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.
VIDEO: Can a robot write sacred scriptures?
An exhibition at the Jewish museum in Berlin is showcasing a robot which has been programmed to write the sacred Jewish scriptures, known as the Torah.
The CEO Pivot Puzzle
Product definition is a challenge for any startup. But it’s significantly harder for a company that is in an evolving market.
Ben Horowitz – in his new book ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’, makes a compelling argument for how not to define product strategy.
In making the transition from Loudcloud to Opsware, Horowitz was performing what has now become known in startup circles as a pivot. It’s a fork in the road where the company must change or fail. It’s not easy.
Explains Horowitz; “The product plan was weighed down with hundreds of requirements from our existing customers. The product management team had an allergic reaction to prioritizing potentially good features above features that might help beat Blade Logic (a competitor).”
This makes total sense of course. The product team is on the front line – they were the ones who heard the product requirements from customer. Customers who pay the bills. Customers who know their names.
Horowitz explains the logic this way: “They would say ‘how can we walk away from requirements that we know to be true to pursue something that we think will help?’”
This is the challenge of all tech companies in emerging markets. And Horowitz is spot on when he says, “figuring out the right product is the innovators job, not the customers job.”
The customer knows what their needs are today – or yesterday. It’s the product team’s job to innovate and build for the future. For the next need.
“innovation requires a mix of innovation, skill and courage”, says Horowitz.
Ted Turner famously said that before CNN was launched, if a focus group of cable customers had been asked if they wanted 24 news, they would have voted thumbs down. Customers know what they have, not what they might want to have.
There are plenty of hard things about being a CEO. Seeing around corners is part of the job. Not just predicting the future, but inventing it and building it. Having customers is great, listening to customers is important, but counting on their product needs to help guide product is a recipe for disaster.
Which is why Horowitz gave ‘the speech’. He told his team: “I don’t care about any of the existing requirements. I need you to reinvent the product and we need to win.”
In 2007, the company founded as Loudcloud in1999 had evolved into Opsware and sold to HP for 1.6 Billion dollars in cash.
There are plenty of Hard Things about being a CEO – but balancing market demands with product vision is the true test of what a CEO and a company is made of.
Constitutional Rights in the Digital Age
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Riley v. California held that the police must obtain a warrant before searching the cell phone of someone who has been arrested. This decision applied the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — which prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures” — to take account of vast advances in technology since the time the Constitution was written.
What should Riley tell us about how the development of technology affects other constitutional protections? In particular, how does the rise of the Internet affect the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech?
The Court’s decision in Riley rested on a simple premise: Cell phones are different from ordinary physical objects. The latter may be searched following a lawful arrest. The former, after Riley, may not. That is because, to use the Court’s own words, “Modern cell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or a purse.”
So if searches of cell phones are different from searches of ordinary physical objects, then should online speech be analyzed differently from offline speech? The logical answer is yes. Just as cell phones are different from ordinary physical objects, the Internet is dramatically different from earlier speech mediums. And the Court should acknowledge those differences in determining the scope of First Amendment protection for speech.
The differences between offline and online communication closely parallel Riley‘s distinction between ordinary physical objects and cell phones. One such distinction is quantitative. As the Court wrote in Riley: “One of the most notable distinguishing features of modern cell phones is their immense storage capacity. Before cell phones, a search of a person was limited by physical realities and tended as a general matter to constitute only a narrow intrusion on privacy.” This quantitative distinction extends to online speech. A large distribution of fliers might reach a few thousand people; in contrast, a public posting anywhere on the Internet can be read by billions. For instance, reddit.com — where anyone can post content — reports between 15 and 20 million unique visitors per month.
Riley also noted qualitative differences between ordinary physical objects and cell phones. The Court stated: “The term ‘cell phone’ is itself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers.” That is, cell phones “collect[] in one place many distinct types of information — an address, a note, a prescription, a bank statement, a video.”
The Internet likewise enables qualitatively different speech. Internet speech incorporates linking, which — not unlike the cell phone in Riley — aggregates a great quantity of information in a single place and creates a close connection between original and linked material. A much greater quantity of Internet speech is anonymous, and research indicates that anonymity breeds incivility as well as harassment and threats, which research has found disproportionately affect women. As many people have learned the hard way, the combination of the Internet and other electronic forms of communication enable the viral spread of information in a manner vastly different from people passing copies of a news article from hand to hand or calling up their neighbors to spread a juicy bit of gossip. And Internet speech is often both permanent and easily retrieved in a matter of seconds using a search engine, in stark contrast to the effort required to locate a yellowed news clipping stored in a box in the attic.
