> On Monday night, during its not-at-all-live primetime coverage of the Olympics in London, NBC aired a promo for Tuesday’s Today that trumpeted 17-year-old U.S. swimmer Missy Franklin’s gold medal win in the 100-meter backstroke — just moments before the race itself was to be broadcast (on a tape delay).
At least they’ve been consistently bad in all of their TV coverage.
> The cost for the Sox, meanwhile, is not terribly impressive. While Matt Albers has managed to avoid surrendering much in the way of runs, actually watching him pitch gave the impression that was not terribly sustainable. He pitches up in the zone too often, and just doesn’t miss bats with any regularity
Yeah, Albers was starting to make me nervous whenever he came out to the mound. Of course, Boston has proven to be a tough place for any reliever to do well. Here’s hoping Breslow turns out to be one of the few that can handle it.
Maybe this is why Verizon already dropped the charges for Tethering apps? Of course, the question on everyone’s minds has already been address by [GigaOm](http://gigaom.com/mobile/fcc-tells-verizon-you-cant-block-tethering-apps-verizon-settles-for-1-25m/):
> Unfortunately for customers of AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, which also charge fees on some plans to use the handset as a hotspot, the FCC’s consent decree was based on Verizon’s purchase of 700 MHz spectrum that came with a mandate that Verizon let other devices and applications run on that spectrum
I really do not see any reason not to switch to Verizon when my contract expires.
Really cool tip from [9to5mac](http://9to5mac.com). I’ll definitely be doing this when I get home.
> The arrival of AirPlay in Mountain Lion last week meant that Mac users could start watching content from Hulu’s free website on their large-screen TVs without paying a monthly bill. That’s not something Hulu’s owners — Disney/ABC, Comcast/NBC, and News Corp./Fox — or their partners could long abide.
I think Philip Elmer-Dewitt nailed it.
Yes.
iTunes match style matching from Amazon[^price]. Another way to match and backup your music.
[^price]: It’s also the same $25.
The [NBC Olympics Live Extra](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fnbc-olympics-live-extra%252Fid542511686%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30) app is great[^ff] for watching Olympic events live. Unfortunately, it is not as good for sending notifications when certain events, especially medal events, are occurring. That’s where the [London Olympics app](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Flondon-2012-official-results%252Fid536513070%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30) comes in. In the London Olympics app, you can get a daily schedule of the sports, including an indicator for when there is a medal round for a particular sport:
When you click on one of the sports, then you get a more detailed view of all the events in the sport, including which ones feature medal rounds at a particular time:
[](/images/post_images/IMG_1303.png)
Tap on the little clock icon and you’ll get a notification when a medal event is about to start.
[](/images/post_images/IMG_1304.png)
Yes, the process is a little kludgy, but at least it gives you a notification so you do not miss something you want to see.
[^ff]: The overall review of the app and NBC’s Olympics coverage are at best “mixed.” I have been lucky so far and only had a one event where I missed the a key moment because the app hiccuped.
Moving AppleTV closer and closer to the only device you need if you’re a “cord cutter”.
(via [The Loop](http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/07/31/hulu-plus-on-apple-tv/))
> I think the answers are becoming clear that if you want to make reasonable money through the MAS you have to offer some sort of subscription. Barring something that will make the non-MAS more prominent I think you also have to split your application in two, have some sort of sync service and add your non-MAS functionality to the external application. That’s going to be hard to navigate. It’ll be interesting to see if folks manage it.
The theory makes sense, though I hope that is not what the App Store becomes[^ff].
[^ff]: The article also recommends listening to [this episode of the Edge Cases podcast](http://www.edgecasesshow.com/011-pop-software.html). I’ve pumped up it in my listening queue as a result.
The new [Simple](http://simple.com) is a good example of paying attention to the “center circle.” Take everything annoying about banking and just strip it away, then take what remains and make it awesome.
