Back in October Missouri governor Mike Parson, decided to hold a press conference and sling accusations against a reporter. The charge? Hacking. The crime? Viewing the HTML code in a browser of a publicly-available webpage. It took many months to get some resolution to this, but the prosecutor has decided to not press charges. Rational thinking prevails. Jon Brodkin at ArsTechnica has more. Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud had been facing the threat of prosecution since his discovery that the state website’s HTML source code exposed the full Social Security numbers of teachers and other school employees in unencrypted form. Renaud…
In a further push to get electric vehicles into more driveways comes a plan by the US government to set up charging stations at set intervals. The first iteration of predictable stops to charge a car is set to build chargers every 50 miles along interstate highways. When those stations are built, they must contain a minimum of four chargers and each with the capacity to provide 150 kW. Tim De Chant at ArsTechnica has more. Once states have completed the Interstate charging network, they’ll be able to apply for grants to fill in gaps elsewhere. The Joint Office of…
Happy Saturday! A shout out to those of you who are new to TimeMachiner. 👋🏻 Slots are still open to be featured on my fantastic revamped homepage launching in about a week. If you enjoy TimeMachiner, reply to this email ASAP and I’ll give you the details. This week I finished watching The Book of Boba Fett, which was an interesting take on the Star Wars universe. I’m also thoroughly enjoying The Splendid and the Vile on my Kindle. It’s a historical nonfiction piece that reads like fiction. Have a good weekend and I’ll see you on Tuesday. -Aaron
Back in 2018, MoviePass was a big deal with people who wanted to go to the movies. The small startup was flowing with VC money and posing an impossible deal: subscribe for $10 per month and see unlimited movies in theaters. Of course, this was unrealistic. The cost for a monthly subscription didn’t even cover the cost of a single ticket and MoviePass was losing money like crazy. It didn’t take long for MoviePass to crater and die in a spectacular blaze. This past week Stacy Spikes, the original founder of MoviePass pre-VC money, held a presentation announcing he purchased…
If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, like I am, it’s painfully apparent that Apple lacks some core social features. Their “Replay” feature pales in comparison to Spotify’s “Wrapped” year-end review. In addition, there is no way to collaborate on a playlist with friends. A new app, Caset, looks to change that. Billed as a “mixtapes for the new era”, Caset is an app that lets you create playlists with friends. Anyone you share the playlist with can add tracks too. Even better is you can give a tapback-style reaction to tracks, allowing a simple feedback mechanism to exist. Mixtapes represent…
Over at Thrillist, Dan Jackson and Matt Patches went through 32 of Steven Speilberg’s films and ranked them. The list does the usual worst-to-best reverse order and, spoiler, Crystal Skull takes the crown for worst of the worst. Coming in at 32, this dud of a stinker is the epitome of why some movie franchises should leave good enough alone. The action-adventure revival rolled into fans’ lives like an 8-ton boulder booby trap. There are spurts of Spielberg-patented, high-flying fun—the opening shootout in Area 51 and a chase across Professor Jones’ university campus summon the angular thrills of Raiders of the…
👋🏻 Hello from a wintery New York. I wanted to give a few quick updates to you all in today’s issue. Firstly, I have a new homepage that is launching real soon. It is going to include some quotes from readers. If you’re enjoying TimeMachiner and want to be included in this, I have 3 spots available. Reply to this email and I’ll give you the details. If you’d like to support TimeMachiner but do not want to commit to a Time Traveler membership, I’ve added a Tip link on my Membership page. This is a quick and easy way…
Even if you aren’t familiar with the company Square, you’ve seen it and have used it. Square is a payment system for small and medium businesses. They use iPad-like devices that swivel on a countertop and those small square devices that merchants use to take payments. Ever been to a craft fair, street fair, or other events with vendors? They’re everywhere. Apple, not one to ever overlook an opportunity, announced they’ll offer to accept tap-to-pay payments without any additional hardware. The new capability will empower millions of merchants across the US, from small businesses to large retailers, to use their…
It’s incredibly frustrating to know what you’re getting when purchasing internet service. Most companies operate in complete or near-complete monopolies here in the US. Even worse is you don’t know the price you’ll actually pay due to fees nor will you always know the speeds you’re supposed to be getting. That’s about to change. In 2016 the FCC came up with “broadband nutrition labels” for ISPs to use. Similar to the labels on all food, this would break down everything in plain terms what you’re getting and what you’re going to pay. Finally, six years later, ISPs will now be…
Looking for the intensity of boxing and UFC but without the violence, blood, or bodily injuries? Then perhaps the Pillow Fight Championships are more your speed. Yes, professional pillow fighting is now a thing. Steve Williams, a serial entrepreneur, has put in some serious cash to make pillow fights the real deal. “There’s just something so cathartic about getting hit in the head with a pillow,” he tells Jordan Blumetti over at The Guardian. It’s a laughable statement but also pretty intriguing. How do you take something we all did as kids and morph it into a professional competition? The…
