If you're looking for a wrap-up of today's iPhone press conference, the simplest and smartest explanation I've found is from Brian Lam at The Wirecutter, who goes through the new features and describes why they matter. Maybe I don't really need a service to send people greeting cards through my phone, but even though the new iPhone looks like the one I already have, it is faster, holds more MP3's I'll forget to listen to, has a better camera, and has a voice activated assistant, which seems cool:

The iPhone 4s is Your New Voice-Controlled Assistant: Apple's 4s has a voice control system. Like Kitt in Knight Rider. Supposedly, you're going to be able to ask it a question and get an answer or make your phone do things. What can you ask it? I don't know! But Siri (that's her/its name), for starters can be asked What the weather is like. And to read you your messages. And to find you restaurants. Greek restaurants, even, if you want to get tricky about it. And it will tell you! You can also ask it to set calendar appointments. It can pull info from wiki, wolfram alpha (the super science-y search engine) and other places. You can shout at it to play the song you want, like a DJ that listens. You can make it send emails for you. And the engine powering Siri can work with built-in apps, but as Jason Snell from Macworld notes, this would be bad ass if any app could use voice control.

How This Will Change Your Life: This is really astounding computer science. But, honestly, if we all start talking into our phones in public like they are our personal assistants, its going to get really weird, really fast. There's no mainstream precedent for this kind of behavior. But I think this sort of system is going to keep people from texting and driving right off the bat. I have to stop doing this, myself. Confession: Once I played an entire game of Words With Friends on a drive to Lake Tahoe. That was bad. Sorry.

• Illustration Ryn Gargulinski

Singles ads are notorious for their sneaky little phrases that mask reality. We all may have learned — perhaps the hard way — that “big boned” generally means obese, “homebody” means couch potato and “mature male” often translates to a guy who is roughly 103. Those seeking “adventuresome” men or women are usually out for kinky sex while a guy who “knows how to treat a woman” probably drags her around by her hair.

Help wanted ads are much the same way. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics telling us the nation’s unemployment rate was still jammed at 9.1 percent as of August, plenty of people who have not yet given up on the job hunt are surely finding their own array of sneaky phrases. As a freelance writer who is always scouring job ads, I have learned to quickly dismiss potential prospects that contain a number of catchy lines.

“Great exposure in international market,” means no pay for writing bobblehead descriptions for a website based in China. “This is a very easy job,” means very little pay, or a rate of about 0.07 cents per word. Any ad that proclaims a job is perfect "for the right person" is sometimes seeking a person who thinks it's right to be subjected to slave labor, work weekends, evenings and Christmas Day, and count parking the boss's car as part of their duties.

Tricky phrasing is especially apparent when it comes to job descriptions. No longer is a sales clerk a sales clerk. The position is spiffed up and now called a “store associate” or “retail ambassador.” A busboy has become a “table purification expert” while the poor sap who gets stuck refolding towels after customers unfurl them all over the home department is a “replenishment-merchandising associate.”

I suppose the customer service people at Yelp get quite a few emails from people trying to change information in reviews, probably largely from business owners upset about a burst of negative publicity posted nearly anonymously. However, the above email isn't dismissive of a difference of opinion, but an actual lie that Yelp doesn't seem to feel the need to remove:

Jesse Hirsch recently brought to my attention a review of Tuba restaurant on Yelp, by a woman who claims to write for us. She wrote:

"This place totally rocks! The food blows your mind away. I also write for SF weekly and I definitely am writing about them this week!"

There's only one problem: She doesn't write for us. I'm the editor here; I know all of our writers, and what they are and aren't assigned to do.

As soon as I saw it, I set out to correct it. But talking to Yelp isn't easy.

I don't have any contacts at Yelp, so I had to go in the front door. I couldn't find a "contact Yelp" phone number or email address. You have to sign in to Yelp's system to access feedback. So I did that.

I sent the liar this message: "I am the food editor at SF Weekly. Who are you? We don't have a Maya C. working for us right now. Please explain why you cite us in your review of Tuba."