[The Beat mentions a link to](http://www.comicsbeat.com/2012/07/30/ivan-brandon-to-launch-offset-comics/) [Offset Comic](http://offsetcomics.com/) at the end of [recent piece by comic writer Ivan Brandon](http://www.theawl.com/2012/07/batman-ish). I am hoping that Offset turns out to be a new digital comics imprint, similar to [MonkeyBrain](http://www.monkeybraincomics.com/). I’ve heard Mr. Brandon speak a few times[^fail], as well as having had the pleasure of talking to him once or twice personally, and I think he has an excellent grasp of the comics market. I can consider him a forward thinker and someone, who if given the right opportunity, would be able to do some big things as far as marketing, packaging and distribution of comics.
[^fail]: I was disappointed at this year’s [HeroesCon](http://heroesonline.com/heroescon) when I found out I missed the first half of a panel where he was an unadvertised participant. I pretty much ran to the panel to catch the second half.
I ended up just accepting the new “Duplicate” functionality, so I am not sure I even care about this anymore. Still, I know a lot of people who miss it a great deal.
> Press the Option key while clicking on the Notification icon in the right end of the menu bar. This will pause the display of notifications. To reactivate them, you can either Option-click the same icon again; display notifications at the right of the screen by clicking on the Notification Center icon, then toggle the Show Alerts and Banners switch from Off to On; or just wait until tomorrow, when they’ll go back on automatically.
Nice. Thank you [Macworld](http://macworld.com) and [Macworld Hints reader *guillaumegete*](http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=2b0adaafa9ad8a29fede7758fada1730&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.macworld.com%2Farticle%2F1167930%2Fmountain_lion_pause_notifications_edit_bookmarks.html%23lsrc.rss_main&v=1&libid=1343686246510&out=http%3A%2F%2Fhints.macworld.com%2Farticle.php%3Fstory%3D20120713091051889&title=Mountain%20Lion%3A%20Pause%20notifications%2C%20edit%20bookmarks%20%7C%20Macworld&txt=guillaumegete&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13436862886581)
Is there anything cooler than his “Yep.”?
Dan Wetzel explains what happens to one reporter who criticized NBC’s Olympics coverage:
>Guy Adams works as a writer for The Independent, a national newspaper in Great Britain. He lives in Los Angeles. Throughout the Olympics, he’s taken to Twitter and ripped NBC repeatedly for its coverage of the Games in America.
> Namely, he’s criticized the network’s reliance on using tape delays, a frustration shared by millions of viewers.
> Only in a marriage of old media and social media, Guy Adams no longer has a Twitter account. It was suspended Tuesday …
Wow.
> [Camera Awesome](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fcamera-awesome%252Fid420744028%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30)[^aff] has two burst-mode settings: One that captures two full-resolution (8 megapixel) photos per second, and a “high-speed” mode that rattles off six shots per second at a reduced 640-by-480 (0.3 megapixel) resolution.
That’s how I took my [engagement photo](http://kivus.500px.com/snapshots/). Also interesting:
> And finally, there’s [Cinemagram](http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=r*bqlTuiXSo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fcinemagram%252Fid487225881%253Fmt%253D8%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30), which lets you add a bit of motion to an otherwise still photograph. You launch the app and record a short video clip, then you select a portion of the video clip to use for your “photo.” The next step involves drawing a “mask” over parts of the image with your finger; anything within those regions will remain in motion while the rest of the image stays still. Cinemagram also offers an Instagram-like sharing community, but it also outputs your work as a 360-by-480 animated .gif that you can embed or share via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or e-mail.
[^aff]: Affiliate Link (as are the rest of the iOS app links in this post.)
Tidbits demonstrates a way to do it without using the command line. I will probably stick to using [Brett Terpstra’s method](http://brettterpstra.com/fixing-virtual-hosts-and-web-sharing-in-mountain-lion/) though.
I really want one of these.
(via [52 Tiger](http://52tiger.net/groovboard-lap-desk-for-ipad/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+52Tiger+%2852+Tiger%29)[^foot])
[^foot]: Dave Caolo has one nice looking website.
These are great. I might just set the [Red Sox one from their 2004 World Series win](http://www.netflix.com/Movie/30_for_30_Four_Days_in_October/70170094) on a loop when I am not watching anything.