Five Tip Friday ~ Mac picture security, searches, Mission Control in El Capitan

1/ Remove location info from your photos —  If you have posted photos online, those shot with iPhones , iPads and some cameras include data about precisely where they have been taken, depending on how you shared them. With privacy in mind, you should know the policies of any apps and services you use to share pictures and whether they automatically strip off Exif data when you upload. Facebook, for example, strips it then offers back the ability to indicate the general area, only, of where it was taken: ‘Masterton’, for example, rather than the GPS coordinates of your lounge. If you don’t know or can’t find out, though, Apple’s Mac Preview app can take that stuff right off of any images you want to share.
First, to check to see if an image has stored where it was taken, you can click to select it in the Finder and press Command-i. This’ll open up the item’s “Get Info” window, and you’ll see that listed if it’s included.
Open the picture you’d like to share into the built-in Preview program to get started; to do so, you may just need to double-click on your photo, as Preview is typically the default image editor on the Mac. If that doesn’t work, go to your Applications folder, launch Preview, and then either click “Open” on the window that’ll appear or choose File>Open from the menus to select the photo you need to work with, or simply drag-and-drop the image over the Preview icon in the Dock.
With the picture open, click on the Tools menu and choose Show Inspector. Underneath the ‘i’ tab, the Inspector window will show a GPS option if that data is present. Choose it and click Remove Location Info to do just that.
When you save your changes, your image will be ready to share. Of course, a very savvy person could probably still use something like a reverse image search to narrow down the possibilities for where you took anything you upload, but there are levels of paranoia even I don’t sink to. Most of the time, anyway.

2/ Photos has some Exif abilities too, now — When viewing a picture in Photos you can, in El Capitan, now click the info button to edit geotags as well. Simply relocate the pin to a new spot by clicking and dragging it. If your picture doesn’t have a location yet, you can choose Assign a Location to add this data yourself.

3/ Spotlight now uses natural language — It’s not just Siri that has become more intelligent. With Spotlight, the search engine built into Mac OS X, you used to have to turn on all sorts of fields, like ‘file size’, do do detailed searches, and you can still do that (try Command F while in the Finder) but now Spotlight also has the natural language features. Spotlight interprets meanings to give you more accurate results, such as files you worked on a week ago when you want to continue a project. A small but very welcome improvement is that you can also move the Spotlight window around and, once the window is showing results, you can resize the window’s height to show more, which is important now that Spotlight can search many more sources, including some online services like live weather.
On your Mac, Spotlight can now understand, for example, a search query like “Get Mail from Brian about football” and it will bring up exactly what you’re looking for.

4/ Smarter Notes even tracks flights — Notes really got beefed up in Mac OS 10.11x ‘El Capitan’, letting you drag in images, links and sketch directly. But it also makes it easy for fliers to track flight information. All you have to do is type your flight number into the Notes app, hit enter, and it will be highlighted in orange. Click the link and it’ll show you a map of your flight path and estimated arrival time. (Here’s the full walk-through on how to use it.)

5/ Instant Mission Control — You’ve probably done this by accident in El Capitan. Here’s how and what’s happening: a new gesture for opening Mission Control cuts the number of steps for moving a window to a new space. Now you just drag it past the top of the screen.
The Spaces bar at the top of the screen has changed to initially display only the names of your desktops and full-screen apps. This gives more space for the window previews underneath. Moving the pointer up to the top of the screen reveals graphical previews of each space, as does dragging a window. As in previous versions of OS X, dropping a window onto another desktop moves it there.

3D fitness, Senate and security, TV Maps, iTunes Allowances to go

Upcoming ‘Naked’ 3D fitness tracker will be iOS compatible — Naked Labs, a Silicon Valley fitness tech startup, has launched the world’s first 3D Fitness Tracker for consumers. It will be iOS compatible, though you’ll have to wait a while to get one. Naked’s 3D heat map shows changes to your body geometry over days, weeks, and months. Significant changes are highlighted in a different colour, so you can note areas of your body where you are gaining muscle or losing fat and vice versa.

