Every so often something comes along that changes your life and stays with you forever. For Charlie Jane Anders and me, it was Star Blazers.

Charlie Jane Anders’ love letter to Star Blazers is one of my favorite pieces on the Internet this week. I encourage everyone to read it.

I’m in my mid-forties, and I’m squarely in the first Star Wars generation. I was seven when that movie came out, and my friends and I all collected the action figures and played Star Wars in our back yards, pretending we had light sabers. But there was a sci-fi TV series that meant more to me even than Star Wars, and it was Star Blazers.

Anders explains the psychology behind the show — something inferred through characters’ actions throughout the series, but never specifically articulated. Something that’s stuck with me ever since.

Years later, I lived in Japan and learned Japanese, and became pretty familiar with the concepts of “gambaru” (doing your best, no matter what) and “gaman suru” (remaining strong, in spite of all temptation and suffering). The characters on Star Blazers modeled those qualities for me, even with the sometimes awful dubbing — they seemed both stoic and passionate, and ready to beat the odds over and over.

Star Blazers was a syndicated show broadcast every afternoon out of Boston (just like Anders, I grew up in Boston). In the days before cable TV, when we were relegated to whatever channels the rabbit ears on top of the TV could pick up, Star Blazers came in on a high-number UHF channel, more staticky than some of the other stations we watched, but still viewable.

Star Blazers was incredibly gripping: High melodrama in space, humans trying to save the Earth from destruction at the hands of a callous alien foe. But it was also gorgeous to watch, a resurrected World War II-era battleship recycled as a starship complete with Wave Motion Gun, an energy weapon that occupied the entire bow of the vessel.

When I was four I remember watching Speed Racer raptly, running around the living room to the theme song: “Go Speed Racer goooo!” I was also an avid Battle of the Planets fan.

Star Blazers came along at a very formative time in my life. I gradually began to realize that my other most treasured cartoon series were made in Japan. Thus began my life-long love of Japanese animation, or anime, something my wife and I share and that we’ve instilled in our kids.

• $21.99 – Download Star Blazers season 1 on iTunes

Some areas of Google+ are great for immersing yourself in a topic, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed when the signal to noise ratio tips.

Once you gotten yourself settled in to Google+, by which I mean your account has been completed and you’ve either located your current friends or gone out to find some new ones through Google’s recommendations, it’s time to really make the service yours. Google+ has some terrific tools filling your stream with as much or as little information as you choose, and that content can either be narrowed down to specific topics or a firehose of whatever is popular on the service right now. If you so choose, there are even tools to set yourself up as a broadcaster of exciting content. All you need to know is which buttons to push, and how to turn it all off if you’ve made a mistake.

We’re going to explore some of the content-specific portions of Google+ here. Using Communities, exploring What’s Hot, and how to set up and manage a Page.

When you pair an Apple Watch with an iPhone running iOS 8.2, it looks like a new “Activity” app miraculously appears.

We’ve seen a lot about the Apple Watch so far, there are still a few surprises in store. Take the Apple Watch app that appeared after updating to iOS 8.2 — it’s not the only new app there. There’s also an “Activity” app designed to work with an Apple Watch, but it doesn’t appear until after you’ve paired a watch.

The app was uncovered by iOS developer Hamza Sood on Twitter:

So the Fitness app does exist on 8.2, it’s just hidden until you connect an Apple Watch pic.twitter.com/R1BgnKYRHe

— Hamza Sood (@hamzasood) March 12, 2015

Here’s how the Fitness app looks once it’s configured from the Apple Watch: pic.twitter.com/nYnW5X8AxU

— Hamza Sood (@hamzasood) March 13, 2015

It emulates the circular fitness tracking language of the Apple Watch, but offers deeper analysis and data than would be reasonable on the Watch’s smaller display. It also gives us our first look at the achievements that will be attainable in the app, though what exactly the stars and circles and squiggles all mean isn’t clear from Sood’s screenshots.

Apple Watch pre-orders and in-store previews will open up on April 10, with the watch becoming available two weeks later on April 24.

Via: 9to5Mac

Notification Center is a way to collect all your widgets and alerts all in one place.

Since its debut in iOS 5, Apple has included first-party widgets, removed them, then added support for third-party widgets. Apple has added a missed tab and then taken it away. Apple has added predictive widgets — Notification Center can now tell you how long it will take to get to your next likely destination — but they haven’t expanded on the concept. Apple also added Control Center to iOS 7. Instead of bundling toggles sliders, buttons, and shortcuts into the top-down Notification Center, they created a new, separate bottom-up drawer instead.

iOS 8 did a lot of clean up, and added the ‘edit’ mechanism so you could add and manage Today view widgets, but what else would you like to see Apple do with Notification Center in iOS 9?