If there was ever a creative service to be offered for people, this one takes the cake. Toni George runs Scratcher Girls, a professional back-scratching service. According to George, they use a combination of different techniques to scratch and also adjust the pressure as needed. Here’s the breakdown from 60 Second Docs’ Twitter account: Given that it’s winter and the air is dry AF, I would love to do this. George runs her business in Miami, Florida so if you find yourself in the area, Scratcher Girls is sure to be one to check out. Apparently they do heads, feet,…
In one of the more interesting things to do with a retired aircraft, this story from CNN talks about a super-unique project. Suzannah Harvey, the CEO of Cotswold Airport near Kemble in England purchased a retired 747 for £1 (around $1.30) in October 2020. The goal was to convert it into a party space people could rent out. The project is nearly complete and while she may have scored a bargain for the plane itself, the job to transform it into its new role was a different story. The makeover has cost nearly £500,000 ($671,000). However, Harvey points out that…
Normally I don’t care too much about quarterly reports from companies, but Nintendo’s shareholder call did reveal something pretty noteworthy. Nintendo revealed that the Switch is now their best-selling console of all time. It has officially surpassed the Wii’s gangbuster sales. Matt Purslow at IGN has more. The Nintendo Switch has become the fastest home console to sell 100 million units, and has now outsold the Nintendo Wii. Announced in Nintendo’s financial report for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2022, the company revealed that the lifetime sales of the Nintendo Switch is 103.54 million units as…
Seems like my latest edition of The Longform had impeccable timing, as Facebook Meta has reported its first drop in daily active users ever. During their quarterly earnings call with investors, Facebook delivered the bad news. Which then tanked its stock by about 20%. Alex Heath at The Verge has more. The massive stock drop, which instantly wiped out roughly $200 billion in market value, shows that Facebook’s corporate rebrand to Meta isn’t enough to distract investors from the problems in its core business of social media. Not only was user growth across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp essentially flat last quarter, but…
We scroll and eventually pause. Is it a funny photo that caught the eye? Perhaps it’s a memory that the algorithm has surfaced. Or maybe it’s simply some piece of content that’s got way too many likes and comments for its own good. It won’t be an ad, of course, because we scroll right by those. As far back as I can recall, that was my typical time on Facebook. Always scrolling, sometimes posting, never satisfying. Then something strange happened: I’d had enough. I proceeded to do what most people never even consider doing. This is the story of my…
My list of “Wow, that looks interesting” tv shows is growing. The newest one to add is Apple TV+’s Severence starring Adam Scott. Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Sasha Urban over at Variety reveal what the show is about. From writer and creator Dan Erickson, “Severance” follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), who leads a team at Lumon Industries — where employees have undergone a “severance procedure,” which surgically divides their memories between work and personal lives. Throughout the course of the series, the mysterious and chilling “work-life balance” experiment is called into question as Mark is forced to confront reality. Variety The…
If you had free game gets bought by a prestigious newspaper on your 2022 BINGO card, then you win. Late news broke on Monday that the New York Times has purchased Wordle from Josh Wardle… for seven figures. The purchase, announced by The Times on Monday, reflects the growing importance of games, like crosswords and Spelling Bee, in the company’s quest to increase digital subscriptions to 10 million by 2025. Wordle was acquired from its creator, Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, for a price “in the low seven figures,” The Times said. The company said the game would…
In all the years that Apple’s App Store has been in existence, apparently, they have never allowed a company to hide one’s app from the store. Doing so would make the app available only via a direct link. Why would a developer want to hide an app? Perhaps it’s for a one-off or annual event like Comic-Con. Or the app could be limited in use by employees of a singular company. Regardless of the use cases, Apple has finally implemented this obvious feature according to Amanda Yeo at Mashable. It will also help declutter the App Store, so you don’t…
Last week’s brouhaha of Neil Young vs Spotify / Joe Rogan went as predicted. Spotify didn’t budge and Young made good on his threat. Joni Mitchell joined the fray and removed her music from Spotify too. But lost in all of this are two critical decisions that have undermined critical cores to podcasting. The first is exclusivity. Podcasts were never envisioned or built to be exclusive. Sure, some outlets offer podcasts as members-only perks or private ways to access shows. However, podcasting’s lifeblood is RSS. That is an open standard and without it, podcasting would not exist. Spotify decided to…
When Apple introduced Face ID in 2017, they never could’ve predicted the world we live in today. Masks are mandatory in many places due to COVID. Many times when we are out and about, this super-fast way of unlocking an iPhone is rendered useless. Apple tried to fix this once. However, there are still tons of iPhone users who do not own an Apple Watch. Now, the upcoming iOS version 15.4 looks to do even more about this. Oliver Haslam at iMore gives more details. The change was first spotted by YouTuber Brandon Butch and comes with a text that…
