Getting Doom running on weird hardware is all-time favorite hobby of some on the Internet, but this takes things to the next level.
Guided Frame ⇢
Steven Aquino, writing at Forbes, about a feature that shipped with the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro:
A marquee feature of the Pixel 7 series is what Google calls Guided Frame. The feature, an interplay of hardware and software, works with Android’s TalkBack screen reader to help guide a Blind or low vision person to get into the best positioning for a good selfie. Guided Frame also smartly leverages haptic feedback to assist in confirmation that you did the right thing. For many disabled people, the double dose of sensory input — clinically known as bimodal support, referring to two forms of sensory experience — is not only technologically adroit. Haptics is one way to make use of a device’s panoply of sensors, but the practical application these little buzzes have for people who can’t rely on pure visual feedback is not superfluous. It’s actually extremely useful.
Once the “sweet spot” is found, the system automatically hits the shutter button.
Accessibility should allow anyone to access all of the features of these devices, and this is a good example of something that should have been for a long time now.
Artemis I Gets New Launch Windows ⇢
NASA is targeting the next launch attempt of the Artemis I mission for Monday, Nov. 14 with liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft planned during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. EST. Artemis I is an uncrewed flight test to launch SLS and send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before flights with astronauts.
Inspections and analyses over the previous week have confirmed minimal work is required to prepare the rocket and spacecraft to roll out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the roll-back due to Hurricane Ian. Teams will perform standard maintenance to repair minor damage to the foam and cork on the thermal protection system and recharge or replace batteries on the rocket, several secondary payloads, and the flight termination system. The agency plans to roll the rocket back to the launch pad as early as Friday, Nov. 4.
Backup launch windows include:
- Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 1:04 AM Eastern
- Saturday, Nov. 19 at 1:45 AM Eastern
Kbase Article of the Week: iMac G5 (iSight): Built-in iSight Camera Produces Blue or Green Pictures ⇢
When you take pictures with the built-in iSight camera in your iMac G5 (iSight), the resulting images may look blue or green in Photo Booth or iChat instead of full color.
This can happen when your display’s Colors setting is set to “Thousands” in the Displays pane of System Preferences. To fix your photos, just modify the settings to display millions of colors instead of thousands.
Goodbye, ‘Notebooks’ ⇢
Benjamin Mayo has noticed something new going on with Apple’s website:
Apple appears to be rolling out a wide-reaching branding change about how it refers to its Mac portable lineup. Up until recently, Apple officially referred to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro as “Mac notebooks” or just “notebooks,” leaning on the relatively outdated industry terminology of notebook computers.
But now, everything user-facing appears to be slowly converting to using a
“laptop” nomenclature. Updates to the Apple Online Store product pages, articles in the Apple Support knowledge base, and even the Mac operating system is beginning to reflect this branding update.
At the risk of sounding old and cranky, I always liked “notebook.”
Sponsor: Unite 4 for macOS ⇢
Unite 4 for macOS allows you to turn any website into an app on your Mac. Using a lightweight, WebKit powered browser as a backend, you can easily create isolated, customizable apps from any site.
Unite 4 includes dozens of new features, including support for native notifications, new customization options, and much more. Unite apps also serve as a great alternative for resource hogging Electron apps or half-baked Catalyst apps.
Some examples of apps you could create in mere minutes with Unite:
- A Gmail web client that behaves like a native mail client.
- A status bar app for Apple Music or Overcast
- An isolated workspace for apps that may track you like Facebook
- A Google Meet app that works efficiently without using Chrome
- A fully featured Instagram app that has a resizable window
- A Robinhood, Figma, or Roam Research app for your desktop.
The newly launched Unite 4.2 makes the experience even better, with built-in password management, fully-featured status bar apps, and much more.
512 Pixels readers get 20% off this week when you purchase Unite 4 at bzgapps.com/unite512 or when you use the promo code ‘512Pixels’ at checkout.
You can also try Unite for 14 days absolutely free or use it as part of your subscription if you’re a Setapp subscriber!
Mac Power Users #661: Our Desks & Bags ⇢
With David settling in at his new studio, the guys take some time to talk about their desk setups, what’s in their bags and what they carry with them daily.
‘It Felt Like a Funeral’ ⇢
William Shatner, in his new book, writing about his trip with Blue Origin:
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.
It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.
Weatherscan Shutting Down ⇢
Benj Edwards, writing at Ars:
In the early 2000s, Americans who wanted to catch the local weather forecast at any time might turn on their TV and switch over to Weatherscan, a 24-hour computer-controlled weather forecast channel with a relaxing smooth jazz soundtrack. After 23 years, The Weather Channel announced that Weatherscan will be shutting down permanently on or before December 9. But a group of die-hard fans will not let it go quietly into the night.
Meta Employees Meh on Meta’s Metaverse Experience, Leading to Meta Conversation in Leaked Meta Memos ⇢
Alex Heath, in the best lede I’ve read all week:
Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much, according to internal memos obtained by The Verge.
The Pixel Watch is Real ⇢
David Pierce, writing at The Verge, has a great interview with Pixel hardware boss Rick Osterloh about the new watch, Google’s purchase of Fitbit and why anyone should trust Google to keep supporting this thing in the long run.
Connected #418: Grocery Shopping for Some Fresh New Bugs ⇢
On this episode, we discuss what academic honors they would like to receive, what happened at the beach house and the new update to Spark. Then, David Smith drops by to talk about the Apple Watch Ultra.
On Connected Pro, AI recreates a crime scene.