Earth Day was this week, and this week we heard from Lisa Jackson, Apple's Vice President of Environmental Affairs. Jackson grew up in New Orleans (where I live) and after getting a B.S. from Tulane and a Masters from Princeton in chemical engineering, spent most of her professional life working for the EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Before joining Apple, she was EPA Administrator from 2009 to 2013. Steven Levy of Wired wrote an interesting article after spending time with Jackson looking at the renewable energy (such as solar) used to power Apple's data centers — the massive computing hubs that power Apple's Siri, iCloud, App Store, Messages, and other cloud-based services. (You can also watch a video of Jackson showing off the data centers on NBC's Today.) I didn't realize that data centers use up 2% of all of the electricity used in the U.S., so it is great that Apple now gets 100% of its data center power from renewable energy. You can learn more about Apple's environmental initiatives at this new page on its website as well as an Our Progress page. And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:
- California attorney David Sparks provides some perspective on the iWatch ... or whatever new product Apple will release later this year.
- Ohio attorney Richard Weiner discusses WiFi security issues in an article for the Akron Legal News.
- I mentioned this earlier this week, but it is worth mentioning again. One of the easiest ways to use and manage complex passwords it to get a password manager. Robert Myers of The Sweet Setup looked at all of the top password managers and decided that 1Password is the best one. (I also use and really like 1Password.) It is 50% off through the end of the day today, so if you were thinking of trying it, now is the time to do so. My review from early 2013 is here, but the app has been updated many times since then — and just this week the app got a new iOS 7-style look and some new features.
- On a related note, The Lawyerist published a password guide for lawyers and law firms.
- Brian Beam of Macworld reviewed iOS timekeeping apps.
- Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times discusses a hearing aid that works with your iPhone and which doesn't just help people with hearing problems but can also help improving hearing for anyone.
- Jim Dalrymple of The Loop reports that J.D. Power ranked the iPhone #1 in customer satisfaction for all four of the U.S. carriers.
- Brent Dirks of App Advice discusses JUMPR, an upcoming battery charger that will cost under $100 and can not only charge your iPhone, it can also jump your car.
- David Chartier of Finer Things in Tech notes that you can setup an Apple TV simply by touching it with your iPhone or iPad.
- Apple released iOS 7.1.1 this week. For the most part this is a minor update that improves things such as Touch ID on the iPhone 5S, as noted by Dan Moren of Macworld, but AppleInsider reports that some people are seeing much better battery life with iOS 7.1.1. If it seemed like you were getting less battery life with iOS 7.1, then hopefully iOS 7.1.1 will fix that for you.
- Eyefi cards are SD cards for a camera that have Wi-Fi built-in. Harry McCracken of Time explains that with the new Eyefi Cloud service, the card works even better with iPhones and iPads.
- Read all about the new Squandr app in this article ... from The Onion.
- And finally, Apple released a video this week called Better to note Apple's environmental efforts. The video is narrated by Apple CEO Tim Cook, and is worth watching. Click here, or watch below:
