By 2016-07-21 01:15:00 UTC BEAVERTON, Ore. — In the spring of 1977, a kid named Michael Jordan was finishing eighth grade in Wilmington, North Carolina. He hadn't yet been. He hadn't yet hit the game-winning shot in the 1982 NCAA Championship Game for the University of North Carolina. And he certainly hadn't become Michael Jordan, the star and cultural icon we all know today. But the trails of history connect in mysterious ways. That same spring, 3,000 miles away in Oregon, a former aerospace engineer finagled a meeting with the young CEO of an upstart footwear company.
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SEE ALSO: The CEO's name was Phil Knight. His company was called Nike. The former aerospace engineer was named M. The two men, along with Rudy's business partner, sat around a conference table, as Knight recalls in his memoir, Shoe Dog. Then Rudy leaned in with a smile and made his pitch. Knight,' the CEO recalls Rudy saying that day in the spring of '77. 'We've come up with a way to inject.
Into a running shoe.' Unbeknownst to Rudy, unbeknownst to Knight — and most definitely unbeknownst to that teenager named Michael in North Carolina — the seed had been planted for something big. Something huge.
Something massive. Jordan went on to star in college. Nike, powered in part by the pressurized airbags Rudy pitched, continued its ascent. Jordan left North Carolina after his junior season in 1984, entering the NBA with a charismatic personality to match his dynamic game. Signed him to an endorsement deal, and released a shoe in 1985. They named it the Air Jordan, a nod both to the player's high-flying exploits and what had become Nike's signature shoe tech. Air Jordan — arguably the most iconic line in sneaker history — had been unleashed upon the world.
Sports business hasn't been the same since. This Wednesday, Nike unveiled the Air Jordan XXXI, the iconic line's latest offering. Several weeks prior, Mashable was invited to Oregon for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the yet-to-be-released sneaker and all that went into creating it.
Since that original Air Jordan hit so many years ago, sneaker technology has advanced from rudimentary to state of the art. The story of the Air Jordan XXXI is actually the story of an entire industry's technological evolution.
From Air Jordan I to Air Jordan XXXI The Air Jordan I changed the sneaker business forever. Image: courtesy jordan brand 'Michael wanted to look back at our heritage,' Kuerbis said of those early meetings for the Air Jordan XXXI. 'The Air Jordan I was definitely the starting point of his career, so we wanted to take some inspiration from that.'
You can see that inspiration on the outer part of the Air Jordan XXXI, where the Nike swoosh fades into Jordan's famous Jumpman logo. The Air Jordan I featured a prominent Nike swoosh, but the Jumpman logo soon became iconic and the swoosh was phased out of Jordan's shoes. Combining the two logos on the latest Air Jordan, Kuerbis said, is a new-model nod to the original Air Jordan. Jordan won the NBA's 1988 Slam Dunk Contest while wearing the Air Jordan III. Image: Brian Drake/NBAE via Getty Images That's simple to understand with just a glance.
But it's the ways in which Kuerbis and his colleagues brought their concepts to life that reveal just how high-tech sneakers have become. 'Innovation in the sneaker industry over the past 20 years is like innovation anywhere else — it's gone from zero to 100,' Yuron White, vice president of footwear for Jordan Brand, told Mashable. 'Doing things I'd never thought would be possible' Flyweave meets synthetic leather at the heel of the Air Jordan XXXI. Image: courtesy jordan brand The Air Jordan I was a leather basketball shoe — typical of hoops sneakers for many years.
Now knit and woven materials, which hold their form and provide flexibility while maintaining a snug fit, have become performance standards. The Air Jordan XX9 and Air Jordan XXX, for example, featured woven uppers. But never until the Air Jordan XXXI had Nike combined what it calls its technology with traditional synthetic leather to create a one-piece upper. The Air Jordan XXXI features a synthetic leather heel that blends into a Flyweave forefoot — the idea being to combine the best features of each material. The Flyweave material is made in Italy using a Jacquard loom. The leather heel adds another performance bonus while further recalling the Air Jordan I.
