As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
EE offers wi-fi call back-up service
EE is to begin switching some of its customers to wi-fi enabled calls to help combat mobile signal dead spots.
Serve Others By Being a Healthy Device User
It’s 10:00 p.m. and, trying to adhere to your New Year’s resolution to get more sleep (likely inspired by Arianna Huffington’s book, Thrive), you’re getting into bed with the intention of going to sleep.
You set the alarm on your smart phone for 5:30 a.m. so you can adhere to your other New Year’s resolution to exercise each morning before starting work. Just as you reach from your bed to place your phone on the nightstand, you hear that “ding” or “dong” or some other sound that lets you know you’ve got an e-mail.
You know you’re expected to respond to work e-mails as quickly as possible so you check to see if it’s from work. It is. And, it’s annoying.
You calm down a bit, apply the necessary thought work to reply appropriately and hit “reply all.” For the next one and one-half hours you hear lots of “dings” and “dongs” as the conversation grows in intensity and finally winds down close to midnight. By the time you settle down from thinking about the conversation and getting over how annoyed you feel, it’s almost 1:00 in the morning.
Has something like this ever happened to you?
If you have a management role, have you ever created such a situation for team members?
As leaders, a simple way to show team members that we care about them is to allow their time away from work to actually be time away from work. We should allow people to have social lives and family lives that are made more rich by being free from having to do, or even think about, work.
This is actually a win-win for both team members and the organization. There is a large body of research suggesting that allowing people to relax when they’re away from work boosts productivity during working hours.
Those of us who realize that effectively serving and caring for team members is essential for long-term, sustainable performance certainly want to allow team members to completely unplug while they’re away from work. However, actually doing this can be very challenging.
In an ideal world, we would strongly encourage team members to not work or think about work while they’re away, and we would make a rule that managers are not allowed to e-mail or otherwise contact team members before 8:00 a.m. or after 6:00 p.m. In fact, in France, such a rule has been set in place by the employers federations and unions.
However, in this era that combines more thought work, flexible hours, and smart phones, the boundaries between “work” and “life” are becoming increasingly blurred. In this era and beyond, I don’t believe black and white rules will ever be able to solve this work-life dilemma.
What we need are leaders who have a healthy relationship with their work, and their devices, who can model appropriate behaviors and encourage those behaviors in others. As with any other valued behavior, we can’t expect team members to behave a certain way if we don’t also behave that way.
This is one of the most crucial reasons leaders need to be engaged in at least a modicum of daily mindfulness training. Mindfulness training helps us to find a healthy balance between “work” and “life.”
With training, we can learn to allow thoughts about work to come and go if they need to while we’re “off duty” without allowing ourselves to pulled into distraction by those thoughts. We can still be fully present with family, or friends, or with ourselves.
Consistent mindfulness training also helps us to be more aware of our relationship to our devices. We are better able to notice to what degree we are addicted to our devices, compelled to react to them every five minutes or, like Pavlov’s dog, whenever there’s a “ding” or a “dong.” We are also better able to be fully present and intentional about when and how we respond to and use our devices, and thereby be more present with the person we’re with in a given moment.
Evidence of how important this issue has become to many is the rapid growth of a conference called Wisdom 2.0. The first Wisdom 2.0 conference — designed to help people find ways to live wisely in the digital age — was held in 2010. A little over 350 people attended that year. In 2015 over 2,000 people from over 20 countries attended the main conference and there will be three other Wisdom 2.0 events this year.
The degree to which we find a healthy blend between “work” and “life” and the devices that have become such a large component of both is the degree to which we help team members to find a healthy blend of their own. This is an important way to serve team members, our family and friends away from work, and the organizations in which we work.
How healthy is your relationship with your work?
How healthy is your relationship with your smart phone and other devices?
_____
Matt Tenney is a social entrepreneur, an international keynote speaker, and the author of Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom.
Image credit: https://www.livingfuel.com
Right Here In The U.S., Over 1 Million Rural Residents Don't Have Clean Water. Here's Who's Helping
More than 1 million Californians don’t have access to clean drinking water and it has nothing to do with the historic drought that’s been ravaging the state.
California’s severe drought, which entered its fourth year in October, has left communities distraught over cracked lakes and unusable houseboats. But in rural areas, more than 1 million residents have long been struggling to just get access to potable water due to inadequate infrastructure and contaminated water sources, according to nonprofit group Aqua4All.
The situation is so grave that many low-income families have no choice but to spend upwards of 10 percent of their incomes on bottled water, because drinking from a contaminated source can lead to cancer, thyroid problems and other serious health issues. Others resort to imbibing sweetened beverages, which are safe for consumption, but are loaded with sugar, which is of particular concern in California where the diabetes rate has increased by 35 percent in the last decade.
