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Nick Heer, Pixel Envy:

For a long time, this palette was a dry list of checkboxes
and disclosure triangles. A user would need to first know this
palette exists, and then know what each option did. But, in a
recent version of MacOS, the palette has been updated with
icons that more clearly display what will change.
Depending on the font file in question, there are many
different options available, and the numerically differentiated
“stylistic sets” have never been clear. This is much nicer.

This is indeed a nice update to a little-known but wonderful standard feature in Cocoa’s text system. Who says AppKit is dead?

(One gripe I have is that the small caps options are no longer labelled “small caps” — you just sort of have to know what they are from the glyphs alone. And, oddly, on my Mac, for many but not all fonts, instead of seeing “A → A” to indicate small caps, I see a dollar sign: “$ → $”.

 ★ 

Nick Heer, Pixel Envy:

For a long time, this palette was a dry list of checkboxes
and disclosure triangles. A user would need to first know this
palette exists, and then know what each option did. But, in a
recent version of MacOS, the palette has been updated with
icons that more clearly display what will change.
Depending on the font file in question, there are many
different options available, and the numerically differentiated
“stylistic sets” have never been clear. This is much nicer.

This is indeed a nice update to a little-known but wonderful standard feature in Cocoa’s text system. Who says AppKit is dead?

(One gripe I have is that the small caps options are no longer labelled “small caps” — you just sort of have to know what they are from the glyphs alone. And, oddly, on my Mac, for many but not all fonts, instead of seeing “A → A” to indicate small caps, I see a dollar sign: “$ → $”.

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Dan Goodin, reporting for Ars Technica:

Researchers have discovered a new way to hack AI assistants that uses a surprisingly old-school method: ASCII art. It turns out that chat-based large language models such as GPT-4 get so distracted trying to process these representations that they forget to enforce rules blocking harmful responses, such as those providing instructions for building bombs.

Such a silly trick, but it epitomizes the state of LLMs. It’s simultaneously impressive that they’re smart enough to read ASCII art, but laughable that they’re so naive that this trick works.

 ★ 

Dan Goodin, reporting for Ars Technica:

Researchers have discovered a new way to hack AI assistants that uses a surprisingly old-school method: ASCII art. It turns out that chat-based large language models such as GPT-4 get so distracted trying to process these representations that they forget to enforce rules blocking harmful responses, such as those providing instructions for building bombs.

Such a silly trick, but it epitomizes the state of LLMs. It’s simultaneously impressive that they’re smart enough to read ASCII art, but laughable that they’re so naive that this trick works.

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My thanks to Rich Mogull for sponsoring DF last week to promote CloudSLAW — Cloud Security Lab a Week. He wants to make cloud security knowledge accessible to anyone, with or without security or cloud experience, for free. CloudSLAW delivers a 15-30 minute lab to your inbox, RSS feed, or YouTube. You don’t need to be a tech pro, but, as Rich says, it helps to know the difference between an API and an IPA.

Rich has taught cloud security around the world for over a decade. He’s also one of the preeminent writers about security issues in general, and Apple platforms particularly. If you’re a regular reader, you probably recognize his name: I’ve linked to articles by Rich dozens of times over the years, and he was my guest on The Talk Show just a few years ago. He knows his shit and he’s great at explaining it. CloudSLAW is his attempt to help anyone go from zero to hero on cloud security. Go ahead and sign up now — it’s free of charge.

 ★ 

My thanks to Rich Mogull for sponsoring DF last week to promote CloudSLAW — Cloud Security Lab a Week. He wants to make cloud security knowledge accessible to anyone, with or without security or cloud experience, for free. CloudSLAW delivers a 15-30 minute lab to your inbox, RSS feed, or YouTube. You don’t need to be a tech pro, but, as Rich says, it helps to know the difference between an API and an IPA.

Rich has taught cloud security around the world for over a decade. He’s also one of the preeminent writers about security issues in general, and Apple platforms particularly. If you’re a regular reader, you probably recognize his name: I’ve linked to articles by Rich dozens of times over the years, and he was my guest on The Talk Show just a few years ago. He knows his shit and he’s great at explaining it. CloudSLAW is his attempt to help anyone go from zero to hero on cloud security. Go ahead and sign up now — it’s free of charge.

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10-minute video by Phil Edwards positing that Mickey Mouse is a singularly famous character because of a technology breakthrough: synchronized sound.

 ★ 

10-minute video by Phil Edwards positing that Mickey Mouse is a singularly famous character because of a technology breakthrough: synchronized sound.

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Two shortcuts for toggling closed captions in tvOS apps that support accessibility features.

I know it’s a trend for people to just leave closed captions enabled whenever they’re watching TV, even for shows and movies in which they can easily understand the dialog. I can’t do that though, because I find captions highly distracting if I don’t need them.