The First Amendment should take account of these differences between online and offline speech, as the following examples illustrate.
Consider, first, the doctrine of obscenity. The Supreme Court held in Miller v. California that speech is obscene only if “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would believe that the allegedly obscene item appeals to the “prurient interest,” or an excessive and unhealthy interest in sexual matters. The Court specified that contemporary community standards should be evaluated locally: that is, what counts as prurient in Topeka might not in San Francisco. Yet while perhaps locally-calibrated evaluation made sense in 1973, when Miller was decided, the standard requires updating now that an image posted on the Internet is theoretically viewable by anyone in the world.
Second, the Supreme Court will soon take up the question of whether and how the First Amendment protects arguably threatening speech posted on the Internet. The Court recently granted review in Elonis v. United States, a case involving a man who was convicted under a federal law that criminalizes “true threats” after he posted disturbing rap lyrics about his ex-wife on Facebook. The lyrics included such statements as:
There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts. Hurry up and die, bitch, so I can bust this nut all over your corpse from atop your shallow grave. I used to be a nice guy but then you became a slut.
The defendant’s lyrics also involved a number of other violent statements, including a reference to “making a name for himself” with a kindergarten shooting and a fantasy about killing an F.B.I. agent. An issue in the case is whether the statements were “true threats” — in particular, whether the defendant’s claim that he did not intend his statements as serious threats should matter. Here again, the distinct qualities of the Internet make a difference. Because the Internet filters out voice and demeanor cues, online statements provide less information about the seriousness of the statement, and are thus more likely to be reasonably interpreted as threats. Likewise, because the Internet is not tied to a particular physical location, disturbing statements are more alarming to a reasonable person: one doesn’t know whether the person making the threats is in a different state or in the next room. The Court should take these realities into account next term in fashioning a “true threats” doctrine for the digital age.
Third, the Internet medium poses novel considerations when it comes to First Amendment doctrine governing hate speech. The Court’s past decisions on that issue have been mixed: in RAV v. City of St. Paul, the Court unanimously struck down a hate-crime ordinance that had been interpreted to criminalize cross-burning, while in Virginia v. Black, it upheld a statute that criminalized cross-burning so long as “intent to intimidate” was proven. Yet there are good reasons for the Court to analyze Internet hate speech differently. First, the Internet facilitates the gathering of like-minded individuals united by their hatred of particular groups. Second, the anonymity of the Internet facilitates easy expression of hateful ideas. And finally, Internet hate speech sometimes leads to serious real-world consequences: consider, for example, the ease with which al-Qaeda’s hateful anti-American sentiments facilitate recruitment of new members.
Fourth, the phenomenon of “revenge porn” — the distribution of intimate pictures of another person without that person’s consent — is another instance in which First Amendment analysis should take account of the unique characteristics of Internet speech. Some have argued that new state laws criminalizing revenge porn are, in at least some instances, constitutionally sound and good policy; others are more ambivalent. But broadcasting intimate images to the public via the Internet is quantitatively and qualitatively different from, say, distribution of such images by mail. I do not mean to imply that offline non-consensual distribution could not also be prohibited consistent with the U.S. Constitution. But First Amendment analysis of statutes criminalizing Internet revenge porn should not ignore the real-world differences associated with online distribution. The Internet allows easy dissemination of large quantities of revenge porn, facilitates the viral spread of such material, and potentially preserves the material online indefinitely, with devastating consequences for victims.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Riley is a timely acknowledgment of the need for Fourth Amendment doctrine to take account of developments in technology. It’s time for the Court to do the same with other areas of constitutional law, starting with the First Amendment.
These Apollo 11 Mission Photos Will Transport You Back To A Remarkable Day In History
“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” — Inscription on the plaque of the Apollo 11 lunar module.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong made history when he landed on the moon with Buzz Aldrin and took that first “small step for mankind” on the lunar surface. Forty-five years later, we remember that day during the Apollo 11 mission as one that changed the world forever.