The water is usually so contaminated that residents can’t even cook or wash with it, according to the California Endowment.
The high-profile water shortage, however, has prompted lawmakers and advocacy groups to finally make supporting these strapped communities a priority.
The state’s first-of-its-kind Office of Sustainable Water Solutions, for example, will dedicate a portion of its staff to tackling the water crisis in underserved communities.
The unit will help them apply for state and federal funds to clean up their drinking water and provide improved access to treatment technologies, according to a statement released by Senator Kevin de Leon (D-Calif.).
The group will also help these communities better allocate funds for water systems upgrades and prevent local rate increases.
A number of nonprofit groups are working to provide immediate on-the-ground solutions.
Aqua4All, which launched in conjunction with a number of nonprofit groups, including Rural Community Assistance Corporation, is one such organization that’s bringing clean water systems to these struggling areas.
It kicked off in January by committing to bringing 120 water tap stations to parks, schools and health clinics in South Kern and Eastern Coachella, according to the California Endowment.
Residents can take a drink at these stations or fill up their bottles with perfectly safe drinking water. Each tap includes a certified filter that treats contaminated water.
While residents are relieved to finally see improvements after years of struggling, they say they’re surprised it took this long for it to happen.
“Ninety-nine percent of the population in Arvin buys bottled water,” Salvador Partida, president of the Committee for a Better Arvin, told Al Jazeera. “I’m amazed nobody was doing anything about it until now. A lot of people need to wake up.”
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The Apple Watch: Changing the Face of Time
These days, time seems to be in short supply.
Although manual tasks now take less of our time (thanks to time-saving devices), our calendars seem so very full. Although we measure time more precisely than ever, we seem to waste so much of it. And as we drive ourselves hard to save time and to be on time, we seem to get more and more impatient. Indeed, these days, many people seem really wound up.
With the imminent launch of the Apple Watch, it’s worth taking a bit of time to consider how such a radical new timekeeping device might affect the quality of our time — for the way we experience time and the stories we spin about time are deeply influenced by whatever technology we use to keep time and tell time.
In the distant past, when the only way to tell time was by checking our sundials, time was approximate. No one was sure exactly what time it was. Indeed, there was no precise time. Presumably, then, no one was uptight about being a few minutes late.
A great leap forward in timekeeping came with the invention of mechanical clocks, yet these did not become domestic devices until the 15th century. Then, in 1656, the invention of the pendulum clock gave timekeeping greatly enhanced accuracy. And that gave a huge boost to the idea that the universe itself is like a giant clock — precise, regular, metered and predictable.
This mechanistic model for the universe didn’t have much room in it for the human mind, for divine will, or for chance. But the metaphor sure did get stuck in our minds: to this day, we assume the world should run like clockwork.
Now, this month, we come face to face with the next great revolution in time.
The Apple Watch will likely give rise to some brand new time-related metaphors. Perhaps the days of our lives will no longer be like sands through the hourglass — we’ll just scroll through them. Maybe we will zoom in on the present moment, and then swipe our cares away. We certainly won’t have to tell time again: time will be told to us, by Siri.
Given that the watch is motion sensitive — the twist of an arm will close an app — perhaps we will learn to flick time away, to shake our fists at time or even to shake up time. Perhaps we will learn to conduct a symphony of time.
As the Apple Watch can sense biological systems and give us very precise physical signals, we will surely have apps that interact with the circadian rhythm — and all the other rhythms — of our bodies. This might make time seem more intimate and embodied — less distant or abstract.
This may encourage us to live more in personal time, disregarding what we once called the time. Thus time may become more subjective, even eccentric. (The watch will actually allow us to choose how we wish to visualize time: as an analog clock, a digital display or a contemporary evocation of a sundial.)
Perhaps time will bend and flow with our moods. Perhaps we will download designer times or celebrity times. Perhaps, with our watches constantly linked to social media, timekeeping will become timesharing. We might even choose to experience how it feels to walk awhile in someone else’s time.
Perhaps time will even go out of date. As life speeds up, and we approach the day when everything will be available in an instant, time just might not matter much anymore: there will be no gap between thought and manifestation.
Or perhaps time will become an even harsher taskmaster — our lives ruled by the beeps of iCal alerts, our watches pumping us up with designer stimulants, starting our cars and making sure we show up at work for yet another shift or meeting, no matter how we feel in the moment.
Of course, carrying so much information on our wrists might consume even more of our time, depleting our most precious resource. It might distract us ever more powerfully from real presence in the physical world, making it even more difficult for us to be in this moment, here, because we are constantly pulled to that moment, there.
One thing is certain: time is about to become even more connected to, and more embedded in, everything else we do.
