YouTube Releases Rewind 2019 Video

Last year’s YouTube rewind video did not go down well. At all. In fact, it became the most disliked video on the platform ever. This year, YouTube decided to play it safe. It admitted its users are “better at this than we are” and brought together all the most popular clips from the year. The finished video is not that exciting then, but it is certainly less cringe-inducing than last year’s offering. It also gives a good insight into where the site is going as we head into the next decade.

Homeland Security Cancels Facial Recognition Plan for Americans

Homeland Security had a plan to expand its use of airport facial recognition to include U.S. citizens. After much outcry the agency will drop that plan, although foreign nationals and visitors will still face mandatory scanning.

A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection, which filed the proposal, said the agency has “no current plans to require U.S. citizens to provide photographs upon entry and exit from the United States,” and that it “intends to have the planned regulatory action regarding U.S. citizens removed from the unified agenda next time it is published.”

Behind the Scenes of VSCO With CEO Joel Flory

VSCO is my favorite photo editor and TechCrunch’s Kate Clark sat down with CEO Joel Flory to talk about his company.

Without selling ads or customer data, VSCO has developed a sustainable subscription-based business and written a new playbook for social media businesses in a world where Facebook’s advertising-based model is king. For those fed up with platforms that have facilitated bullying and failed to prioritize privacy, VSCO may be a protective corner of the internet.

I have a couple more VSCO articles planned for the future, like a review of the editing tools.

A History of Apple’s Technology Transitions

Martin Pilkington wrote a long blog post detailing Apple’s technology transitions over the years. These are the big, fundamental changes, like going from Motorola 68k to PowerPC in 1994. In fact, the transitions are put into two categories: CPUs and APIs. It’s a great read about Apple’s history.

A lot of the controversy comes down to people not understanding the how or the why of these transitions, and why Apple ultimately drops the old technology. So I thought it would be useful to explore Apple’s history of transitions and try to explain some of the reasons for this latest one in a way everyone can understand.