Image: courtesy jordan brand 'What it does is give you a lot of really great flexibility and movement in the forefoot, while the leather in the heel gives you more containment where you need it,' said Kuerbis. Another first to debut with the Air Jordan XXXI is placing a plate directly on top of a full-length bag. The FlightSpeed plate is designed to provide support for the entire length of the foot, while Zoom Air is an evolution of the innovation Rudy pitched Knight back in 1977. Marrying two of Nike's signature pieces of sneaker tech is an additional instance of old meets new. Components of a deconstructed Air Jordan XXXI. Image: courtesy jordan brand Among the Air Jordan I's distinctive design traits was the sneaker's low-to-the-ground profile, which Kuerbis wanted to replicate in the Air Jordan XXXI. Putting the FlightSpeed plate directly on top of the Zoom Air bag, Kuerbis said, lets the Air Jordan XXXI pay homage to its forefather's low profile while providing performance features that designers could once only dream of.
'We're doing things that I'd never thought would be possible,' said Kuerbis, who's been at Nike for 22 years. But again — more than the story of a single shoe — Kuerbis' perspective opens a window into an entire industry's evolution. From 'codfish' to 3D printing Bill Bowerman with two Oregon runners in 1960. Image: unnammed photographer/ASSOCIATED PRESS Knight's Nike cofounder — and one of his driving inspirations as the company grew — was Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregon's legendary track coach.
Bowerman coached Knight at Oregon, where he was renowned for instilling discipline, desire and loyalty in his athletes. The coach was also an obsessive tinkerer whose preoccupation with modifying footwear was decades before its time. Bowerman, for example, invented the waffle-sole running shoe by melting urethane in an. When Knight was an Oregon runner in the late 1950s, well before they started Nike, Bowerman constantly supplied the young athlete with experimental shoes to wear in races and training. Sometimes it got weird.
'In quest of lightness, he was willing to try anything,' Knight recalls in Shoe Dog. 'Animal, vegetable, mineral, any material was eligible if it might improve on the standard shoe leather of the day. That sometimes meant kangaroo skin. Other times, cod. You haven't lived until you've competed against the fastest runners in the world wearing shoes made of cod.' Knight (right) spoke at Jordan's 2012 enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Image: Nathaniel S.
Butler/NBAE via Getty Images That 'quest' for lightness still guides the much more high-tech innovations that mark Nike and Jordan Brand to this day. It's not as colorful as kangaroo skin, but melding Flyweave with synthetic leather in the Air Jordan XXXI represents a branch from the same tree.
'When you think about lightweight, it's really the cost of doing business now with a kid,' White said. He mimicked the motion of a customer weighing a sneaker in-hand before a wall of shoes at a store. 'We know what that means to a kid,' White continued. 'He's thinking, 'When I try to fly up and down the court, I don't need something that's heavy and bulky.'
' But innovation still requires iteration and experimentation. In Bowerman's day, this meant trying mad-science experiments on runners like Knight. Nineteen years ago, when White started at Nike, assessing the latest versions of yet-to-be-released sneakers required many rushed trips to overseas factories. The process is much simpler today, thanks to technology. A Nike design team can now sketch out a sneaker iteration using 3D software, then have an actual prototype printed at company headquarters for review.
History on display: A wall of Air Jordan models at Nike headquarters. Image: courtesy Jordan Brand 'That doesn't mean it's ready on the first shot, but at least we can work with something that has more dimension to it,' White told Mashable. As a new sneaker model fleshes out, human testing plays a critical role.
Kuerbis' designs get wear-tested by Jordan Brand athletes, as well as by Nike employees who play basketball regularly. How the shoe fits, how it performs, how it supports cuts and jumps, everything is up for critique. Human feedback was crucial in fine-tuning the Air Jordan XXXI's many technologically-inspired designs, including one with an origin story that fits perfectly into the outsized persona of Jordan himself.
What Ferraris and sneakers have in common Jordan seen leaving Chicago's United Center in his Ferrari after the Chicago Bulls won Game 6 of the 1997 NBA Finals to claim the championship. Image: UNNAMED PHOTOGRAPHER/Getty Images Where does an Air Jordan designer look for inspiration? Pretty much everywhere, in Kuerbis' case.
