It turns out that his hobby 9to5Mac blog was always his favorite and in 2011 he went full time adding his Fortune Google followers to 9to5Google and adding the style and commerce component 9to5Toys gear and deals site. In 2013, Weintraub bought one of the Tesla’s first Model S EVs off the assembly line and so began his love affair with the Electric Vehicle and green energy which in 2014 turned into electrek.
In 2018, DroneDJ was born to cover the burgeoning world of drones and UAV’s led by China’s DJI.
From 1997-2007, Weintraub was a Global IT director and Web Developer for a number of companies with stints at multimedia and branding agencies in Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Madrid and London before becoming a publisher/blogger.
Seth received a bachelors degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California with a minor in Multimedia and Creative Technology in 1997. In 2004, he received a Masters from NYU’s Tisch School of the Art’s ITP program.
Hobbies: Weintraub is a licensed single engine private pilot, certified open water scuba diver and spent over a year traveling to 60 cities in 23 countries. Whatever free time exists is now guaranteed to his lovely wife and two amazing sons.
Neil Ticktin over at MacTech has been thoroughly putting Microsoft Office 2011 through its paces and has found that in almost all cases it is significantly faster than its predecessors.
All of these items give users a great deal more “user speed”…and those are not the type of things that can be measured with a stopwatch. However, in many cases, you will see significant “user speed” improvements, regardless.
Ironically, this might be the biggest announcement of the day for Apple. After 16 months, Apple has finally let Google Voice past the App Store Gauntlet.
Where can I get one of these Playbooks? The iPad has been out since March and will likely be updated before I can buy the Blackberry device. (via Fortune) Expand Expanding Close
We’ve been getting a few tips that Sam’c Clubs are getting their iPads in and selling them at minor discounts. The 16GB Wifi starts at $488 as you can see here.
It looks like Apple is discounting Wifis by $12 and 3Gs by $20. Maybe they only come in bulk like the buckets of Salsa. Expand Expanding Close
Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog.
Apple Inc. is preparing to announce that its iTunes Store will soon start carrying music by the Beatles, according to people familiar with the situation, a move that would fill in a glaring gap in the collection of the world’s largest music retailer.
Excuse us if we can’t get too excited…this is a long running thing and anyone who hasn’t digitized their Beatles collection by now frankly is kinda wacky.
It would seem like a very opportune time to find a some code inside the iTunes 10.1 (and here) files which alludes to an ‘iTunes Live Stream’. While Apple has been live streaming its own events and currently streams content to AppleTVs under different monikers, a separate iTunes streaming service might fit well with tomorrow’s festivities.
In an interview with the NYTimes, Columbia Professor and coiner of such terms as ‘Net Neutrality’, Tim Wusays he fears Apple:
Which companies do you fear the most? Right now, I’d have to say Apple.
What about Facebook? I think Facebook is looking for a mentor, they are looking for a role model. Right now it is choosing between Apple and Google in this great war between open and closed. It is possible that whatever side Facebook takes will have a lot to do with the future of how we communicate.
What worries you about Apple? As I discuss in the book, Steve Jobs has the charisma, vision and instincts of every great information emperor. The man who helped create the personal computer 40 years ago is probably the leading candidate to help exterminate it. His vision has an undeniable appeal, but he wants too much control.
Facebook announced a new unified messaging system today and one of the platforms they are showing it off on is iPhone. Expect a application update soon.
Comcast is going to allow its members to sign into their accounts and do all kinds of DVR stuff from their iPads. Great. But here’s the interesting: eventually (December) customers can watch Comcast movies over the web on their iOS devices. That’s not necessarily from their homes or on a Comcast network.
nWatch TV from the app – including premium cable channels such as HBO and Showtime. (This feature will be available in December.)
The Xfinity TV App is part of Comcast’s ongoing commitment to offer customers the ability and flexibility to watch TV on their terms. Last month, Comcast introduced XfinityTV.com so its 23 million customers can access their favorite shows – including premium content from HBO and Showtime – from a computer. Also, Comcast will launch several Android apps before the end of the year and soon follow with products for additional emerging platforms.
Here’s the interesting question: What if you just want to watch TV on your iPad and not pay for a cable line at home? Is Comcast going to offer these types of customers (who might not even live in Comcast covered areas) a solution? Update: a Comcast spokesperson says no.
