Clyde Haberman, The New York Times:

Saul Zabar, who across more than seven decades as a principal owner of the Upper West Side food emporium bearing his family name kept New Yorkers amply fortified with smoked fish, earthy bread and tangy cheese, not to mention pungent coffee, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 97. [...]

What did he look for in a fish? His response to The New York Sun in 2007 was worthy of a cryptic Zen master: “It’s got to have taste. Not too this, not too that.”

But he was clear about his store’s iconic status. “There’s a romance about what we do,” he said in 2012. “We have a modern appearance, but we really do things the way they were done 40, 50, 75, even 200 years ago.” [...]

“We get asked often why we don’t franchise, because we have a lot of branded products,” he told the magazine Edible Manhattan in 2022.

“Money is not why we do this, not why we’re here seven days a week,” he said. “It’s a way of life for us. It’s kind of old-fashioned.”

Many people claim that they’re not in it for the money. Only some of them mean it. And those are the most interesting, and often most beloved, people in the world.

Garth Franklin, writing at Dark Horizons:

Amazon has quietly walked back new James Bond thumbnail artwork on its Prime Video service following controversy over digital alterations to the original art. As reported here yesterday, the art was unveiled on the weekend to coincide with James Bond Day celebrations on Sunday.

Bond fans quickly noticed that the artwork had undergone some amateur photoshopping, which either cropped or airbrushed out his signature Walther PPK gun from the original image in a variety of ways.

The results were widely derided on social media; films like Dr. No and Goldeneye appeared to have Bond making a rude gesture, while others like A View to a Kill elongated Roger Moore’s arms well past the point of any human.

The updated ones just kinda suck. Amazon’s original “new” posters were downright hilariously bad. This bodes poorly for the Bond franchise’s future.

Apple Newsroom:

In addition to live games for fans in the Lakers’ regional broadcast territory — which covers Southern California, Hawaii, and parts of southern Nevada, including Las Vegas — full game replays and highlights will be available to Apple Vision Pro users in select countries and regions from both the SportsNet and NBA apps. These live games will be captured using the new URSA Cine Immersive Live camera from Blackmagic Design, a version of the camera that launched earlier this year to capture Apple Immersive for Vision Pro, and will be available for purchase next year.

I didn’t catch yesterday that these immersive broadcasts would only be available live within the Lakers’ local broadcast territory, which stinks, but alas, makes sense given how sports broadcasting rights work.

Jacob Krol, writing for Techradar:

We’ve seen a broad range of content, but I’ve been waiting for something live — specifically, live sports. Seeing that Apple TV+’s Friday Night Baseball is capturing games with the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max gave me some hope, and now we have a confirmed release. In what might be the start of something new, select Los Angeles Lakers games will be live-streamed in Apple Immersive for the Vision Pro this coming season.

It’s not every game, but for those that are streaming — exclusive to the $3,500 Spatial Computer — you’ll get access to views that put you right in the middle of the action. Special cameras that support the format will be set courtside and under each basket to give you perspectives that amp up the immersion. The Lakers’ games will be shot using a special version of Blackmagic Design’s URSA Cine Immersive Live camera.

Kind of weird, to me, that it wasn’t Apple’s own Friday Night Baseball broadcasts first, but I can’t wait to try this.

Pablo Manríquez, reporting for Migrant Insider:

Apple has quietly removed DeICER, a civic-reporting app used to log immigration enforcement activity, from its App Store after a law enforcement complaint — invoking a rule normally reserved for protecting marginalized groups from hate speech.

According to internal correspondence reviewed by Migrant Insider, Apple told developer Rafael Concepcion that the app violated Guideline 1.1.1, which prohibits “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content” directed at “religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups.”

But Apple’s justification went further. “Information provided to Apple by law enforcement shows that your app violates Guideline 1.1.1 because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group,” the company wrote in its removal notice.

The decision effectively treats federal immigration agents as a protected class — a novel interpretation of Apple’s hate-speech policy that shields one of the most powerful arms of government from public scrutiny.

Delicate flowers, these ICE agents are. And it’s a lie, anyway. There’s not one story about any of these apps being used to harm ICE agents. And even if such an attack happened, that wouldn’t imply it’s the purpose of these apps. The purpose of these apps is to protect people — citizens and non-citizens alike — from ICE.

Alas, there’s no more courage, conviction, or honesty from Google on the Android side of the fence either.

It’d be both interesting and honest if either Apple or Google justified these app bannings by simply saying the Trump administration demanded them and that they — Apple and Google — fear reprisal from Trump if they don’t comply.