Architecture, furniture, art, nature, animals, NASA — 'anything that's pushing the boundaries of construction and materials,' he said. Kuerbis wanted to eliminate as much extra material as possible from the newest Air Jordan. You can see evidence of this inside the shoe, where small foam pods are designed to fit around the malleolus (that bony part of your ankle that sticks out). Kuerbis' goal was to provide ankle support and a tight fit without adding unnecessary bulk to the sneaker. The ankle pods were inspired by hanging around Jordan's fleet of high-priced cars.
Small pods are designed to fit around the malleolus. Image: mashable/sam laird 'A lot of that came from looking at Michael's Ferraris,' Kuerbis explained. 'If you look at the seats, they're perfectly molded to your body — there's not a lot of extra stuff in the car. We felt like this has to be high-performance footwear, almost like a racecar for the foot, so we started to think about stripping away all the added foam that you don't really need and designing areas that fit one-to-one with the foot.' 'We felt like this has to be high-performance footwear, almost like a racecar for the foot.'
But that moment of inspiration occurred back at the start of the sneaker-creation process. Sketches followed — 'thousands of them,' Kuerbis said. Materials were sampled. Computer visualizations were created. Early versions were tested, critiqued and fine-tuned. As he recalled the earliest inspirations for the Air Jordan XXXI project at Nike HQ, Kuerbis held the final product in his hand. 'A lot of sweat and tears went into this,' Kuerbis said — not to mention decades of sneaker innovation.
'But we're pretty proud of what we ended up with.' BONUS: Air Jordan, from I to XXXI.
French site Nowhereelse.fr a pair of photos of what the original source claims are speaker enclosures for both the upcoming iPhone 5S and a future iPhone 6. The two parts are similar in appearance both to each other and to the, but do contain several differences. Photo of claimed iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 speaker enclosures with iPhone 5 part superimposed It is of course impossible to tell for certain whether the parts are indeed legitimate and whether they are intended for the upcoming iPhone models as claimed. Nowehereelse.fr has published a number of accurate photos in the past, but typically obtains the photos by scouring web postings from Asia and thus the photos typically come from a variety of sources that make it difficult to determine their reliability. Edge view of claimed iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 speaker enclosures. Last week, MacRumors received word that office supply retailer Staples would soon begin offering Apple products for sale. While the company has offered Apple products in international markets for some time, it had long been in striking a deal for the U.S.
We were unable to confirm the claim at the time, but that Apple products have begun appearing on the Staples website in the United States as part of an section. Fyi: ps elements 6 for mac pro. The section includes a number of products, including the Apple TV (listed at a remarkably low price of $49.99) and iPad Smart Covers, all marked with 'Test' in the item description. While the products listed on the test pages are limited to accessories with the exception of the Apple TV, our original source had claimed that Apple's full lineup of Macs, iPads, and at least the iPhone 5 would be coming to Staples in the United States. No specific timeframe for an official launch of Apple's products at Staples beyond 'in the coming months' has been. Following the premiere of Ashton Kutcher's new film Jobs at the Sundance Film Festival, a number of publications have posted reviews of the flick which is scheduled to arrive in.
The first video clip of the movie was.: A biopic about a great man that's way too aware of his greatness, jOBS tells us a lot about the genius of Steve Jobs, but doesn't show us much of anything that actually reveals it. But, overall, jOBS works. The lead actors are likable and appear to have put serious effort into getting the spirit of the characters right. The film looks (mostly) good aside from some of what could likely be ascribed to budgetary constraints. And though the director is a tad indulgent here and there, it doesn’t take away from the overall feeling of ‘decent’ that I came away with.
As expected, there are some liberties taken with Apple’s story and even / especially the representation of some characters — but the emotional resonance of Steve Jobs himself is convincing. It’s not revisionist history, and it’s not some greater parable about the human spirit. Jobs is a point-A-to-point-B story about a uniquely innovative thinker and ruthless businessman — one that had a notable and meaningful impact on the world.
It’s a good film, but it’s also very “safe” — a familiar story that doesn’t try for a bigger picture. Others will write of the things 'jOBS' omits, gets wrong, or simply avoids. My primary disappointment was in how shallow the film felt, given the extensive historical record. Apple has quietly added a new notes feature to its curated apps in the iOS App Store.
Apps chosen for Editor's Choice and App of the Week now come with App Store Notes, which offer a quick description of the app. For example, here’s the new note feature for: Clash of Heroes has it all: epic storytelling, a wonderful blend of style and substance, and a spectacular battle system. This strategy-puzzler is genre-defining and an absolute must-play effort from the creators of Sword & Sworcery EP.The App of the Week, which is currently offered for free in the iPhone App Store, features a similar description. Some other apps, such as those found in the 'New and Noteworthy' and 'What's Hot' sections of the App Store also have App Store Notes, though not all of the apps in those sections have the new notes. Six of 24 New and Noteworthy apps on the iPhone have notes, while the rest do not.
Only two apps, and, on the What's Hot have notes included. App Store Notes might be trickling out to all of Apple's selected apps, or may be reserved for those that are the most popular.
At this point in time, it is unclear what criteria Apple is using to determine which apps are furnished with notes, or if it is a feature that will roll out to all curated apps. The new app notes are only visible in the iOS App Store, and do not show up in the desktop version of iTunes. Update: App Store Notes, for the apps that Apple selected as the best of the year. The feature now appears to be. Following up on his about Apple's plans for the full-size iPad and iPhone, iLounge's Jeremy Horwitz has a sharing additional information on Apple's mobile device plans.
The information comes from a 'trusted source' and discloses product code names for the various devices as well as plans for an upgrade to the rear camera system for the iPhone 5S. The iPhone 5S is still months away from mass production, but our source suspects that the star feature will be an upgraded rear camera—perhaps featuring Sony’s 13-Megapixel sensor, plus the aforementioned flash upgrade—along with a processor bump. Current prototypes are codenamed N51 and N53, with July mentioned as the target date.The source indicates that the code name for the fifth-generation iPad is J72, while the second-generation iPad mini has a code name of J85.
The report indicates that the second-generation iPad mini is unlikely to appear until October of this year, roughly the same timeframe as for the next full-size iPad. Sources have scant information on the actual device, but suggest that it is likely to retain essentially the same form factor as the current model and add a Retina display. A move to a Retina display without increasing the physical size of the device would almost certainly necessitate a change in the display technology such as the adoption of new IGZO panels.
Some previous reports had indicated that the iPad and iPad mini could see updates as part of an effort to accelerate the product development cycle, but iLounge's claims of an October. Back in August 2011, as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. Both companies have risen in value since, but Apple's has allowed Exxon Mobil to again regain its position at the top of the corporate world. In the 17 months since Apple passed Exxon Mobil, 's stock is up some 27%, while has risen roughly 18%.
Today, however, Apple has set a new 52-week low, while Exxon is matching its 52-week high set last September. Currently, Apple's stock price is at $441.11 with a market capitalization of $414.28 billion. Exxon Mobil is at $91.43 with a market cap of $416.86 billion. In Apple's, the company generated $13.08 billion in profit on $54.51 billion in sales, with 72,800 employees. Exxon Mobil generated $9.93 billion in profit on $115.71 billion in revenue with 82,100. ILounge's Jeremy Horwitz has offering a few new details on the fifth-generation iPad, as well as on Apple's work toward future iPhone models. Most notably, Horwitz says that he has inspected what is said to be a shell designed for the fifth-generation iPad, and that the device will adopt many of the features seen in the iPad mini's design.
What does it look like? Well, it’s a lot smaller than one would guess was possible: in portrait orientation, picture a 9.7” screen with virtually no left or right bezels, and only enough space above and below the screen to accommodate the mandatory camera and Home Button elements. Beyond that, it’s noticeably thinner, as well, which is to say the the fifth-generation iPad will be smaller in every dimension than its predecessors. As it will have the same chamfered edges and curves, calling it a “stretched iPad mini” is very close to entirely accurate.The report notes that the upcoming iPad is so much smaller and thinner than the current design that it seems to require a complete redesign of the interior, likely including a shift in display technology to IGZO panels and smaller chip components. Horwitz says that while Apple had originally hoped to push the fifth-generation iPad out in March, it now appears that an October launch is more likely, perhaps due to issues with component yields. On the topic of the iPhone, Horwitz says that the iPhone 5S will unsurprisingly appear nearly identical to the iPhone 5, although it will have a slightly larger rear flash. The rumored lower-cost iPhone with a plastic shell.
