Daily Bits

Steve Jobs

Apple City to Be Designed by Norman Foster?

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News came out recently that Apple had bought HP’s old campus in Cupertino. For exactly what reason, we common people can only make informed guesses. It does seem logical, though, that this property will eventually be transformed into a new campus for Apple. While that in itself is not something one should spend more than one second of thought on, the rumors details surrounding the “mystery” campus just might pique your curiosity.

Architecture enthusiasts will certainly recognize British architect and designer Norman Foster. He is arguably the most known builder of landmark office buildings in Britain, and his company has worked on countless high profile projects all over the world. From the IBM pilot head office in the UK to the Carre d’Art Nimes in France to the Hearst Tower in New York to the Expo MRT Station in Singapore – this is only a handful of what this man has achieved.

In the next year, he just might have another groundbreaking project to take on: the building of Apple City (yes, that is the rumored name of the new campus). While nothing has been confirmed yet, rumor has it that Apple City (I don’t know about you, but there is something that doesn’t sound quite right here) will be based on the concept and design of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. This city holds the distinction of being the first city without cars and carbon emissions, and this is what Apple City is going to be, if the rumors come true.

I didn’t know about Masdar City before I read about this piece of news, but it does look awesome, doesn’t it? And, I am sure that if Steve Jobs gives Norman Foster the go signal (now that is another story altogether), Apple City just might be THE place to be/see.

Apple Goes After “Sexting”

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I think I first heard of the term “sexting” from the kids at Glee (yeah, cat’s out of the bag, I used to watch the show).  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what sexting means (sexually explicit text messaging, in case you aren’t sure), and the guys at Apple are going out of their way to make sure that users who shouldn’t be sexting will not be able to do so – in the future.  (Something to think about: who is to determine who shouldn’t be engaging in a certain activity?)

The news is that Apple has just been granted a patent that can block sexually explicit messages – both at the sending and receiving stages.  The patent was originally filed back in 2008 but was only granted now.  This move is not really surprising as Apple has always taken a stand against sexually explicit material.  Remember that the Apple Store already has a ban on sexually explicit applications.  Steve Jobs himself has spoken out about this stand, and says that it is unlikely to change in the future:

You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go — so we’re not going to go there.

Here’s an abstract of the patent:

Systems, devices, and methods are provided for enabling a user to control the content of text-based messages sent to or received from an administered device. In some embodiments, a message will be blocked (incoming or outgoing) if the message includes forbidden content. In other embodiments, the objectionable content is removed from the message prior to transmission or as part of the receiving process. The content of such a message is controlled by filtering the message based on defined criteria. The criteria may be defined according to a parental control application. These techniques also may be used, in accordance with instructional embodiments, to require the administered devices to include certain text in messages. These embodiments might, for example, require that a certain number of Spanish words per day be included in e-mails for a child learning Spanish.

I find the clause about other applications particularly interesting, don’t you?  If ever this technology finds its way to the market, there will certainly be a lot of takers, I think.