• Clear all button at the top
• Super-swipe to clear notification with one gesture (like Mail)
• Reliably clear notifications when alerts are viewed in-app.
• Collapse multiple similar notifications into a group that can be expanded
• Double tap notification to pin and highlight
• Tap and hold notification to set Reminder
• Sort by priority (based on system-wide VIP)
• Show recent Siri results
• More predictive widgets
• System-level widget collapse/expand control

The Apple Watch is going to change the way many of us interact with notifications, moving the banners from the pocket to the wrist, but for anything we miss, Notification Center’s dropdown might become even more important.

So, if Apple asked you what you’d like them to put on the bulletin board for Notification Center in iOS 9, what would you say?

Alternative Android OS developer Cyanogen is poised to raise around $110 million in a funding round, but contrary to earlier reports, Microsoft might not be chipping in.

Several weeks ago brought the news that Microsoft was considering investing in Cyanogen and their customized Android system CyanogenMod. That OS is installed on a few retail devices, including the OnePlus One and the Alcatel OneTouch Hero 2+, as well as being freely available to download and install on a wide range of Android devices. But it seems that the Microsoft’s opting not to take part in this funding round.

“But most women aren’t really interested in programming.”

When someone says that, I can relate. That’s exactly how I felt about girls playing sports when I was 15. Title IX, the landmark 1972 U.S. civil rights law that mandated equal funding for both genders in educational programs — including athletics — was a hot topic during my high school years.

At the time, the major sports for girls at my school were track, gymnastics, swimming, and tennis. I remember thinking, “How will they spend the same amount of money on girls’ sports as they do on boys’ sports? Girls don’t even want to play basketball or soccer.” It didn’t even occur to me that the demand might be there if girls were encouraged or supported to the same extent as their male counterparts.

Thanks to Title IX, however, the number of female high school athletes went from 295,000 in 1971 to 3.2 million in 2011. That’s an increase of over 1000 percent; male athletes’ numbers climbed just 20 percent in the same period.

Apparently, lots of girls do want to play basketball and soccer. And learn to code, too — we just need to support them.

The slow roll of change

When I was growing up, women and girls were referred to as either “Mrs.” or “Miss,” depending on their marital status; men and even boys all got the title “Mr.” Even as a young girl, that struck me as unfair. Why do we care whether women are married or not?

The story of how “Ms.” came to be a commonly-used title today is a fascinating one. The women’s rights movement embraced it in 1970, but it took some time to make it into the mainstream. The New York Times called it “too contrived for news writing” in 1984. (By 1986, the style guide allowed “Ms.” for women who requested it, and finally, in 1999, it became the standard.)

Just as my teenage self could not have imagined that girls would play basketball or soccer competitively, I expected to be Miss MacDonald until the day I would get married and become Mrs. Someone Else. Things do change for the better.

Be the change you want to see

I’m grateful to have witnessed changes like Title IX in my lifetime, but it’s not over yet. Today, we have many programs that support girls and women in technology fields, including my own project, App Camp For Girls. People recognize that discrimination in tech exists, and they’re taking action to level the playing field. As with Title IX, they offer support and encouragement specifically to girls and women so they can participate in this field to their fullest potential.

Discrimination still exists in this field and likely will exist for some time. But I don’t get discouraged by the terrible stories circulating in the news on harassment and workplace discrimination. I don’t get frustrated with well-meaning but clueless commenters who think the status quo reflects innate gender differences. Instead, I’m spurred on to redouble my own efforts to make the future better.

I challenge you to do the same and make a specific effort to improve the ratio. Supporting company policies that encourage the hiring and retention of women is a good start. Setting aside some money for an organization that supports girls in technology can also make an impact. I also have a simple suggestion: Take a look at the people whose opinions influence you online. Try following a few more women on Twitter or subscribing to their podcasts.

For me, my energy these days goes into supporting and promoting App Camp for Girls. It’s the least I can do to show my gratitude to all those who were fighting on behalf of my civil rights when I was too young to appreciate it.

The newest entry-level phone is now available from the UK’s Carphone Warehouse for the absurdly-low price of just £29.99.

If you’ve been looking for a cheap way to get in to Windows Phone, or just a cheap spare to have around or something for the kids, the Microsoft Lumia 435 from Carphone Warehouse might be just the phone you’re looking for. Available for pay-as-you-go plans on Orange, Vodaphone, O2, T-Mobile, and Virgin, the phone clocks in at as low as £29.99 (or £39.99 if you need to get it with a new SIM).