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.
Many Small Steps for a Man, Giant Leaps for Tech: CES 2015 Highlights
The International Consumer Electronics Show ( CES ) in Las Vegas is like the white whale in Moby Dick: Every time you hear about it, it’s getting bigger; you have to travel through oceans of information to grasp it, and if you don’t pay close attention it will upend everything before you even know what happened.
This year’s convention, which took place Jan. 6-9, hosted some 170,000 attendees and about 3,600 exhibitors, with themed areas (i.e. fitness, wearables, privacy, home security) and branded aisles showcasing French, Israeli, Korean and Chinese tech with more exhibition space than ever. My iPhone6 health app registered an average of 18,000 steps a day at CES (by contrast on the Sunday after I returned home, I tracked a much more modest 2,000). But enough about my aching feet, let me tell you about CES 2015:
Some broad strokes: Don’t buy a 4K (ultra high-def) TV yet; prices are coming down and will continue to do so (and actual 4K content is still limited). The laptop is back stronger than ever; Lenovo continues to dominate quality windows laptops at reasonable prices (for 2015 there is a gorgeous Lenovo X1 Carbon Ultrabook (3rd Gen), new T models Thinkpads with redesigned keyboards and a Thinkpad Yoga line with an ingenious retractable keyboard). 3-D Printing may prove its mettle in a surprising area: Food. 3-D printed deserts and chocolates were awesome! On the technology front, wireless power and charging seems to be on the horizon, although it is not clear which standard (Qi or other inductive systems) will predominate.
Finally, high-definition or high-resolution sound is a growing phenomenon (apparently, it took until now to realize that compressed mp3s music files played on a phone or streamed sound awful). Several new music players capable of handling large music files (up to 24bit/192kHz) debuted at CES, promising improved sound, such as HIFIMan‘s HM-700 player ($179); Sony’s Walkman-like NWZ-A17SLV player ($299); and Neil Young’s category-defining Pono music player ($399), whose sound is clear and, actually, really good. At the higher end, Bang & Olufsen introduced their version of Sonos: BeoSound Moment, a $4,000 intelligent music-streaming device that features the first-ever wooden touch screen as well as a programming “Moodwheel.” Listening to these devices, you may never want to leave the “Hotel California.”
As for price-is-no-object high-end home audiophile systems, although I spent some very pleasurable moments with McIntosh and Wadia, my serotonin receptors were most ablaze listening to systems from Metronome Technologie, a French company that makes even a mundane CD sound deeply personal and SOtM, a South Korean company, that made me feel I could hear each guitar or violin string being plucked.
Although Apple does not show at CES, they have spawned whole industries of peripherals and accessories, such as smartphone and tablet cases, device-friendly backpacks, wireless speakers, headphones, and chargers. Among the standouts: The new Typo2 smartphone keyboard from Ryan Seacrest’s Typo.com; Trident cases (bio degradable, eco-friendly and extremely rugged); Loksak has a range of baggie-like devices to waterproof or shield your digital devices. Thule (of carrack fame) offers well-designed backpacks and camera bags; Monster showcased “The backfloat” ($169), a waterproof wireless speaker that – wait for it–floats! House of Marley (yeah mon, dat Marley) makes really well-thought-out and designed eco-friendly speakers. Vivitek makes the impressively compact Qumi Q5 HD wireless projector; Innergie continues to innovate in portable and car chargers; while Dart that makes a 4X smaller laptop charger.
Bottom line: Here are my 5 takeaways from CES:
1. It’s not about the TV, it’s about the OS (operating system).
At CES there were miles of TVs, many of them 4K, some of them even 8K, all flat-screen, some curved, almost none 3-D. Among manufacturers, LG has doubled down on TVs, but the real battle is over TV software not hardware. Samsung is betting on its own OS, Tizen, which, as demonstrated, seems quite good, if not great. Great is Roku, which has now added Haier and Insignia to TLC and Hi-Sense as the list of TVs with Roku baked inside. For the cord-cutters Sling TV and Dish Network are launching a $20 a month, no commitment, no contract app that features ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, the Food Network, the Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel. There’s even a new TV specifically designed for AKs (alter-kakers) called Independa, that has embedded homecare services as well as video calls, emails and photo sharing, all enabled through a virtual personal assistant called “Angela.”
2. VR (Virtual Reality) is for real.
Samsung already has their version of a Virtual Reality headset, and other companies are launching low-cost versions, but Oculus Rift VR remains the gold standard as evidenced by their new demo, Crescent Bay, unveiled at CES. I was blown away by the potential for creativity in a medium that is immersive, 3-D, high definition and 360. I walked with dinosaurs, fought great battles, and traveled in great cities of the future – and no psychedelics were involved. Great tech needs great content, but there is no doubt, VR is coming
.
3. Cars become your dog.
Once upon a time, cars were mechanical beasts you tamed or vessels that you piloted to your destination. Now cars are being marketed for their tech. VW, for example, will soon offer iPad-size digital dashboards on certain models. Mercedes showed off the F015 concept car, which includes windows that disappear and seating configurations that can change, including for when the car is in driverless operation. Toyota has a fuel cell car. BMW showcased an electric car that can park itself in a garage and return when beeped for. All of which means one thing: increasingly you control the car, even as it can control itself. You order it; you command it. The car is your (think word for female dog that rhymes with “itch” that can’t appear in a family-friendly publication).
And if self-parking cars aren’t “Blade Runner” enough for you, there are some new personal transportation options, from cool-looking electric bikes like ProdecoTech’s Phantom ($1,200-$2,200, depending on the motor and battery size), and Acton’s Rocket motorized skates, to the IO Hawk (under $2,000), which looks like a cross between a skateboard and the base of a Segway, but is intuitively easy to move in any direction.
4. It’s about being connected, not about the Internet of Things.
Two years ago, everyone at CES was talking about harnessing big data from devices and the Internet of Things. This year was all about connecting: adding sensors, tracking features, Bluetooth and a USB charger, all with Smartphone interaction – often to items that you never imagined needed it, such as a Bluetooth toothbrush (Oral B); An e-cigarette from Smokio that calibrates your nicotine reduction; Breeze, a $99 breathometer; iPin ($50) an in-phone laser pointer; Deeper the wireless fish finder that attaches to your casting line; Tao, a sleek mouse-sized isometric exercise device; Blossom and Skydrop, smart sprinklers (a good idea in drought-ridden California); Lilypad, a smart wifi pool thermometer and UV sensor; The Anova Precision Sous Vide cooker ($179); Prizm, a pyramid shaped streaming music player ($169) that learns what music you like; Jamstik, a $99 wireless guitar and K-board, a smart keyboard, each of which can teach you to play.
Phonotonic is a French brand that has created a baseball-sized polygon that creates music as you move with it or throw it around. iSketchnote is a pad and pen that allows you to draw on it, or paper, to capture your doodles digitally; Smartboards is a smart white board that allows digital capture as well as collaboration with users in remote locations. There was a sleep monitor from Beddit; Pansonic demoed a smart mirror that can help you choose your lipstick shade; Muse, a headband to calibrate your meditation; Belty, a smart belt from Emiota that not only has a tracker, but automatically loosens when you need it (dangerous for me!); Petnet, an intelligent pet feeder; ReSound, an app controlled hearing device; Ring (formerly Doorbot) a video doorbell; Wocket the smart wallet that turns its one card securely into any of credit, debit or loyalty cards; Trek-Connect, connected weatherproof and heating hiking books, and Digisoles, connected insoles.
Even the stolid lightbulb has become a hub of innovation with LCD lights that can dim and or change color from companies such as (ColorSpree) and a smartphone mood lighting creation from LumiFi. Sony exhibited their Symphonic light bulb that contains a controllable music speaker. Or consider that toolmaker Ryobi has a set of add-ons that can turn your phone into a laser level, a pointer, a stud-finder, moisture level, infrared thermometer and a inspection scope. Intel even showcased a 3-D printed Anouk Wipprecht smart “Spider” dress that has extensions that can deploy (disclosure: I have done corporate work for Intel on other products).
Speaking of wearables, of which there were football fields-worth at CES (if you can do it, there’s a band to measure it), Epson has teamed with Los Angeles celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson for Pulsense, their tracker trainer. Skulpt is a $199 indiegogo-funded device that measures body fat and muscle quality on a spot basis.
On the plus side, although the computer on a wrist category has never held much interest for me, I was pleasantly wowed by Puls (i.am+), from Entertainer/Entrpreneur Will.i.am (full disclosure: I have worked for Will.i.am on content-related projects). More cuff than watch, the $399 device is its own phone, and features a clock, calendar, maps, mail, text, pics, music, health info and a Siri-like personal digital assistant called Aneeda. Available by invitation only (and I hear that a second version based on user feedback could be out as early as next summer). #i.am.impressed.
5. Your Youtube and podcast career awaits.
When the Kinks sang: “Everybody’s a dreamer, everybody’s a star/and everybody’s in movies, doesn’t matter who you are,” little did they foresee of today’s YouTube, Vine and Snapchat stars and all the new tech aimed at simpler video creation, such as the HTC Re, a 16 megapixel Digital Camera that looks somewhat like a periscope, Polaroid’s Cube, a low-cost choice, and Giroptic, billed as “the world’s first full HD 360 Camera,”($499); smartphone controlled LED light LumeCube; as well as the IRigMic Field, a HD stereo recording device for iPad and iPhone; and Cerevo’s LiveWedge, which allows you to broadcast live video on the internet without a computer. Expect this category to expand as podcasting, livecasting, and video creation proliferate in 2015.
At the end of my journey of many steps, I can say with certainty that if we, as humans, don’t seem to be getting any smarter, there is some comfort in the fact that at least our devices are.
Meet 'Teacher,' The Futuristic Machine That's Going To Show You How To Draw
Before we the design world knows it, skyscrapers will rotate, dresses will be 4-D printed, and bridges will be non-orientable. Oh, and tiny machines will teach us all how to draw. Welcome to the future!
The aforementioned machine comes courtesy of Saurabh Datta, a student at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. He produced “Teacher,” a wearable piece of robotics that gently forces your arm into the motions of drawing simple shapes. For the science nerds, his creation involves force feedback and haptic response systems (think of the technology involved in video game joysticks and computer mice). For those not familiar with the essential elements of haptic devices, Datta explained the inspiration for “Teacher” in simpler terms:
“I remember when I started first learning alphabets my teachers used to hold my hand with the pen and trace on the paper multiple times, the letters. After letting me go I would do it over and over again and finally it achieved a muscle memory and I could do it by myself. I’m taking this metaphor of the importance of holding hands when learning a new skill.”
“Teacher” is similar to Datta’s previous work with “Forced Fingers.”
So far, there have been three iterations of “Teacher,” prototypes made by salvaging printers and reusing their encoders with Arduino, plus a few EMG nodes. The three tiny teachers demonstrate the possibility of machine-led instruction — a relationship between humans and technology that would rely on a person’s ability to let the machine take control in some instances. For Datta though, the perfect scenario would involve both learning and teaching from robotics.
“We can be better in designing an enabling system rather than just service robots, systems that allow us to do things ourselves better or making us better in certain things rather than doing it for us all the time.”
“The whole notion is to understand when machines start knowing more about you and they start showing that to you as feedback,” Datta adds on his website. “Sometimes [feedback] may appear against our will, how do you act upon it? On one hand it can act as a a teacher and on the other it might appear as machines are operating us.”
“Now you can strap you hand in and move you wrist along with the fingers and the machine record the movement,” Datta writes in a statement online. “Next it repeats the motion and forces your hand and wrist to go to those previous positions creating a machine rhythm.”
You can see a preview of “Teacher” in all its glory in the two videos above and below. Datta recently unveiled his work at the 9th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction at Stanford University, so we can’t wait to see where “Teacher” ends up. For more on Datta, check out his past project — a smart umbrella that allows users to check levels of pollution in the atmosphere. Like we said, welcome to the future.
Weekend Roundup: One Year On, The WorldPost Has 28 Million Monthly Views
The WorldPost was launched one year ago in Davos. It was born out of a contradiction and a paradox.
The contradiction is that while the world is growing more interdependent, the media is fragmenting — re-nationalizing, re-localizing and even tribalizing. The resulting paradox is that the information age is becoming the age of non-communication across boundaries — political, cultural and ideological.
The aim of The WorldPost is to help bridge this growing chasm by becoming a platform where the whole world meets; a common zone where cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives from all corners of the planet can take place.
To achieve this aim, The WorldPost strives for a global viewpoint looking around, not a national perspective looking out. Along with intelligent curation of the global news and original reportage, what distinguishes us, above all, are the first person global voices of our contributors. Every week, they weigh in as events break from Havana to Beijing, from Moscow to Mexico City, Paris, New Delhi and Abuja among so many other places.
The WorldPost seems to have met an outstanding need. Thanks to you, one year later we have reached 28 million monthly views. We’ve shown that the message can catch up to the medium if we put our minds to it.
On Tuesday we will formally mark our one year anniversary by releasing the “WorldPost Voices” app that will allow you to directly access our blog posts. In addition, our navigation bar at the top of the page will from now on allow you to link to all Huffington Post’s 13 international editions, from Brazil to Germany to India to Japan and more.
It has often been said that the Internet is a “global thinking circuit.” It is global and it is a circuit, but it is not “thinking.” The WorldPost mission is to foster such a connected consciousness for our wired world.
As the 2015 meeting of the annual World Economic Forum convened in Davos this week, The WorldPost focused on the global economy. The governor of India’s central bank, Raghuram Rajan, says the world is poised to stagnate in the year ahead with slow growth in the U.S. and the U.K. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde also warns that 2015 is a “make-or-break year” to move from “fragility” to “stability.” Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima argues that unless measures are taken to stem inequality, the wealth of the top 1 percent will “overtake” the combined wealth of the next 99 percent. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim points out that falling oil prices have created a global opportunity to put a price on carbon without hurting economic growth.
Closer to the home, Anne-Marie Slaughter promotes the “care economy” in which family and work life can be more integrated through the new flexibility created by technology.
Moroccan journalist Ahmed Benchemsi writes that the cosmopolitan “Arab Spring” demographic is still alive despite the image of religious battles overtaking the Middle East. Yousaf Butt traces the roots of Islamist terrorism to Saudi Wahhabism. Philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo recalls the legacy of Muslim activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who shared Gandhi’s commitment to non-violence and religious pluralism. Abdullah Gül, who just stepped down as Turkey’s president, writes from Ankara that we shouldn’t forget the “good things” happening in the Middle East as a result of multilateral efforts, including disarming Syria’s chemical weapons.
WorldPost Senior Editor Kathleen Miles reports on Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s call for the modernization of Islam as a religion of peace and development, not violence. From Istanbul, WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones reports that Human Rights Watch accuses Egypt of “rampant torture and abuse in Egyptian prisons.” Writing from Jerusalem, eminent military historian Martin van Creveld says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is playing the “Jewish-American card” for political reasons in the upcoming election, not because of the Iranian threat.
Writing from New Delhi, Vivek Wadhwa says that a new “technological boom” is underway in India. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt defends his company’s digital dominance, noting that “competition is just one click away.” Xiao Qiang and Sophie Beach of China Digital Times recount the cat and mouse game in 2014 between Chinese censors and netizens. WorldPost China Correspondent Matt Sheehan reviews a new film by Jia Zhangke titled “Smog Journeys.” He also writes about “the most sought after man at Davos”: Alibaba’s Jack Ma.
In this week’s Forgotten Fact series, The WorldPost turns to Nigeria and Boko Haram to examine how the group’s Islamist extremists have left northeast Nigeria in ruins.
Writing from Mexico City, poet and environmentalist Homero Aridjis recalls the world’s “discovery” 40 years ago of the monarch butterfly winter habitat in his home state of Michoacan and worries now about its survival. Writing from Havana, Orlando Márquez Hidalgo insists that Cuba can both tame capitalism and respect liberty. Also writing from Havana, digital dissident Miriam Celaya calls on her fellow critics to shift from a belligerent stance to one embracing Cuba’s evolving openness.
French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy writes from Paris that Michel Houellebecq is neither an Islamophobe or a hero, but a novelist who shouldn’t be confused with his characters. We also published Levy’s remarks to the U.N. General Assembly this week on the resurgence of anti-Semitism.
As election day approaches in Greece, HuffPost Greece’s editor-at-large Pavlos Tsimas writes from Athens and breaks down seven key points to understanding that country’s crucial election. The WorldPost also looks at what the Greek vote means for the rest of the world.
Finally, Fusion — a new partner of The WorldPost — offers a short video on the remarkable story of four undocumented teens from Phoenix beating MIT in a robotics competition.
WHO WE ARE
EDITORS: Nathan Gardels, Senior Advisor to the Berggruen Institute on Governance and the long-time editor of NPQ and the Global Viewpoint Network of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media, is the Editor-in-Chief of The WorldPost. Farah Mohamed is the Managing Editor of The WorldPost. Kathleen Miles is the Senior Editor of the WorldPost. Alex Gardels is the Associate Editor of The WorldPost. Katie Nelson is the National Editor at the Huffington Post, overseeing The WorldPost and HuffPost’s editorial coverage. Eline Gordts is HuffPost’s Senior World Editor. Charlotte Alfred and Nick Robins-Early are Associate World Editors.
CORRESPONDENTS: Sophia Jones in Istanbul; Matt Sheehan in Beijing.
EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Arianna Huffington, Eric Schmidt (Google Inc.), Pierre Omidyar (First Look Media) Juan Luis Cebrian (El Pais/PRISA), Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute/TIME-CNN), John Elkann (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa), Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Dileep Padgaonkar (Times of India) and Yoichi Funabashi (Asahi Shimbun).
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Moises Naim (former editor of Foreign Policy), Nayan Chanda (Yale/Global; Far Eastern Economic Review) and Katherine Keating (One-On-One). Sergio Munoz Bata and Parag Khanna are Contributing Editors-At-Large.
The Asia Society and its ChinaFile, edited by Orville Schell, is our primary partner on Asia coverage. Eric X. Li and the Chunqiu Institute/Fudan University in Shanghai and Guancha.cn also provide first person voices from China. We also draw on the content of China Digital Times. Seung-yoon Lee is The WorldPost link in South Korea.
Jared Cohen of Google Ideas provides regular commentary from young thinkers, leaders and activists around the globe. Bruce Mau provides regular columns from MassiveChangeNetwork.com on the “whole mind” way of thinking. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Contributing Editor for Health and Medicine.
ADVISORY COUNCIL: Members of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council and Council for the Future of Europe serve as the Advisory Council — as well as regular contributors — to the site. These include, Jacques Attali, Shaukat Aziz, Gordon Brown, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Juan Luis Cebrian, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, Francis Fukuyama, Felipe Gonzalez, John Gray, Reid Hoffman, Fred Hu, Mo Ibrahim, Alexei Kudrin, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Alain Minc, Dambisa Moyo, Laura Tyson, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Eric Schmidt, Gerhard Schroeder, Peter Schwartz, Amartya Sen, Jeff Skoll, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, Wu Jianmin, George Yeo, Fareed Zakaria, Ernesto Zedillo, Ahmed Zewail, and Zheng Bijian.
From the Europe group, these include: Marek Belka, Tony Blair, Jacques Delors, Niall Ferguson, Anthony Giddens, Otmar Issing, Mario Monti, Robert Mundell, Peter Sutherland and Guy Verhofstadt.
MISSION STATEMENT
The WorldPost is a global media bridge that seeks to connect the world and connect the dots. Gathering together top editors and first person contributors from all corners of the planet, we aspire to be the one publication where the whole world meets.
We not only deliver breaking news from the best sources with original reportage on the ground and user-generated content; we bring the best minds and most authoritative as well as fresh and new voices together to make sense of events from a global perspective looking around, not a national perspective looking out.
Apple takes majority of US phone activations in Q4
Apple’s share of the US mobile phone market has nearly doubled following the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 in October, a new study has revealed. The report, by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, finds that the iPhone went from 28 percent of the market in the July-to-September quarter to just over 50 percent in the final three months of the year, an improvement even over the same time the year before, when the iPhone 5s was released.
Obama: More Women And Minorities Should Take On STEM, And This Student Is Proof
An engineering student’s dedication to her field has earned her praise from the president.
Camille Eddy, sophomore at Boise State University, was chosen to introduce president Obama for his speech at her college earlier this week, according to KTVB.com. While the mechanical engineering student, who is involved in various leadership positions and projects in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, said she was “absolutely floored” to be awarded the opportunity, it was the president, who was wowed by her accomplishments.
“Camille’s done research for NASA, she’s got real job experience with industry partners, she’s the leader of your microgravity team, and by the way she’s only a sophomore,” Obama said during his speech on middle-class economics, applauding Eddy’s achievements, according to a statement from the White House. “She might have invented time travel by the time she’s done at Boise.”
Indeed, the sophomore’s resume boasts many impressive accomplishments, including involvement with her school’s microgravity team — a group that is working to develop a method that will help astronauts gather rocks on asteroid missions, KTVB.com reported.
It’s this engagement in the STEM field, the president says, that makes Eddy a role model for many young college students.
“She’s a great example of why we’re encouraging more women and more minorities to study in high-paying fields that traditionally they haven’t always participated in — in math and science and engineering and technology,” Obama said during his speech. “Think about if we had as many young girls focused and aspiring to be scientists and astronauts and engineers. That’s a whole slew of talent that we want to make sure is on the field.”
In addition to the praise Eddy received, Obama also signed the sophomore’s notes from her own introduction, Boise State Public Radio reported. Eddy says that the experience was one that will only motivate her in her future endeavors.
“It just gives me more fuel to go back to work,” she told the Idaho Statesman.
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Illinois Is Not Actually Requiring Students To Hand Over Their Facebook Passwords
A barrage of news reports over the last week reported that Illinois students are now required to give schools the passwords to their social media accounts because of a new bill.
The panic was brought on after the Triad Community Unit School District No. 2 in southern Illinois notified parents in a letter, obtained by Motherboard, that their children may be requested to provide their passwords.
However, this is “clearly just a misinterpretation” of a new law enacted in the state, Ed Yohnka, spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, told The Huffington Post.
The bill in question, which took effect Jan. 1, expands a school’s responsibility to prevent cyberbullying. It says that if cyberbullying is reported to the school, school administrators can investigate the claim even if the cyberbullying occurred outside of school hours and buildings.
In this way, the bill does extend schools’ reach into students’ online actions.
“We opposed the bill because we thought that the grant of authority, or invitation to investigate, was overly broad,” Yohnka said.
However, Yohnka explained, state Rep. Laura Fine, who led the bill, made it very clear that the bill would not allow schools to require that students hand over social media passwords.
“The intention of the bill is just to help kids. We want to give them the best experience and the safest experience in schools,” Fine told HuffPost.
Fine said she created the bill after speaking with parents and child psychologists about the effects of cyberbullying.
“We have kids who are bullied on Facebook, through text messages. It’s happening on the weekend or at night, and they’re scared to go to school the next day,” Fine said. Parents told her that when they went to schools to get help, they were told that schools could not investigate bullying done outside of school.
Under the new bill, parents can bring screenshots or other proof of cyberbullying to school administrators, who can then investigate using their existing bullying policies.
“You can read the bill upside down and backwards; there is not one word about handing over a password,” Fine told HuffPost.
In fact, a bill that took effect in Illinois Jan. 1, 2014, made it was unlawful for a school to request or require a student or parent to provide the school with social media passwords.
“I think there’s some misinformation about [the new bill], because that’s been on the books for over a year,” Brian Schwartz, general counsel for the Illinois Principals Association, told HuffPost.
Last year’s password bill says that the unlawfulness of requesting passwords does not apply when a school “has reasonable cause to believe that a student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy.”
But this is not a broad exception. A school could only request passwords if there is ample evidence of a school rule being violated — such as a football player drinking alcohol. Moreover, students weren’t required to provide the passwords — schools were simply allowed to request them under these circumstances.
“We’ve advised our members that it’s really something that should only be used in very dire circumstances, if ever,” Schwartz said.
In a press release obtained by HuffPost, the Triad School District clarified that it was not requiring students to hand over their passwords. Rather, it was notifying parents in case the rare circumstances arose. It noted that it had not yet had occasion to request a password.
“Certain media reports have taken the letter out of context and created an unnecessary controversy,” the press release states.
Taking A Break From Technology Can Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
Taking a break from technology can actually help you to unlock your inner creativity.
Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain takes a “tech Shabbat” every Saturday, she explained in a conversation with HuffPost Live’s Roy Sekoff at Davos on Friday. She and her family turn off all screens — computers, phones, tablets, televisions, etc. — every Friday night through Saturday night.
When she returns to her electronic devices on Saturday night, she feels that her imagination is renewed. “I always feel so creative on Sunday,” Shlain said. “My mind has been daydreaming a lot on Saturday, being really kind of calm and time slows down.”
As important as it is to unplug on special occasions and vacations, there’s something special for Shlain about having a regular break from technology. “For me, it’s knowing every week I get this day where there’s nothing coming at me so quickly and I get to just ruminate with the things already in my mind and with nature.”
Below, live updates from the 2015 Davos Annual Meeting:
Phoenix Man Will Let You Sleep In The Trunk Of His Car For $85 A Night
Steve Sasman isn’t grinding peoples’ gears. He’s for wheel.
The Phoenix resident, a proud owner of a $118,000 Tesla Model S, has listed an airbed set up in the car’s trunk for rent on Airbnb, billing the combo as “the world’s first Tesla hotel.” For $85 a night, a maximum of 2 guests can “camp out” in the vehicle, armed with two battery-powered candles and the car’s audio system to set the mood.
There’s just one catch: renters will have to vacate the car by 8 a.m., so Sasman can get to work.
“I’ve already slept in this thing three times so why not let other people do it,” Sasman told Phoenix’s CBS5. He also vouched for the quality of the mattress, calling it “a premium air bed” that’s “top of the line” and “comes with linens.”
Per his Airbnb listing, the twin bed itself is six-and-a-half feet long and 36 inches wide. “Sorry, no NBA players allowed,” the listing advises. There will also be no driving of the car bed, as guests will be “securely parked” in Sasman’s garage, with access to more conventional amenities in the attached condo, including a bathroom, shower, TV, and kitchen.
Sounds… interesting. Or you could save some money and just buy a car bed for toddlers.
Sasman is billing his Tesla as the “fastest hotel in the world,” although that particular honor might actually go to KLM’s refurbished jumbo jet, which was also available for rent on Airbnb for some time.
The Dark Web Commerce Stack, Or How to Eff Up the Net
An interesting dive into how to transact in “Deep Web Marketplaces” by the folks at avc.com and USV.
A deep web marketplace, like the recently departed Silk Road, is an Ebay of anonymous e-commerce. Other elements of the stack include:
Payments: Bitcoin
Transactional database: the blockchain
Non-transactional text database1: Pastebin (Images: Imgur; generic NoSQL database… I don’t know of one, so build on top of those, or left an exercise for an aspiring entrepreneur)
Networking: TOR
CDN: Bittorrent, Pirate Bay
Could you could go down the list of Amazon Web Services and build p2p distributed versions of each service? I don’t see why not.
Could you have a distributed version of Heroku/Amazon Web Services, an anonymous, distributed platform with all the services and APIs to create any app or marketplace from Ebay to Uber running in your browser or on your phone? I don’t see why not.
Could you have a distributed p2p version of UPS like TOR, with people handing each other anonymous packages and delivering in some dead drop or to the holder of dollar bill number B12345678?
Of course, that’s what they would do in an underworld network, or in a totalitarian state. Like samizdat publishing.
Should we?
There’s a constant ebb and flow between centralization (mainframes/AOL) and decentralization (PCs/Web) and back (Cloud/Facebook).
Similarly there has been an ebb and flow from relatively anonymous Web protocols like Web, SMTP etc. to trusted IDs, Twitter/Facebook/SSH, and back with Bitcoin and dark web.
There’s a dichotomy: A world where much of the communication, transactions, commerce have to be over a dark web would be a pretty effed up place, like one where people had to pass along literature through samizdat and do commerce in back alleys.
And yet, it’s insane for someone like David Cameron to say the government needs the keys to everything and there can be no true dark web. If you had to put a back door in every communication or ecommerce system, impossible to believe anything would be safe against black hat hackers and foreign governments. And of course bad guys would always find a way around it. And there’s a free speech issue: what kind of world is it where you can’t have a private conversation in the safety of your own device? It’s unachievable, dangerous to try, and wrong.
Every time you use control of legit platforms to achieve political goals, whether it’s against Falun Gong or Russia, you create demand for the dark web.
If you don’t want people to use the dark net, don’t mess up the legit networks with back doors and warrantless wiretaps, ‘express lanes,’ censorship, using them for political pressure.
Or people will create worse versions and route around you.
1 Technically, these aren’t distributed in the same sense as the blockchain is. Many distributed apps and use cases could probably use them as a storage layer, though. For instance, to build a distributed p2p Uber, drivers could have an app that posts availability and reservation responses to a Pastebin type public space signed with their key, and riders could likewise post reservation requests. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for a NoSQL nontransactional distributed p2p database counterpart to the blockchain, which is transactional, strictly enforces no double-spend, but takes a long time to commit.
First HomeKit-ready products may not ship until spring
The first home automation products based on Apple’s HomeKit platform probably won’t ship until spring, sources say. Reports note, for instance, that specifications weren’t issued to chipmakers until October, and that the MFI licensing program for HomeKit only began in November. More recently, chipmaker Broadcom has been working with some customers to develop HomeKit devices using an existing chip design, in lieu of it having fully-certified software ready.
Forget Tinder, 'Watchr' App Matches You Up Based On What TV Shows You Binge-Watch
Is your chance of finding love … remote?
So you’ve tried all the dating apps out there right? Tinder, Plenty Of Fish, Hinge, Bears & Pears, DateSPLOSION, 2 Match 2 Curious — okay, we made a few of those up, but you get the idea. There are so many and none of them are working. Besides, who has time for dating when there are so many TV shows you’re still not caught up on?
With “Watchr,” a dating app parody from UCB Comedy’s Los Angeles Digital, you can find people who are completely right for you according to what shows you need to catch up on. Haven’t seen the last few episodes of “True Detective”? Boom, here’s a person with an HBO GO account, now let the romance blossom!
There can be absolutely no downsides to this, we’re sure of it.
Emma Watson Says Women's Potential Is 'Astonishingly Untapped' In HeForShe Davos Speech
Emma Watson followed up her September 2013 HeForShe address with another equally impassioned speech — this time at the World Economic Forum.
On Jan. 23, the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador took the stage in Davos, Switzerland to speak about the HeForShe campaign, the influence it has had on her own life and the new initiative Impact 10x10x10. “Women share this planet 50/50 and they are underrepresented — their potential astonishingly untapped,” she told the crowd.
The HeForShe campaign encourages men to join the movement towards achieving gender equality. As the campaign’s website reads, it “brings together one half of humanity in support of the other half of humanity, for the benefit of all.”
In her speech, Watson describes the far-reaching impact the launch of the HeForSpeech campaign had. Her remarks from the September conference were watched over 11 million times, created 1.2 billion social media conversations and encouraged men from almost every country in the world to sign the HeForShe commitment.
Watch Watson’s full speech at Davos here (story continues below video):
The campaign has inspired many celebrities including Desmond Tutu, Hillary Clinton, Prince Harry and many more.
“It is my belief that there is a greater understanding than ever that women need to be equal participants in our homes, in our societies, in our governments and in our workplaces,” she said. “And they know that the world is being held back in every way because they are not.”
Instead of engaging people on an individual level, like HeForShe’s original campaign, Impact10x10x10 is taking on bigger groups. The initiative is a one-year project that will engage businesses, universities and governments, and encourage them to make real commitments in order to achieve gender equality.
.@EmWatson launched #HeforShe IMPACT 10x10x10 initiative! More+her full speech+images: http://t.co/zbFjELTZHU #wef15 pic.twitter.com/GzCmnp7rr8
— UN Women (@UN_Women) January 23, 2015
Watson addressed different groups of people throughout her speech, including CEOs of big businesses: “CEOs: Have you implemented the women’s empowerment principles in your own company? What change have you seen? Are you someone persuading men to become HeForShes and collecting their signatures for our website? How many have you got?” she asked. “We want to know. We want to hear from you.”
“I’ve been stunned by the amount of men in my life that have contacted me since my speech to tell me to keep going,” she said. “And that they want to make sure their daughters will still be alive to see a world where women have parity, economically and politically.”
Obama Administration Reverses On Health Care Privacy Problem
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing to privacy concerns, the Obama administration reversed itself Friday, scaling back the release of consumers’ personal information from the government’s health insurance website to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.
The administration made the changes to HealthCare.gov after The Associated Press reported earlier this week that the website was quietly sending consumers’ personal data to companies that specialize in advertising and analyzing Internet data for performance and marketing. The personal details included age, income, ZIP code, tobacco use and whether a woman is pregnant.
That prompted lawmakers to demand an explanation, while privacy advocates