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.
Australians Use #IllRideWithYou Hashtag In Show Of Solidarity With Muslims
JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press
Some Australian social media users sent a message of solidarity to Muslims as the Sydney cafe siege went on for almost a day, offering to accompany anyone who felt intimidated on public transit.
The Twitter hashtag #IllRideWithYou had been used more than 90,000 times by early Tuesday, as tweeters tried to allay fears of anti-Islamic attacks on Australia’s streets.
Hostages were held for more than 16 hours inside Sydney’s Lindt Chocolat Cafe by a gunman who had a flag bearing an Islamic declaration of faith that has been used in jihadi imagery. That prompted speculation that the siege could ignite retaliatory violence against Muslims.
Sydney resident Rachael Jacobs wrote on Facebook that she had seen a woman on the train remove her headscarf and offered to walk with her.
That spurred a Twitter campaign in which users offered to travel on public transit with those in Islamic dress who felt insecure. Users were encouraged to supply details of their travel routes to ensure their online gestures were practical.
Kristen Boschma, a social media manager in Melbourne, printed out a sticker with the hashtag and stuck it on her bag. Her photo of the sticker was retweeted hundreds of times.
She said she wanted to send a message of support “not just for the Muslim community, but for anyone who feels a bit scared or insecure about taking transport or being out and about.”
Boschma said she hoped the siege would prove “galvanizing rather than polarizing” for Australia.
“We very much believe in looking out for our mates,” she said. “And I think this situation has widened the definition of what is a mate.”
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Some Internet Activists Say Obama Didn't Go Far Enough
When Barack Obama came out publicly for the reclassification of the Internet as a public utility, his announcement indicated that the decades-long battle to maintain neutrality on the Web had entered a new high-profile stage.
From a wonky side discussion found mostly in the technology sections of major newspapers and on computer blogs, net neutrality had suddenly morphed into a national obsession, filling up late-night TV and social-media feeds with one meme after another and finally crashing the FCC’s website with 4 million public comments.
The deliberations of agency chair Tom Wheeler, a former cable and wireless lobbyist appointed by a Democratic president, became a public drama, as one half-baked compromise proposal after another bit the dust in the face of public outrage.
As the battle heats up again, some Internet activists are saying net neutrality is important but isn’t the only game in town. They say the intensity of the fight over net neutrality has diverted attention from other steps that can be taken to keep the Internet consumer-focused and equally accessible to all, instead of a prioritized toll road that not everyone can afford to drive on. Particularly, they point to the idea of structural separation.
So what is structural separation?
David Isenberg, a technology expert and a fellow at the Institute for Global Communications, says:
Structural separation means that providers of an Internet connection can’t have a financial interest in what’s carried on that connection. This ensures that when the Internet connection provider does network management, it’s not motivated to discriminate in favor of one content or service provider at the expense of another. Enforcement of neutrality is easy when there’s a bright line between conduit and content.
Such a policy, had it been in place, might have stopped the Comcast/NBC-Universal merger dead in its tracks, as vertical integration of content carriers and content providers would have been forbidden.
Though a consistent element in conversations abroad, the subject has been largely off the table domestically since the last time something like it occurred, the 1984 breakup of AT&T. In the ensuing period of time, voluntary structural separation occurred or is in process in Australia and New Zealand and was forcibly applied in 2007-08 in Mongolia.
Considering the obvious benefits of the 1984 antitrust action against AT&T, it is a bit of mystery why it isn’t a part of today’s conversation about paid prioritization on the Web. With their ownership separate from AT&T, the Baby Bells no longer had an incentive to favor AT&T over long-distance competitors. All long-distance competitors obtained access to local telecommunications services on similar, nondiscriminatory terms.
The 1984 version of paid prioritization in telecom. Stopped.
Sounds good, right?
Could something like that work on the 21st-century Internet? Can we even talk about it?
Isenberg adds:
The enemies of net neutrality describe Title 2 as “the nuclear option,” but it is actually a moderate compromise. Structural separation would be better way to get net neutrality than Title 2. It would be simpler, more effective and easy to enforce. But it would mean that Internet access providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable would need to spin off some major business assets. Title 2 is like medicine. Structural separation is like surgery. The disease we need to cure is Internet discrimination. If medicine won’t cure it, maybe surgery will.
It’s not unusual for Beltway conversations about economic policy to restrict the scope of the conversation to just a few middle-of-the-road options.
It’s also not unusual for options that are on the table in countries across the world to be dismissed as lunatic socialist fringe here at home.
But if the telecoms think reclassification into Title II is “too harsh a tool” to rein in unreasonable network practices and the threat of slow lanes on the Internet for everyone without big bucks in their pockets, they may not be seeing the whole picture.
The Best Is Yet To Come: Tech Leaders Predict What's Coming Next
As we begin to wind down the year, many executives within the tech industry are looking ahead to 2015 and evolving strategies based on expectations of what’s coming next. Technology, which has the power to move industries at unprecedented speeds – forging into new markets and completely overturning others – has increased the pace of innovation across virtually every market.
In the past few years alone, fast moving transportation startups have completely disrupted the powerful taxi industry and are changing the way people get around. Wearable technology has introduced the concept of the quantified self and has simplified health, fitness and sleep tracking. Innovators within the payments space are changing the way we buy–removing friction and enabling seamless one touch buying experiences on mobile. And progress on the online education front has made it so that learning no longer requires tens of thousands of dollars or years of schooling.
So what new shifts and innovations will 2015 bring? The six executives below share their predictions for where the industries they’re in will be this time next year.
Transportation: Logan Green, Co-founder & CEO, Lyft
“2015 will see individual car ownership’s steepest decline since ‘peak car,’ which transportation researchers estimate was 10 years ago. Americans will spend less on transportation, detach from personal vehicles, take fewer solo driving trips, and mainstream behaviors like carpooling to work, because they can use options like Lyft for ridesharing and Getaround for car-sharing to weave a web of personally optimized transportation solutions. Currently, the average American household owns just under two cars, but that figure is likely to creep closer to 1.75 cars per home as more people choose to share one vehicle among their family, or go entirely carless – and not only in urban areas, but in suburban regions as well. The decline of car ownership is not temporary, and not limited to a single generation. Stingier car-buying habits are here to stay as more Americans choose to let someone else do the driving.”
Music: Eric Wahlforss, Co-founder & CTO, SoundCloud
“We’re living in a collaborative and creative online culture. You’ll find new musical genre lines being created, blurred, and demolished as the tools for creating and performing, producing and distributing are more efficient, widespread and cheaper than ever before. Over the past few years, the Internet has become the dominant medium for music distribution, but we have only just begun to start tapping into the enormous benefits of direct artist/fan interaction that happens online. In 2015, we hope to see efforts that will expand opportunities to DJs and producers who remix others’ content. We won’t have it all figured out next year, as it’s a huge task that requires collaboration and buy-in from many different groups. But in time, we believe we can make it happen.”
Mobile Payments: Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree
“Consumers are shifting to mobile as their primary computing device. The shift to smaller screened devices – which offer less room for data entry but more context around the device owner – is driving consumer expectation for a more seamless buying experience. As obstacles between consumers and merchants – like typing in credit card, billing and shipping information – fade with the help of wallet solutions like One Touch with PayPal and Apple Pay, the gap between browsing and buying on mobile will decrease. The security and simplicity of these solutions will also help to shift the consumer to what will become the predominant way we will buy in the future – via digital wallets. In the next five years, mobile will begin to drive the majority of ecommerce and 2015 is the year that we’ll really start to see this shift.”
Wearables: Hosain Rahman, Founder & CEO, Jawbone
“We are starting to see a real divide emerge in the wearables market between the ‘phone on your wrist’ devices and smaller, more comfortable, and discrete products. We see this divide opening up even further in the coming year with many multi-sensor devices claiming to be suitable for 24/7 wear, but hardly any living up to that promise. There’s so much more we can do with the new multi-sensor technology – it’s like the step-up from feature phones to smart phones. In the next year I think we’ll see a wealth of interesting features and apps that really leverage the capabilities of multi-sensor devices like the UP3. So as well as looking at things like heart health and in-depth sleep tracking you will start to see guidance and insights around broader signals such as stress and fatigue.”
Messaging: Ted Livingston, Founder & CEO, Kik
“WeChat and Line have already shown the way in China, and Facebook is starting to wake up to this in the US: Chat is the biggest opportunity since the Internet, and the battle to dominate chat is turning out to be perhaps the most important battle in the history of personal computing. As WeChat has demonstrated, you can build an entire computing ecosystem around chat, from transacting money to playing games to booking taxis. WeChat users can even arrange a mortgage through the chat platform. What’s interesting to us is who will win this battle in the West. Next year, the front-runners will start to emerge. What we know now is that the winners will have be mobile native, have a chat-first platform and must own Western youth. That is the future of personal computing.”
EdTech: Sal Khan, Founder & Executive Director, Khan Academy
“Over the next few years people will begin to differentiate about what’s truly working for students and what’s not. On our part, Khan Academy is excited about becoming a mobile focused organization, internationalizing our content to truly reach everyone on the planet and partnering with the College Board to provide college access through the new SAT. Research, development and analytics – these things are critical to us to keep us at the leading edge of innovation in the space.”
Thwarting retail's 'returnaholics'
The tech thwarting shopping’s “returnaholics”
Who The Internet Says Are The World's Most Influential Thinkers Of 2014
If you were to do a systematic analysis of the English-speaking infosphere –- the blogosphere, the Twittersphere and Wikipedia pages — to determine which 100 thinkers have the most influence in the world as a result of citations, searches and links, what would be the results?
That is what the Zurich-based Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute for Economic and Social Studies and MIT Sloan School researcher Peter Gloor have done for their “Global Thought Leaders 2014” ranking.
By focusing on a “high betweeness” rating (people talking with and/or about a person) and including some different language versions in Wikipedia, the GDI has developed a prototype for ranking the influence of ideas on a world scale.
In 2015, The WorldPost and GDI will collaborate in this endeavor to create the first truly global thought leaders ranking by incorporating Chinese and other infospheres.
In this process, we will first ask experts to nominate thought leaders and then have WorldPost viewers vote for their favorite thinkers. Social network analysis will identify and calculate the most influential persons. Then the different ratings will be compared, discussed and ordered.
Click here to see the 2014 rankings as presented (in English) by the GDI’s Swiss newspaper partner, Tages-Anzeiger.
Three Ways to Replace That Old Hide-A-Key
Check out this scenario:
You come home and discover you left your house keys in the office, corner bar or — most likely — on the kitchen table. Then, you remember that you’ve “hidden” a key behind the light on the front porch. Terror alert: It’s not there, your front door’s unlocked and there’s an empty space where you new 4K TV used to be.
Of course, we aren’t saying this will definitely happen, but we do have a way to make it a bit more difficult for burglars to invade your “space.”
Awhile back we reviewed a high-tech door lock from Schlage that can be opened either by entering a combination on a touchpad or accessing it with your smartphone, making it a lot tougher for thieves to break into your house. Since then, we’ve had a chance to play with three more door latches and deadbolt locks that can make you feel more secure.
The folks from Emtek have developed the Liscio Keypad Leverset ($162), which connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth technology and features a combination keypad on the outside lever.
Basically you just replace your old door’s hardware (handles, bolts, etc.) with the hardware that’s in the box, download the Emtek Liscio app from either the Apple or Google Play store and, theoretically, you’re all set. Unless — there’s always an “unless” — the width of your door doesn’t meet the minimum requirements dictated by Emtek.
The lock was designed to fit doors that are at least 1.75 inches thick. Even a centimeter less (or a bit of weatherstripping) can result in hours of frustration during installation. We ran into this problem, but a call to customer support, and a loosening of three screws, solved the problem. The result? Our possessions are now happily secured.
You can choose from a left-handed or right-handed lever set, which come with two preset codes you can use to unlock the door from the outside. There’s also a set of keys in the box in case you forget the code and need to enter you house the old fashioned way. The code can also be reset using the smartphone app.
The August Smart Lock ($249.95) is the most expensive of the trio, but is also a bit “smarter” than most of the other locks on the market.
Basically, the August lock is a large cylinder (a bit bigger — and a lot thicker — than a hockey puck)and flashes either red or blue lights to indicate whether it’s open or locked.
This is basically a deadbolt lock designed to replace the old interior thumbscrew type locks found on most doors, but its functionality goes way beyond that. In fact, if you use an iPhone, it can detect whether you’re in range of the door and automatically unlock the door for you. The same tech is being developed for Android users (like us), but won’t be available until sometime in 2015.
Installation is easy. Simply remove your door’s old deadbolt lock and attach the new one. The lock is designed to use your old bolt, so there’s no fumbling around trying to install a new one.
Next, you download the August app to your smartphone and give permission to “guests” to access the lock by sending them a copy of the app. That’s it. From that point on, all you or your “guests” need to do is access the app and hit either “lock” or “open” and the lock obeys.
If you need to unlock the door using your hands, remember to grab the lock from the side, rather than from the front, and turn it. Grabbing it from the front unsecures the battery cover, which can be annoying — especially when it ends up on the floor or in the palm of your hand.
The third — and most colorful — lock set of the trio is the Okidokeys Smart-Lock ($189 to $349 depending on the configuration or “pack” you choose).
We were sent the Connect-Pack, which contained a lock, three colorful lock covers, several “smart keys” and key rings and the ability to connect to the lock using our Wi-Fi network. The other two packages (one of which is just the lock and the other containing the lock and keys in various forms) work solely via Bluetooth Technology.
Again, installation was a simple process and just required replacing old hardware with the hardware that came with the lock. We also had to use their bolt, but that was also pretty easy to install.
As with the others, you can access all of the lock’s functions using your smartphone by downloading an app from either the Apple or Google Play store. But that’s where the similarity ends. This lock uses smartkeys that can be read by the lock and come in the form of cards, rings or wristbands. You really don’t need the keys to access the lock, but they’re a great alternative to keys that can be used in case you don’t have your phone with you, etc.
Any of these locks will do a great job in helping you secure your home and reducing the possibility of the above scenario becoming reality.
Attention Facebook users: Check out Michael Berman’s Jocgeek fan page at www.facebook.com/jocgeek, or follow him on Twitter @jocgeek. You can also contact him via email at jocgeek@earthlink.net or through his website at www.jocgeek.com.
Gestures Beta for Windows Phone Brings Touchless Control to Calls
Today Microsoft released a new Gestures beta for Windows Phone. The app allows you to control phone calls – both incoming and those in progress – without ever touching the screen of your Windows Phone. Sounds cool eh? It actually is very cool and is something that was actually around back in the Windows Mobile 6 days. Gestures Beta for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now The new Gestures beta gives you four primary features as it stands today. Reviewing the release notes, it appears that this is only the beginning and that Microsoft plans on adding more functionality
The post Gestures Beta for Windows Phone Brings Touchless Control to Calls appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
The 15 Phases Of Your Failed New Year's Resolution
2015′s your year. Your Instagram’s going to go viral and you’re going to set the track team mile record and it’s going to be the best 365 days of your life. Or something like that.
Everybody acts like the New Year = a new you, and it’s the moment to transform yourself with a gajillion ambitious resolutions. But usually, it goes more like this:
Phase 1: Excitement and awe
You can be ANYBODY in 2015. The world is yours.
Phase 2: Designing your plan for world domination.
Source: maka-the-baka.tumblr.com
NO TIME can be wasted.
Phase 3: Getting your game face on.
Source: mtv.tumblr.com
You wake up January 1st full of dreamy-eyed possibilities ready to slay.
Phase 4: Making it through one day without breaking.
You went on that long run. You benched those weights. You read that long boring book. You ate your damn veggies. One day, they’ll write a song about you.
Phase 5: And seeing Herculean improvement.
Is it just you or did you already get ripped?
Phase 6: Enjoying the pride and glory.
Source: benedictscumberbatch.tumblr.com
You reek of success and everybody can see it.
Phase 7: And then the boredom sets in.
Source: theupliftmofo-tumblr-com
Self-improvement’s kind of annoying and your friends are all out having fun without you.
Phase 8: Indulging in massive junk food to congratulate yourself.
Source: courgegirl-foodporn.tumblr.com/
You EARNED it by being a champion, OK? The physical and mental exertion of changing your life burns hella calories.
Phase 9: And then you break.
Source: gif-database.tumblr.com/
You’ll go back to being perfect again tomorrow.
Phase 10: And it’s kind of hard to get yourself pumped up again.
Source: sloppyhotmess.tumblr.com
Um. You’ll just a second…
Phase 11: You feel the looming threat of failure.
Source: loveiseccentricandsoami.tumblr.com
Too many demands with too-high expectations! You can never deliver.
Phase 12: And the deep shame of not measuring up.
You’re a nobody.
Phase 13: Self-loathing ensues.
Source: gifsofnicolascage.tumblr.com
You’ll never change, you’ll never improve.
Phase 14: Then you wonder why you cared so much in the first place.
Source: gemini-dragon-gifs.tumblr.com
This isn’t your fault. It’s the media’s fault for making you think you need a New Year’s Resolution in the first place.
Phase 15: But when you start to doubt yourself, just follow T-Swift’s advice:
Source: swiftalison.tumblr.com
Hey, you’ve been doing alright up through December 31, 2014. So what’s the big deal?
Besides, there’s always 2016 to be perfect.
Follow HuffPost Teen on Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr | Pheed |
The 20 Most-Googled Dog And Cat Questions Of 2014
To have a pet is to have questions about that pet. How much should I feed it? What is that goo coming out of its face? Does it miss me when I’m gone?
For answers, you could turn to a veterinarian, or maybe a book written by an expert on animals. Or you could do what millions of Americans do instead: Take your chances by asking the Internet, via Google.
Google has compiled 2014′s most-common searches about stuff from diets to gadgets to celebrities. It has also rounded up Americans’ commonest queries about cats and dogs.
