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Stanford releases Spring session of its popular ‘Developing Apps for iOS’ iTunes U course

Stanford has released the latest semester of its iOS development course today. Entitled “Developing Apps for iOS 9 with Swift“, professor Paul Hegarty takes students and iTunes U subscribers through the intricacies of developing for one of the world’s most popular mobile operating systems. The first lecture is available today as an introduction to the course. 
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Apple’s open source ResearchKit framework for medical researchers is now available

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Apple announced today that its new ResearchKit platform is now available to medical researchers as an open source framework. Apple first unveiled ResearchKit on stage last month during the March event, promising that it would be available as an open source framework for developers and medical researchers this month. The framework enables the medical community to use the iPhone to distribute actual medical and health research through ResearchKit-enabled apps.
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Apple needn’t fear over-regulation of Apple Watch health & fitness functionality, says FDA

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While health tech has to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the agency will be taking “an almost hands-off approach” to fitness-oriented wearables like the Apple Watch, says policy advisor Bakul Patel in an interview in Bloomberg.

“We are taking a very light touch, an almost hands-off approach,” Patel, the FDA’s associate director for digital health, said in an interview. “If you have technology that’s going to motivate a person to stay healthy, that’s not something we want to be engaged in.”

Patel said the FDA would be drawing a distinction between products whose health claims focused on fitness rather than diagnosis … 
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Stanford’s first Swift programming course now available on iTunes U

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Today Stanford is releasing its first course on Apple’s new Swift programming language for iOS and OS X and it’s available to all through iTunes U.

The course, Developing iOS 8 Apps with Swift, is offered every year by professor Paul Hegarty through Stanford’s School of Engineering but now for the first time has been updated for iOS 8 and Swift. The course includes an Introduction to iOS, Xcode 6, and Swift, More Xcode and Swift, Using MVC in iOS, Swift and Foundation, and more.

Updated for iOS 8 and Swift. Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone and iPad platforms using the iOS SDK. User interface design for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multi-touch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller paradigm, memory management, Swift programming language. Other topics include: animation, mobile device power management, multi-threading, networking and performance considerations.

The course is available through iTunes U now.

For $29 9to5Toys Specials offers a Mammoth Interactive Swift Course & Xcode 6 Templates

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Contract drivers for Apple and other tech companies vote to unionize in quest for better conditions

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Contract workers driving shuttle buses for Apple, eBay, Yahoo and other Silicon Valley companies have voted to unionize, reports USA Today.

A majority of the 120 full-time and part-time drivers who transport those companies’ employees have signed authorization cards with the union, said Rome Aloise, International vice president and secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 853.

The drivers are employed by South San Francisco-based Compass Transportation, which has contracts with Apple and the other firms to transport its workers to and from work.

The vote follows a call by Jesse Jackson for Tim Cook to create “world-class working conditions” for low-paid contractors. Cook subsequently met with Jackson to discuss income and diversity issues ahead of a small protest which briefly entered the lobby of the Apple campus.

Although the hourly rates for the drivers range from $18-20, they argue that high living costs make it difficult to live close to work, and working further out does not allow them to return home between split shifts in the morning and evening–meaning they are effectively at work for far longer than their paid hours.

William Gould, a professor at Stanford Law School said: “These workers, as a practical matter, have to wait in certain areas to do their work (and) they are not compensated for that wait.”

Facebook shuttle bus drivers joined the Teamsters union in November.

Photo: wired.com

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Laurene Powell Jobs to be appointed on Stanford University’s Board Of Trustees

TechCrunch reported that Steve Jobs’ widow, Larene Powell Jobs, would be appointed on Stanford University’s Board of Trustees later this afternoon. Powell Jobs is known for her work in the education field and is a graduate of Stanford University, where she got her MBA in business in 1991.

Stanford is the place where the couple met just after he gave a talk in one of her business classes in 1991. The Jobs’ family has strong ties to the university, which led to Jobs’ famous 2005 Stanford graduation commencement speech, as seen below.

Given Powell Jobs’ work in the education field, it makes sense for her to join the board. She has been involved with College Track, where she serves as the president of the board, and her other education duties include non-profit work like being the founder and chair of Emerson Collective.

Powell Jobs will join the ranks of 32 other board members, which includes Apple’s creator of the retail store and genius bar, Ron Johnson. He recently left Apple in November 2011 to join J.C. Penny as its CEO.

Congrats! [TechCrunch]

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc”]

Photographer Doug Menuez on his three years with Steve Jobs at NeXT

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The man in the interview above with RT is photographer Doug Menuez. He spent three years capturing Steve Jobs after the legendary chief executive officer was forced out of Apple in 1985 and began work at NeXT computer. In the interview, Menuez gave first-hand accounts of how Jobs worked with engineers and his team at NeXT, and he spent an almost four-year period photographing Jobs and the company. Menuez did not keep in contact with Jobs following those years, but thousands of his pictures currently reside in Stanford’s Apple Collection archives.

Menuez told RT how the project to photograph Jobs initially began:


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