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.
The Awful Truth Behind Sexual Harassment Of Women Gamers
Speaking on a panel at indie game convention PAX East in 2012, Jenny Haniver recalled what happened one time when she tried to tell a male gamer about a nearby adversary. “Shut up, bitch,” he said over and over again.
Haniver runs Not in the Kitchen Anymore, “a website which documents and examines her experiences as a female gamer through a collection of transcribed audio clips recorded while she games online.” Like many other women, she’s frequently harassed by male gamers because of her gender and has been for years.
That’s the arena Shannon Sun-Higginson steps into with “GTFO,” which is set to debut at this year’s South By Southwest Film Festival. Put into development long before Gamergate brought the issue of misogyny in gaming into the national conversation, the film details the casual abuse perpetrated by, in Sun-Higginson’s words, a “vocal minority” of predominantly white male gamers who are fearful of losing their place within the industry.
“Gamergate is just one example of something that’s just a much bigger and, unfortunately, common and systemic problem,” Sun-Higginson said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “I think a lot of outsiders saw Gamergate as this weird, crazy thing that happened. But for people who are experiencing it daily, it doesn’t seem like a fluke incident.”
An example of the harassment as captured in “GTFO.”
Using some funds raised on Kickstarter and her own camera, Sun-Higginson was inspired to make “GTFO” after watching a 2012 video of gamer Miranda Pakozdi taking abuse from Aris Bakhtanians during a Capcom sponsored reality show.
“You can see it getting progressively worse and worse,” Sun-Higginson said of the video. “I’m not a gamer, so when he sent that to me I was just shocked — like a lot of people would be. I wanted other people like me, who are not gamers, to know that this is happening.”
For those non-gamers, or those who haven’t followed Gamergate, much of the abuse shown in “GTFO” — including threats of rape and death — is appalling. It’s a world many don’t know exists, which is why Sun-Higginson’s film, one of a few that will tackle the issue in the coming year, is so important.
“I hope ‘GTFO’ is the start of that conversation,” Sun-Higginson said. “I just hope some gamers who watch this movie can come away and say that maybe the next time they see this happen, they’ll stand up for someone else. I’ll tell my friend I won’t play with them he if yells hate speech at everyone who sounds different from him on xBox Live. Other than wanting non-gamers to see this problem exists, I think another really important goal for me is to have people thinking about this in a deeper way. Rather than just looking at it like a freak show.”
More on “GTFO” can be found at the film’s website. This year’s South By Southwest Film Festival runs from March 13-21.
VIDEO: iBeacons connect SXSW festival-goers
iBeacons connect SXSW festival-goers
Get a Ninja Cat T-Shirt from Windows Central
Okay Windows Peeps, time to get in on the Ninja Cat craze and the team over at Windows Central has the ultimate answer. Now in case you missed it, the Ninja Cat riding a unicorn carrying a Microsoft banner was on some of the Windows 10 team laptops when the Windows 10 for Phone preview launched. It somewhat took a life of its own and there are even stickers of reported to be running around the Microsoft campus’. However, for us commoners, this is even better. First, go here on the Windows Central site and follow the link to order
The post Get a Ninja Cat T-Shirt from Windows Central appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
Weekend Roundup: How Japan's Past Shadows Asia's Future
TOKYO — Looking out onto Tokyo’s towering neon cityscape, it is difficult to imagine the utter devastation of Japan’s capital 70 years ago this week in one of the world’s greatest overlooked atrocities — the unsparing American firebombing that incinerated more people than either of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. In this respect, Japan is a long way from its past.
But a visit to Tokyo this week by German Chancellor Angela Merkel — during which she noted how her country had accepted culpability for its WWII fascist aggression in a way that Japan has not — also highlights how the past still shadows the present — and the future — in Asia. (In Europe also the past has returned from another angle as Greece is demanding reparations from Germany).
In Beijing on Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on Japan’s nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to mark the upcoming 70th anniversary of the end of the war with German-like remorse if the growing animus between the two Asian giants is to be put behind them. Such a move is the essential step for the “re-Asianization of Japan” as the world order shifts.
Writing from Frankfurt in The WorldPost this week, Jürgen Jeske looks back to other critical lessons from the early post-war years — the now forgotten policies that enabled Germany’s “economic miracle” of recovery to take off.
Historian Stefan Ihrig looks at how the Islamic bent of Prime Minister Erdogan’s “new Turkey” resembles the secular “new Turkey” of Atatürk at the turn of the 20th century. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warns Britain against going its own way apart from Europe.
Writing from New Delhi, Shashi Tharoor sees Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit this week to neighboring states in the Indian Ocean as an attempt to balance China’s new plans for a 21st century “maritime Silk Road.” Sital Kalantry and Harjant Gill weigh in from different sides on the controversial documentary on rape in India, “India’s Daughter.”