Here are the 10 most-searched dog questions in the United States this year:
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And here are the 10 most-searched cat questions:
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In case you were wondering, like us, what a group of cats is called, the answer is a “clowder.” For the rest of your questions, maybe try Googling it.
Snapchat's Snapcash: Is Peer-to-Peer Payment Safe?
By Jessa Barron, NextAdvisor.com
Do you need to pay a friend back for buying your movie ticket but won’t see them for a while? Or maybe you want to send your nephew money for his birthday but fear the check would be lost in the mail? Snapchat has partnered up with Square for a new feature, Snapcash, which allows its users to send and receive money on the app. It’s as easy as sending selfies with Snapchat, but how safe is it?
How Does Snapcash Work?
The first time you use Snapcash, it will prompt you to link a debit card to your account through Square, which means you will automatically become a Square user in the process. You must enter your card number, security code and billing zip code before you can send or receive money. Sending money on Snapchat is similar to sending messages on the app. The recipient will get a notification and must also link a debit card to their Snapcash account in order to receive the money. Once they link their card, the money will be deposited into their account. Unlike regular messages, money transaction messages will not disappear from your chat history in Snapchat. Once you send the cash, the recipient has 24 hours to link their debit card to claim the money. If they fail to do so, the money is refunded to the sender.
One of the disadvantages with Snapcash is that there’s no way to cancel a transaction after you send it. That means if you send it to the wrong person or send the wrong amount, there’s a chance that you may have created a major headache for yourself, especially since you’ll have to go through Square to dispute it.
Is It Safe?
The only security feature that Snapchat has is a setting that requires you to enter your card’s security code before each payment. With the history the app has with hackers, this doesn’t seem like enough. However, Snapchat claims to only manage the message itself, leaving Square to control the financial aspect. This means Snapchat will not store any of your debit card information, as Square will encrypt it and submit it to their servers.
So can you trust Square with your financial information? Square is best known for giving small businesses a way to accept credit cards for payments, via a smartphone swiping device or tablets that function as cash registers (as you’ve seen on food trucks or in smaller boutiques and stores). While the company does have a long-standing history of securely storing information, it’s always best to be skeptical of handing over your financial information.
We should also note that since Snapcash requires you to use a debit card instead of credit, you may be more financially vulnerable if Square is ever breached. This is because you’ll be vulnerable to someone gaining access to all of your bank accounts connected to the card, instead of just one credit card account. Learn more about why credit is a better option than debit here.
What Are the Limitations?
Snapcash is currently only available to Snapchat users in the United States, who are at least 18 years old and who have a Visa or Mastercard debit card. There is also a limit on how much money can be sent and received. According to Snapchat, the limit on funds sent can be raised to up to $2,500 per week, and $1,000 per month for funds received.
The Snapcash feature is only available for peer-to-peer payments, which means that you cannot use it to make purchases from vendors. There are other options for peer-to-peer payment, like PayPal and the mobile app Venmo, but each has its own drawbacks, with security being the main worry. Most of these peer-to-peer payment apps and services like this store all of your information, so anyone who might gain access to your phone or computer could use your card to send themselves money and take you for everything you’ve got. Venmo also has a big social component, where it encourages you to share your transaction history in detail — similar to Facebook’s newsfeed, but with payments sent and received between friends. This may not be the type of information you want posted online for anyone to potentially see.
Should I Use It?
With Snapcash, the money is sent directly to your debit card and deposited in your account, regardless of which bank the other party uses and at no charge on either end. There is no login or password to remember (as long as you stay logged into Snapchat) and no special software required to use the service. But since Square and most of the other payment apps store your information, you may want to download a separate Internet security mobile app for security purposes. Many of these types of apps, such as ESET and BitDefender, offer special security features that make sure the apps you use are safe. BitDefender even has a feature you can activate which will prompt you to enter a PIN each time you access an app like Snapchat, giving you an additional layer of protection since no one can get into the app without the PIN.
As with most services online, you should always be wary of adding people you don’t know to further protect yourself from identity fraud, and monitor your bank transactions daily. Visit our identity theft protection blog to learn other precautions you can take to protect yourself from identity theft.
This blog post originally appeared on NextAdvisor.com.
Nuclear Teetering on the Economic Precipice
This will be a bleak Christmas for the small Vermont community of Vernon. It is losing its economic mainstay. The owner of its proud, midsize nuclear plant, which has sustained the community for 42 years, Entergy, is closing the plant. Next year the only people working at the plant will be those shuttering it, taking out its fuel, securing it and beginning the process of turning it into a kind of tomb, a burial place for the hopes of a small town.
What may be a tragedy for Vernon may also be a harbinger of a larger, multilayered tragedy for the United States.
Nuclear – Big Green – is one of the most potent tools we have in our battle to clean the air and arrest or ameliorate climate change over time. I’ve named it Big Green because that is what it is: Nuclear power plants produce huge quantities of absolutely carbon-free electricity.
But many nuclear plants are in danger of being closed. Next year, for the first time in decades, there will be fewer than 100 making electricity. The principal culprit: cheap natural gas.
In today’s market, nuclear is not always the lowest-cost producer. Electricity was deregulated in much of the country in the 1990s, and today electricity is sold at the lowest cost, unless it is designated as “renewable” — effectively wind and solar, whose use is often mandated by a “renewable portfolio standard,” which varies from state to state.
Nuclear falls into the crevasse, which bedevils so much planning in markets, that favors the short term over the long term.
Today’s nuclear power plants operate with extraordinary efficiency, day in day out for decades, for 60 or more years with license extensions and with outages only for refueling. They were built for a market where long-lived, fixed-cost supplies were rolled in with those of variable cost. Social utility was a factor.
For 20 years nuclear might be the cheapest electricity. Then for another 20 years, coal or some other fuel might win the price war. But that old paradigm is shattered and nuclear, in some markets, is no longer the cheapest fuel — and it may be quite few years before it is again.
Markets are great equalizers, but they’re also cruel exterminators. Nuclear power plants need to run full-out all the time. They can’t be revved up for peak load in the afternoon and idled in the night. Nuclear plants make power 24/7.
Nowadays, solar makes power at given times of day and wind, by its very nature, varies in its ability to make power. Natural gas is cheap and for now abundant, and its turbines can follow electric demand. It will probably have a price edge for 20 years until supply tightens. The American Petroleum Institute won’t give a calculation of future supply, saying that the supply depends on future technology and government regulation.
Natural gas burns cleaner than coal, and is favored over coal for that reason. But it still pumps greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, though just about half of the assault on the atmosphere of coal.
The fate of nuclear depends on whether the supporters of Big Green can convince politicians that it has enough social value to mitigate its temporary price disadvantage against gas.
China and India are very mindful of the environmental superiority of nuclear. China has 22 power plants operating, 26 under construction, and more about to start construction. If there is validity to the recent agreement between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama, it is because China is worried about its own choking pollution and a fear of climate change on its long coastline, as well as its ever-increasing need for electricity.
Five nuclear power plants, if you count Vermont Yankee, will have closed this year, and five more are under construction in Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia. After that the new plant pipeline is empty, but the number of plants in danger is growing. Even the mighty Exelon, the largest nuclear operator, is talking about closing three plants, and pessimists say as many as 15 plants could go in the next few years.
I’d note that the decisions now being made on nuclear closures are being made on economic grounds, not any of the controversies that have attended nuclear over the years.
Current and temporary market conditions are dictating environmental and energy policy. Money is more important than climate, for now.
Evolution Expertly Explained With Emoji. Thank You, Bill Nye
More than 40 percent of Americans say they don’t accept evolution as scientific fact. Could emoji possibly change their minds?
Bill Nye collaborated with the website Mashable to create an educational video about the basics of evolution — presented with the help of lots of emoji. Check out the video above, which was posted to YouTube on Dec. 12.
Molecules never looked so adorable.
Why emojis? Mashable assistant editor Eric Larson wrote in an article accompanying the video that, “kids these days speak a whole different language, what with their Google-y Docs and Tinder snaps. In an effort to save them, we asked Bill Nye to break down the basic concepts of evolution using only emoji. You’re welcome, Generation Z.”
Canadian probe into Apple's carrier deals focuses on discounts
More details have emerged on the Canadian Competition Bureau’s investigation into Apple’s carrier deals, Reuters reports. Most important may be the Bureau’s specific goals, which are to learn if Apple has been discouraging carriers from offering discounts or other incentives for competing phones, or even offering those phones at all. “The contractual obligations [with the carriers] may therefore increase the price Canadian consumers have paid, are paying or will pay for handset devices and wireless services,” reads an affidavit from Vincent Millette, the head of the Bureau’s probe.
This Is What Happened When I Put Tinder Aside to Pursue the Girl of My Dreams
Warning: Some parts of this video may be NSFW.
“Technology… the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.” — Max Frisch
Wordplay Run Amok: Et Tu, TRUSTe?
“Friends”, “Likes”, “Cookies”, and now “Trust”, what is happening to words we loved so much? How could one industry wreak such distortion on these heartwarming, smile producing utterances? Say it isn’t so! Incredible, truly, it is so. Yes, even TRUSTe ends up not being so trusty after all. Maybe their branding manager should have reminded the powers that be that you earn trust, you don’t name it. At least Eric Schmidt knows how to call it right – he picked the mantra “Do No Evil” for Google – and as it turns out, doing evil is mostly how his battleship Google operates, under the disguise of helpfulness. But TRUSTe?
TRUSTe touts that its seal of approval on a website means that said site adheres to strict compliance standards for collecting, storing, and sharing data. It’s a great gimmick for endearing a site to users and TRUSTe did a bang up job establishing themselves as the must have credential that sites paid them well for. You offer eye candy and a pretty little logo to provide a sense of security. Truth in advertising however, requires more than stamps. It demands in this case, annual inspections and that is what TRUSTe promised.
I’ve met Chris Babel, the CEO of TRUSTe. In person he is a nice enough fellow. But for all of his talk about “honesty really is the best policy” and providing Truth in Privacy, the truth is TRUSTe offered neither reliably. While Chris travels the world paying to be on stages promoting his wares, it looks as if TRUSTe let more than 1,000 companies slip through the cracks without inspections. So these companies basically got free use of a symbol representing a “commitment to privacy” that in truth didn’t.
Just in case you’re wondering, the FTC doesn’t take kindly to such escapades, which is why it just doled out a $200,000 reminder in the form of a fine to TRUSTe. Babel responded by writing, “And if we fall short, we admit it, we address the issue, and we move forward.” You mean if you get caught, which you did. And just how do you intend to move forward? I guess we’ll stay tuned. His response looked like PR babble, rather than a thoughtful statement that honestly addressed the breakdown. Regrettably, this looks plainly like an intentional slip up designed to save TRUSTe money and pad their bottom line by not allocating the expense required to inspect its client companies and their policies.
The TRUSTe lesson is one in a long line concerning companies promising to deliver on privacy then consciously failing to do so. Take WhatsApp for example. Founder Jan Koum made himself a general in the privacy war by heaping self-praise on his app because it didn’t save messages on servers or store chat histories. What he didn’t talk about was weaknesses inherent in the encryption technology they deployed to protect users’ communications or that they were routinely collecting the IP addresses of anyone who visits their website, along with collecting information on the sites they frequent, and who they talk to and when. And lest we forget, in 2012, WhatsApp ended up in a hearing with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada over concerns that user accounts were susceptible to third parties prior to completion of the user authentication process, potentially enabling a third party to create and control accounts associated with phone numbers which they did not own.
Now that Koum’s company works under the Facebook banner, can he even lead a privacy and safety conversation while keeping a straight face? After all, Facebook is the face on the Wanted poster for privacy rights violations.
Then there are Path and Snapchat. As a new social network a few years ago, PATH branded itself as a privacy innovator. Since then, its privacy aspirations have been riddled with misleading statements and illegal actions such as scraping data on minors (resulting in $800,000 FTC fines). Snapchat promised its users they could send images and videos that disappear forever after the sender-designated time period expired. Those claims would have been great if they had been proven true. Chalk up another example of a stern rebuke and fine by the FTC. Snapchat’s ephemeral technology is anything but that. But do their CEOs care – or are these ruses intentional, with the ensuing fines simply being pre-calculated as a cost of creating soulless businesses duping people?
These companies try to offer you a tall glass of privacy when in truth, much of the glass is empty. As with Google and their aforementioned Do No Evil mantra, their privacy violations and millions of dollars in fines suggest that message was meant for you, not them. Facebook and Google can talk about their advancements in Privacy Policies until the cows come home, but it doesn’t change the fact that at their core, these apps and sites are designed and continuously refined with privacy as a secondary consideration and afterthought. Their main thrust is data collection, and that inherently means privacy invasion.
The FTC stance is clear, concise, and correct. “If a company markets privacy and security as key selling points in pitching its services to consumers, it is critical that it keep those promises,” said FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez.
The leaders in the next wave of privacy will come from companies that build privacy-by-design into the foundation of their wares. In doing so, it will not only protect us all, but also establish a pecking order to prevent oversights such as what happened to TRUSTe. These leaders will be in step with real online privacy advocates such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Cullen Hoback (director of Terms and Conditions May Apply), and others. Both gentlemen, by the way, are on the Advisory Board of MeWe, the revolutionary social network built with privacy by design.
People like Berners-Lee and Hoback, along with Max Schrems in Europe and others, are the real heroes who support the essential human right to privacy, the right to be forgotten, and the Fourth Amendment. Maybe therein lies the lesson. When it comes to selecting the company that serves up our communication technology, don’t follow the engineering leader who places profits first and ethics second; but rather choose the thought leaders who take action to build conscious capitalist enterprises that truly benefit humanity which in turn provides for a deserved and earned profit.
China's Challenge: Only Free Expression Can Make a One-Party System Work
China has two key challenges in the years ahead. The first is to build a new, global rules-based system with the other major world power, the United States, that supplants the post-WWII order. The second is to consolidate the rule of law within China. The challenge in both cases is to create a stable and fair playing field for all — by resisting hegemonic ambition and the use of force in international affairs and by restraining the abuse of power and privilege at home.
Beyond these challenges, China’s leaders ought to recognize that the key to making a one-party political system function effectively in the information age is robust feedback from the public. Limiting open expression will weaken, not strengthen, the Party’s authority.
The Global Challenge. The post-war period of American-led Globalization 1.0 — the security, stability and openness of which enabled the rise of China and the other emerging economies — has now given way to Globalization 2.0, an interdependence of plural identities where no one power dominates.
Interdependence, however, does not govern itself, and neither China nor the U.S. can do it alone. America may no longer be the sole superpower, but a post-American order does not mean a “no-America” order anymore than it means China will rule the world as the new hegemon.
For China, America is the indispensable partner, and vice- versa, in reconstructing a stable and inclusive order for the 21st century. If these two top powers do not buy into a global rules-based system that works for all, the world is destined once again to break up into divisive blocs, undermining everyone’s future.
Partnership is easier said than done. When I met President Xi Jinping in Beijing last year along with other members of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council, he himself raised the peril of the “Thucydides trap” — the historical tendency of rising and established powers to clash as Athens and Sparta did in ancient times.
Berggruen Institute 21st Century Council members meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing, November, 2013
And unlike the trans-Atlantic order now receding, which was bound together by common cultural and political foundations, the U.S. and China come from very different civilizational roots. A “cross-civilizational” partnership is unprecedented.
The Middle Kingdom has defined itself by its centrality and uniqueness in the world going back millennia; America’s comparatively young identity is associated with universality and the mission of spreading its values. As Henry Kissinger has also noted, China’s geopolitical model, limited historically to East Asia, has always been that of a dominant power surrounded by tributaries. By contrast, the U.S., following the experience of Europe after the Treaty of Westphalia gave birth to the nation-state, has managed its international relations through seeking a balance of power globally. Kissinger is no doubt right that, in today’s linked world, partnership must be a part of the balance of power in any new geopolitical arrangement. Both sides must trust, but verify.
If a trans-Pacific partnership is going to work, as Fu Ying, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, told Kissinger in a recent dialogue, America must be able to accept China as “an equal brother.” But that goes both ways: China must also step up to the plate with a global perspective of its responsibility that it has never had as a regional power.
The Xi-Obama deal on curbing climate change announced at the APEC Summit in November is a welcome, even historic, step in this direction. Hopefully, this precedent bodes well for active cooperation in a range of other areas, from cyberwar curbs to freedom of navigation in the seas to nuclear non-proliferation and even joint efforts to stabilize the Middle East.
For China, the “mutual respect” that would undergird any partnership means recognition by the U.S. of the legitimacy of its one-party political system. This is not a sharp edge of conflict, but it always shades the background of every other aspect of the U.S.-China relationship.
Regime change or fomenting a “color revolution” in China is not an active U.S. policy, as many in Beijing seem to think. But it is an ideological expectation of the worldview of America’s political class which continues to believe that China is “on the wrong side of history.” No leading American politician would today publicly acknowledge that China’s system of governance — despite pronounced flaws not unlike democracy itself — is not only legitimate but admirable in key respects, notably the capacity to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in only three decades.
Absent this kind of objective acknowledgement — or “symmetry of validity” — that changes the narrative, a “cold war” taste will continue to sour the idea of a new relationship. It holds back any fuller embrace and raises suspicions over every initiative.
Americans must understand that Chinese will less defensively and less resentfully accept criticism at home or from abroad if it is rooted in this basic recognition of legitimacy and is not seen as a ruse, a plot or a conspiracy to overturn their system of governance. The U.S. could also benefit from seeing the limitations of its own model of multi-party democracy through the prism of the successful aspects of China’s governance and stop seeing itself, as Reinhold Niebuhr chastised, “as the tutor of mankind on its pilgrimage to perfection.”
“America should stop seeing itself as ‘the tutor of mankind on its pilgrimage to perfection.’”
Nearly half a century after the U.S. opening to China, it is time to come to terms with this issue because it is enduringly corrosive.
If the political class in the U.S. would look honestly and less ideologically at the whole world scene, it would see that China is more socially aligned with A