This makes me wonder if we will ever again lose track of time. I wonder what will happen to that distinctly human pleasure of visiting those places in our minds that are blissfully far from time. Will the ability to escape time become a luxury — available only to those few people who can delegate timekeeping to others?
All that said, I am cautiously optimistic.
For in my work — teaching busy people how to use moments of meditation to reclaim time — I have realized that time itself is actually up to us. And my hope is that we are finally ready to face our personal choices about time.
The Apple Watch brings together many things — time, information, intention, physiology and user experience — into one small device. And whether we choose to wear one or not, its presence in our culture may finally convince us that these things were never actually separate: time was always in our minds, and the experience of time always involved consumer choice.
This was not so apparent when we lived by a clockwork model of the universe, where time was seen as objective and mechanical. The clockwork metaphor was perfect for the assembly lines and efficiency experts of the Industrial Revolution. Humans were powerless in the face of time. No wonder we became such victims of time and slaves to time: we were but cogs.
But as soon as we consider time as being more personal, more flexible and more participatory, we get a new opportunity: to play with time or even to dance with time.
In any case, my hope is that we are now entering the time in which we take personal responsibility for time. Let’s call it the era of conscious time.
In the era of conscious time, we use time for our own devices.
In the era of conscious time, we know that although technology can influence our experience of time, and can help us come to grips with time, it cannot save time or give us time — unless we are committed to using that time wisely.
Our challenge, therefore, is to make up our minds to use time mindfully — taking the time we need and giving our time, with greater discernment, to those things we really care about.
Most important, in the era of conscious time, we must also make time for the timeless. For as timebeings, we only really feel we have enough time when we lose ourselves in moments that are beyond time … or enjoy the time we have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8M2ALUXLBQ
Martin Boroson is the author of One-Moment Meditation: Stillness for People on the Go. He is a keynote speaker (“How to Have the Time of Your Life” and “10 Reasons to Invest in the Moment”) and runs leadership training programs in the power of one moment of focused attention for stress reduction, innovation and advanced time management. www.martinboroson.com
The One-Moment Meditation App for the Apple Watch, designed by DVMobile, will be released on April 24, 2015. In the meantime, you can download the free five-star app from iTunes or Google Play, or find out more about One-Moment Meditation® here.
Interview With the Etsy of the African Print Designer?
I have taken my time with this interview, because it is one I have been thrilled about, from the moment I was introduced to Uzuri closet. This fascinating start-up plans to offer designers, with a gift for transforming African Print Fabric into drool inducing fashion marvels.
Uzuri Closetdying from anticipation, so I can only imagine that you, my readers, and lovers of all things fabulous, must be convulsing from the excitement. Unfortunately, like the rest of us, you will have to wait to explore this shopping wonderland.
In the meantime, however, you can take a look at some of the pieces that will be available on their platform, and read my interview with the brilliant, kind, and patient, Mellanie Mfuh, Director of Operations for Uzuri’s Closet.
The team spent at least an hour with me on the phone the first time I reached out to them, I wanted to understand the Uzuri Closet vision, inspiration and goals, and boy did they open up to me.
Uzuri Closet will be a marketplace specifically for African Designers, allowing this new passionate, and talented group of emerging African artists to sell their work to a growing fan base. Their vision is really to recognize this community of talent and allow them to sell on a platform built by a team that believes in their vision.
Melanie Mfuh
Director of Operations, Uzuri’s Closet
Q-I love the idea of creating an Etsy ‘Like’ marketplace for African Designers, can you explain your vision for Uzuri’s closet?
Thank you! The concept behind Uzuri closet is to expose designers that use African prints in their designs. We love Africa and we are excited to show the world how beautiful it is through our unique prints for clothing and accessories.
Q-What inspired you to want to create Uzuri Closet?
Hmm, simply put, the love of fashion and the beauty of African Print Fabric!
Q-Do you love Fashion, did that have a role to play in your decision to create Uzuri Closet, and who are some of your favorite designers?
BERNAN instagram @Bernandoll
Yes! I believe everybody loves fashion, whether we realize it or not, we all express ourselves through our fashion sense. Some of my favorite designers are
Christian Siriano
Sean Kelly
BERNAN
Mimmy Yeboah
As you can see the simplicity and yet complexity of their designs from material to color choices to their designs! The world does not know the African designers Bernan and Mimmy Yeboah too well yet, but they do have a following on social networks.
Q-What does Uzuri mean?
Uzuri actually has the meanings “beauty” “goodness” “Beautiful” …It’s all positive things which is why we love the name. For us, the emphasis is on “Beautiful”. So Beautiful Closet or Uzuri Closet as we call it.
