“This flu season, Clorox paid to license information from Kinsa, a tech start-up that sells internet-connected thermometers that are a far cry from the kind once made with mercury and glass. The thermometers sync up with a smartphone app that allows consumers to track their fevers and symptoms, making it especially attractive to parents of young children. The data showed Clorox which ZIP codes around the country had increases in fevers. The company then directed more ads to those areas, assuming that households there may be in the market for products like its disinfecting wipes.” (New York Times)
Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps
TextGrabber
I’ve been using this app for years and thought I had posted on it previously but didn’t find anything. Pretty sure there’s an old screencast on YouTube but they’ve made numerous improvements. And I wanted to try out the screen recording feature in the new iPhone. More on that in a moment.
When I come across a long-ish passage in a book or magazine that I’d like to save, rather than just snap a photo, TextGrabber does some kind of OCR (optical character recognition) magic and gives you editable (and searchable) text.
As an aside, the screen recording above was done on the iPhone XS. Making screen recordings has gotten easier over the years but it was still a minor hassle to capture the screen on your phone. No longer. This feature is built right into the iPhone and it works great.
Face ID
From day-one I was happy with the iPhone’s Touch ID. So I was skeptical when Apple eliminated the home button (and Touch ID) and replaced it with Face ID. But works as advertised. It works so well I forget it’s working. And I guess I don’t care that much how it works. From iMore.com:
Face ID uses multiple neural networks that are built into the dual-core A11 bionic neural engine to process the facial recognition data. It takes a mathematical model of your face and checks it against the original scan of your face that you first registered.
The information is stored on the A11 chip on your iPhone X and not sent to Apple’s servers, so your facial identity is kept private.
It uses a Require Attention feature in order to work. That means you have to be looking at your iPhone for it to scan, You can’t be asleep or looking away for it to unlock your iPhone. […] It doesn’t work with photographs. It doesn’t work while you’re asleep. It doesn’t even work with detailed silicon masks that look just like you.
I tried to think of a way to make some sort of screencast to show how well this feature works but… there’s almost nothing to show. When my phone ‘sees’ my face — and only my face — it unlocks.
Screen Time
I’m fascinated by this new iPhone feature. Here are some of my stats for last 7 days:
- 1 hr 14 min per day ‘on’ phone
- Messages – 48 min/day
- Gmail – 39 min/day
- Google – 20 min/day
- Phone – 20 min/day
- YouTube – 19 min/day
- Picked up my phone 268 times (avg 38 per day)
I think I’m probably a very light user. I’ll bet a lot of people would be shocked to see how much time they spend.
iPhone portrait mode
iPhone XS
Broke down and bought a new iPhone yesterday. My 6SE was two years old and the battery was fading noticebly. I loved the smaller form-factor of the SE and was hoping Apple would keep it around but, alas, the smaller phone is no more. The clincher was the camera on the new models (Barb’s photos from her Yellowstone trip were breathtaking).
Took a couple of photos this morning of Terry Bledsoe, a coffee shop regular. The portrait modes is impressive.
Apple TV Screensavers
I’ve got some issues with Apple TV but it works so well with my iPhone and MacBook so I put up with them. And the gizmo is worth the money just for the screensavers. They’re gorgeous. Last night I fired up the Apple Music app while I was ironing shirts. In a few seconds the first screensaver came up on the big screen. If you’ve never seen these it’s hard to understand what I’m gushing about. Fortunately someone has collected them but you won’t get the full effect on a small screen.
The Mays Brothers
Google Calendar “Go to Date”
One of the reasons I dragged my feet on moving to the new Google Calendar was I’d have to give up the Jump to Date feature that was part of Labs in the old calendar. I’ve been putting all my important stuff in Google Calendar since I started using it. I frequently want to jump back five or ten years. Could not find a way to do that with the new UI… until today. Somebody on a forum just casually tossed out, “Just press the G key if you want to go to a specific date.” Well, shit. I mean… thank you very much.
PS: I have yet to encounter anyone who uses Google Calendar as extensively as I do. I rely on it more than Gmail or any other online tool.