But while watching the aforelinked The Gentlemen on Netflix this past week, I found myself toggling captions on and back off frequently, as I couldn’t understand the cockney accent spoken by many characters. So when a scene with cockney-speaking characters would start, I’d swipe up on the Apple TV remote, and toggle the on-screen “CC” button in the Netflix app. When the scene ended, repeat. I tried just leaving captions on, but I really do find it unbearably distracting when I do understand what’s being said. This made me think there has to be a better way to toggle captions than manually swiping and clicking on the Apple TV remote touchpad.

Turns out there are two better ways:

If you use the Control Center Apple TV remote control on your iPhone, there’s a dedicated “CC” button.

In tvOS, go to Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut, and set it to “Closed Captions”. Now you can just triple-click the Menu/Back button on the remote to toggle captions. (On older Apple TV remotes, the button is labelled “Menu”; on the new remote, it’s labelled with a “<”.)

But here’s the hitch: Netflix’s tvOS app doesn’t support either of these ways to toggle captions. Netflix only supports the on-screen caption toggle in their custom video player. I get why Netflix and other streaming apps want to use their own custom video players, but it ought to be mandated by App Store review that they support accessibility features like this one.

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New series on Netflix created by Guy Ritchie (who directed the first two episodes as well). I’ve been a fan Ritchie’s zany, violent crime movies ever since 1998’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and The Gentlemen scratches the same itch. (Ritchie also made a movie called The Gentlemen in 2020, which I think takes place in the same cinematic universe as the show.)

I enjoyed this show so much, it took all my self-restraint not to stay up all night and binge it straight through. Funny, clever, exciting. Recommended.

 ★ 

New series on Netflix created by Guy Ritchie (who directed the first two episodes as well). I’ve been a fan Ritchie’s zany, violent crime movies ever since 1998’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and The Gentlemen scratches the same itch. (Ritchie also made a movie called The Gentlemen in 2020, which I think takes place in the same cinematic universe as the show.)

I enjoyed this show so much, it took all my self-restraint not to stay up all night and binge it straight through. Funny, clever, exciting. Recommended.

Read More 

Walmart:

Walmart will begin selling MacBook Air with the M1 chip — continuing to deliver premium quality and unmatched affordability
for customers. MacBook Air features amazing performance and a long
battery life in its thin and light design. This is the first time
customers can purchase a Mac directly from Walmart. The MacBook
Air with the M1 chip is now available on Walmart.com and will
soon be available in select Walmart stores for only $699.

“Our mission at Walmart is to help customers save money so they
can live better — it’s not an either/or proposition. The very
heart of that mission is the belief that customers should not have
to sacrifice quality because of price,” said Julie Barber,
executive vice president of Merchandising at Walmart U.S. “We’re
working hard to bring premium brands to our physical and virtual
shelves, and we’re excited to work with Apple to do just that.”

This is a big deal. When the M3 MacBook Airs arrived last week, Apple dropped the M1 Air from its lineup and moved the M2 Air to the magic $999 spot in the lineup. But it looks like Apple is going to keep producing the M1 MacBook Air for this deal with Walmart. These aren’t refurbs, or leftover stock (Apple hasn’t kept excess stock in inventory for bestselling products for decades — keeping inventory low is one of the hallmarks of Apple’s operations in the Cook era).

And while, yes, these machines are now over three years old, for $700 this is a great deal. I’d bet serious money that a base M1 MacBook Air outperforms any other $700 laptop on the market. Fascinating example of pricing-as-branding that Apple won’t sell this machine in its own stores, but will through Walmart — which doesn’t sell any other Macs.

 ★ 

Walmart:

Walmart will begin selling MacBook Air with the M1 chip — continuing to deliver premium quality and unmatched affordability
for customers. MacBook Air features amazing performance and a long
battery life in its thin and light design. This is the first time
customers can purchase a Mac directly from Walmart. The MacBook
Air with the M1 chip is now available on Walmart.com and will
soon be available in select Walmart stores for only $699.

“Our mission at Walmart is to help customers save money so they
can live better — it’s not an either/or proposition. The very
heart of that mission is the belief that customers should not have
to sacrifice quality because of price,” said Julie Barber,
executive vice president of Merchandising at Walmart U.S. “We’re
working hard to bring premium brands to our physical and virtual
shelves, and we’re excited to work with Apple to do just that.”

This is a big deal. When the M3 MacBook Airs arrived last week, Apple dropped the M1 Air from its lineup and moved the M2 Air to the magic $999 spot in the lineup. But it looks like Apple is going to keep producing the M1 MacBook Air for this deal with Walmart. These aren’t refurbs, or leftover stock (Apple hasn’t kept excess stock in inventory for bestselling products for decades — keeping inventory low is one of the hallmarks of Apple’s operations in the Cook era).