Q-When will Uzuri’s closet be up and running for those of us that are eager to start exploring your marketplace. Are you currently accepting designers?
Yes, we are! For now we sell through our social sites, facebook, instagram and twitter (@uzuricloset). The site should be up and running by late spring 2015. You can also reach us through email: shopuzuricloset@gmail.com
Q-Thank you for making time to chat with us, Melanie, did you have a 2015 resolution for your business?
For Uzuri closet we aim to work harder this year to get more designers to sell through our site and also to grab the attention of customers from everywhere.
And you have the support of a community that loves to support female entrepreneurs, and an editor with a questionable addiction to all things African Print Maxi Skirts!
To discover all things Uzuri Closet and to shop, visit them on their social platforms
Connect With Uzuri Closet on The Blog
Risk v. Reward: Finding the Right Balance for Digital Innovation
As a lawyer in the digital business world, I see every day that technology innovates far faster than the law can keep pace. Companies of all shapes and sizes – from startups to corporate giants, from new disruptors to old guard institutions, from local shops to global conglomerates – want to win new business by using digital innovations. As a result, lawyers like me are routinely asked to bless a new digital business plan or action as “legal.” Providing such certainty can be difficult, if not impossible. For any business to succeed in digital environments, the key is finding the right balance of risk and reward.
Breaking through risk does not mean breaking the law. As a lawyer, I have great respect for law and ethics, and believe all businesses should as well. But many laws were written well before the digital age, and technology will always move faster than law. So the legal system cannot fully predict how statutes, judicial thinking, regulators, and case precedent will apply to new technologies and business models. While all companies face risk, those who operate in the digital world face the added uncertainty of working in uncharted (or certainly, less charted) legal territory.
Risk v. Reward Factors
Legal uncertainty makes it harder to perform any reward vs. risk calculus to guide business decisions. For example, here are some typical factors considered:
On the risk side, the first factor – the chance and severity of possible legal or regulatory claims – heavily impacts all the other criteria down the line. When the law cannot give comfort on that first risk factor, companies must tolerate more discomfort in the rest of the calculus.
Not surprisingly, start-ups tend to be the most aggressive – especially in their early stages. By their nature, start-ups tend to disrupt existing industry models, create new markets, and push legal boundaries. That does not, however, mean start-up founders are unwilling to listen to the risk factors. Having spoken to many tech entrepreneurs, I can tell you the smartest ones will accept sound advice and alter their business plan to manage – though perhaps never fully eliminate – legal risk.
On the other end of the risk spectrum, established corporates make far safer calculations. They answer to more constituents, may be public companies, face greater scrutiny and rightfully need to proceed with caution. But institutional goliaths can still be innovative. I’ve seen large corporations build new revenue when they embrace digital platforms and products, experiment with technology applications, and try partnerships with digital enablers. Megacorps just take longer to act than start-ups, weigh the risk factors more cautiously, and often play with a longer horizon in mind.
Example #1: Online Gaming
Take for example the world of online gaming – where there is significant money to be made in the U.S. The American regulatory climate is slowly opening up, as 3 states now permit some form of intra-state Internet gambling. As this shift happens, I increasingly get asked to review business plans related to i-gaming. Ideas from start-ups are ambitious – with desire to launch online casinos, fantasy sports game variations, social games with in-game pay components, and games that appear to be quasi-gambling. Emerging companies want to build, launch and scale quickly.
Simultaneously, established goliaths are also exploring what role they can play in a U.S. online gaming market. But unless they are already the licensed operators of land-based casinos, big corporates are proceeding with extreme caution in this heavily regulated field. They wait to see which additional U.S. states may license online gambling and in what forms. They consider other ways to participate without being a gaming operator – such as licensing their brands and properties for someone else to develop and operate digital games. Or if they are publishers or Internet advertising providers, they explore taking advertisements from i-gaming operators.
Is all this i-gaming-related activity legal? As lawyers are prone to say: “It depends”; it depends on the exact activity and jurisdictions involved. Yet even with uncertainty, there is invariably some way to reduce risk enough for companies to feel comfortable proceeding. It may mean scaling back on a business approach and revenue expectations, or it may require changing course entirely. But the opportunities are too great for companies to simply ignore this sector merely because the law can be murky. Indeed, the U.S. online gaming market exemplifies the reward vs. risk calculus of innovation: new technology and new ideas are pushing companies to balance what risk is acceptable against potential reward.
Example #2: Data & Privacy
We can also see the risk vs. reward calculus in the world of data and privacy. A great power of digital technology is the ability to collect data from – and about – consumers. Data is gold, and provides mechanisms to target consumers with tailored advertising messages like never before. Established corporates want to collect and leverage consumer data just as much as start-ups. This triggers rightful concerns about protecting consumer privacy, giving people notice and choice about how their data is used or shared, and safeguarding security. And more often than not, marketing teams tend to be aggressive. They would rather collect more consumer data than less. They would rather track online and mobile user activity than not track. They would rather require consumers to opt-out of their desired marketing practices than get affirmative opt-in consent to start.
Again, no lawyers can bless as perfectly safe every new use of consumer data that companies want to pursue – because it’s rare that any innovation presents 0% legal risk. But the business opportunities are hard to ignore, so smart companies find a good balance. They know that pushing the envelope on data issues might create short-turn gains in customer acquisition or revenue – but could undermine public faith in the long run. They recognize the value in data targeting and sharing innovations, but must never lose sight of what they would tolerate as consumers themselves. They understand that just because something is “legal” does not make it “right” for generating customer trust or a good company reputation.
Finding the Right Balance
Ultimately, that’s where I think any calculus needs to end up. Even after examining all the logical factors, smart executives must ultimately trust their internal barometer for what feels “right.” Digital business innovators will always be envelope-pushers, actors in grey zones, and comfortable with discomfort. Success comes from finding the balance of managed risk that feels right for your enterprise.
In his law life, Jimmy Nguyen is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. The opinions expressed in this article are his own.
The Assembly Line Goes Digital
Source: Wikipedia
In 1913, Henry Ford developed the first assembly line for the production of an entire automobile. The time it took to build the vehicle was reduced from 12 hours to 2.5. The assembly line has changed, but the concept remains the same–specialization leads to efficiency. No longer, will you find production facilities that make a product from start to finish, now companies specialize in parts, repetition and efficiency being the key to their success and dominance in the ever competitive financial market.
Today’s products are no longer just physical, but virtual, with many assembly lines following suit. With the rise of the internet people can now collaborate on projects and produce products. Google Docs allows users to collaborate on word, excel, and PowerPoint documents. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk allows users to solicit workers or work doing what the company has termed Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs). Skyword and Contently allows freelance writers to advertise their services to publications. Kobra and Codebunk allow programmers across the globe to collaborate on the development of programs and software. Like never before, the internet has allowed for people to not only survive of one specialized skill but thrive.
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is built around the belief that some tasks are better accomplished by human input or require human input. The website allows the postings of what is often menial tasks, with menial compensation, that can be completed any time within specified time constraints. The platform takes advantage of the flexibility in the accomplishment of the work as well as currency disparities. While many citizens of developed countries would balk at the, “opportunity” to make a few cents to translate a page of text, those from less developed countries may find the deal reasonable or even luxurious.
Skyword and Contently allow for freelance writers to display their portfolios in the hopes of acquiring writing assignments from publications. Both companies act both as advertisers and escrow securing the funding for the assignment and delivering it only after verification of its completion. Both companies require that writers pass a screening process before being allowed to display their work on the companies’ platforms. This acts as quality control to the publications which the platforms desire to attract for their freelancers.
Kobra and Codebunk allow for collaborative projects amongst programmers. It records changes to code and coordinates it with the acting user. It allows for users to build on programs that already exists or create codes completely from scratch. The reality of programming is that most complex software requires collaboration. For this reason and a familiarity with the web, programming collaborative platforms were one of the first collaborative platforms to emerge.
In todays interconnected world, a team is only a computer away. Do not be burdened by lack of expertise, instead focus on the larger picture and the accession of desired resources.
Reddit Hopes Ending Salary Negotiations Will Help Women
Ellen Pao is still fighting.
Just weeks after losing a courtroom battle that highlighted tech’s glaring gender problems, Pao is trying to solve some of them closer to home: at Reddit, where she is interim CEO.
In an effort to promote gender diversity, Reddit is no longer negotiating salaries with potential hires, Pao told The Wall Street Journal. It was her first interview since losing a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers last month.
“Men negotiate harder than women do, and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate. So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates,” Pao told the WSJ. “We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation.”
More broadly, Reddit is trying to build a team that values diversity, and it’s working with diversity expert Freada Kapor Klein to find other ways to create an inclusive environment, Pao told the WSJ.
“We ask people what they think about diversity, and we did weed people out because of that,” she said.
Numerous studies suggest a disparity between men and women who haggle with employers about pay. Not only are men typically more likely to negotiate salaries than women, women are also penalized more than men when they do negotiate.
And when the conversation does turn to money, women are more likely to be judged for their social skills than for their competence, an issue that men rarely face.
Still, it remains to be seen how Pao’s mandate will work in practice.
“If you’ve got a talented female who has another offer from a competitor, are you really going to expect that they’ll take a big salary hit to come to your firm?” asked Malia Mason, a professor at Columbia Business School.
