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News+: Fixes and Enhancements With Affinity Photo

Andrew Orr ·

I’ve been using Affinity Photo for several months now, and I’m still getting used to using it. In the latest issue (May 2019) of MacFormat magazine, they share photo fixes and enhancements with Affinity Photo.

As well as using Affinity Photo to fix common problems, you can produce more creative results using selection and compositing tools such as layers and masks.

Unfortunately, this magazine is in PDF form instead of using Apple News Format. So you’ll have to swipe to page 28 (As opposed to me being able to share the singular article).

This is part of Andrew’s News+ series, where he shares a magazine every Friday to help people discover good content in Apple News+.

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Dr. Katie Bouman - The 29-year-old Scientist Who Beamed a Black Hole Back to Earth

Charlotte Henry ·

The image of Dr. Katie Bouman clasping her hands in glee next to her MacBook Pro as data from space downloads is almost as famous as the image she helped create. Dr. Bouman wrote the algorithm that helped produce the first-ever image of a black hole. The Telegraph published a biography of the acclaimed computer scientist and electrical engineer.

Dr Bouman’s CV reveals an impressive academic record in electrical engineering and computer science. She has studied at some of the best institutions in the world, getting an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, and a Masters and PhD at MIT, winning prizes and scholarships along the way. In 2017, as a graduate student, she took up her role leading the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team – which made the black hole picture possible – based out of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, in Massachusetts

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Tree-Planting Drones Shoot the Forest Back

Andrew Orr ·

Startup Biocarbon Engineering use tree-planting drones that shoot the forest back in Myanmar and other places around the world.

The drones first fly over an area to map it, collecting data about the topography and soil condition that can be combined with satellite data and analyzed to determine the best locations to plant each seed. Then the drone fires biodegradable pods—filled with a germinated seed and nutrients—into the ground.

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Amazon's Alexa is Listening to You - More Than You Might Know

John Martellaro ·

Bloomberg reports:

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.

Sometimes, someone is.

The article goes on to explain how Amazon employs thousands of people around the world to  listen, transcribe and annotate conversations with Alexa. All in an effort to improve Alexa’s ability to understand human speech. Of course, Amazon has strict policies and the user identities are anonymized. But still… Seriously?

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Oprah, Prince Harry, and JJ Abrams on Apple TV+, Ming-Chi Kuo's Mac Predictions, with Charlotte Henry - ACM 509

Bryan Chaffin · · 1 Comment

Queen Oprah and the UK’s Prince Harry are doing a docu-series on mental health for Apple TV+, and Bryan Chaffin is joined by Charlotte Henry to talk about what that says about Apple’s video efforts. Charlotte also brings some across-the-pond context about Prince Harry and the royal family and how this news was greeted in England. They also talk about JJ Abrams saying that working on Apple TV+ was like the Wild West. They cap the show by discussing Ming-Chi Kuo’s most recent Mac predictions.