ABA TECHSHOW, which is traditionally held in Chicago every Spring, is always a great conference to learn about legal technology — everything from the latest-and-greatest tech to the best ways to take advantage of what you already have. In light of the pandemic, it was announced this week that the 2021 event is going virtual so that folks can participate safely without having to travel. Specific details have not been released yet, except that it will be held the week of March 8, 2021. An online conference for attorneys produced by people who are tech-savvy sounds like a great idea to me because it could result in some great video presentations. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- For an example of how someone tech-savvy can do a great video presentation, check out this new post by legal technology consultant Brett Burney in which he reviews the Microsoft To Do app on his Apps in Law website. Watch the video at the top of the post, in which you can see both Brett and the screen of his iPhone at the same time, which is a fantastic presentation technique. How is he doing that? My guess is that he is using brand new software called mmhmm. It is still in beta, it is invitation-only, and it currently only works on a Mac, but it allows you to do some cool picture-in-picture and video-in-picture techniques, much like what you see on a news broadcast. I've just started playing around with mmhmm on my Mac, and it is incredibly powerful. Not only can you record a polished video like Brett did, you can also use mmhmm as a virtual camera for videoconference software such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom to give you presentation capabilities that go far, far beyond what you can do within Teams or Zoom. I suspect that we are going to be seeing much more of this in the future.
- In an article for Law Practice Today, Pittsburgh attorney and security expert David Ries discusses numerous legal and ethical duties relating to cybersecurity that attorneys should consider.
- Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews Eve Cam, an indoor security camera that is compatible with Apple's HomeKit Secure Video.
- Apple released iOS 13.6 this week, and Ryan Christoffel of MacStories explains what is new.
- Along with iOS 13.6, Apple introduced its first podcast. It is called Apple News Today, and it a short daily podcast that provides an overview of the news of the day — stories that are available in the Apple News app. The podcast sounds incredibly professional. Although you can listen to it in the news app, you can also listen in any podcast app. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac explains how to do so.
- Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac explains the software changes that will improve the camera function of the iPhone in iOS 14.
- Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac notes that Logitech has introduced the Folio Touch, which lets you add a keyboard and trackpad to an 11" iPad Pro.
- Killian Bell of Cult of Mac explains how you can quit an app on an iPad using Command-Q on an external keyboard.
- Dan Moren of Six Colors explains how to use AirDrop to share one of your passwords with someone else who you trust. If you want to share your passwords with people who you don't trust, simply write them on a Post-it note and put that on a monitor.
- And finally, last year, I linked to a video produced by Apple called The Underdogs, in which office workers use Apple products to work together to sell an idea. It was a funny video. This week, Apple released a sequel with the same characters, and this time they are all using Apple technology to work from home during the pandemic. The sequel isn't quite as good as the original, but it still has some amusing moments. Here is the new video, which is called The whole working-from-home-thing:
