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.
Apple Releases iTunes 11.3.1 Podcasts Fix
Apple has quietly released a minor update to iTunes aimed at helping resolve some lingering problems with Podcasts for some users. The new iTunes 11.3.1 update is available now for Mac through the Mac App Store (check under Updates) or you can download it from the iTunes site. If you are a iTunes user on PC, you can use the Apple Software update app to get the latest update. Functionally, this update is identical to the iTunes 11.3 update in July. All this update does is address an issue that some users where having with Podcasts. Specifically, Apple states Tunes
The post Apple Releases iTunes 11.3.1 Podcasts Fix appeared first on AlliOSNews.
NFL Now App Launches for iOS
The National Football League pre-season is underway and the NFL wants fans to have a great experience no matter where they happen to be: Home, Work, Stadium or on-the-go. Today the NFL Now app has launched in the app store and it brings all the action of the NFL and your favourite team to your iPhone or iPad. The app isn’t a streaming app but rather a repository of content and video to help you enjoy the NFL experience more than just simply watching the game itself. But, with the NFL Now Plus in-app purchase you can get real time
The post NFL Now App Launches for iOS appeared first on AlliOSNews.
From Whale Songs to the Beatles: Computer Analysis of Musical Styles
Dr. Eric Schulman proposed the contention that “the purpose of science is to get paid for doing fun stuff if you’re not a good enough programmer to write computer games for a living.” I disagree with that statement. Science can be a good reason to do fun stuff also for those who have decent programming skills.
I have always had high interest in music and art, but unfortunately I am not creative or talented enough to actually create them. Being well aware of my limitations, I took the typical career path of those who really like something but are not so good at it: I went into criticism. But instead of becoming a critic myself, I developed an algorithm that turns the computer into an art and music critic, being able to analyze visual art such as pieces by Pollock and Van Gogh, or music such as that of the Beatles.
As in so many other research projects, the result was quite different from the initial objective, which was to analyze the vocal communication of whales. Many species of whales communicate by producing vocal messages that travel long distances underwater, but the nature of these calls is not well understood. To analyze large databases of whale sounds, I developed, with a graduate student, Carol Yerby, a computational method that “learns” and classifies different sounds made by whales. The calls were annotated manually by thousands of volunteers through a project called WhaleFM and then analyzed by our algorithm to map the different calls made by the whales. The algorithm works by extracting from each sound sample a comprehensive set of numerical descriptors reflecting the audio data, and then applying pattern recognition and statistical methods to analyze these numerical values and measure the similarity between each pair of sound samples.
When we asked the computer to visualize the similarities between the sounds of the different whales, we noticed something interesting. The dialects of whales that live in the same geographic locations where more similar to each other than to those of whales living in other locations. The results were consistent for both killer whales and pilot whales. So the algorithm showed that whales, just like humans, have different accents based on the geographic location they live in.
Vocal communication of whales sounds like songs whales sing to each other. So if our algorithm was able to analyze songs made by whales, we started to wonder how well it could analyze songs made by humans. The intersection between computing and the humanities is one of my research interests, so it just made sense to give it a try.
Together with graduate student Joe George, we started to explore how the audio-analysis algorithms could be used to analyze music. We applied the algorithm to the studio albums of several well-known popular music bands, and naturally we started with the Beatles. Surprisingly, the computer sorted the Beatles albums by their chronological order, although it did not have any information about them other than the audio data. So by just “listening” to the music and analyzing all albums, the algorithm was able to determine which album was released before which. It even identified that the songs on Let It Be were recorded before those on Abbey Road, although Let It Be was released later.
In a similar way we tested several other bands, such as ABBA, Queen, and U2, and the algorithm was able to deduce the chronological order of the albums automatically. In the case of U2, the algorithm detected just a mild change in the band’s musical style during the late ’80s and early ’90s. For Queen the algorithm sorted the albums in almost perfect chronological order, but it also automatically separated Hot Space and subsequent albums from the previous albums, which agrees with the band’s shift from their ’70s musical style to their ’80s sound.
One band that we were not able to analyze was Led Zeppelin. The algorithm was not able to produce anything sensible by analyzing the albums of that band, and it seemed that for the algorithm each album was a world in itself, separated from the other albums. For more recent music we attempted to analyze the studio albums of Taylor Swift, but the computer just clustered the albums together, without identifying musical differences between them. We used that experiment as a negative control, but our attempt to study modern music was terminated rather prematurely, after my student refused to perform analysis of the albums of Justin Bieber.
The main purpose of the algorithm was to provide a way of studying music in a quantitative fashion, but such algorithms might eventually have some practical uses, such as music discoverability. In the era of big data, computers will help by searching huge music databases and identifying the music we are likely to enjoy but would not have otherwise known about. When these algorithms become sufficiently smart, they will complete the transformation of the music-consumption culture, providing equal opportunity to all musicians to make their work accessible to their target audience without necessarily signing a contract with a mighty music label or making their way into radio station playlists.
Online game maker Zynga cuts outlook
Online game maker Zynga cuts its outlook for 2014 as its losses continue to widen, and due to delayed launch of new games and features.
