Uber has been delivering punishing, but self-inflicted wounds for weeks now. This week, the company can add the bad PR of a ride that ended in a fireball. A literal fireball. Firstly, the Uber driver in the car shown below—and his passenger—walked away with minor injuries. Secondly, the driver of a car hit moments before—and not shown in this video—did receive more serious injuries, according to local TV station KOMONews. The video below was captured by surveillance cameras when the Uber driver came speeding through a Seattle gas station, striking a gas pump and causing a fireball. On a side note, how amazing is gas station technology that the whole place didn’t go up in flames? Uber wanted folks to know this particular driver has been removed from its app. So there’s that.
Google Home's Ad Responses, McDonald's and Mobile Ordering - TMO Daily Observations 2017-03-17
Google Home owners are angry because yesterday they got an ad to go along with their morning schedule request. Bryan Chaffin and John Martellaro join Jeff Gamet to share their thoughts on Google doing what it always does, plus they have some opinions on McDonald’s offering mobile app food ordering.
New Report Backs Up iPhone 8 Flat OLED Display
More sources are saying Apple is giving the iPhone 8 a flat OLED display with curved edges. That’s in contrast to earlier reports that Apple would use a curved display for the new phone, but fits with my expectation for what Apple really has in store.
iOS 10 and Swift 3 Starter Bundle: $45
We have a deal on the iOS 10 and Swift 3 Starter Bundle. It’s a collection of five training courses for learning how to code for iOS 10 using Swift 3, including The Complete iOS 10 Developer, iOS 10 Projects: Build Amazing Apps with Apple’s Newest iOS, Swift 3 Fundamentals & Essential Training, iOS 10, Swift 3 Hands On Features, and Master iOS 10 + Swift 3 & Create Apps. These developer courses retail for $654, but you can get them for $45 through our deal.
What Happens when a 55 Pound Drone Hits Your Head?
We write here a lot of about small drones. Amazon wants to deliver packages with drones. Drones have taken breathtaking aerial views of Apple Park. But what happens when one of the larger drones accidentally slams into a human being? Time for the automotive crash-test dummies to step up and tell the story! Well, the instrumentation does. Bloomberg has a great story on “Crashing Drones into Test Dummies for Safety” Watch a drone disintegrate as it strikes a crash-test dummy. It’s a battle of the bots. All for human safety, of course.
McDonald's Is Testing Mobile Orders from an App
Fast food chain McDonalds is testing a fancy new way to order using your smartphone, because, you know, that’s what we’re looking for from McDonald’s. Customers in Monterey and Salinas, California can use the McDonalds mobile app to order food from home and have it ready when they get there. Andrew Orr explains.
Concept Video Shows Great iOS 11 Interface Ideas
With our first glimpse of iOS 11 most likely coming up in a few weeks at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, it’s fun to look at features we’d like to see in the next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system. Jacek Zieba put together a video showing many of those features in action, and it’s pretty compelling. How about a pop-up menu from the control center’s WiFi icon showing available networks, or group FaceTime video chats? We’d love to see more useful in-app screen controls and that option to clear app data and caches easily, too. But true multi-user support? Apple isn’t going there.
Pwn2Own Hackers Found Two Safari Zero Day Exploits
Yesterday was the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest, and also marks the contest’s 10th anniversary. Hackers compete in challenges to find security holes in popular software and mobile devices. This year, two Safari zero days were found by the white-hat hackers.
Need to Preserve Night Dark Adaption with iPhone? Here's How
Paul Hayes at Sky & Telescope has written a great tip about how to use the iPhone’s accessibility features to turn the iPhone’s entire display a specific color profile. For example, if you need to shade the iPhone’s entire display permanently reddish in order to preserve night-time dark adaption, you can do that. This technique would be particularly handy for amateur astronomers. While some astronomy apps have this feature, this tip applies to the iPhone’s display across the board. The tip is beautifully described, including an explanation of accessibility shortcuts, and also invites exploration for those who have certain kinds of color blindness. Check it out.
Apple, Other Tech Companies Aren't Openly Opposing Trump's Second Travel Ban
The second targeted travel ban to come from the White House has been temporarily blocked, but this time the fight didn’t include support from Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Facebook. They weren’t, however, alone in skipping out on signing the brief opposing the ban because less than half the companies that signed the previous brief participated in this one.