When news broke about Life360 being one of the biggest data brokers as a side-hustle, the blowback was huge. This company, which people pay to use to see the location of friends & family, was not only collecting all this information but also selling it all to at least a dozen companies. Umar Shakir at The Verge has more. Life360, a safety and tracking service that helps its users to keep tabs on the whereabouts of family and friends who also use the app, is scaling back its user data sales business to just two partners: Allstate Arity and Placer.ai…
We’re seven years past 2015 and we still don’t have flying cars. It’s been predicted for decades. One company, Klein Vision, out of Slovakia has been building a car that literally transforms into a small aircraft in under 2-minutes. The “AirCar” was awarded an official Certificate of Airworthiness by the Slovak Transport Authority after completing 70 hours of “rigorous flight testing,” according to Klein Vision, the company behind the “dual-mode car-aircraft vehicle.” The test flights — which included more than 200 takeoffs and landings — were compatible with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) standards. Klein Vision The videos they’ve posted of…
Years ago T-Mobile did something revolutionary: they ditched two-year contracts. A norm in the industry, they decided to let you finance your phone separately and separate it from the service billed monthly. That decision lead to a series of moves leading to people holding onto them for 3-5 years according to a 2019 report. Bundled with keeping your phone is the expectation of that phone getting updates. Apparently, one of the more popular Android phones, the Pixel 3, shouldn’t be used any further. Google has decided to stop updating it entirely. This phone is only three years old. Aaron Gordon…
In a country where internet service is awful in many areas and virtually no competition exists, AT&T decided it was time to offer more speed. Hot off the press release is the announcement of a five-gigabit plan available right now to customers. Juli Clover at MacRumors has the breakdown. According to AT&T, the new plans are available to nearly 5.2 million customers across 70 metro areas including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Raleigh, Miami, and Dallas, with a full list available on AT&T’s website. AT&T Fiber 2 GIG is priced at $110 per month plus taxes,…
Working from home has not only been a welcome reprieve for overworked employees. It has also brought much-needed recuperation of all the time people commuted to and from work. As someone who spent 11 years commuting 2-hrs daily, I can personally attest that it will slowly rot your soul. This found time due to COVID has been brutal for the NY Transit Authority. The MTA is the main commuting system for New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester NY employees who work in Manhattan. Reporting by Matthew Haag and Patrick McGeehan at the NYT found the MTA saw a 75% drop…
Generally, the super-wealthy are obsessed with their own pet projects. One who has a pretty-positive perception is Mark Cuban. Best known for owning the Dallas Mavericks along with being the wealthiest Shark on Shark Tank, Cuban has done something amazing. He’s opened an online pharmacy so people can actually get their medications for an affordable price. Chris Morris at Fortune has the details. To lower costs, Cuban cut out the middleman, setting up his own pharmaceutical wholesaler and negotiating directly with drug manufacturers and pharmacies for rebates and discounts. [There is an] added $3 pharmacist fee. Shipping is $5. Fortune…
Twitter’s Twitter Blue premium (and paid) service posted this head-scratcher about a new ‘perk’ to paying the company money to use Twitter: gm! You asked (a lot), so we made it. Now rolling out in Labs: NFT Profile Pictures on iOS I’m not sure why people would ‘need’ this feature when an NFT is literally an image you can screen shot and upload as your profile photo. Even worse is the growing fad of companies jumping into NFTs as if it’s some super-hot market. From what I can tell, most people have no clue what an NFT is nor can…
As of Monday, the ability to file taxes in the United States has begun. And the IRS has already stated there will be massive delays due to staff shortages and overload from working on COVID-related programs throughout 2021. More from the AP & NBCNews Agency officials are already warning filers that “in many areas, we are unable to deliver the amount of service and enforcement that our taxpayers and tax system deserves and needs,” as IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig put it earlier in the month. Delays in processing are to be expected — especially because the IRS says it still…
On Friday Paramount dropped the trailer for the second season of Star Trek: Picard. After streaming the first season last year, I have been looking forward to the next season for a while. Season 2 brings back many characters introduced the first time and we get some fun surprises for this second installment. Between who is returning and the storyline looking to be a time travel adventure, I’m ready to go! Season 2 begins on March 3rd on Paramount+. You can watch the full trailer below.
UPDATE: According to Mashable, Apple has removed the requirement. No statements have been made. It’s simply gone back to the way it used to be. Since the beginning of Apple’s production of computers, they have focused on education. It was a strategy to get their computers in front of people at a time when a computer seemed unnecessary. The educational market has always been important to Apple. Every year they run back-to-school promotions and they have always offered discounts for students and teachers. However, now you will have to prove you qualify as Apple has done away with the honor…