Senate draft bill requires companies extract, decrypt data for law enforcement — Two high-ranking US senators on Wednesday released to the public a proposed bill that would grant courts the authority to order tech companies dealing in hardware, software or services help law enforcement agencies gain access to encrypted communications.

Use Apple TV to surf the world from your couch — Instead of squinting at a map on your phone, why not take a look on a big screen you already own—an HDTV set via your Apple TV? The appropriately-named Arno Appenzeller (his actual name) used the MapKit part of tvOS to create an interactive app called TV Maps. At US$2, it’s a treat.

iTunes Allowances Program to bid adieu as of May 25 — Apple says you can no longer set up iTunes Allowances, which let parents set up monthly credit for their kids to spend on App Store and iTunes Store purchases, and the iTunes Allowances will vanish into the void on May 25. [For ‘can no longer’ read ‘will no longer’ – Apple can pretty much do what it likes, with its resources.]

Environmental Progress, car, My Apple mag, Chrominator for FC Pro X, Swift, speed your router, check your Mac, lossless audio

Apple publishes annual Environmental Progress Report — In 2015, 93% of Apple’s energy came from renewable sources. In Singapore, the company is powering its facilities with a 32-megawatt solar project spread over 800 rooftops. In China, they’re adding 170 megawatts of solar to begin offsetting the energy used to make products. And Apple’s data centers around the world run on 100% clean energy and power billions of iMessages, answers from Siri, and song downloads from iTunes. You can read the report here.

Imagining Apple Car: how hardcore car enthusiasts see Apple’s rumored automobile — Motor Trend just doodled on the proverbial cocktail napkin, and its Apple Car vision is simultaneously sublime and disturbing.

A reminder to download the free MyApple Magazine and app — It may have missed your attention the other day, but there’s a new issue of MyApple Magazine (1/2016) available for your reading pleasure, and of course, it’s free!

Chrominator is useful for sprucing up logos, text in Final Cut Pro X — If you’re a Final Cut Pro X user, Noise Industries’ US$49 Tokyo Chrominator is a useful tool for adding production value to logos and text. You can take any graphic shape or FCP X title and quickly give it a glossy 3D bevelled look complete with animated lighting.

Apple’s Swift programming language grew swiftly in 2015 — Swift, Apple’s programming language, grew swiftly in 2015, according Freelancer.com’s Fast 50 report.
The data comes from 1,429,842 projects “filtered for spam, advertising, self promotion, reposts, or that are otherwise unlikely to be filled,” the published report says. Swift-related jobs grew 566% year-over-year as more developers took notice of the newly open­-sourced programming language, according to the report (via Apple World Today).

Test your router’s ability to handle full speeds and avoid buffer bloat — Your router’s Quality of Service (QoS) settings and avoiding a scenario where everything else on your network slows down when one device is using up all of your bandwidth, a condition known as Buffer Bloat. One way to test that is to do a speed test while simultaneously watching a series of pings from the Terminal. Another is to simply use DSLReports’ speed test which does all of this for you.

Using EtreCheck to diagnose Mac problems — If you’ve got a misbehaving Mac, an incredibly awesome tool to have in your arsenal is a program called EtreCheck. It’s free, though Etresoft is currently asking for donations to help improve El Capitan compatibility.

The complete guide to using iTunes with lossless audio — While you might not notice the difference in sound quality [I never do], the lossless format leaves you with an archival file you can convert at any time in the future. You’ll never need to rip those CDs again.

iOS update, pro hackers, Apple Watch strong with teens

Another reason to upgrade from iOS 9.3 to iOS 9.3.1. — While iOS 9.3 fixed a bug that ‘bricked’ iOS devices when the date was set to Jan. 1, 1970, and iOS 9.3.1 fixed flitches with iOS 9.3 there’s a variation on iOS 9.3 that can remotely brick later devices as soon as they connect to a WiFi hotspot, reports KrebsonSecurity.