Now, you’ve probably seen the incredible, iconic image of a boot print on the moon — and that photograph of Aldrin posing next to the U.S. flag.
But have you seen what the astronauts ate for breakfast the morning of the launch, or the photo of them peeking through a small window to greet their wives after their return home?
Scroll through a rare collection of photographs below to relive the mission from start to finish.
How To Add An iTunes Gift Card to Passbook
This week Apple in Australia, Japan and The United States gave iTunes account holders the ability to add iTunes Gift Cards to their Passbook on their iPhone. It saves you from having to go to a store and purchase them and scan them in to iTunes in order to use them for app, books, movies […]
The post How To Add An iTunes Gift Card to Passbook appeared first on AlliOSNews.
Customer Service Hall Of Shame: 24/7 Wall St.
When it comes to companies we dread dealing with, we all know who they are. Let’s put it this way, would you rather go to the Apple Genius Bar to fix something with your iPhone or to the Bank of America teller to reverse a surprise interest charge?
It’s perhaps no wonder Bank of America leads the nation in bad customer service. The massive U.S. financial institution has made the Customer Service Hall of Shame every year since 2009.
Click here to see 24/7 Wall St.’s customer service hall of shame:
In collaboration with research survey group Zogby Analytics, we polled 2,500 adults about the quality of customer service at 150 of America’s best-known companies in 15 industries, asking if that service was “excellent,” “good,” “fair” or “poor.”
Those with the highest percentages of “excellent” rankings make up the Customer Service Hall of Fame; those with the highest share “poor” ratings make up our Customer Service Hall of Shame. (See how the survey was done and full results on the last page of this article.)
Many of the other companies with the bottom-rated customer service have earned spots on the Hall of Shame list in the past. Eight of the 10 companies in the Hall of Shame have made at least three previous appearances since 2009.
It is difficult for businesses in some industries to win consumer praise. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — three of the largest banks in the country — received some of the worst customer service ratings in the nation.
For banks, the many fees they charge may contribute to a customer’s poor evaluation of a company. “As soon as you take out your Bank of America ATM card you get charged,” said Praveen Kopalle, professor of marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
In addition to unpleasant and repeated charges and fees, these large banks engaged in questionable and often unlawful behavior that contributed to the housing crisis. For example, “[Banks] assured customers that [mortgage-backed securities] were actually good products when, in fact, they were pretty toxic,” Kopalle said.
Cable and satellite TV companies are another segment that has repeatedly received poor customer service ratings. Shep Hyken, a customer satisfaction expert, explained that these companies are often unclear about their service charges. “Customers get shocked when they get their bill,” Hyken said.
In some instances, companies have little incentive to offer good service. “If people really don’t like the customer service that they receive from telecom companies, they don’t have a lot of choice,” Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, explained. Without competition from other companies, “there is just not that pressure to deliver great service.”
Future consolidation in these industries may exacerbate the problem. Companies like AT&T and DirecTV, as well as Time Warner Cable and Comcast, are driving merger and acquisition activity that will likely close this year, pending government approval.
Many of the companies with the worst customer service, however, are still market leaders and manage to maintain impressive profit margins. Seven of the 10 companies in the Hall of Shame dominate their industries.
This is 24/7 Wall St.’s customer service hall of shame:
Review: Patriot Fuel+ 6,000 and 9,000 mAh mobile backup batteries
Mobile device batteries are better than they used to be, but there’s always a scenario where users could use more juice. Upgrade manufacturer Patriot has a solution — it has a line of portable batteries intended for charging devices on-the-go, called the Fuel+. In theory, a booster battery is easy — implement a battery, some ports, and a way to charge the battery, and done. In actuality, proper execution of an external battery is a bit more complex. Does Patriot have the balance right? Check our review to find out.
Watch NASA's Curiosity Rover Zap A Rock On Mars With A Laser
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars has set off some fireworks on the Red Planet with the zap-zap-zap of its high-tech space laser.
On Saturday (July 12), Curiosity photographed sparks flying from a baseball-size rock blasted by the 1-ton robot’s laser-sampling Chemistry and Camera instrument, known as ChemCam. You can see the laser flashes in this new video of Curiosity’s work from NASA, which compiles pictures taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager camera on the rover’s arm.