And I sent Yelp a message I didn't keep a copy of, saying that this woman claims to work for SF Weekly, but I am the food editor and she does not.

The liar sent this response: "sf weekly voice, I will fix it. I am very very sorry to cite your name, I haven't checked my reviews since." As of this moment, she hasn't fixed it.

Thankfully, the flagging mechanism on Yelp's site has kicked the review into the "filtered" category, but this whole debacle does point out a flaw in the Yelp phenomenon - that the reviews aren't really obligated to tell the truth.

I'm definitely not going to add my entire history to Facebook, but I guess this is the next progression of the digitizing of our existence.

Introducing timeline — a new kind of profile

With timeline, now you have a home for all the great stories you've already shared. They don't just vanish as you add new stuff.

Timeline is wider than your old profile, and it's a lot more visual. The first thing you'll notice is the giant photo right at the top. This is your cover, and it's completely up to you which of your photos you put here.

As you scroll down past your cover, you'll see your posts, photos and life events as they happened in time. You choose what's featured on your timeline. You can star your favorites to double their size or hide things altogether.

[Facebook]

My conspiracy theory: the government uses massive updates to Facebook as a distraction tool to avert the public's attention from our country's increasing lean towards economic disaster.

Either that or Mark Zuckerberg likes to read the complaints of privileged citizens of the internet.

At first, it seems like a really terrible idea to set up an endless stream of YouTube videos based on a keyword, but maybe you feel like you just want to spend the rest of the day listening to songs featuring sadly underrated Dade County rapper Trick Daddy. The site makes zero distinction between good and bad videos, it just keeps spitting them out until you close out the window or pick a different search term. Why this would be useful, I have no idea (it's ostensibly a gimmick to promote a new video sharing service), but if you figure out a practical application beyond the Trick Daddy front (so many guest appearances!), let me know.

[The Awl, and a bunch of other places]

I suppose there's a vowel-hating monkey working a keyboard somewhere that comes up with the names for these various new online start-ups, coming up with names like Ifttt, but despite the absurd name, the service (still in beta) is definitely worth checking out. Essentially, the idea is "if" something happens, then the service triggers something to "then" happen. For example, if I really want to find a Subaru Impreza on Craigslist, I set that as a trigger and then set how I want to be alerted, by email, text message, Google Chat, even a phone call. The number of options is really staggering, and the site offers a number of "recipes" for formulas that other users have already created in case you can't think of ways to make your life better right off the bat. I personally think I'll set up a series of alerts based around the horrifying idea that someone tagged me in a Facebook photo, so I can react swiftly to erase any evidence of my bodily form. Technology! Amazing, right?

[Ifttt]

Congressman Raul Grijalva has released an iPhone app to make it easier to keep track of his activities. We think it would be cooler if it you had some way of catapulting mustaches to crush the heads of tea-bag-protected Eric Cantors and Jon Kyls, but maybe that's coming in 2.0.

The press release:

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, today announced the release of his new iPhone app, which allows constituents and interested groups to follow legislative updates, public events, press coverage and other activities in his office. The app is free to download at http://bit.ly/nZL2p1.

“Connecting with people is what good government should really be about, and this is an important way to connect,” Grijalva said. “Anyone who wants to know more about what’s going on, both for Southern Arizona and for progressives around the country, now has another free tool at her disposal. I believe making more information available to voters and interested citizens is a valuable public service, and that’s what we’re hoping to do with this announcement.”

The app was developed by iConstituent, a government internet services provider.

There are thoughtful, intelligent reviewers using Yelp (including our TV-writer-who-writes-stuff-when-he-feels-like-it-I-guess Jordan Green, who is "Yelp Elite '11", whatever that means), offering their opinions on places they go to, giving others a sense of the options available in their community.

On the other hand, there are a bunch of dimwits who give arbitrary grades and have little to no context to provide for what they're reviewing. Thanks, Fuck You Yelper, for collecting the useless rantings of those reviewers.