Professional hackers helped the FBI crack a shooter’s iPhone — The FBI cracked a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone with the help of professional hackers who discovered and brought to the bureau at least one previously unknown software flaw, reports The Washington Post, quoting unnamed “people familiar with the matter.”

Apple Watch takes 71 percent share of teen market, iPhone remains strong, study says — Apple’s mobile product lines continue to perform well with the all important US teen demographic, as a new spring 2016 survey put Apple Watch far ahead in the nascent smartwatch game, while iPhone exhibited expectedly consistent growth.

Safari popularity, big Microsoft update, Adobe CC, digital music, TextExpander reduction, installing Mac apps, USB-C

Apple’s Safari is the second most popular web browser — Apple’s Safari is the second most popular web browser, according to the US government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP). It accounts for 21.9% of visits to government websites over the past 90 days.

Big update to Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac includes Add-In Store for Word and Excel — Do you use Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac? If you do, you’ll want to get the latest update – version 15.21.1– because it adds not only a lot of fixes and enhancements, but the Add-In Store for Word and Excel as well. To get the update, just open any Office app – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook or OneNote – and then choose “Check for Updates” from the Help menu. The update takes a while as all of the apps are receiving attention, but once it’s done, you can check out the products in the Add-In Store.

Upcoming version of Adobe Creative Cloud to add virtual reality capabilities — Ahead of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show next week, Adobe has revealed new features across its Creative Cloud tools for video editing, motion graphics, audio and collaboration. The CC tools are compatible with Mac OS X and Windows systems. Adobe plans to update Premiere Pro, other CC video apps with VR/360-degree tools & more.

Digital music revenues overtake physical revenues for the first time — The global music market achieved a key milestone in 2015 when digital became the primary revenue stream for recorded music, overtaking sales of physical formats for the first time, according to new data from IFPI, which represents the interests of 1300 record companies across the globe. Digital revenues now account for 45% of total revenues, compared to 39% for physical sales.

Smile lowers subscription pricing for TextExpander 6 — Smile Software has announced lower subscription prices for TextExpander 6, including the decision to extend half price subscriptions for those upgrading to a lifetime discount. The move comes in the wake of a fierce outcry from customers and pundits after announcing that TextExpander 6 would be subscription-only.

How to install and run Mac apps that don’t come from the Mac App Store — Apple has introduced a number of features designed to protect users from malware in OS X, but these tools occasionally go too far when trying to save people from themselves. Here’s how to get by them.

USB-C devices can now have safety, authenticity verified with new certification program — It will soon be much easier for consumers and businesses to determine whether a USB-C device is genuine and can be trusted, thanks to the newly introduced USB Type-C Authentication specification.

Apple publishes Anzac Day (25th April) resources

For primary students

Walking with an ANZAC (iTunes U course)

At its conclusion the First World War had touched the life of almost every person that lived in New Zealand. This course helps Year 5-6 students understand the scale of WW1 by setting them the challenge of finding a Dead Man’s Penny. 120,000 Memorial Plaques (more commonly known as Dead Man’s Pennies) were given to the next of kin of every service man or woman that lost their life during WW1. Students learn about the effect the War had on their own local communities by tracing the story of a local Dead Man’s Penny.

For secondary students & lifelong learners

Parcels from Home: the POW Parcel Scheme by Mark Webster and Paul Luker (iBook) 

This multi-touch book explores the New Zealand Red Cross’ very successful efforts to send parcels all the way from NZ to Allied prisoners in European camps across a world torn by global war. Draws on a decade of research including interviews, photos and audio from archives and museums across NZ and Australia, including the NZ and Australian Red Cross Headquarters.

Parcels From Home: Jack’s War by Steve Bolton (iBook)

The companion volume to Parcels From Home: The POW Parcel Scheme, Jack’s War reads like a graphic novel, expanded with sound effects, pop-ups, and an extensive glossary to follow a fictional Kiwi soldier’s wartime and prisoner-of-war experience, as drawn from the real-life experiences of hundreds of NZ soldiers during WW2.