Pao sued Kleiner in 2012, alleging that it discriminated against her because of her gender and later retaliated by firing her. A jury voted in Kleiner’s favor on March 27, after a four-week trial, which delved deeply into Pao’s personal life and ultimately focused on her performance at work.
But the lawsuit against Kleiner, which was an early investor in Amazon and Google, renewed scrutiny on the overwhelming gender disparity in tech. Few women hold leadership roles at tech companies, and reports of sexual harassment and misogynistic behavior have plagued Silicon Valley for years.
Pao said she got messages of support from other women throughout the trial. One group of women in the tech industry, led by Lori Hobson, took out a full-page ad in the Palo Alto Daily Post that read, “Thanks Ellen.”
“If I have helped to level the playing field for women and minorities in venture capital, then the battle was worth it,” Pao said after the trial.
Snapchat Best Friends Are Back…As Emojis
We all remember the utter chaos that ensued when Snapchat abruptly took away the Best Friends feature in the app a few months ago. No more stalking; oh, the horror! Snapchat claimed it was necessary to protect usernames of high profile users who wanted their privacy. However, with headlines like “Snapchat update makes it easier to have affairs” and tumultuous uproar on Twitter and other social media, Snapchat quickly back tracked and promised to bring the feature back. With it’s latest update, Snapchat’s Best Friends feature is back, but in a very different way: emojis.
As explained in the Discover section of the app, the new UI shows you who you’re best friends with and who’s best friends with you, without showing you usernames of everyone’s best friends. Now, little emojis appear next to specific users to indicate their ‘best friend’ relationship to you. Snapchat decided to explain the emojis by using Beyonce as their example. So without further ado, here’s what those pesky emojis mean:
These Beeping Easter Eggs Allow Kids With Vision Loss To Get Egg-Static About The Hunt, Too
For kids who celebrate Easter, the egg hunt is one of best parts about the holiday.
So when David Hyche’s blind 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, was unable to participate in the tradition as a toddler nine years ago, he came up with a solution. Using just a few simple materials, Hyche created a beeping Easter egg for kids who have experienced vision loss. The plastic egg uses a 9-volt battery, battery clip, and beeper to emit a high-pitched noise that is activated by a switch.
Hyche used his creation to organize a “beeping Easter egg hunt” in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, in 2005. Since then, the event has grown to three annual hunts throughout Alabama, as well as hunts in at least six other states.
“This year was especially great,” Hyche told The Huffington Post. “The event has really picked up.”
The idea first developed when Hyche got in touch with the Blind Childrens Center in Los Angeles, who told him about their own beeping Easter egg hunt. Based on that concept, Hyche wanted to create something similar that was cheaper and more durable.
Hyche, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), is also a member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians & Investigators (IABTI). After making the first eggs in his garage, the IABTI offered to fund the project and help distribute the eggs — which cost about $12 to make — to groups across the country, free of charge.
“Every year we seem to add one or two states,” Hyche told HuffPost. “We’re grateful this has grown to reach so many kids.”
Though the eggs are especially popular at Easter time, some are used year-round in classrooms. The eggs can help teach location skills, and how to find items in a three-dimensional space.
Hyche says Rachel has now become one of the event’s top leaders. “She just throws down her cane and takes off,” he says. “It’s all about creating independence for these kids.”
7 Cyberlearning Technologies Transforming Education
The year was 1984 and in addition to the chalkboards and alphabet posters, our 2nd grade classroom was equipped with an odd, beige box at a table in the back behind the students. It was an Apple II computer and over the course of the year we’d learn how to operate it – mainly to make a turtle-shaped cursor shuttle across the screen.
We would get dedicated time to interact with the computer and, through trial-and-error and with a few tips from our teachers, I and hundreds of thousands of other students across America learned how to turn a turtle into a rocket ship or fill the screen with colors using a computer programming language called Logo on a platform that had less computing power than today’s microwaves.
Apple Logo II splash screen – Photo credit: Apple2history
Though they weren’t called it at the time, these were among the first “cyberlearning” technologies available to kids. Before they were mainstays in every home (and every pocket), many students in the 1980s and 90s were introduced to personal computers in the classroom.
Then, as now, teachers weren’t entirely sure what to do with these powerful, but inscrutable machines. Learning Logo was never going to help you do your taxes or build a bridge. It wasn’t intended to.
The language, and the computer itself, were there to instill what researchers today call “computational thinking” – a type of problem-solving method that uses insights from computer science to generate solutions to complex problems.
At home, in later years, my family had some of the earliest portable Compaq and Macintosh computers on which I learned to type and do arithmetic via simple video games.