While Curiosity has fired its laser at more than 600 different targets since touching down on Mars in August 2012, the rover had never captured images of the resulting sparks before Saturday, NASA officials said.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on its arm to catch the first images of sparks produced by the rover’s laser being shot at a rock on Mars.
“This is so exciting! The ChemCam laser has fired more than 150,000 times on Mars, but this is the first time we see the plasma plume that is created,” ChemCam deputy principal investigator Sylvestre Maurice, of France’s National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Toulouse, said in a NASA statement.
“Each time the laser hits a target, the plasma light is caught and analyzed by ChemCam’s spectrometers,” Maurice added. “What the new images add is confirmation that the size and shape of the spark are what we anticipated under Martian conditions.”
The rock, which rover team members named “Nova,” sports a layer of dust and is rich in aluminum, silicon and sodium, researchers said. Its composition is similar to other stones Curiosity has zapped recently.
Last year, mission scientists announced that a site near Curiosity’s landing zone called Yellowknife Bay could have supported microbial life billions of years ago. The rover left Yellowknife Bay last July and is now embarked on a long trek to the base of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Red Planet sky.
Curiosity’s handlers want the six-wheeled robot to climb up through Mount Sharp’s foothills, reading the rocks for clues about how Mars shifted from a wet and relatively warm world in the ancient past to the cold, dry planet it is today.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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Netflix Is Testing A Privacy Mode So You Can Hide Guilty Pleasures
Embarrassed about some of those Netflix movies you’ve been watching? Is there a show you’re avoiding so it doesn’t appear in your “Recently Watched” section? We feel you.
Now Netflix is testing a privacy mode that will keep what you watch from showing up in your activity log, according to Gigaom. Yep, it’s pretty much like private browsing or “Incognito Mode” on your web browser, so you can hide all of your guilty pleasures from those who share your account. Also, if you have a burning urge to watch “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” but really don’t want Netflix to recommend a bunch of reality shows to you, this new mode also prevents that from happening.
The feature is currently being tested across all Netflix markets, but not everyone will be able to use it. Whether it will become available to all subscribers depends on the test run. “We may not ever offer it generally,” Cliff Edwards, director of corporate communications and technology, said. Till then, you’ll just have to pray no one looks through your activity log, or find a way to be proud of your love for Disney Channel Original Movies.
[via Gigaom]
'Fragments Of Him' Video Game Explores Queer Love And Loss
A dark and groundbreaking new video game is slated to hit the market this winter that follows the experiences of one man following the death of the love of his life.
A new take on queerness in video gaming, “Fragments of Him” has previously been available in a free, initial version that is reportedly “quite basic and linear.” This new, full version is expected to expand further, with a look into the life of the deceased man, as well as allow the user to follow him on his final day. Designer Mata Haggis told Rock, Paper, Shotgun,
“There’s gonna be different gameplay mechanics in the final version –- not just removing objects. You’ll be progressing the story by making choices, too.The story will be slightly branching, but it’s still gonna have that same emotional journey if you go through it. Also each time you play through, you might get slightly different perspective –- slightly different lines of dialogue and whatnot. While it is a linear emotional journey, there are different ways to go along that path.”
Check out the trailer for “Fragments of Him” above or head here to read more.
(h/t Towleroad)
Japan's Rotating Seats Solve Train Travel's Greatest Woe (VIDEO)
For motion-averse passengers, enduring a rocky train ride in a seat facing backward can be a painfully nauseating experience.
But for those in Japan, this particular travel woe might be a thing of the past with the most ingenious idea ever: automatic rotating train seats. When the train reaches its final destination, all the seats spin around to face the direction the train is traveling in.
According to The Telegraph, seats on Shinkansen, Japan’s high-speed bullet trains can also be manually rotated to create six-seat and four-seat configurations, so you and your travel buddies can all sit together.
With train travel looking up in the U.S., rotating seats would be a welcome addition for those who get motion sickness from riding backward or prefer to travel facing forward. And we all know that train travel is the best, so why not make it that much better?
VIDEO: Piracy alerts to be sent to households
Warning emails are to be sent to people who are downloading music and films illegally.
Thanks for reading our digest. Opinions in the articles above are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Digital Workshed ltd.