And while, yes, these machines are now over three years old, for $700 this is a great deal. I’d bet serious money that a base M1 MacBook Air outperforms any other $700 laptop on the market. Fascinating example of pricing-as-branding that Apple won’t sell this machine in its own stores, but will through Walmart — which doesn’t sell any other Macs.

Read More 

Apple Developer, “Manage European Union digital services act compliance information”:

You’ll be asked to disclose whether or not you’re a trader under
the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) in order to stay
compliant across regions when distributing on the App Store. If
you’re distributing content as a trader, the DSA requires that you
provide certain identification information, including address and
contact details, to be displayed on your App Store product pages
to consumers in the European Union (EU). Confirm your trader
status if you have at least one app that qualifies you as a
trader. You’ll then have the option to turn off or specify your
trader status for each specific app that you distribute. If you’re
not a trader, consumers in the EU will be informed that consumer
rights stemming from applicable consumer protection laws won’t
apply to contracts between you and them.

How to know if you’re a trader

The DSA defines a trader as “any natural person, or any legal
person irrespective of whether privately or publicly owned, who is
acting, including through any person acting in his or her name or
on his or her behalf, for purposes relating to his or her trade,
business, craft or profession.” If you have questions about your
status as a trader, consult with your legal advisor.

Clear as a bell, that definition.

 ★ 

Apple Developer, “Manage European Union digital services act compliance information”:

You’ll be asked to disclose whether or not you’re a trader under
the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) in order to stay
compliant across regions when distributing on the App Store. If
you’re distributing content as a trader, the DSA requires that you
provide certain identification information, including address and
contact details, to be displayed on your App Store product pages
to consumers in the European Union (EU). Confirm your trader
status if you have at least one app that qualifies you as a
trader. You’ll then have the option to turn off or specify your
trader status for each specific app that you distribute. If you’re
not a trader, consumers in the EU will be informed that consumer
rights stemming from applicable consumer protection laws won’t
apply to contracts between you and them.

How to know if you’re a trader

The DSA defines a trader as “any natural person, or any legal
person irrespective of whether privately or publicly owned, who is
acting, including through any person acting in his or her name or
on his or her behalf, for purposes relating to his or her trade,
business, craft or profession.” If you have questions about your
status as a trader, consult with your legal advisor.

Clear as a bell, that definition.

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Objectified (2009, 75 minutes) is a documentary film about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

A lovely film, and you can’t beat the price this week.

 ★ 

Objectified (2009, 75 minutes) is a documentary film about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

A lovely film, and you can’t beat the price this week.

Read More 

Florian Mueller, writing at IP Fray:

The January 12, 2024 CBP order has recently been published (CBP
webpage). The parties’ filings with the appeals court were
heavily redacted where they discussed the enforcement dispute over
Apple’s workaround. Now it’s a bit clearer what technical changes
Apple made and why they managed to get their workaround Watches
cleared. There is some hardware “designation” in the newer Watches
that tells the software in those Watches not to perform pulse
oximetry although all of the necessary components are present.
Masimo managed to reenable pulse oximetry, but only after
jailbreaking older iPhones and using them to manipulate the Watch,
which constitutes a “significant alteration” of the product.

The fact that Masimo could reenable the feature by running some
custom software on jailbroken older iPhones absolutely positively
means that Apple itself can reactivate that feature for its
customers in the event it prevails on appeal or, in the
alternative, in late August 2028 at the latest (because the
patents-in-suit expire then).

It’s been pretty clear since January that the sensors in dispute are still present in newly-sold Apple Watches, and they’re simply disabled in software, but this seemingly confirms it.

 ★ 

Florian Mueller, writing at IP Fray:

The January 12, 2024 CBP order has recently been published (CBP
webpage). The parties’ filings with the appeals court were
heavily redacted where they discussed the enforcement dispute over
Apple’s workaround. Now it’s a bit clearer what technical changes
Apple made and why they managed to get their workaround Watches
cleared. There is some hardware “designation” in the newer Watches
that tells the software in those Watches not to perform pulse
oximetry although all of the necessary components are present.
Masimo managed to reenable pulse oximetry, but only after
jailbreaking older iPhones and using them to manipulate the Watch,
which constitutes a “significant alteration” of the product.

The fact that Masimo could reenable the feature by running some
custom software on jailbroken older iPhones absolutely positively
means that Apple itself can reactivate that feature for its
customers in the event it prevails on appeal or, in the
alternative, in late August 2028 at the latest (because the
patents-in-suit expire then).

It’s been pretty clear since January that the sensors in dispute are still present in newly-sold Apple Watches, and they’re simply disabled in software, but this seemingly confirms it.

Read More