Apple advertisement from 1985. From christianduke.tv
These were cyberlearning tools too. Unlike Logo, they didn’t ask me to think deeply about computers — the ways that I could manipulate them or the new opportunities they would open up. But the games allowed for self-paced learning outside of school and taught me skills that I use to this day.
I was brought back to these early experiences with cyberlearning technologies when I attended a series of talks last year hosted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) around the theme of “Designing Disruptive Learning Technologies“.
NSF funds basic cyberlearning research and since 2011 has awarded roughly 170 grants, totaling more than $120 million, to EdTech research projects around the country.
During that time, a lot of money has been invested in technology-enabled education by a lot of different stakeholders – public, private, philanthropic — and the results have been mixed. However, NSF’s approach to cyber-learning has been different.
“NSF funds compelling ideas, help test them and helps bring them to wider audiences,” said Janet Kolodner, who ran the Cyberlearning program at NSF from 2011 to 2014. “We’re interested in helping researchers envision the technologies that will impact learning in a decade and then assist them in transitioning the best ideas from research to practice. On top of that, we want to help scientists overcome the complexity of moving research ideas to real world use.”
The speakers in the lecture series, all leading cyberlearning scholars, represent the range of technologies, approaches and research practices being pursued today. They’re only a small fraction of the remarkable projects being developed and tested at universities across the U.S. – in education departments, computer science departments, robotics labs and even neuroscience departments – but together, they represent the forces transforming what education may look like in the future.
1. Classroom as Virtual Phenomenon: RoomQuakes and WallScopes
In the schools where Tom Moher works, classrooms are imbued with science through simulated earthquakes, virtual bugs in the walls and digital portholes to the solar system.
“I want to immerse students in the physical space and time of scientific phenomenon,” said Moher, an associate professor of Computer Science, Learning Sciences, and Education the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Sometimes I use the term ‘marinating’ the kids. Time affords me the opportunity for surprise. Nature happens when it happens, not just because it happens to be science period.”
HelioRoom simulates the orbital motion of the planets in the Solar system on a set of synchronized computer displays situated on the walls of the classroom, with planets “orbiting” around the periphery of the room.
In his talk at NSF, Moher showcased projects that use “embedded phenomena” to bring scientific processes into the classroom and to foster learning from those experiences.
One of the projects he described (supported by an award from the National Science Foundation) was RoomQuake, an earthquake simulation system where the classroom itself becomes an active seismic area.
At unpredictable times throughout the unit, rumbles emanating from speakers attached to simulated seismographs signal to the class that an earthquake is occurring.
With RoomQuake, the classroom itself becomes an active seismic area.
Students rush to terminals around the classroom, read the data from seismograms and use that information to determine the magnitude of the event, the distance of the event from the recording stations and eventually and the epicenter of the earthquake. Over the course of six weeks and dozens of earthquakes, students discover a “fault line” emerging.
Moher’s immersive learning experiences bring technological richness and narrative drama to the classroom. This is true not only of RoomQuake, but also HelioRoom, where students are asked to imagine that the sun is located in the center of their classroom, and Wallcology, where tablets adjacent to the walls of classrooms serve as viewports into an imaginary space inside the walls filled with the virtual fauna.
The projects also highlight the role of computing and data analysis in domains from seismology to astronomy.
Tablets adjacent to the walls of classrooms serve as viewports into an imaginary space inside the walls filled with the virtual fauna in Wallcology.
In Moher’s most recent project, HungerGames, students learn about animal foraging behaviors using stuffed animals with embedded RFID tags that act as tangible avatars to represent their foraging among patches of food (with camouflaged RFID readers) distributed around a classroom.
During a two-period pilot enactment of the unit, Moher and his team demonstrated the feasibility of the design for classroom use, finding evidence of emotional relationships between learners and avatars, and the emergence of unanticipated behaviors that promoted new questions about the science phenomena. The results provisionally support the effectiveness of the activity as a science learning environment.
Moher’s team presented their results at the Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction.
Whether it’s students peering into a secret insect habitat or rushing to locate the epicenter of an earthquake, “the kids and teachers are our willing accomplices,” Moher said.
“It’s their imagination, along with a little bit of technology, that brings the room alive.”
2. Games for Good: Learning While You Play
Interactive web-based projects like Galaxy Zoo and Fold.it are compelling examples of how games can engage thousands of learners in citizen science — and even lead to scientific discoveries.
But what does it take to foster learning in the midst of such enthusiastic engagement? And how can video games be used effectively in a school setting?
Image from the puzzle-solving game, Progenitor X. Courtesy of Games+Learning+Society.
Kurt Squire is a professor in digital media in curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of Games+Learning+Society. In his lab, developers with more than 120 years of combined experience create games for learning based on everything they know about how people absorb content and what makes video games special and fun.
