If you’ve been thinking what you need in your life is Star Trek bourbon, you’re in luck because it’s available in your sector now. The James T. Kirk straight bourbon whiskey is Paramont-approved and made by Silver Screen Bottling Company. The whiskey is small batch from barrels aged between four and 12 years and is touted as «for the Star Trek fan and the serious bourbon fan alike.» You can pre-order a bottle now for delivery in October for US$59.99, which is $10 off the list price, or pick up a bottle at San Diego Comic Con. And drink responsibly because no one wants your starship to crash.
Two Keyboards at a Bar (and in Walks Touch Bar)
Check out this rather brilliant piece imagining Apple keyboards past and present drinking in a bar, when in walks that obnoxious fellow, Touch Bar (via Daring Fireball). It’s high-larious, spot on, and flawlessly executed. Here’s a taste:
APPLE EXTENDED II: Lonely times, man. Lonely times. First, it was scissors then butterflies. Do you want to know what I miss? Electric Alps switches. That was the dream, right?
MACBOOK PRO (nervous, staring at the bar, napkins in both hands): Did you clean up before I sat down? It looks clean, but…
APPLE EXTENDED II (interrupting): Kids today. They don’t appreciate the reliable, credible haptic feedback of a single healthy keystroke. It’s all hunt, peck, and swipe swipe swipe.
TOUCHBAR (arrives): Hey! Nobody told me we were going out to drinks ?. This is great! ?
There's a New Wi-Fi Standard Coming, and It's Much More Secure
The current W-iFi protocol we all use, WPA2, isn’t considered very secure these days. It badly needs to be upgraded. And that’s going to happen in late 2019 with WPA3. This article explains the problems with WPA2 and how WPA3 will fix them. Excerpt.“If you ask virtually any security person, they’ll say don’t use Wi-Fi, or if you do, immediately throw a VPN connection on top of it,” says Bob Rudis, chief data officer at security firm Rapid 7. “Now, Wi-Fi becomes something where we can say hey, if the place you’re going to uses WPA3 and your device uses WPA3, you can pretty much use Wi-Fi in that location.” That will change everything. The Wired article fills us in.
How Can We Build Healthy Technology?
Wired has a good op-ed about how to build healthy technology. It examines our relationship with technology, as well as our technological addiction and dependence.
There is no defined category for technology addiction, but psychiatrists have been debating whether internet addiction is a real malady. It was not added to the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the diagnostic bible of mental health professionals around the world.
Each of us relates to technology in a unique, highly personal way. We lose or cede control, stability, and fulfillment in a million different ways. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in the novel Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Meru Health Wants to Make Mental Health Care More Accessible
TechCrunch writes about a service called Meru Health, a company that wants to make mental health care more accessible to employees.
Meru Health offers an eight-week treatment program for depression, burnout and anxiety. The program, currently led by five licensed therapists, utilizes both cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral activation and mindfulness-based intervention. Provided as an employee benefit, Meru Health only charges companies if the patients report feeling any better.
Down the road, Meru Health may make its service available to everyday consumers, but right now, Ranta said the focus is on selling to larger employers and doing clinical research. Meru Health is also looking to bring on board a doctor to help with medication management and, possibly, even providing prescriptions.
iOS 12 Public Beta, Jeff's Raspberry Pi Cloud Server Plan - TMO Daily Observations 2018-06-26
Andrew Orr and Dave Hamilton join Jeff Gamet to discuss why you may—or may not—want to install iOS 12 public beta, plus the dive into Jeff’s plan to make his own cloud file server with a Raspberry Pi.
Mindbliss 1-Year Subscription for Meditation: $29.99
We have a deal on Mindbliss, an on-the-go meditation app that uses algorithms to generate meditation sessions. Whether you’re trying to sleep better, decompress, or just start each day with your best foot forward, Mindbliss helps you come back to center with single-sit meditations and serial sessions that span five to nine days. A 1-year subscription is $29.99 through our deal, with longer subscriptions available, too.
Vanderbilt's New Prosthetic Ankle Moves Artificial a Lot Closer to the Real Thing
Check out this amazing video from Vanderbilt University about their new prosthetic ankle (via TechCrunch). Vanderbilt calls it smart, not because it’s connected, but because it adjusts on the fly, making it much easier to navigate uneven and rough terrain. According to the school, «The ankle has a tiny motor, actuator, sensors and chip that work together to either conform to the surface the foot is contacting or remain stationary, depending on what the user needs.» That’s just crazy cool, and the technology in this device could really make a qualitative difference in the lives of amputees and other people who need artificial legs. Plus, our future robot overlords will probably appreciate it, and it’s always good to try and get an inside edge with them. Check out the video.
Ride Along With a Space Probe As it Crashes Into a Comet
In September 2016, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta space probe crashed into comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Here’s a video from the spacecraft’s camera as it approaches. It shows the comet’s surface up close as Rosetta plunges in. (Courtesy Digg.) It’s very cool.
SongShift Lets You Transfer Apple Music Playlists to Other Services
There’s an app called SongShift that lets you transfer Apple Music playlists to other services. Supported services include Apple Music, Deezer, Discogs, HypeMachine, LastFM, Napster, Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube. You can «shift» complete playlists from one streaming service to another, and automatically keep all of your playlists synced with each other. I’ve heard some Apple customers say that when they unsubscribe from Apple Music, then re-subscribe later on, none of their playlists and content is saved. I’ve never unsubscribed yet so I haven’t run into this issue, but it sounds like SongShift can help in these cases. App Store: SongShift – Free
