beta releases:
When you supply chapters in your episode description or in your
RSS feed, they display in Apple Podcasts. If you submit chapters
through your hosting provider, you can inc...
John Dvorak back in 2014, two months before Apple Watch was announced:
I got a lecture from a potential buyer, who will only purchase an
iTime as a replacement for the iPhone rather than an accessory.
But all evidence leads me to believe this device will be an
accessory.
Doing that limits the appeal to people who were promised a
sleeker gadget profile, which they desperately need, because they
never manage to pare down anything. It’s tablet computing all
over again.
If he’d meant that Apple Watch would be like the iPad, in terms of being a durable long-term many-billion-dollars-in-sales-per-quarter platform, he’d have been correct. But he meant that both were duds.
Dvorak is still writing, but alas, only occasionally.
Sean Hollister, reporting for The Verge:
The details of how, when, and where Google would charge its
fees are complicated, and they seem to be somewhat tailored to
the needs of a game developer like Epic Games. Google can
charge 20 percent for an in-app purchase that pro...
John Voorhees, writing at MacStories:
With iOS 26, Apple placed two big buttons onscreen when an alarm
went off. One was for stop and the other snooze. That wasn’t a big
deal for many of the alarms you set throughout the day, but when
you’re waking up in the morning blur...
Apple has launched a dramatic new web interface for the
App Store. You can now get the full App Store experience right in
your browser, with dedicated pages for the iPhone, iPad, Mac,
Vision, Watch, and TV app libraries.
Previously, Apple’s “apps.apple.com” domain simply redirected you
to a generic page about the App Store on Apple’s website.
Now, it takes you to a full-fledged version of the App Store you
can browse on your computer.
This new website is nice, but it’s not the “full” App Store experience, insofar as you can’t buy or download apps from it. It’s more like a full website mirror of the App Store than a web version of the App Store.
Video should be simple to ship and scale. Mux makes it easy to build live and on-demand video into anything from websites to AI workflows.
Upload a video, get back a playback URL. No transcoding headaches. No CDN setup. Go further with video building blocks – thumbnails, transcripts, storyboards – to create exactly what you want.
Now, Mux is shepherding Video.js, the web’s most-trusted open-source player, and reimagining it for the modern developer experience.
Future-proof your video with infrastructure trusted by Patreon, Substack, and Synthesia. Get started free, no credit card required. Use code FIREBALL for an extra $50 credit.
Mark Gurman, in his weekly Power On column for Bloomberg (paywalled, alas):
Even with the rosy sales forecast, the road ahead won’t be easy.
Apple is betting heavily on the new Siri, which will lean on
Google’s Gemini model and introduce features like AI-powered web
sear...
Anthony Castrovince, writing for MLB (News+ link):
Behind a stunning, game-tying swat from Miguel Rojas in the top of
the ninth, a first-of-its-kind, go-ahead blast from Will Smith in
the top of the 11th and the absurd extra work World Series MVP
Yoshinobu Yamamoto provi...
Paul Lukas, founder of Uni Watch:
Due to a perfect storm of negative developments, I have
reluctantly come to the unfortunate conclusion that continuing to
publish Uni Watch is no longer viable. This will be the site’s
final post.
Yes, I’m serious. And no, this isn’t a ...
The president of the United States, on his blog:
Seth Meyers of NBC may be the least talented person to “perform”
live in the history of television. In fact, he may be the WORST to
perform, live or otherwise. I watched his show the other night for
the first time in years...
My thanks to Jaho Coffee Roaster for sponsoring this week at DF. Jaho has been family-owned since 2005, and they’re guided by their slogan: “Live Slow”. Jaho knows that great coffee takes care. From sourcing small-lot single origins to blending coffees for balance, they smal...
Special guest Brian Mueller, developer of Carrot Weather, joins the show to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his utterly ridiculous but totally serious weather app.
Sponsored by:
Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.
Uncommon Goods: Out of the ordinary gifts. Get 15% off your next purchase.
Tim Bray:
Last night I had a very strange experience: About two thirds of
the way through reading a Web page about myself, Tim Bray, I
succumbed to boredom and killed the tab. Thus my introduction to
Grokipedia. Here are early impressions.
My Grokipedia entry has over s...
Jason Koebler, writing at 404 Media:
Wednesday, as part of his ongoing war against Wikipedia because he
does not like his page, Elon Musk launched Grokipedia, a fully
AI-generated “encyclopedia” that serves no one and nothing other
than the ego of the world’s richest man...
This update includes enhancements to the Shortcuts app across all
platforms, including new intelligent actions and an improved
editing experience. Shortcuts on macOS now supports personal
automations that can be triggered based on events such as time of
day or when you take actions like saving a file to a folder, as
well as new integrations with Control Center and Spotlight.
Earlier in their presidency, Denmark had revived a controversial
provision in the draft law that would mean online platforms — such as messaging apps — could be served with mandatory CSAM
detection orders, including services protected by end-to-end
encryption. However opposition from several other EU countries
derailed any agreement in the Council.
Today, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told local press
that the Council presidency would move away from mandatory
detection orders — and instead support CSAM detections remaining
voluntary.
TechRadar, summarizing this German-language report from Handelsblatt:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is looking to replace its
internal work environments to move away from US-made software in
fear of retaliation from the US administration.
The Microsoft software...
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