Then, they ask students to test the games, monitoring their clicks and mouse movements (and sometimes even their brain activity) to determine how players interact with the game, and whether these interactions lead to engagement and learning. Based on the response, they change the game to make it more effective.
Besides captivating students, video games can let players explore and experiment in a virtual environment to deepen their understanding and apply what they are learning.
For example, in the game “Citizen Science,” created by Squire and his team, players help restore Lake Mendota, a real lake in Wisconsin that, in the year 2020, has become polluted. As players explore the landscape, they take water samples, interact with a virtual, simulated watershed and talk with stakeholders.
“We think everyone should have the experience of using science to make a difference in the world,” explains Squire. “So, in ‘Citizen Science,’ you talk to local stakeholders about important issues, make observations, collect evidence and make arguments based on evidence for the future of your watershed.”
Interaction with a virtual stakeholder in the cyberlearning game, “Citizen Science”. Courtesy of Games+Learning+Society.
Citizen Science is unique in that it is built in close collaboration with Robert Bohanan and Steve Carpenter of the NSF-funded Long Term Ecological Research Center on North Temperate Lakes. Although simplified, “Citizen Science”‘s model is accurate enough to be used in graduate school courses.
Games like “Citizen Science” are designed to help students learn subject matter content and develop critical learning skills while still having fun, but “as good as ‘Citizen Science’ is,” Squire admitted, “few would confuse it for a commercial entertainment game or play it outside of school.”
In response to this need for a game that might reach even broader audiences, Squire and colleagues created Progenitor X, a zombie-themed tissue engineering game.
In Progenitor X, players learn about the relationships between cells, tissues, and organs while trying to survive a zombie invasion.
The scientific concepts at the center of the game are part of the core biology science standard taught from middle school to college.
Progenitor X also takes a further leap into the future to explore potential advances in regenerative medicine and medical device engineering that are currently being studied in the laboratory setting.
As a member of The Progenitor X Defense Force, you are a part of a highly trained squad of scientists who use highly advanced bio-medical technology to locate, seek out, and treat infected humans to contain the threat. Courtesy of Games+Learning+Society.
For instance, using principles from stem cell research, players develop a basic understanding of the process by which adult human skin cells can be reprogrammed to become one of over 200 different human cell types. The scientific content of Progenitor X is based on research being conducted at the Morgridge Institute for Research and the Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
By exploring data gleaned from users playing the game, they have identified patterns in play within and across players (using data mining and learning analytic techniques) and have developed statistical methods for testing hypotheses related to content models.
“These projects are not only using technologies that only recently became possible. They also build on decades of excellent research on how people learn,” said Chris Hoadley, the program officer at NSF who leads the Cyberlearning program. “I believe it’s only by advancing technology design and learning research together that we’ll be able to imagine the future of learning.”
[In case you think all of Squire's work involves a gloomy outlook, he's also taken up the Dalai Lama's challenge to developers to create a video game that promotes mindfulness. His group's effort, Tenacity, is currently under development.]
3. Teaching Tykes to Program: Never Too Young to Control a Robot
Playgrounds are popular spaces for young children to play and learn. They promote exploration of the physical environment and the development of motor and social skills, allowing young children to be autonomous while developing core competencies.
Playpens, by contrast, corral children into safe, confined spaces. Although they are mostly risk-free, there is little opportunity for exploration and imaginative play.
From a developmental perspective, the playground promotes a sense of mastery, creativity, self-confidence, social awareness and open exploration, while the playpen hinders the development of these traits.
“We’re trying to develop technologies to get us as close as we can to the metaphor of the playground,” said Marina Umaschi Bers, professor of Computer Science and Child Development at Tufts University, director of the DevTech research group and author of Designing Digital Experiences for Positive Youth Development: From Playpen to Playground.
Dancing with KIWI robots. Courtesy of the DevTech Research Group at Tufts University.
Many are familiar with Bers through her work on ScratchJr. – a programming language where even students who are too young to read and write can put together actions in a sequence to create interactive stories, games and animations.
Last June, with NSF support, Bers and her colleagues released ScratchJr. as a free app for children 5 to 7. (A Kickstarter campaign in May raised $75,000 to adapt the app for Android and iPad.) As of February 2015, ScratchJr. had more than 500,000 downloads world-wide.
Speaking at NSF, Bers described her latest project, the KIWI robotic kit (subsequently renamed KIBO), which teaches programming through robotics, without screens, tablets, or keyboards.
Using KIBO, students scan wooden blocks to give robots simple commands, in the process learning sequencing, one of the most important skills for early age groups. By combining a series of commands, kids make