With police getting search warrants for Amazon Echo recordings questions about personal privacy are on the rise. Dave Hamilton and Kelly Guimont join Jeff Gamet to look at what Amazon’s Echo hears and records, what our other smarthome devices may be logging, and what that means for our privacy and police investigations.
NomadPlus Smartphone Wall Charger and Battery Pack: $18.99
We have a deal for you today on the NomadPlus Smartphone Wall Charger and Battery Pack. It’s designed to be used with your Apple wall charger, turning it into both a wall charger and an 1,800mAh portable battery. You can get it through us for $18.99.
![Sylvania Announces Smartbulbs for Apple HomeKit, No Hub Required [Update]](https://www.macobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/sylvania-smart-multicolor-a19-wide.jpg)
Sylvania Announces Smartbulbs for Apple HomeKit, No Hub Required [Update]
Sylvania announced Tuesday it was launching an LED smartbulb in its LEDVANCE product line with support for Apple’s HomeKit (yay!). Better yet, the Smart Multicolor A19 doesn’t require a hub—just plug it in, find it with Apple’s Home app, and you’re good to go. Sylvania said the device will be sold through Amazon and ship in «early 2017.» This will be a great addition to the HomeKit ecosystem. To that end, I’ve been seeing more HomeKit stuff in my inbox during the last few weeks for CES 2017. It’s almost as if Apple’s smarthome platform is finally coming alive. Let’s hope, at any rate. I’ve left messages with Sylvania reps asking about pricing, which wasn’t announced. Sylvania also didn’t release images of the new bulb—the image below is of current products in the company’s smartbulb line. [Update: Sylvania’s PR folks got back to me—pricing is definitely unannounced. I also added a rendered image of the A19. We’ll be visiting with the company next week at CES. – Bryan]
Apple's AirTunes Trademark, AI White Paper - TMO Daily Observations 2016-12-27
Apple is reviving its AirTunes trademark, which has some thinking there’s a new product in the works. Bryan Chaffin and Dave Hamilton join Jeff Gamet to share what they think is in store for the AirTunes name, plus they look at Apple’s first artificial intelligence white paper.
TMO Background Mode: Interview with the Editor of IPWatchdog Gene Quinn
Gene Quinn is a patent attorney and founder of IPWatchdog.com. Today he lectures, writes and helps aspiring patent attorneys and patent agents prepare themselves to pass the patent bar exam. In college, however, Gene’s interest was engineering. An important meeting with a Rutgers professor changed his life, and he graduated with a E.E. degree. Later, with new interests and confidence, he moved into the law. Gene goes into considerable detail about his career progression, having plans, and keeping options open. His first job after his law degree was in litigation, but soon his engineering experience led him into patent law. This is a powerful story about turning your skills and passion into a career when confronted with challenges. Plus, we talk about PCs in law, his current love for Macs and his experiment with the notorious Zune.
HandBrake Video Converter App Leaves Beta After 13 Years
It only took about 13 years, but HandBrake is finally out of beta. Version 1.0 was released on December 24th, and is the go-to tool for video transcoding. In layman’s terms, HandBrake is what you use to convert DVDs into video files you can play on your Mac. Version 1.0 improves audio and video syncing for difficult sources, adds new device presets, adds new MKV and JSON presets, improves performance Skylake-based Macs, and more. HandBrake isn’t, however, completely leaving the beta world behind thanks to its new less technical documentation that’s tagged beta. You can download HandBrake at the HandBrake website for free.
Movavi Multimedia Editing Bundle for Mac: $43.95
We have a deal for you on a video editing suite called the Movavi Multimedia Editing Bundle for Mac. It’s comprised of three apps, Movavi Video Editor for Mac, Movavi Video Converter for Mac, and Movavi Screen Capture for Mac. You get all three for $43.95 through us. Check out the deal listing for details.
Christmas Morning with Your Two Favorite Geeks – Mac Geek Gab 637
Everyone got AirPods except you? No worries, Dave and John have you covered with some AirPods alternatives. Otherwise it’s listener questions dominate the show, as usual, with topics ranging from where to store your iTunes Media, network topology, replacements for Dropbox’s missing Public folder and much more. Download today and enjoy!
Apple Posts Its Public Encryption Key, Encourages Customers to Verify Emails
Apple has a new support document encouraging customers to verify encrypted emails, especially security emails from Apple. The document includes Apple’s own public PGP key for those verifications. Apple noted that its current PGP key will be valid until May of 2018. PGP, or «pretty good privacy» is one of the most popular encryption schemes in general use today, through both the PGP Corporation and the open source GnuPGP. Apple posted links to both. You can subscribe to Apple’s Security-announce emails at Apple’s website.
Uber Location Privacy, AirPods Followup - TMO Daily Observations 2016-12-23
Uber is in the spotlight again over privacy concerns. Bryan Chaffin and the Maccast’s Adam Christianson join Jeff Gamet to look at how Uber is collecting location data and how we can block that, plus Adam shares his AirPods experience.