The interaction between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak shown in the first scene to be released from the biopic JOBS, is 'totally wrong' according to an. Totally wrong. Personalities and where the ideas of computers affecting society did not come from Jobs. They inspired me and were widely spoken at the Homebrew Computer Club.
Steve came back from Oregon and came to a club meeting and didn’t start talking about this great social impact. His idea was to make a $20 PC board and sell it for $40 to help people at the club build the computer I’d given away Our relationship was so different than what was portrayed. I’m embarrassed but if the movie is fun and entertaining, all the better.
Anyone who reads my book iWoz can get a clearer picture.Wozniak says that 'the lofty talk came much further down the line' after Jobs started to see more about the likely social impact of personal. Apple yesterday released its, disclosing the results of its audit program for 2012 and revealing that it had fired one of its suppliers after finding evidence of 74 underage workers at one facility.
In January 2012, for example, we audited a supplier, Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co., Ltd. (PZ) that produces a standard circuit board component used by many other companies in many industries. Our auditors were dismayed to discover 74 cases of workers under age 16—a core violation of our Code of Conduct. As a result, we terminated our business relationship with PZ.Apple's investigation determined that many of PZ's underage workers had been provided by a local labor agency that had conspired with families to forge age verification documents. As a result, Apple reported the agency to authorities, who fined suspended the business license of the agency while requiring PZ to pay the expenses to return the children to their families. Apple's report touts a number of other achievements for 2012, including a 72% increase in the number of audits performed compared to 2011, worker empowerment training for 1.3 million employees, and increased compliance with working-hour limitations.
We've previously covered Apple's on working-hour compliance, noting that the rate had fallen in the September-November period as part of Apple's allowance for voluntary overtime during periods of high demand. Apple's new report reveals that compliance with the standard returned to near its highs in December, with. As, a new federal policy in the United States is set to go into effect this Saturday that will make it illegal for certain mobile phone owners to unlock their devices for use on other carriers unless specifically authorized by their carriers. The policy applies to newly purchased devices beginning on Saturday, but not to legacy devices purchased prior to that date. In October 2012, the Librarian of Congress, who determines exemptions to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), decided that unlocking mobile phones would no longer be allowed. But the librarian provided a 90-day window during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it.
That window closes on January 26.Unlocking devices allows users to take their phones to other carriers such as T-Mobile or to use SIM cards from international carriers while traveling abroad without needing to purchase expensive international roaming packages from their domestic carrier. Users can, of course, still purchase unlocked iPhones at unsubsidized prices, and, last April, AT&T began for customers whose contract terms were completed or who had paid early termination fees to end them early. The SIM card slots on the Verizon iPhone 5 are, while Sprint announced that it would unlock the SIM card slot on its iPhones for international usage three months after purchase.
In the decision, these policies were cited as reasons for not allowing an unlocking exemption to the DMCA for newly purchased. AT&T has, reporting that it sold a record 10.2 million smartphones - 8.6 million of those (84%) being iPhones. AT&T that the quarter was its best ever for iPhone sales. 16% of the iPhones were on accounts new to the company.
During the same holiday quarter, Verizon activated 6.2 million iPhones, some two-thirds of its total smartphone sale. AT&T's previous best quarter was 2011's fourth quarter, when it activated a total of 9.4 million smartphones and 7.6 million iPhones - an 80% share for the Apple device. On Twitter, Apple watcher Sammy the Walrus that 74% of smartphones sold by AT&T and Verizon were iPhones, giving the device an 'iPod-like share'. Update: AT&T has reached out to us to note that the 8.6 million iPhone number is activations, while the 10.2 million smartphone sales number is sales. This means the iPhone probably doesn't make up exactly 84% of smartphone sales, but it should be in the right ballpark. The activations number includes hand-me-down iPhones and the.