∞ Apple Accepts WeChat Pay In App Store
Apple Inc. has accepted Wechat Pay for payments made in its App Store and music platform, after it accepted Alibaba’s Alipay as a mobile payment option for purchases conducted within its ecosystem. The action will likely drive up Apple’s revenue in China from in-store and music spending, as the U.S. tech giant continues to adjust its strategies for a fast-moving Chinese market.
"We are glad to offer users in mainland China the option of WeChat Pay for their favorite mobile app or Apple Music products. We continue to be dedicated to provide multiple simple and convenient payment methods for customers within the Apple ecosystem," Apple said in an official statement today.
Alaska Airlines Chasing Solar Eclipses
This is becoming Alaska Airlines' great tradition! See their 2016 video too.
AirDrop in the Air, Literally
Update: I don't think this is real, he must have AirDropped to a phone nearby.
AirDrop actually works for a longer distance than I thought:
747-8 Captain shared pics with Singapore Airlines 777 pilots midair... ✈️ pic.twitter.com/6YeRVjS0HT
— Airplane Pictures ✈ (@iLove_Aviation) August 4, 2017
Gboard Now Supports Pinyin 9 Key
Great news, Gboard now supports Pinyin 9 key
∞ Apple Removes VPN Apps From China App Store
From ExpressVPN's blog:
We received notification from Apple today, July 29, 2017, at roughly 04:00 GMT, that the ExpressVPN iOS app was removed from the China App Store. Our preliminary research indicates that all major VPN apps for iOS have been removed.
We’re disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China’s censorship efforts. ExpressVPN strongly condemns these measures, which threaten free speech and civil liberties.
∞ Stanford Researchers Find Intriguing Clues About Obesity by Counting Steps via Smartphones
From Stanford News by Tom Abate:
Stanford researchers using smartphones to track the activity levels of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe made an intriguing discovery: In countries with little obesity, people mostly walked a similar amount per day. But big gaps between people who walked a lot and those who walked very little coincided with much higher levels of obesity.
One interesting graph came out from the research, China is so blue:
Average daily steps by country. Credit: Tim Althoff.
Note the graph above is not the point of the paper, which says obesity can be predicted by activity inequality, not average. See their website for more information.
Scan Documents with iOS 11 Notes App
Scan Documents with iOS 11 Notes App
I have scanned 10+ documents with the iOS 11 Notes App (don't ask me why). Even though it feels really slow on my iPhone 6 Plus, it's still much faster than using my scanner. ARKit FTW!
∞ Stream Direct Fee Will Be $100
Since then, we've seen a bunch of great conversations discussing the various pros and cons of whether there should be an amount, what that amount should be, ways that recouping could work, which developers would be helped or hurt, predictions for how the store would be affected, and many other facets to the decision. There were rational & convincing arguments made for both ends of the $100-$5000 spectrum we mentioned. Our internal thinking beforehand had us hovering around the $500 mark, but the community conversation really challenged us to justify why the fee wasn't as low as possible, and to think about what we could do to make a low fee work.
So in the end, we've decided we're going to aim for the lowest barrier to developers as possible, with a $100 recoupable publishing fee per game, ...
I'm in favor of the lower end <3
∞ Gender Stereotypes About Intellectual Ability Emerge Early and Influence Children’s Interests
A report on Science by Lin Bian, Sarah-Jane Leslie, and Andrei Cimpian:
The distribution of women and men across academic disciplines seems to be affected by perceptions of intellectual brilliance. Bian et al. studied young children to assess when those differential perceptions emerge. At age 5, children seemed not to differentiate between boys and girls in expectations of “really, really smart”—childhood's version of adult brilliance. But by age 6, girls were prepared to lump more boys into the “really, really smart” category and to steer themselves away from games intended for the “really, really smart.”
Results of studies three and four.Boys’ (blue) and girls’ (red) interest (average of standardized responses to four questions) in novel games in study three (A) and study four (B). The main independent variable for each study (task in study three, age in study four) is shown in bold. Error bars represent ± 1 SE.
This is depressing to read.
∞ Arts of the New Moon
Google Arts & Culture celebrating Lunar New Year. Great project.