'Virgins Wanted' At NYC Film Festival
Nothing arouses controversy like a movie about a man and a woman auctioning off their virginity.
A documentary called “Virgins Wanted” purportedly tells the true story of what happened in November 2012, when Catarina Migliorini and Alex Stepanov attempted to sell the rights to their first sexual experience. The documentary makes its U.S. debut Aug. 14 at the Chain NYC Film Festival.
The film’s premiere marks the end of a six-year effort for filmmaker Justin Sisely, who organized the auction. In the process, he discovered that auctioning off a person’s virginity is not easy to do.
“Women who want to auction their virginity see it as a quick and easy way to make a lot of money,” Sisely told The Huffington Post. “However, this is not the case. It took me almost three years to find bidders prepared to pay large amounts money for a girl’s virginity.”
When Sisely wasn’t struggling with Migliorini’s visa problems, he had to contend with legal threats from Brazil’s attorney general, who threatened him with sex trafficking charges if Migliorini went through with the “deal.”
The Brazilian-born Migliorini allegedly received a winning bid of $780,000 for her virginity from a Japanese man known as “Natsu,” while Stepanov was offered a paltry $2,600 from a 43-year-old Australian woman named “Kasandra Darlinghurst.” Stepanov was initially offered $3,000, but turned that down when he learned the bidder was male.
In the film, Darlinghurst explains that she chose to purchase Stepanov’s virginity more out of mercy than lust.
“I just feel like he shouldn’t be just losing his virginity for money,” she said. “He should lose it because he really wants to, whether that’s a one-night stand or a relationship.”
The film being showed at the festival is actually four episodes of what has been turned into a six-part reality series.
Sisely said the series is being shopped to TV networks around the world, and there are a few U.S. outlets that have expressed interest in showing the series.
Chain NYC Film Festival director Kirk Gostkowski was unfamiliar with Sisely’s controversial virgin auction when he first saw the film.
“I actually thought it was a romantic comedy,” he said. “But I was impressed. It’s extremely fascinating. If the people in this film are acting, they deserve Academy Awards.”
The Huffington Post has not seen the completed film, but the summary on the film festival website suggests that Stepanov initially developed a crush on Migliorini and tried to talk her out of selling her virginity and have a real romance.
Instead, Migliorini chose to go through with the auction.
The film’s key scenes revolve around the first meeting between Migliorini and Natsu. She has long maintained that no sex took place and has previously claimed that she decided not to lose her virginity via the auction because she felt Sisely misled her and tried to defraud her.
She also alleges that when she went to meet the mysterious “Natsu” at a restaurant in Sydney, Australia, he didn’t match the description Sisely gave her.
Sisely admits he was just as shocked when the alleged Japanese millionaire showed up.
“Natsu was a shock to all of us. We were prepared for someone different as you can see in the documentary,” he said. “Despite who Natsu was, Catarina’s fate was in her own hands. Catarina handled the situation extremely poorly and it cost her everything.”
Sisely has not spoken with Migliorini since filming completed around the end of 2012.
“I am looking forward to the series airing so people can see what really happened,” he told HuffPost.
Since filming ended, Migliorini has attempted to capitalize on her fame in Brazil by holding a second virgin auction and, when that didn’t work, creating a “Bachelorette”-type reality show.
Neither project has panned out. Sisely says he isn’t surprised.
“Catarina made a lot of false accusations and it has become apparent that she is unsuccessful at many things,” he said. “I think people generally get what they deserve.”
Sisely has a better relationship with Stepanov, the male virgin.
“I speak to Alex occasionally to see how he is,” Sisely said. “He was working in hospitality and living on his own the last time I spoke to him.”
This is an improvement for Stepanov, who reportedly agreed to sell his virginity as a way to combat social anxiety he said was so severe that it prevented him from attending college classes.
“I tried to concentrate on the project and see what it brings me because, at the end of the day, I thought, ‘I’m just going to do the thing and when it’s going to be too hard, I’m just going to pull out.’”
Although Sisely’s Virgins Wanted website continues to get submissions from other interested virgins hoping to cash in on their sexual experiences, he has no plans to stay in the virgin auction business.
“I am tackling suicide in my next feature documentary series,” he said.
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VIDEO: How the Panama Canal was built
BBC News tells the story of the construction of one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
One million on 'superfast broadband'
More than a million people in the UK now have superfast broadband speeds, according to the government.
The world is not enough
The virtual tech giving the physical world a makeover
Three Strategies for Promoting Mcommerce via Your App
Morgan Stanley analysts have projected that by 2015, mobile Internet usage will surpass its desktop counterpart, and according to eMarketer, sales in global mobile commerce (m-commerce) will easily exceed $100 billion by 2017. As a result, merchants aiming to increase m-commerce sales are continuously opting for mobile app solutions. While apps that exclusively function as ecommerce platforms traditionally drive revenue, savvy marketers are also using branded apps to promote sales, build brand loyalty, and drive customer engagement.
