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Cupertino mayor claims he was surrounded/escorted out by Apple security personnel in row over city taxes

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[UPDATE: Cupertino mayor Barry Chang is refuting the claims made by The Guardian, saying that he never said the words quoted in the article: “I was shocked and dismayed to see a recent article quoting me with words I never used and describing situations that never happened,” he said in a statement on the Cupertino city website.]

Cupertino mayor Barry Chang has accused Apple of ‘abusing’ its home city by failing to contribute to much-needed public projects, and claims that he was ‘surrounded’ by security and escorted off the premises when he tried to discuss traffic congestion.

Apple is not willing to pay a dime. They’re making profit, and they should share the responsibility for our city, but they won’t. They abuse us.

However, the Guardian notes that Apple paid $9.2M in city taxes in 2012/13 …


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Latest 4K drone footage of Campus 2 shows huge glass panels on site as spaceship continues to grow

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With the construction of Apple’s new Spaceship campus now showing rapid progress, new 4K drone footage (below) shows huge glass panels in the staging area close to the metal sections.

The circular Campus 2 building is really taking shape now above ground level, even when compared to footage from just three weeks ago, and we get a sense of the scale of the excavation from the sizeable pyramid of excavated dirt just outside the ring … 
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Drone flies low to give first close-up look at Apple’s new Campus 2 auditorium (Video)

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A new flyover of Apple’s under construction Campus 2 project in Cupertino, California gives us one of our closest look yet at the site. We also get our first detailed look at work started on Apple’s new auditorium on the campus where it plans to host events when the project is complete.

The video below comes courtesy of MyithZ who was able to get these shots from just 120ft up, much closer than previous drone flyovers and Apple’s own aerial shots.


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FastCo interview: Tim Cook talks Apple philosophy/legacy, Apple watch skepticism, new Campus & more

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Fast Company has an extensive interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook, focusing on what has changed and what has stayed the same since he took over from Steve Jobs. The interview comes a day after FastCo published a sizeable excerpt from the book Becoming Steve Jobs, in which Cook criticized the portrayal of Jobs in Isaacson’s biography.

Cook said that while much has changed, the culture–the fundamental goal of the company–remained the same.

Steve felt that if Apple could do that—make great products and great tools for people—they in turn would do great things. He felt strongly that this would be his contribution to the world at large. We still very much believe that. That’s still the core of this company.

The company has never tried to be first to market, he said, but rather to “have the patience to get it right” … 
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Apple to preserve historic Glendenning Barn on site of futuristic ‘spaceship’ campus

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Apple has always attempted to respect historic landmarks in planning its various real estate expansions, and as the San Jose Mercury News reported today, two buildings with a full century of history between them will coexist as the company continues its trend by preserving a 100-year-old barn to remain on the campus of its new headquarters.

The Glendenning Barn was built in 1916, exactly 100 years before construction on Apple’s new facility is expected to be completed. It was carefully disassembled by construction crews to ensure that it wouldn’t be damaged as the new campus was being built, with every individual piece being numbered and preserved so that the barn can be rebuilt exactly the way it was once construction is finished.


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Apple provides facts & figures to support “greenest building on the planet” claims

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After Tim Cook recently claimed at an environmental conference that its new ‘Spaceship’ headquarters would be “the greenest building on the planet,” Apple today provided (via Business Insider) a few illustrative facts and figures to support the claim.

For example, Cupertino law requires that construction sites reuse at least 75% of their demolished materials. Apple says it’s using over 90% of the old headquarters in building the new one.

This includes recycling all of the concrete from its present headquarters to form part of the foundations of the new campus. Trees cleared from the construction site are being turned into lumber for use in the building.

Once completed, Apple says that not only will 100 percent of its energy come from renewable sources (Apple is building a large solar farm at the site), but that the unique design of the structure means it will require far less energy to run than a conventional building.

The new HQ will also save money on heating and cooling. Apple says the building will have natural ventilation for 75% of the year.

While these are just a few snippits, we’re likely to hear more as construction work progresses.

Apple places a high priority on its environmental credentials, hiring former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to oversee environmental issues, building a dedicated microsite for environmental responsibility, releasing an Earth Day video narrated by Tim Cook, and running press ads calling on other companies to follow its example.

Architects hate Apple’s spaceship design, but Pixar president says they don’t understand

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Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt says that even at an international conference of 6,000 architects, he couldn’t find a single one who liked the spaceship design of Apple’s new campus building. Though if the single quote given is representative of the quality of the critiques, this may not be saying much.

“Does it have to be a spaceship?” asked an official at the American Institute of Architects.

Pixar president Ed Catmull wrote in his book Creativity Inc that they are failing to understand a key feature of the building, derived from a lesson Steve Jobs learned when leading the design of Pixar’s headquarters …


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New renders of Apple’s Spaceship HQ provide the most detailed view yet

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New renders released by the City of Cupertino from Apple’s planning documents provide the most detailed view yet of what life inside the company’s new spaceship headquarters will be like.

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Illustrating everything from cafes to car-parks, the renders are intended to provide a feel for what the building will be like to work in, rather than just its appearance as a structure. They also include additional renders of the upper level of the 1,000-seat auditorium.

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Full gallery below …


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