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Apple Watch. Seems like Apple has a hit on its corporate hands. Or a preorder hit. The company sold a million Apple Watches in the first 24 hours—just in the U.S.—according to one piece of analysis. That would make it the most successful new product category launch in Apple's history—so what do you do if you've been talking smack about it for months? If you're Roger Kay, you stuff a straw man full of nonsensical numbers that will allow you to declare the device a failure no matter what. It's a neat trick so long as no one applies a...

It was just three years in the making Quick look Here’s the quick summary for those of you who don’t have time to read the next 3,000 words. The Apple Watch went on sale for pre-orders on April 10, 2015, and the Apple Store tells us that delivery dates for all orders now stretch into summer and beyond. We know that the initial production run of Apple Watch has sold out; what we don’t know is how many Apple Watches that represents. I’ve built a simple model that predicts that the initial run of watches was more than 3 million...

he Apple Watch is, first and foremost, an iPhone accessory. It might be even more than that eventually, a truly independent gadget, but a vast majority of its current core functions -- making calls, sending messages, getting information, even playing any third-party games -- require your iPhone to be on, have Internet service, and be paired with the Watch via Bluetooth or a shared Wi-Fi network. If you're thinking about getting one, make sure you know that. It requires an iPhone 5 or later, and it can't even be set up without one. Still, the Apple Watch can do a...

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. sounded a battle cry Sunday, calling on law-enforcement agencies to battle Apple and Google over software that makes it impossible for authorities to “decrypt” cellphones seized in criminal investigations. The recently rolled-out “upgrades” haven’t attracted much general attention, which means police must start pressing elected officials to roll back the terrorist-friendly software, he said. “Apple has created a phone that is dark, that cannot be accessed by law enforcement even when a court has authorized us to look at its contents,” Vance warned on “The Cats Roundtable” show on WNYM/970 AM. “That’s going to be...

Recently, Reason‘s Ronald Bailey asked what it would take to convince conservatives and libertarians that global warming is real. If generally rising temperatures, decreasing diurnal temperature differences, melting glacial and sea ice, smaller snow extent, stronger rainstorms, and warming oceans are not enough to persuade you that man-made climate [change] is occurring, what evidence would be? This has since been picked up by Jonathan Adler at the Washington Post‘s token right-leaning blog, the Volokh Conspiracy. There’s no pressure: Bailey and Adler merely insinuate that you are “obscurantist”—that is, you hate new knowledge—if you don’t agree. That, by the way—the...

arth Day was declared in 1970 and for the past 45 years we have all been living in the Environmental Insane Asylum, being told over and over again to believe things that are the equivalent of Green hallucinations. Now the entire month of April has been declared Earth Month, but in truth not a day goes by when we are not assailed with the bold-faced lies that comprise environmentalism. Around the globe, the worst part of this is that we are being victimized by people we are told to respect from the President of the United States to the Pope...

Apple has made it clear that it believes in global warming, and that it wants to fix what it regards as a problem. But should the company tone down its rhetoric on the issue? Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has been a vocal advocate for certain policies, including what the company calls "climate change." While some have applauded Apple's commitment to battle global warming, I'm forced to wonder if the company's efforts aren't simply misguided. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that Apple is paying attention to the environment and that it's aware of its own...

San Francisco is the worst market for renters, according to Forbes' latest list. The average rent in San Francisco is over $2,800. And the vacancy rate is only 3.6 percent. It is only slightly better in the East Bay and South Bay. The average rent in Oakland is about $1,800 a month, but the vacancy rate is even worse than San Francisco at 2.9 percent. In San Jose, rents run about $2,200. Still, Forbes listed all three cities as the worst places for renters nationwide.

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) — Sameer Mohiuddin grew more confused by the second as panelists speaking at his Southern California mosque trumpeted a new national initiative to prevent violent extremism. Mohiuddin, 39, is an American citizen, longtime Californian and a vice president at a technology company. His wife was born and raised in Orange County, and they have three children. Why, he wondered, do his family and others like his even figure into the conversation?

The earthquake fault cuts through the heart of Ventura's quaint downtown, past the ornate hilltop City Hall and historic Spanish-era mission before heading into the Pacific Ocean.. For decades, some seismic experts believed the Ventura fault posed only a moderate threat and was incapable of producing a major temblor. But research in recent years shows that the fault is extremely dangerous, capable of producing an earthquake as large as magnitude 8 as well as severe tsunamis that until now experts didn't believe were possible from a Southern California quake. Such a big earthquake on the fault estimated to occur every...