Remembering Gallipoli (iBooks collection) 

This collection brings together books, apps, iTunes U courses, movies, TV shows, music and podcasts to explore the stories behind ANZAC Day, WWI and the Gallipoli campaign.

For special education

Understanding Anzac Day (iTunes U course)

April is also Autism Awareness Month. This course helps students on the spectrum explore the historical significance of Anzac Day. This visually driven course includes interactive content that allows students to create unique work on their iPad, including using popular apps Minecraft and Leggo to recreate the Gallipoli beach landings or trenches.

Apps for Anzac Day

Ngā Tapuwae Gallipoli by Manatū Taonga – NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Learn about New Zealand’s contributions to the First World War, following in the footsteps of the Anzacs, with five interactive trails including the Anzac landing, Quinn’s Post, Chunuk Bair, Cape Helles and Hill 60. Ngā Tapuwae means following in the footsteps of your ancestors – the trails contain ‘ngā tapuwae’ of the ancestors and their descendants, Māori and Pākehā alike.

Gallipoli the First Day by ABC

An entirely new way to look at the Gallipoli Campaign; use a 3D map to watch and explore the events of Gallipoli as and where they happened. The interactive map pinpoints events as they unfolded, overlaid by veteran video accounts and audio war diaries, read by actor Hugo Weaving and others.

Victoria Cross by Agence de Développement et de Réservation Touristiques de l’Aisne

Explore the stories of 50 heroic soldiers who received the Commonwealth’s most prestigious military award for valour, The Victoria Cross, following their actions on the battlefields of Northern France during World War One.

Best display ever, graphics editor, 16GB iPhone brickbats, Met iPads, Adobe Post, Drake, AirPlay on Android, Microsoft, new Watch ads

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro has the best iPad screen so far — In DisplayMate’s analysis of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, Dr Raymond Soneira, president of the company, says the smaller pro tablet sports the best iPad display to date. “The iPad Pro 9.7 display is a Truly Impressive major enhancement on the iPad Air 2… and even on the recent iPad Pro 12.9 and iPad mini 4… and even every other mobile LCD display that we have ever tested… and note that I hand out compliments on displays very carefully.”

Juicy Bits delivers Bez, a powerful vector graphics editor for iPad and iPad Pro — It’s great when a developer creates a new product that provides yet another reason for people to do more work on the iPad and especially the iPad Pro. That’s the case with a new vector graphics editor released today. Bez (free, US$7.99 in-app purchase to unlock all features) is designed to create and export vector graphics on Apple’s tablets, and it looks like a winner.

Why getting a 16GB iPhone is just not worth it — Here’s why you shouldn’t buy a 16GB iPhone and why Apple should definitely stop making them.

London Met Police says it has deployed just 641 iPads out of planned 15,000-20,000 — In spite of one-time plans to adopt between 15,000 and 20,000 iPads, London’s Metropolitan Police has so far deployed just 641 units, and doesn’t have any immediate plans to deploy more, a report revealed on Tuesday.

Adobe updates Post with Live Photos support, Airmail comes to iPad with Split View — Adobe on Tuesday updated its Post graphics design tool for iOS with several new features. The new version of Post, 2.5.0, lets users apply designs to Live Photos and then export them as standalone videos or new Live Photos. Shooting Live Photos is currently supported only by the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and SE, though Macs and other iOS devices can view them.

New Drake album to be exclusive (initially) to Apple Music — Drake, the rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and ‘actor’, is releasing his new album, Views from the 6, exclusively on Apple Music when it arrives April 29, notes Pitchfork. The exclusivity will be for a limited time, but there’s no indication of how long that will be.

Apple’s AirPlay comes to Android in new flagship HTC 10 — HTC has unveiled the HTC 10, its latest flagship smartphone, with an unusual feature in the form of native support for Apple’s AirPlay wireless streaming protocol.

Microsoft adds contextual edit commands to Office for iPhone — Microsoft on Monday updated its Office apps for iOS with new contextual functions on the iPhone, while Google updated its iOS search app to better sort Now information cards on the iPad.

Apple premieres seven new Apple Watch ads with strong fitness & celebrity focus — Apple on Monday debuted several new Apple Watch TV ads, highlighting features and apps while also leveraging celebrities to gain some marketing clout.

Mac up again, free analysis WiFi tool, Scrapple, WiFi and Time Capsule

Image from the Apple NZ Mac page.

The Mac gains again in global market share — Some folks say iOS devices such as the iPad Pro will replace the Mac. Well, apparently not anytime soon. While tablet sales continue to decline, overall Mac marketshare during the March quarter continued to grow globally during the first quarter of 2016, according to the latest research data from Gartner and IDC, while all other PC brands continue their long declines.

Free wifi tool also does Windows now — NetSpot, the wifi analysts tool anyone can use, now has a Windows version.

Scrapple on 40% discount — Scapple, the freeform mind-mapping software that lets you easily record and find connections between your ideas, is designed to help you put all your ideas in one place, then draw logical conclusions from them. It’s currently discounted. Here are a couple of other possibly handy Mac apps, too.

How to disable Wi-Fi base station features on a Time Capsule — Why have it blasting out wifi if you don’t use it? [I personally do use it as it’s so much more powerful and easier to configure than my Vodafone modem – in my case, that’s the one I turned off.]

SE Bluetooth issue, WhatsApp, Digit finances, Apple Music lift, hack, next Apple Watch, Bryant and Jordan

(Image from Apple NZ’s iPhone SE page)

iPhone SE users reporting Bluetooth sound issues — It’s never nice to hear about problems with a new Apple product, but that’s the case with the new iPhone SE. The Apple support forums are currently showing a number of reports of distorted sound during phone calls made with the iPhone paired through Bluetooth to a wireless headphone or car audio system.

WhatsApp outpaces iMessage on verification and forward secrecy — A cross-platform messaging app owned by Facebook leapfrogs iMessage; Apple should step up and join it, thinks Macworld.

Digit is a money-saving iOS app that will change how you manage your cash — The future of finance is automated apps that analyse your accounts and know how much to save and spend. Digit is one such example.

Streaming services such as Apple Music help lift Australian music sales to three-year high — The surging popularity of music streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube has lifted recorded music sales higher in Australia for the first time since 2012, according to Australian Industry Recording Association’s annual wholesale revenue figures. The stats, seen first by Fairfax Media show a 5% jump in total revenues to $334 million, driven by a more-than-doubling in streaming revenues to $71.1 million.

Apple may know how to block FBI iPhone hack — Apple still doesn’t know exactly how the FBI hacked into Syed Farook’s iPhone 5c, and it looks like the agency doesn’t want to hand over its little secret. There won’t, however, be a legal fight to find out what technique the FBI used because Apple thinks it’s a short-lived hack, which means there’s a good chance the company has some ideas on how to block future attacks without needing any more details. Apple says it will not sue the FBI for the hack, either.

2016 Apple Watch will be internal ‘s’ upgrade, major design changes to wait until 2017, insider says — This year’s second-generation Apple Watch will feature improved internal components, but its external design will be largely unchanged from the first-generation model, according to well-connected insider Ming-Chi Kuo. As to when that might be …

New Apple TV ad features Kobe Bryant, actor Michael B Jordan — Recent Apple ads have started to feature celebrities using the company’s products, usually in some humorous way. The latest features Kobe Bryant and actor Michael B Jordan (Creed) discussing a fictional biopic about the basketball legend, using the Siri remote to pull up the NBA app and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button while discussing the part Jordan will play.

Security Updates, writer’s platform, Chinese server, Yokohama, Portland Maps

Are you getting OS X security updates? Adam C Engst over at TidBITS.com wrote a nice little article called Make Sure You’re Getting OS X Security Data. You should probably read it; if you’re not going to, here’s the App Store System Preferences pane showing the checkbox you really should enable to insure that OS X security updates are installed automatically.

Social media writer’s platform — Prose allows anyone to be an author and publish on the go from anywhere using an iPhone or web app. The service is absolutely free and free of advertising of any kind, with writers retaining 100 percent copyright over original content.

