This week, Stephen yells at the cloud, Myke gets new emojis and Federico speaks wisdom to the masses.
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When I bought my original Apple Watch, I opted for a stainless steel model with a black sport band.
Over time, I picked up a couple more sport bands, as well as the newer nylon band.
I like them all, and was never tempted to check out any third-party options, even after Apple announced its official Watch Band program.
However, recently, I was reminded how much I missed NATO-style watch bands. These are made of nylon, and folder over themselves using a set of keepers.1 I really like the look, and had one on the Seiko 5 I wore for years before the Apple Watch came along.
After doing some searching one night on my iPad, I came across Clockwork Synergy, a company that makes a ton of watch bands, including a NATO strap for the Apple Watch. 2
At checkout, you can select which lugs you want to use. As I’ve since upgraded to a Series 2 Sport in space gray, I ordered matching hardware.
These lugs are not part of the aforementioned Apple program, and it shows. The color is a little off, and while they hold well enough when engaged, sliding them in and out of the channel on the Watch is rougher than I wish it was.
I’m not worried that I’ve damaged my Watch by using this band, or that my Watch is going to fly off into the next gutter I walk by, but I have had to let go of the fact that the finish on the lugs is slightly darker than that of the watch.
The band itself is incredibly well made. The nylon is on par with my old Seiko band, and the stitching is straight and neat. Every nylon band I’ve ever used stretches and relaxes a bit with time, but the holes are close enough that I haven’t had trouble finding a comfortable fit. The strap doesn’t come loose from the keepers, which is something some NATO bands don’t get right.
I’m not using this band every day. The sport bands are hard to beat for anytime I’m going to get sweaty. However, I like this band more than Apple’s nylon band, which is just too long for my small, delicate wrists.
Options are a fun part about the Apple Watch. I’m glad to have another in the drawer of my nightstand.
When I bought this band from Clockwork Synergy, I bought a second to hold a giveaway for 512 Pixels readers.
To enter to win, drop me an email via this link before Friday and I’ll pick a winner over the weekend. I’ll pick a winner at random and will ship it anywhere in the world.
We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow. Additional information will be released about the flight teams, contingent upon their approval and confirmation of the health and fitness test results.
The company’s next-generation Dragon capsule will be used on the flight, in fully automatic mode.
This flight will take place after SpaceX begins flying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the Commercial Crew program. At this point, it is unknown who the customers are, or what they paid for the opportunity to become the first humans to fly past low-Earth orbit since the Apollo days.
Friend of the Show Dan Moren has his first novel coming out later this year. The cover has been revealed as part of an interview with him:
Well, I’ve wanted to write a science-fiction book basically since the first time I watched Star Wars. But the impetus for The Caledonian Gambit actually came from a different sci-fi series: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga. When I first read it in college, I was blown away by not only the world she created but the oh-so-human characters that populated it. I’ve also long had a love for Cold War spy stories, from John Le Carré to The Hunt for Red October; my personal favorite is a cult classic British spy series The Sandbaggers. I love the cat-and-mouse games, the tentative alliances, and the wheels within wheels of intrigue and plotting. A Cold War spy story in space seemed like chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (i.e. the best thing ever), so I decided to take a whack at it.
I’m really excited to read this book. Congrats, Dan!
Mozilla has acquired Pocket, a kind of DVR for the internet, for an undisclosed sum. The 9-year-old company, which makes tools for saving articles and videos to view them later, is Mozilla’s first acquisition. It represents a homecoming of sorts for Pocket, which began life as a Firefox extension before eventually expanding its team and building a suite of apps for every major platform. Pocket has been Firefox’s default read-it-later service since 2015.
This follows Instapaper’s acquisition by Pinterest last year. It seems that read-it-later services just aren’t stand-alone businesses. I don’t use Pocket, but I hope this Mozilla deal allows the team behind it to keep working on the product the way they want.
For a cool $99,995, you can add it to your collection.
Currently, there’s a Kickstarter page to fund a Girl Scouts San Diego project:
You may be wondering, “Why marshmallows?” and our answer would have to be, “Because they make it easy to be creative and learn how to program!” We provide the initial idea for the core group of characters and the game platforms - and then just let our scouts just take these and run with them. The idea of a bunch of marshmallows hanging out with chocolate, graham crackers and other friends makes it fun and easy for participants of any age to engage and come up with stories and scenarios for the characters, and in the process, learn the math and science of programming
I backed this gladly. You should, too.
Earlier this week, NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-size planets around a single star.
The star itself is an ultra-cool dwarf, burning at much lower temperatures then our own sun. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are closer to their star than Mercury is to the sun, but the cooler temperature of the sun keeps them from being broiled like Mercury is.
All of these seven planets could have liquid water on their surfaces, but three of them are in the habitable zone of the star, meaning they are the right distance from the star to have Earth-like temperatures.
At about 40 light-years — 235 trillion miles — from Earth, we don’t have the kind of technology to visit this system, but future study can unlock more details about the planets.
Apple’s new campus has a name:
Apple today announced that Apple Park, the company’s new 175-acre campus, will be ready for employees to begin occupying in April. The process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.
Envisioned by Steve Jobs as a center for creativity and collaboration, Apple Park is transforming miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley. The campus’ ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the world’s largest panels of curved glass.
Steve would have turned 62 this Friday, February 24. To honor his memory and his enduring influence on Apple and the world, the theater at Apple Park will be named the Steve Jobs Theater. Opening later this year, the entrance to the 1,000-seat auditorium is a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder, 165 feet in diameter, supporting a metallic carbon-fiber roof. The Steve Jobs Theater is situated atop a hill — one of the highest points within Apple Park — overlooking meadows and the main building.
I can’t wait to see it.
This week, on a very special episode of Connected:
This week, Stephen and Myke talk about the whirlwind of iPhone rumors and where they keep their data before Myke is joined by a special guest.
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