Turkey, via their Deputy Prime Minister, is putting the word out on the street that it is open to a restoration of ties with Israel, even acknowledging that it is NOT Turkey’s place to criticize the recent Israeli election: snip Wow. The admitted refusal to criticize Israel over the election is definitely a change of pace for Turkey. I mean, when has Erdogan ever missed an opportunity to openly bash Israel? He was just ripping Netanyahu in January for just showing up to the Paris march against ‘radical Islam’, accusing him of killing 2500 Palestinians in the war last year....

Opponents have opened up a new front in the fight against a California law allowing transgender students to use public school facilities such as bathrooms, showers and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identities. Privacy For All, the group targeting Assembly Bill 1266, on Friday submitted a proposed 2016 initiative that would mandate people in government buildings use facilities in accordance with their biological sex. It would allow people who feel their privacy was violated – or who chose not to use a facility because of a violation of the measure – to sue the government or the individual...

When Hilda Gurney’s name crops up, they love to tell stories about her switcheroo involving aviator Charles Lindbergh at the Van Nuys Airport. The pilot and her co­pilot husband, Harlan “Bud” Gurney, decided in 1969 to take out a small plane, and Lindbergh — a close friend of the family who often stayed with them when he was in Los Angeles — asked if he could fly alongside. But the press got wind of the renowned aviator up in the SoCal skies, and reporters descended upon the airport to wait for his landing. Wise to the plan, Lindbergh and the...

In a ruling with major implications for California's water conservation campaign, a state appeals court on Monday ruled that a tiered water rate structure used by the city of San Juan Capistrano to encourage conservation was unconstitutional.. The Orange County city used a rate structure that charged customers who used small amounts of water a lower rate than customers who used larger amounts. But the 4th District Court of Appeal struck down San Juan Capistrano's fee plan, saying it violated voter-approved Proposition 218, which prohibits government agencies from charging more for a service than it costs to provide it. "We...

California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes.

California’s drought and how it’s handled show just what kind of place the Golden State is becoming: feudal, super-affluent and with an impoverished interior. California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes. The water situation...

TEL AVIV – Egypt is accusing Turkey of providing more than 10,000 Turkish passports to members of ISIS, the Islamic State, to facilitate travel of fighters across the region. An Egyptian intelligence official who asked not to be named told WND his country delivered a report to the U.S. documenting the astonishing claim. The official further charged that Istanbul is serving as the “headquarters” for ISIS planning. “Turkey continues to allow free passage to Iraq and Syria to IS fighters,” the official added. If the Turkish passport charge is true, it would present a worldwide ISIS travel threat. Already, there...

Jeb Bush on Friday in New Hampshire called for the U.S. "to work with the rest of the world to negotiate a way to reduce carbon emissions.” The remarks at a "Politics & Eggs" event brought praise from billionaire Tom Steyer's group NextGen Climate, which has spent millions in recent elections blasting Republicans on climate change. "Jeb Bush demonstrated leadership today on the issue of climate change—distancing himself from the other Republican presidential hopefuls and demonstrating why climate change doesn’t have to be a partisan issue," the group said in an email to reporters. "Today in New Hampshire, Bush expressed...

A source tells WCCO that FBI agents arrested at least six people in Minneapolis and San Diego for suspicion of trying to join ISIS. Authorities say efforts of a joint terrorism task force led to the arrests. The six people taken into custody may be connected to the on-going investigation of Twin Cities residents traveling to Syria to support ISIS over the last year, according to the source. U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota and the FBI are holding a news conference Monday morning to provide more details.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone at a press conference for the 2012 USCCB Fall General Assembly, Nov 13. Credit: Michelle Bauman/CNA. San Francisco, Calif., Apr 17, 2015 / 04:13 am (CNA).- A group of Catholics promoting a full-page advertisement asking Pope Francis to remove Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone don’t represent San Francisco Catholics and misrepresent the facts, the archdiocese has said. “The advertisement is a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, a misrepresentation of the nature of the (archdiocese’s) teacher contract, and a misrepresentation of the spirit of the archbishop,” the San Francisco archdiocese said April 15. “The greatest misrepresentation of all is that the...