ICYMI: Hawaiian crows are our new favorite animal

Today on In Case You Missed It: Scientists filmed young Hawaiian crows and discovered that they’re so smart, they figured out how to use tools to get food without ever having been taught by adult crows. There are very few Alala in the world, but some are about to be released back into the wild so researchers are excited they’ll bring their stick engineering ways with them.

Johns Hopkins University researchers used a light to restart mouse hearts, which works due to embedded light-sensitive proteins rather than the volts of power currently used for similar jobs. Human trials for patients at risk of arrhythmia are still at least five years away.

If you’re interested in the How It’s Made video, that’s here and the mock Apple ad from Conan is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Apple says it won’t be buying Tidal anytime soon

A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was in acquisition talks with Tidal, a music streaming service helmed by Jay-Z as well as a number of prominent musicians. Yesterday, however, those rumors were shut down. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Jimmy Iovine, the head of Apple Music, said: “We’re not looking to acquire any streaming service.” He did not indicate that there weren’t any talks, but it does seem that a Tidal acquisition is off the cards, at least for now.

Some have said that a Tidal acquisition seemed like a good fit to not only increase Apple’s prominence in the streaming music industry, but to also remove competition when it comes to exclusives especially from the likes of Beyonce and Kanye West. Further, it seems as if Tidal is in need of at least some financial assistance, as it recently reported a $28 million loss in 2015. Tidal’s subscription numbers of 4.2 million also pales in comparison to Apple Music’s 17 million. Both have quite a ways to catch up to Spotify’s 40 million base, but a combined force could’ve helped.

Apple Music recently reported a 2 million user uptick in just the past three months. It also teased an Apple Music redesign and touted its own line of exclusives from artists such as Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean and Drake.

Source: BuzzFeed

Report: Apple is a sexist, toxic work environment

Apple made improving its employee diversity a focal point in recent years — but the company is still dominated by men. Women only make up 32 percent of its total workforce, and that imbalance has reportedly manifested itself in some very ugly ways. Mic has obtained a number of emails from female Apple employees and prospective employees, and their comments paint a picture of a sexist workplace in which women face discrimination, harassment and a “toxic” work environment.

Some of the complaints Mic reported on include a female engineer whose “male-dominated” team made jokes about an office intruder coming to “rape everyone.” The jokes caused that engineer to email CEO Tim Cook, who did not respond to her complaint. Another female employee said she was in a meeting with a dozen other men and no other women; the conversation turned to how all of their wives and significant others were nags, a conversation that the team’s manager let go on unchecked. This employee was also told to “smile more” by a male area manager.

Yet another employee said she feared retaliation from her co-workers for reporting their behavior. Someone eventually came to investigate her concerns and even admitted that she was in a hostile work environment. But the choices she was given amounted to staying in her current position or being demoted to a job that paid less on a different team. The employee took the demotion.

She also told Mic that a number of employees quit, citing a “white, male, Christian, misogynist, sexist environment” — and those employees were not given exit interviews because they company didn’t think their departure was a concern. “Their departure is being written up as a positive attrition,” she said.

These concerns weren’t confined to female employees, either. Mic spoke with a male former Apple employee who had complained about the toxic environment to multiple people at the company, including Cook. This employee said that his co-workers would say he was having his “man period” as a way of insinuating he was overly emotional and unreliable. I would consistently be referred to as an emotional man that resembled having the qualities of a woman,” he wrote in an email obtained by Mic. “Any male can tell you that being referred to as a woman is an insinuation that you are not strong enough or stable enough to handle the difficulties of life or work in the way a man can.”

Yet another female employee says that she was never given the opportunity to apply for two advanced positioned that she was “more than qualified for.” The positions were never posted externally; instead, her male boss selected two men to fill them. This employee filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing on August 4th to investigate how Apple treats women in leadership positions; she also emailed Cook about her concerns without a response.

An Apple spokesperson gave Mic a statement in which it said it takes these types of complaints “very seriously” and that it thoroughly investigates each situation, but that it doesn’t discuss specific incidents for the sake of privacy. If the problem is indeed as widespread as this report makes it appear, though, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear the company make a more declarative statement sooner than later.

Source: Mic

Apple fuels TV service rumors with cable exec hire

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has hired Peter Stern (second from right), a former executive at Time Warner Cable. The paper believes that Stern will be working under Eddy Cue on the firm’s “cloud services,” whatever those may be. It’s too early to jump to conclusions, but it’s interesting to note that Stern was believed to be negotiating with Apple in the early days of its TV project. The paper also says that Stern feels that the business model of the set-top box is outdated and that the future of TV is apps. That’s a sentiment shared by several of his new colleagues, including Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Of course, Stern has also developed a reputation for increasing Time Warner’s customer base by placing an emphasis on customer service. It’s entirely plausible that he’s simply a promising executive who is being poached for a role within Apple’s growing services team. After all, with Apple Music and iCloud, Apple is developing a business that collects subscription revenue for its products, much like a cable company. That’s an area where Stern has plenty of experience and a track record that could have caught Cue’s eye.

Then again, a more fanciful reading of the situation could be that, as a cable insider, Stern would make a perfect negotiator. Apple’s long-mooted streaming TV service has struggled because the company couldn’t make deals with the TV world. CBS chief Les Moonves believes that Apple gave up because cable businesses were too wedded to their existing business model. Other reports suggest that Apple’s refusal to share customer data was the biggest roadblock, while others reported that the company struggled to develop a compelling $40-a-month bundle.

If you wanted to be even more fanciful, you could note that Tim Cook’s Apple has shown a willingness to buy in experience, wholesale, in areas where it’s weak. The firm splashed out $3 billion on Beats Electronics in order to get at the headphone firm’s subscription music arm. The platform was developed by one of the record industry’s biggest players, Jimmy Iovine, who personally intervened to get big names like Taylor Swift and Drake to sign up with Apple Music. Perhaps the hiring of Stern is the first in a series of deals that’ll demonstrate to the world that Apple remains deadly serious about upending the world of TV.

Source: WSJ

Apple Pay now works with Squarespace sites

If you have a Squarespace site that you’re using to sell your wares, your online store can now accept Apple Pay via the iPhone and the upcoming macOS Sierra. Now visitors can buy stuff without digging out their credit card.

To make sure your site accepts Apple Pay, Squarespace notes that you should make sure your site accepts Stripe payments and enable the new online checkout experience in settings.

Shopify is also allowing its customers to add Apple Pay to their retail sites. The move by both companies not only reduces payment friction from Apple devices, it also adds an additional level of security since each transaction has its own unique token.

Source: Sqaurespace