TSA Confused by Braces and Crutches

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Chris Morran at the Consumerist:

The tiny (potential) terrorists of the world continue to wreak havoc at airport security checkpoints. We already brought you the story of the 4-year-old who dared to hug her grandmother in view of TSA screeners, and now comes the tale of a 7-year-old girl with cerebral palsy whose crutches and leg braces reportedly confounded security personnel at JFK Airport.

As I’ve mentioned before, my son has partial hemiplegia due to his brain cancer, and walks (with a limp) with a brace on his left leg. If we ever had an issue at an airpot like this family did, I would lose my shit.

via The Brooks Review

Obama Threatens CISPA With Veto

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The White House:

H.R. 3523 fails to provide authorities to ensure that the Nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected while repealing important provisions of electronic surveillance law without institutingcorresponding privacy, confidentiality, and civil liberties safeguards. For example, the billwould allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishingrequirements for both industry and the Government to minimize and protect personallyidentifiable information. Moreover, such sharing should be accomplished in a way that permitsappropriate sharing within the Government without undue restrictions imposed by private sector companies that share information.

Good.

Read more about CISPA here.

The Google Phone

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As part of its on-going trial with Oracle, some of Google’s original plans for a phone have surfaced.

To get right to it, the thing looks like a Blackberry. As the plans are from 2006, it makes sense. RIM was on top, and Google wanted to get in on their success.

Of course, when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in January 2007, RIM’s hardware — dominated by cheap, plastic buttons — immediately looked dated.

It’s obvious Google had the foresight to at least move a step toward the iPhone, and not rely solely on physical buttons.

It seems Google couldn’t do anything but copy what others were doing. While Android still relies on physical buttons (on on-screen, static ones, in Ice Cream Sandwich), it’s clear their plans changed after the iPhone.

Apple Q2 2012 Results Posted

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After the recent holiday quarter, this is Apple’s second-biggest quarter ever.

Here are some highlights:

  • Quarterly revenue of $39.2 billion (Up from $24.7 billion in the year-ago quarter)
  • Quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion (Up from $6.0 billion in the year-ago quarter) That’s a 94 percent increase.
  • International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The iPhone continues to dominate Apple’s books:

  • 35.1 million iPhones sold (88 percent increase year over year)
  • 11.8 million iPads sold during the quarter, a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter
  • 4 million Macs sold during the quarter, a 7 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter
  • 7.7 million iPods sold, a 15 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Update: Apple’s PR statement is live. Here are some quotes:

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO:

Our record March quarter results drove $14 billion in cash flow from operations. Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, we expect revenue of about $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.68.

Apple CEO Tim Cook:

We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter. The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.

Apple’s call is scheduled for 5 P.M. EST. In the meantime, be sure to check out MacStories’ nice graphs.

On Cloud Storage Systems

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Speaking of articles on The Verge, the site has posted a great head-to-head of various cloud storage services.

I’m a paying user of Dropbox, and it really has become a core component of how I work. I have multiple Macs and two iOS devices, and Dropbox (more and more, it seems) is the glue I use to keep them together.

iCloud’s document syncing hasn’t changed that for me, and I’m not sure if it will any time soon. I much prefer having folders and sub-folders over iCloud’s data-in-the-app approach.

Google Drive is much more like Dropbox than iCloud in this respect. It shares a local folder with the web. Where Google Drive stands out is the Google Docs front-end for web-editing. No one else can really do that.

I have no doubt Google Drive will be successful among those users already elbow-deep in the Google ecosystem, but it doesn’t do much for me.

GlowLight

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David Pierce at The Verge:

For now, I’m sticking with my Kindle (partly because I don’t have much choice), but I’m going to have pangs of jealously every time I have to get out of bed to turn off the light at night.

Amazon is winning in the e-ink category because of its ecosystem; no fancy new Nook is going to change that. That said, while this Nook does look interesting, I think the external light-in-a-case seems like a better solution. For example, I don’t see that weird dark line that appears on The Verge’s review photos across the top of my Kindle’s screen.

I use Amazon’s case with the built-in light, and have no complaints, except maybe for the price.