Chinese server vendor Inspur reportedly joining Apple datacenter supply chain — Apple’s Project McQueen is designed to move the company away from outside vendors like Microsoft and Amazon for some of its cloud infrastructure, but since Apple no longer builds servers, it has to depend on third parties to supply the hardware. DigiTimes reports that Chinese server vendor Inspur will help supply some of the necessary infrastructure.

Apple’s Yokohama, Japan R&D facility won’t open until March 2017 — Apple’s upcoming Yokohama, Japan research and development facility was originally due to be completed this year, but won’t be completed until March 2017, according to Japanese blog Macotakara — as noted by AppleInsider.

Apple Maps public transit data comes to Portland, Oregon — New cities with Apple Maps transit data continue to be added on a regular basis, with the town of Portland, Oregon, the latest to enter the fold, on the heels of Montreal and Austin.

Cookie Monster and Siri, Microsoft keyboard, Apple Watch a year later, Indian Split View (not), HomeKit flaws

Cookie Monster and Siri Behind the Scenes — Cookie Monster’s Siri commercial is absolutely awesome, and not just because it’s brought to you by the number 6 and the letter s. What’s equally awesome is that Apple put together a behind the scenes video following Cookie Monster through the commercial shoot. It’s also great to see Cookie Monster’s humanity; he’s excited by new technology, he overcomes adversity, and he loves cookies, just like us—only with more fur. And he’s blue.

Microsoft rolls Hub Keyboard for iOS out of the Garage — Microsoft seems to be doing more development of apps for iOS than Apple does. The latest is from Microsoft Garage, a team that produces apps that are designed to push the envelope a bit in terms of UI or functionality. The free Hub Keyboard adds a row of buttons to a traditional iOS keyboard that can perform all sorts of productivity-enhancing tasks.

Fluent: Apple Watch one year later is a hit (sort of) — The Fluent research group (www.fluentco.com) conducted 2578 interviews of Americans nationwide, and determined that the Apple Watch is a mild hit.

Apple can’t use the term ‘Split View’ in India — The Delhi High Court has declared that Apple can’t use the term ‘Split View’ in India, reports MacNN. The complaint, filed by Microsoft vendor Vyooh, claims it developed similar functionality in its Splitview software in 2006, with basically the same functionality.

Elgato’s Eve Energy smartplug is easy to use, but highlights HomeKit’s flaws — Elgato’s Eve Energy smartplug is a perfectly serviceable home automation product, but in some ways it proves that Apple’s HomeKit platform still has a way to go before it becomes mainstream.

Garageband update, ‘religious freedom’, encryption irony, TextExpander 6, OpenType fonts

GarageBand for Mac updates with Music Memos & Logic Remote support, bigger sound library — Apple last Friday released a new version of GarageBand for the Mac, improving support for recent companion apps on iOS, and greatly increasing the number of samples available to musicians.
The updated software — v10.1.1 — can open Music Memos projects, and be controlled by the iPhone and iPad Pro versions of Logic Remote. Similarly, the software should also be better compatible with GarageBand for iOS and Live Loops projects.

Apple says Mississippi ‘religious freedom’ bill ’empowers discrimination’ — An avid promoter of civil rights, Apple on Thursday voiced concern over Mississippi’s ‘religious freedom’ house bill that was signed into law this week by Governor Phil Bryant, a piece of legislation opponents say is a tool for discrimination against LGBT individuals.

Leaked Senate encryption bill called ‘ludicrous, dangerous’ by security experts — A proposed US Senate draft bill that would give courts the authority to compel tech company compliance in law enforcement requests to encrypted data leaked online Thursday night, and by Friday security experts and civil rights advocates were dismantling the policy, calling it ill-informed and potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, if Apple’s products weren’t so secure, the Fed wouldn’t be using them …

TextExpander 6 review: A snippets subscription service that’s priced too high — The TextExpander utility saves keystrokes by letting you type a short sequence that’s replaced by a longer one. That’s the heart of the app, which has expanded (sorry) its repertoire of replacement types over time to include form letters with fill-in and drop-down elements, a library of emoji and a host of placeholders for date, time, the contents of the clipboard, and other elements.
The reason for this new review is a significant change in how its maker, Smile, prices the software that’s coupled with mandatory cloud-based synchronization through its own servers, as well as options to share continuously updated snippets for individual users and groups.