There are a number of different approaches you can take to promoting mcommerce within your mobile app, but here are three approaches to consider:
1. Freemium Economy. A portmanteau of the words “free” and “premium,” the phrase refers to apps that are free to download and use but require payment to acquire additional in-app perks. Business analyst firm App Annie released a report indicating that 98% of Google Play’s income in May came from freemium apps – illustrating just how lucrative this method can be. Gaming apps like Candy Crush use this approach, often enticing users with a free game that delivers a great user experience and then offering additional services – extra lives, boosters, etc. – for a charge.
Many well-known productivity and communication apps work on this principle as well. Dropbox offers users an initial amount of storage space for free and the option to purchase additional gigabytes when they need more room. Scale is important when setting the price: WhatsApp, the messaging subscription service, charges a dollar a year after the free first year, but with 450 million users, that’s more than enough.
2. Social networking. This approach functions to leverage social influencers to drive m-commerce and is especially effective for brands that are focused around a niche audience. Our work with the VigorWay app is a great example – it’s a social network for health & fitness enthusiasts, providing a platform where they can share adventures and connect with other like-minded people. Once users feel well-connected with the community, they’re more than likely to buy additional items that are sold through the platform.
Our team also developed Pippit, a beautiful mobile community that bridges blogging with social media and aims to transform how people share and find what they love. The app lets users follow their favorite bloggers, friends and brands all while being able to share personal blog posts, photos and videos. Like VigorWay, Pippit helps users discover new content and allows social influencers to tag where products can be purchased. .
3. Simplified purchasing. The third approach borrows a page from Amazon’s book and makes it as simple as possible for users to buy products. This strategy is based on delivering a seamless purchasing experience, ideally giving users the opportunity to view highly relevant content and purchase items with just one click.
CoffeeTable, an iPad app, is a platform we helped build that delivers a simplified purchasing experience that drives m-commerce. The CoffeeTable app turns your tablet into a virtual coffee table, and since it’s digital, no logistics costs are involved in delivering catalogs. The app tracks browser behavior, helping users discover similar and relevant items, which they can then purchase seamlessly in an expressway.
Apps are a powerful way to drive m-commerce, even if they don’t primarily function as an ecommerce app. With the right strategy, you can use your brand’s app to accurately target customers, track user behavior and deliver more relevant offers, all while providing users with a useful and intuitive user experience.
Heartbroken Dad Asks Reddit To Transform His Son's Photo, Immediately Gets His Wish
Reddit has won our hearts yet again.
About a month after Redditors helped a grieving dad Photoshop a picture of his infant daughter, the online community has rallied once more to help another parent with a similar request.
“My son passed away a few years ago after two short weeks in the hospital and I have no pictures of him without all of the tubes,” user Jstefut wrote on the social news site on Wednesday. “I saw a father make this same post and was amazed by the response. If anyone can remove the tubes from this photo, I would be extremely grateful.”
Several Redditors immediately rose to the challenge. Within a few shorts hours, the Redditor saw his wish fulfilled.
The Photoshopped image above, created by Reddit user William Gates, has been the favorite so far. “I simply saw an opportunity to help someone and took it,” Gates told the Daily Dot, adding that he’s fulfilled several Photoshop requests from Redditors in the past.
In a follow-up post Wednesday, Jstefut, who claims to have never used Reddit before this request, thanked the online community for its efforts and thoughtfulness.
“To everyone on here, I want to thank you for the kind words and for all the different pictures you’ve made,” he wrote. “It’s so great to see a community just taking time out of there [sic] day to help someone else and show them love. I’ve tried to thank message everyone who’s made a pic so far personally, but if I’ve missed you so far just know I appreciate you and I will try to talk to you soon.”
“Everyone, just try to surround yourself with love,” Jstefut concluded.
Last month, Nathen Steffel asked Reddit community members if they could help Photoshop a picture of his late daughter, who had died after a long battle in the hospital.
“Since she was in the hospital her whole life we never were able to get a photo without all her tubes. Can someone remove the tubes from this photo?” Steffel asked.
Reddit gladly obliged, and the result — as it is in Jstefut’s case — was astounding. “I was emotionally taken back by all the support and personal messages from families who shared a similar experience of grief,” Steffel told The Huffington Post at the time.
Oh, Reddit. Sometimes you really knock it out of the park.
Black Twitter Calls Out Associated Press For Renisha McBride Tweet, And It's Spot On
The Associated Press is usually known for its journalistic integrity, but the news outlet’s framing of a murder conviction has drawn outrage on social media. And, as is common with Black Twitter, much of that criticism was funny, ironic, lightning fast, and given its own hashtag: #APHeadlines.
Theodore Wafer was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter Thursday in Detroit for the shooting death of Renisha McBride. McBride, 19, had been in an accident several hours before she died on Nov. 2. When she appeared on Wafer’s porch in a Detroit suburb and banged on his door at 4:30 a.m., she was injured, highly intoxicated, unarmed and potentially looking for help. She died when Wafer shot her in the face through his locked screen door.
After the verdict was announced, the AP tweeted this update:
MORE: Suburban Detroit homeowner convicted of second-degree murder for killing woman who showed up drunk on porch: http://t.co/parUipYRxw
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 7, 2014
However, many saw emphasizing McBride’s drunkenness as a unfair way to present the story.
@AP why does this sound sympathetic and victim blaming please ??
— BUTWHEREARETHEGIRLS? (@ChiMo___) August 7, 2014
The AP shared the story again, rewording the new tweet to take out reference to McBride’s intoxication.
Jury convicts Michigan man in killing of unarmed woman on his porch (rewords language from previous tweet): http://t.co/2nyobBY4Fx
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 7, 2014
But that can’t stop a hashtag. Thus, #APHeadlines was born, and plenty of other … unexpected ways of framing news stories emerged, with tweets mocking the AP’s alleged victim-blaming in reimagined views of history.
Like if Hurricane Katrina was instead thought of as a real estate opportunity for the people of New Orleans:
The poor of New Orleans leave their cramped apartments to wait out hurricane in spacious Superdome #APheadlines
— sharon (@skrspooky) August 7, 2014
Or if slave traders generously gave away free vacations:
#APHeadlines millions of Africans complain after free cruise to the Americas; slave traders find them ‘ungrateful’ pic.twitter.com/EolDxEiz4Y
— W.E.B DemBois (@Phil_Cosby_) August 7, 2014
And if school shootings were kids’ faults:
Students across America steal bullets from reasonable gun owners, hide them internally. #APHeadlines
— LOLgical Jordon (@dyrbert) August 7, 2014
If Martin Luther King Jr.’s death wasn’t an assassination:
BREAKING: Stray bullet strikes uppity negro speechifying on balcony #APHeadlines
— Joe Black (@joeblackzw) August 7, 2014
If Jesus died because he wasn’t in good enough shape:
Homeless blasphemer from low-income Nazarene family, low on stamina, fails to survive crucifixion. #APHeadlines
— Marissa Jackson (@LaToubabNoire) August 7, 2014
And many, many more.
Officers Provide Impromptu Pet Therapy To Calm Violent Teen Mob #APHeadlines pic.twitter.com/US8Xh5gPME
— CJ (@LowKeyLeftE) August 7, 2014
Children flee tourist locations in Latin America in hunt for government handouts and comfy beds in deportation centers. #APHeadlines
— Carolyn Martinez (@CMartinezClass) August 7, 2014
Firemen cool teens off. Providing relief from the Suns hot rays. #APHeadlines pic.twitter.com/NOHbmQQisb
— DJ QUEEN (@THEDJQUEEN) August 7, 2014
RT @AP How Ted Wafer’s porch is the real victim. #APHeadlines
— Detroit O (@BlameOtis) August 7, 2014
#APHeadlines LAPD helping out Negro civilian after his car stopped pic.twitter.com/gYgbtjfdkj
— Clayton Pea (Zulu) (@ZuluPeabody) August 7, 2014
#APHeadlines Philanthropic millionaire innocently requests immigration paperwork of Taliban affiliated President
— ❤Mina_Mosley❤ (@DSTBlaze) August 7, 2014
Heroic Neighborhood Watch Volunteer Spares Minority Youth From Pain Of Adulthood Disappointments With Gun #APHeadlines
— Zandar (@ZandarVTS) August 7, 2014
Black people suffer mass delusion that they deserve basic human decency and respect. #APHeadlines
— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) August 7, 2014
Beyond Twitter hashtags, McBride’s death also incited conversations about race and media bias, the lack of value black women have in society and disparities in the criminal justice system. This latest Black Twitter response highlights those issues in a way the community has often done in the past like the #DangerousBlackKids that took off after the verdict in the Jordan Davis case was announced. Although the tweets may be rooted in humor, they drive home a powerful point.
Baggage Culture and Why Embracing Transhumanism Doesn't Come Easy
Twenty years ago, while in college and wondering why everyone else in the world wasn’t hell-bent on trying to live indefinitely via the promising fields of transhumanist science, I began working on the idea of what mass culture is and if it was holding back people from wanting to maximize their lifespans and human potential. I came up with the concept baggage culture, which is explored in detail in my novel The Transhumanist Wager and its philosophy Teleological Egocentric Functionalism (TEF).
Upon the request of my friends at Movement for Indefinite Life Extension (MILE), I recently condensed my thoughts on baggage culture in my speech at the Brighter Brains Future of Emotional Health and Intelligence Conference at University of California, Berkeley. Here’s a summary of that recent talk:
For many thousands of years now, the human race has been indoctrinated to submit to orthodoxy and to cower before authority, and to swallow endless nonsense from both. We have been brainwashed to sacrifice our innermost desires, our most obvious needs, our most natural outlook on reality, just to live as a hostage in a cage of carefully regulated and fabricated cognitive existence. Virtually everyone and everything–our countries, customs, faiths, leaders, relatives, friends, lifestyles, even our own memories–have been manipulating and pressuring us to shun fresh, unconventional thoughts. Especially transhuman-oriented thoughts. There has been a pervasive worldwide moratorium on thinking about what the human being is capable of and its possible evolutionary advancement in terms that make a substantial difference in reality.
Why has this happened? To transhumanists, the reason is obvious: We–the people of the world–have allowed it to happen. Each of us is guilty for not heeding a higher calling: a more logical, more ambitious, more sublime direction for our life, and a journey to our best self. Our great flaw is the mistaken way in which we choose to interpret existence; our subscription and obedience to the cultural constructs that government, organized religion, ethnic heritage, mega-corporations, and mass media have built around, and within, nearly every thought and action we make. Their web of indoctrination has wholly swamped our lives. Sadly, most of us don’t even know this has happened. Most of us are living on this planet in utter delusion, conforming to a largely manufactured and forced reality.
Throughout our lives and modern history, civilization has erroneously subscribed to the vision that the human being is a marvelous, ingeniously assembled specimen of life: a work of divine creation and sweeping beauty, whose culture and intellect is profound like the cosmos itself. What a joke. The cruel truth is we are a frail, hacked-together organism living within a global culture of irrationality, pettiness, and deception. The specific reason our existing human culture is so malformed is that, throughout history, past cultural constructs of more primitive societies were not discarded as they became irrelevant or outdated. To survive, it was not evolutionarily required to rid ourselves of unnecessary idiosyncrasies and practiced customs–such as nonsensical superstitions, masochistic religiosity, and shackling morality–even though they were foolish to uphold. As a result, damaging, wasteful, and useless behavioral patterns were passed on both socially and individually from generation to generation.
So now, modern humans are a weighed-down species, burdened by cumbersome past rubbish that’s mostly crudely stacked, obsolete cultural constructs through which our minds perceive reality. I call this baggage culture. And it’s caused nearly all human life to be degenerate and apathetic compared to what it could be. Our species’ mindset and powers of perception are currently too lumbering and unfit for what a sophisticated, nimble entity really needs of itself. Our lives are cursed because of the polluted cultural prism our thoughts must exist within and communicate through. In Sisyphean tragedy, we are doomed to grovel, to falter, to repeat our same pathetic mistakes, day after day, year after year, century after century. We need to transition from our defective culture into a new one that directly confronts these issues and sets our minds and transhuman possibilities free.
The twisted history of our baggage culture extends back many millennia. It started long ago with the inception of civilization, when charismatic leaders and ruling clans began forming permanent communities. Over time, these rulers learned they could preserve their platforms of power by controlling their communities’ thinking and behavioral patterns. Their agendas were simple: dominate with fear through violence; stifle revolutionary and freethinking ambitions; teach adherence to leadership and community before self; implement forms of thought and behavioral control that encourage social cooperation and production, such as communal customs, prayers, taboos, and rites. Variations abounded, but these were the early convoluted versions of human culture and its main intent: to control. Henceforth, culture’s core function became a means of forcing conformity, to transform the individual into a tool of submission and production for the ruling elite.
As generations passed, these rulers and their predecessors continually revised and enlarged their constructs of culture, force-feeding the functional and nonfunctional–rational and irrational–parts to our forbears. Naturally, it didn’t take long in evolutionary terms before people everywhere existed within a universal baggage culture, full of compounded dysfunction. Of course, in modern times, control of human culture has changed hands from the ruling elite to whole governments, religious institutions, multicontinent ethnic groups, and most recently, to mega-corporations and mass media. As the complexities and population of the world ballooned, baggage culture continued to prove versatile and useful to whatever cause it engaged. Nations governed through it. Religions preached through it. Ethnic groups taught their heritages through it. Big business sold through it. And the media communicated through it.
To cement their authoritarian agendas, these supersized institutions’ advancing baggage culture implemented ever more effective methods of control over society. Chief and most potent amongst them was the inversion of reason, where cultural forces obliged us to rationally accept the irrational. By corrupting the rational way we thought and interpreted life, they simultaneously corrupted the necessity and power of reason altogether. In that devious way, mysticism, ancestral divinity, the supernatural, religion, and even the institutions’ all-important puffed-up selves were seen as valid outcomes of a supposedly sensible, straightforward, and successful society.
Among many others, altruism, filial piety, and consumer addiction to unnecessary materialism were other methods of control. However, to transhumanists, the most grotesque of all the methods was the perpetuation of fear in our lives; not by the threat of violence, but by implicit guilt. This powerful psychological addiction of worrying about what others think of us, and about what is socially acceptable to others, has been systematically instilled in humans for thousands of years, perpetrated by every world religion, ethnicity, and government. Its aim is to weaken people’s wills and to silence their most precious independent tool: the ability to freely, guiltlessly, and publicly judge and criticize the world around them. In that way, people became afraid to pick apart others and their behaviors; afraid to deride society and its routines; afraid to upend their own world and circumstances; and, ultimately, afraid to differentiate between good and evil, utility and irrationality, strength and weakness, equal and non-equal–essentially all value itself. Such pervasive social control through the fear of others’ opinions has left us meek, ashamed, and largely unwilling to openly question or challenge a thing like the omnipresent state. Or our sacred heritages. Or the rife sense of needing to be wealthier than our neighbors. Or our supposedly sinless and perfect gods. The spicy, troublesome, confrontational bigot in us is often our best and most useful part, and they have strangled it out of most of us in the guise of what they call “open-mindedness” or “politically correct social behavior.”
Ultimately, implicit guilt and culture’s many other devices of submission are designed to make us totally subscribe to one single concept: we should be afraid to rise to being as powerful an entity as we can; we should be afraid to try to become an omnipotent God. That is the essence and outcome of our baggage culture.
The truth is so simple to see once we understand it: Religion, ethnic heritage, state power, material addiction, and media entrapment are nothing more than pieces of an intangible psychological construct designed to keep us thinking and living a certain way. It’s designed to keep us in fear of becoming as powerful as we can be; to keep us producing for others and contributing to their overall gain, and not our own.
Today, our species’ baggage culture is a gargantuan mindless monster, consuming and dominating everything it can. Even its main pushers–the overarching institutions–can’t control it anymore; instead, they always find it controlling and devouring them. There’s no escape from the confusion and redundancy anymore, from the vestigial aspects of stacking useless cultural constructs upon each other. If you think one tailbone in the human body is pointless, imagine a hundred of them weighing you down. Figuratively, that’s what baggage culture looks like. Many of our thoughts are piles of ignorance and erroneous ideas stacked upon piles of ignorance and erroneous ideas. We are unable to think freely and escape our slovenly, derelict pasts.
This, sadly, is baggage culture. And it’s the primary reason we don’t demand more of our lives and of our possible transhumanist future.
Top 5 Ways Brands Can Shape the DIY Phenomenon
From the big global players to the emerging online brands, everyone wants in on the DIY phenomenon. But it’s the brands that go beyond product customization to embrace the creativity of the world around them in the most relevant ways that will win.
1. Drive culture
Last year our global Cultural Traction study showed that Apple was struggling to keep up with the cultural conversation and losing its vibrancy. But if it’s recent acquisition of Beats by Dr Dre and its latest TV campaign ‘Stickers’ are anything to go by, Apple is reconnecting with the world around its brand. The ad features the MacBook Air customized with various clever pop-culture references from Breaking Bad to Snow White and everyone’s favorite cartoon dad – Homer Simpson. Getting creative with the customization trend, Apple’s logo interacts with the fast moving artwork, placing the brand firmly in the center of a constantly shifting culture.
2. Create engaging experiences
It’s not just the fast moving tech brands that are successfully leveraging DIY to offer better brand experiences. In the US, McDonald’s have started to offer a ‘build your own burger’ service where customers can craft their own burger contents using a tablet at the order point. Similarly, Starbucks is launching a customization option for its cold beverages after successful trials in the US, Japan and Singapore. These brands understand that people want to play a creative role in the story of their brands and so they offer creative and sensory experiences beyond the moment of consumption.
3. Connect with the creators
One step further than inviting people to participate in creative brand experiences is to enable the creators who are already out there making. Rising e-commerce site Etsy calls itself ‘the most beautiful marketplace in the world’, not only giving us a place to buy and sell unique creations for the home and wardrobe but also allowing creative people all over the world to connect with and inspire each other.
4. Offer a helping hand
Consumers today are expecting more from brands and looking for value beyond traditional products. The DIY hype is the perfect backdrop to offer up new skills to drive people’s creativity. Take British telecommunications giant O2 who have developed an online initiative; Learn to Code with Decoded. The program gives UK school children the opportunity to learn the history of programming before experimenting for themselves with HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Taking inspiration from O2 could mean that not only do consumers get more value from brands, but learn something that helps them toward perfecting a craft and also gives the brand an opportunity to engage at multiple touch points.
5. Think about the bigger picture
Brands that go beyond participating in the DIY trend to actually shaping it understand that they need to be relevant to multiple areas of people’s lives. Global sportswear brand Adidas has taken trainer customization one step further than its rival Nike with plans to launch an app that allows customers to print their personal Instagram photos directly on to the ZX Flux trainer. Beyond customized color, fabric and features, Adidas is bridging the gap between the world of digital and real life; inviting people to be artists in their own right and materialize their favorite memories. The app is creative and allows individual expression, but most importantly is useful and relevant.
Craft. Connect. Co-create. Become a part of the DIY ecosystem making it relevant to your brand and crucially, everyday life.
Is the Internet of Things a Solution or Just Another Problem Waiting to Happen?
This question originally appeared on Quora:Is the Internet of Things a solution looking for a problem? Why or why not?
Answer by Jonathan Brill, Start-up Specialist
Internet of Things is a collection of technologies that are one critical component of making dumb, inefficient, resource-wasteful systems become smart. What does smart mean? In the context of a smart home, it would mean providing the maximum level of comfort while using the least amount of resources.
One example: if you own a home you likely employ a number of systems that make your space more comfortable and nice to live in; things like a heating and cooling system, an electrical system, a water heating system, and if you have a nice yard, an irrigation system. Most of the existing versions of those systems in homes today are at least ten years old, and what we would classify as very dumb, almost mechanical, but definitely manual. When you’re cold you might turn your thermostat up which activates your heater and then proceeds to heat up the air in your entire living space. You may or may not remember to ever turn it off when you’re comfortable again or when you leave.
A smarter version would understand what comfortable means, make you comfortable (in whatever room you’re in and are going to be) and then disengage when you’re no longer awake or home. This is what “smart” thermostats like Nest are trying to achieve. They’re smarter, connected, and use data about behavior to keep you comfortable using less resources.
If you took that capability and added it to every system in your home, you could be more comfortable while using a fraction of the resources. That these technologies aren’t pervasive is a result of resource cost not being high enough and component cost not being low enough.
But those of us who are excited about this space and follow it expect that to change over the next year or so.
More questions on Quora:
Internet of Things: Who will be the leading companies of the Internet of Things?
Internet of Things: What security issues will be important for the “internet of things”?
Smart Home: How well are smart home solutions selling in the USA?
12 Midwest Startups That Are Changing the Status Quo
When you think of tech innovation, huge companies like Facebook or Apple may leap to mind. These behemoths undoubtedly made a worldwide impact, but some of the biggest game changers aren’t happening on a global scale. They aren’t even happening in Silicon Valley.
Between the East and West coasts, the region some call the Silicon Prairie is thriving economically, with considerable growth in investment and jobs. Midwestern entrepreneurs are proving a knack for finding niches and solving problems, from startup pitches here at Verge in Indianapolis to Dwolla in Des Moines shaking up the financial industry.
This list showcases 12 startups in a wide range of industries and Midwestern locations, but they all offer a unique twist that may leave convention far behind.
Like this list? Please share it on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Think we missed an innovative Midwestern startup? Give your thoughts in the comments below.
Bitcoin Momentum Grows in Emerging Markets
By Min-Si Wang
[Image via Shutterstock]
Bitcoin is gradually making progress as a medium of exchange in developing countries. While it can be volatile as an investment asset, it has real utility as an instrument for payment and money transfer, especially in places where conventional payment systems are immature. Because Bitcoin facilitates instant payment through peer-to-peer technology, most transactions can be completed in less than 10 minutes no matter how distant the two parties are. In addition, each transaction is recorded in a public ledger, enhancing transparency and trustworthiness.
Consequently, a supportive ecosystem is quickly evolving around the digital currency. Companies–mostly startups–are building exchanges, trading and payment platforms, wallets, and storage and remittance services. There are now around 65,000 bitcoin transactions a day currently, and 13 million bitcoins are in circulation globally. (That converts to about $8 billion at a recent USD/BTC exchange rate of $589/BTC). But bitcoin’s ability to scale further hinges on consumer confidence and the development of services that allow users to securely store and transact in bitcoins.”
To be sure, consumers are increasingly familiar with many of the concepts behind bitcoin in emerging markets like parts of Africa, where alternative cashless payment solutions like M-Pesa’s mobile money are already popular. A recent survey by mobile payment company Jana found that over half of respondents from Asia and Africa expressed confidence in investing in bitcoin. Consumer confidence is especially high in Kenya, home of M-Pesa, and 74 percent of Kenyan respondents said they would feel comfortable investing in digital currency.
A number of intriguing startups in Asia and Africa are offering various bitcoin-related services. Below are a few notable examples:
BITCOIN EXCHANGES
The first live bitcoin exchange in the world, Vietnam’s VBTC, offers trading services, multisignature wallets (used to reduce the possibility of fraud by employing several private keys), and bitcoin storage. The firm’s founder says that Vietnam’s high inflation rate makes bitcoin an attractive alternative to the national currency. While local regulators have issued warnings about bitcoin risks, VBTC is bullish on the digital currency’s potential in Southeast Asia and beyond.
In neighboring China, BTC China is one of the world’s largest exchanges for the digital currency. In addition to providing trading and exchange services, BTC China offers a wallet app, Picasso, which enables users to sell bitcoins by pushing a few buttons. But Chinese regulators are as leery of bitcoin as their Vietnam counterparts: China’s Central Bank has restricted the transfer of bitcoins in China.
REMITTANCE SERVICES
According to the World Bank, remittance flow, or the amount of money sent back to their home country by global economic emigrants, reached $414 billion in 2013 and is expected to grow to $540 billion by 2016. As bitcoins become easier to acquire in developed countries where remittance flow originates, bitcoin startups can offer the migrant population international transfer at a significant discount to traditional providers like banks and Western Union. Bitcoin remittance can be verified, settled, and signed off on for free in a few minutes, making the transfer efficient. Kenya-based startup Bitpesa, which serves the African diaspora in the UK and aims to expand to other African countries, currently offers remittance service at only 3 percent per transaction. By contrast, Western Union and banks often charge transfer fees of between 9 and 20 percent. PayPal, a popular inexpensive transfer method in developed countries, is not available in Kenya.
PAYMENT AND WALLET SERVICES
BitPago, a bitcoin payment startup targeting Latin America, charges 5 percent to process credit card transactions and handles bitcoins for free for hotels and hostels. Based in Argentina, the founder, Sebastian Serrano, was inspired by hyperinflation and the economic damages that currency volatility has caused there. Another LATAM start-up, Moneero, allows users to manage accounts and sub-accounts in bitcoins. Moneero also provides secure wallet services, Moneero Social and Moneero SMS, which allow users to transfer bitcoins through both mobile and social media.
Users in developed markets still account for the majority of bitcoin transactions, but penetration is increasing in emerging markets. While the U.S. dollar accounts for approximately 80 percent of bitcoin trading volume, trading volume in China grew from 0.4 percent in 2012 to 4.7 percent in 2014. One of the most popular bitcoin exchanges, BTC-e, is based in Bulgaria.
As the bitcoin ecosystem continues to expand, emerging-markets startups are gaining the attention of venture capitalists from the developed world. BitPago has raised $600,000 from investors including Boost Bitcoin Fund and Pantera Capital, while BTC China has raised $5 million in Series A funding.
Much like the development of mobile money in Africa, emerging markets present incubation and growth opportunities. There’s a consumer appetite for alternate currency in these places where inefficient financial systems often levy high service fees for both individual customers and small businesses. In Latin America, Asia, and Africa, bitcoin use will just keep going up.
Min-Si Wang contribues on topics relating to finance and e-commerce for Techonomy. She currently works in tech M&A as a consultant, and has experiences in international development for Planet Finance and the Clinton Foundation.
Original article published on Techonomy.com.
Israel, Gaza, War & Data: Social Networks and the Art of Personalizing Propaganda
It’s hard to shake away the utterly depressing feeling that comes with news coverage these days. IDF and Hamas are at it again, a vicious cycle of violence, but this time it feels much more intense. While war rages on the ground in Gaza and across Israeli skies, there’s an all-out information war unraveling in social networked spaces.
Not only is there much more media produced, but it is coming at us at a faster pace, from many more sources. As we construct our online profiles based on what we already know, what we’re interested in, and what we’re recommended, social networks are perfectly designed to reinforce our existing beliefs. Personalized spaces, optimized for engagement, prioritize content that is likely to generate more traffic; the more we click, share, like, the higher engagement tracked on the service. Content that makes us uncomfortable, is filtered out.
In a broadcast society, there were gatekeepers, the editors, and they controlled the flows of information. Along came the Internet and it swept them out of the way, and it allowed all of us to connect together, and it was awesome. But that’s not actually what’s happening right now.
– Eli Pariser, the Filter Bubble.
We’re not seeing different viewpoints, but rather more of the same.
A healthy democracy is contingent on having a healthy media ecosystem. As builders of these online networked spaces, how do we make sure we optimizing not only for traffic and engagement, but also an informed public?
Instagram co-tag graph, highlighting three distinct topical communities: 1) pro-Israeli (Orange), 2) pro-Palestinian (Yellow), and 3) Religious / muslim (Purple)
Media Constructs Reality
As I’m writing this post, details of an Israeli Air Force missile attack near the entrance of a United Nations school in Rafah are emerging. The attack killed at least 10, injuring many more. The IDF claims it had targeted three members of the Islamic Jihad riding a motorcycle near the school, not the school itself.
Within the hour, top English-language news portals are leading with the story (see image gallery):
The New York Times: “Airstrike Near U.N. School Kills 10″
Google News: “US ‘Appalled’ by ‘Disgraceful’ UN School Shelling”
CNN: “U.N. Calls Strike near Gaza Shelter ‘Moral Outrage’”
Huffington Post: “State Dept: Israel Shelling ‘Disgraceful’”
When we take a look at some of the top Israeli digital media portals, there’s little mention of the incident at all (headlines translated from Hebrew):
Ynet: “IDF Redeploys Troops, Hamas Shoots 95 Rockets Today”. There’s a minor mention of the incident far below the fold.
Mako (Channel 2 News): “IDF General: ‘we will go in and destroy every tunnel that we discover’”. Not a single mention of the U.N. school incident.
Nana: No mention of the incident.
Ha’aretz: Leads with an article about the U.N. school attack.
As you can see, there’s almost no mention of the incident across major Israeli media portals. Ha’aretz does cover the story, but Ha’aretz also has less than 10% readership, as it is considered to engender extreme liberal views. In the fallout of this war, the paper is also losing subscribers angered by published articles critiquing the IDF.
Israelis are convinced that media around the world is one-sided, anti-Israeli, and heavily biased towards the Palestinian cause. Yet few come out against their own clearly biased, heavily concentrated and privately owned media (see: Mozes family , Sheldon Adelson).
The following illustration, created in 2012 in response to CNN’s whitewashing of Bahrain dictatorship, has been popularly shared across Israeli Facebook pages over the past weeks. It depicts common Israeli sentiment towards western media, as irrational and detached from reality.
Bu Carlos Latuff karikatürü İsrailliler tarafından sosyal medyada en çok paylaşılan karikatürlerden biriymiş pic.twitter.com/