That’s a shame because Comcast could prove to be a competitor to Hulu and give consumers more choice in watching videos online if this were the case. Expand Expanding Close
“..You’ll never forget” seems to indicate some sort of cloud backup of data. Perhaps music and video from iTunes in the cloud? That’s something that has been long rumored. Or maybe Apple fixes the DST bug (thanks commenter)
AppleTV is due for the 4.2 Airplay video update. Airplay from the cloud seems like a likely tie in.
There isn’t any media or ‘event’ planned. This will be a streaming event, if anything, only. That could be a tie-in.
People of North Carolina, expect some lights dimming in the house around 10am.
This will be something webcast tomorrow morning in the US. The timing indicates it is a global event, not US centric (otherwise why wake up at 7am on the West Coast – and show the time zones London and Tokyo? That’s a likely tie-in to the big news.
According to the PayWall St. Journal (subs), The US government might make “playing nicely with companies like Apple” part of the conditions with which they will accept the merger of NBC and Comcast. That might mean people not using Flash or outside of the US will be able to watch the video above!
Few observers expect either the Justice Department or the Federal Communications Commission to block outright the roughly $13.75 billion deal to purchase 51% of NBC Universal from General Electric Co. One reason: Because the two companies aren’t direct competitors, it’s harder to mount an antitrust challenge.
Both agencies, however, are likely to impose significant conditions to prevent Comcast from withholding, or threatening to withhold, NBC Universal’s programming from competitors, including companies that distribute TV shows and movies over the Internet, such as Apple Inc. and Netflix Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
I’ve been using the Energizer Qi wireless induction charger for iPhone for the past few weeks and think it might deserve a place in our household. The concept is pretty straightforward. You put a protective jacket over the iPhone which also serves as a receptor for the induction charge. Instead of plugging in a 30-pin adapter to your iPhone every time you want to charge it, you just plot it down on its Qi-spot.
I should also note that touching the charger points with fingers (even with metal rings) is safe. The Energizer Qi retails at Amazon and Target for $89 and should be hitting stores in about 2 weeks. The rubberized case for the iPhone is an additional $35.
Wow. The Telegraph of all sources is weighing in on the release of 4.2. They say November 24th which would still put Apple within Steve Jobs’ “November” release window for Airplay.
The iOS 4.2 software update had been expected today, but Apple has delayed it release until Nov 24, a reliable source has told the Telegraph.Apple has refused to comment on the speculation, stating only that it had said the software update would be released in November. But a source that works closely with Apple said that the company had shelved its original plan to release the software update today, and had instead pushed back the launch until later this month.
iOS developers got to see a new iPad GM 8C134b seed today, hoping to address some of the more significant bugs that have been floating around the previous GM seed. The most notable was the Wifi shutdown that was happening to many (video above).
I wrote a quick and dirty application called AirPrintHacktivator that will do it for you. The application allow you to “Hacktivate” or “De Hacktivate” AirPrint by adding or removing the 3 files required… all of this while making a backup of the current files so they are properly restored during “De Hacktivation”.
First, the easy one. SkyFire is finally enabled on the Canadian App Store here.
Next, here’s how to enable Pandora on Rogers (saying “about” was all the proof we needed!!). It isn’t anything special, just using a US based VPN. Here are the settings.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaHh_Rz6Ewc&w=640&h=385] Expand Expanding Close
See that huge Intel heatsink on the $199 Boxee box from the iFixit teardown? You think the Boxee Box uses 6W of power like the AppleTV? Probably not. Interestingly, it is beating the AppleTV on Amazon here and here but that is probably just for pent up demand.
Sony introduced a Flash-based movie and TV show repository today called Crackle that is meant for GoogleTV. The good news is that it works well on Mac as well and there is some compelling (and lot of not compelling) content on there from Sony Pictures and Movies.
Obviously because it is Flash based, it doesn’t work on iOS devices (haven’t tried with SkyFire) and it will juice your processor on your Mac, but free full length high quality movies? Hard to argue with that.
In an interview with the NYTimes, Columbia Professor and coiner of such terms as ‘Net Neutrality’, 