How to access advanced OpenType features in a variety of apps — 
Lesa Snyder informs us how to up your typography game in Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Quark apps.

Futurology ~ Planet 9, mass extinction, laser-hiding, brain machines, lip reading, wifi tracking, ice-free roads, AI Rembrandt, food resources

Finding Planet 9 — In January, Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown (the astronomer credited with killing Pluto) shared compelling evidence of a planet larger than Earth and over 500 times further from the Sun. Planet 9 hasn’t been spotted — its existence is inferred by the improbable orbits of a handful of distant, icy objects. A race is on to find the mysterious world, and help is coming from all corners of the astronomical community.
~ Trouble is, some people think it’s going to lead to a cataclysmic event for Earth…

How to survive a mass extinction — A study published in Scientific Reports sheds light on how Lystrosaurus defied death, earning itself the nickname “disaster taxon”. Analysing the bone microstructure and body size distribution of Lystrosaurus fossils both before and after the Permo-Triassic boundary, palaeontologists at the Field Museum learned that these ancient animals survived radical climate change by radically altering their life history strategy.
~ So, reinvent your life history? We’re mostly all doing that daily already. 

Lasers to hide us from evil aliens — A new study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society proposes a way of hiding from aliens. Humans are so fickle. Professor David Kipping and graduate student Alex Teachey, both of Columbia University, determined how much laser light it would take to mask the dimming caused by our planet transiting the sun, or cloak the atmospheric signatures associated with biological activity.
~ Unfortunately, we are the evil aliens. 

Mapping the brain for better machines — An ambitious new program, funded by the federal government’s intelligence arm, aims to bring artificial intelligence more in line with our own mental powers.
~ That notion’s already scaring me: ‘must work harder must work harder … ooh, a snack!’

Better mechanical lip reading — Helen Bear and her colleague Richard Harvey have come up with a new lip-reading algorithm that improves a computer’s ability to differentiate between sounds—such as ‘p’, ‘b,’ and ‘m’ — that all look similar on lips. The researchers presented their work at the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) in Shanghai.
~ Sssshhhh …

Tracking people with WiFi — MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has created a new system called Chronos that can accurately detect the position of electronic devices in a room – as well as the users who are carrying them – within tens of centimeters using Wi-Fi signals only.
~ Airplane Mode. Hah!

Conductive concrete for ice-free roads — Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln engineered concrete that melts ice. The energized concrete can be used on driveways, roadways, and bridges. Since magnetite-rich aggregates are blended into the specially-designed mix, it can also be used for military applications in electromagnetic shielding.
~ Roofs?

Computer Rembrandt — Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the most influential classical painters. And yet his newest masterpiece was unveiled only yesterday. How? By scanning and analyzing Rembrandt’s works, a computer was able to create a new painting in near-perfect mimicry of Rembrandt’s style. It has been named, appropriately, The Next Rembrandt.
The computer used machine-learning algorithms to create the portrait, which was then 3D-printed to give it the same texture as an oil painting. The Next Rembrant was a collaboration between Microsoft, ING, Delft University of Technology and two Dutch art museums (Mauritshuis and Rembrandthuis).
~ Who needs people? Oh yeah – people. 

Resources that go into food not eaten — The UN estimates that growing our food accounts for about 5 billion (and climbing) tonnes a year of carbon emissions; that’s about one fifth of the global carbon emissions. Within that number, you can also break down smaller sections: how much comes from just ranching, or how much comes from Uruguay, for example. What hasn’t been broken down until now, though, is how much carbon we’re releasing for food no one is eating. Researchers from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have a study out today in Environmental Science and Technology that answers that question.
~ More efficiency is better for everyone and everything.