Ahead of the September summit between Chinese President Xi and U.S. President Obama, Harvard’s Joe Nye argues that “only China can contain China” if its neighbors feel threatened and react by building their militaries. Seeking to boost the nascent global recovery through more open trade while also following up on climate change pledges, will be high on the summit agenda, notes Minxin Pei. WorldPost China Correspondent Matt Sheehan reports this week from Tianjin on official hostility to grassroots protests against local corruption despite the much vaunted anti-corruption campaign from President Xi at the top. He also reports on the ironic arrest of five women activists celebrating the passage of China’s first draft law on domestic violence.
When it comes to trade agreements, not any trading regime will do if it further harms the environment, Sierra Club Director Michael Brune writes. Former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich also worries that the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (which does not at this point include China) will only serve the interests of multinational companies at the expense of workers.
Writing from Istanbul, Behlül Özkan says the ray of hope for democracy in a Middle East swept up by ISIS fervor is the secular Kurds. WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones reminds us of the ongoing toll in the Syrian civil war in light of its four year anniversary. This week’s “Forgotten Fact” also turns to Syria and looks at how the country’s artifacts aren’t just being destroyed by the Islamic State — they’re also being looted.
As Iran’s negotiations with the West over its nuclear program come to a head, Akbar Ganji analyzes the power struggle in Tehran.
Sir David Tang ponders the symbolism of socialite Paris Hilton — heir to a fortune from hotels, including the famed Havana Hilton — meeting up with Fidelito Castro in Havana as Cuba undergoes a defrosting of relations with the U.S..
In his comments to The WorldPost “Future of Work” conference in London, long-time presidential adviser David Gergen spells out three ways to help create well paid jobs in the future “from the bottom up,” including by supporting women entrepreneurs. Chelsea Clinton adds that women are still “not there” in terms of equality in the workplace. WorldPost partner Fusion reports from the conference that the British minister of state for culture and the digital economy credits McDonald’s as “the biggest education institution in the country” for the kind of “soft skills” workers will need in the future. In a poll by Singularity University this week, most tech executives say the most important thing in any new venture is “failing fast” and not sticking with a losing effort.
Architect Zaha Hadid says that it is hard being an Arab woman in the architecture business. Finally, “Downton Abbey”creator Julian Fellowes says in an interview that “people pray for my characters.”
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 and Peter Mellgard are the Associate Editors 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.
Best Teen Tweets Of The Week! (3/13/15)
Every week, we round up the best 140-character quips and insights from our esteemed blogging team — and other equally awesome teen tweeters. Scroll down to read the latest batch and share your own suggestions by following @HuffPostTeen!
Finally. The temp is no longer colder than my heart
— Al (@AlexRogers7) March 10, 2015
Anyone else’s parents try to talk to you about college and your future through the bathroom door?
— lighght (@eniaishere) March 11, 2015
the depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall
— Taylor Sisk (@_taytaysisk) March 9, 2015
Nothing like crying over Harry Potter on my way to school
— elise (@JamisonElise) March 10, 2015
SOS sitting in a bathroom stall at my school scared to leave bc some girl is putting on makeup and taking mirror selfies……
— Zoe McDonald (@zoemcd15) March 13, 2015
Are u even a real high schooler if u don’t wait until Sunday night to start your homework
— Karl and 4 others (@KarlDaWinner) March 9, 2015
Me @ colleges that haven’t given me a decision yet pic.twitter.com/6nW53jyC3q
— dannika andersen (@dannika_nicole) March 10, 2015
The Perks of Being a Cauliflower #MakeAMovieHealthy
— Joey King (@JoeyKingActress) March 12, 2015
lmao our “no soliciting” sign came in handy pic.twitter.com/WG7a7ySZW5
— Kennedy Norman (@kennedynorman_) March 8, 2015
nothing is worse than ordering take out food and UR SO EXCITED UR MOUTH WATERS THINKING ABOUT IT and then bam. it gets here. 2 tiny shrimps.
— camEEla cabeYo (@camilacabello97) March 9, 2015
Why can I hula hoop for hours without stopping but I can’t dance like a human for my life?
— M A D D I E (@WH2o_kiddo) March 9, 2015
spring break!!!!! senior year!!!! time to get wild!!!!!!! *looks down at the 2 cats in my lap* isn’t that right guys!!??
— Andrew Lowe (@andrewlx) March 13, 2015
The only way to motivate me is if you offer me:
1) food
2) Louis Tomlinson
— Courtney (@CourtneyBoese) March 13, 2015
*goes to a yoga class*
*gets sore next day*
*never works out again*
— Meredith Foster (@stilababe09) March 9, 2015
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How the Cloud Is Changing the Concept of Ownership
Whenever the conversation turns to cloud storage, subscription based pricing for software, or any form of digital distribution, I find myself remembering what life was like in the ’80s. Specifically, I recall how I programmed my first computer game. It was saved on an audio cassette tape.
Yes, in the early 1980s audio cassettes were a legitimate storage medium for software. The cassette tape, which was once used for both audio and data, is now used for neither. On the audio front, tapes lost the format wars to CDs… which are now losing the battle against purely digital distribution in the form of both sales (see iTunes) and streaming services (see Spotify.) As for data storage, the cassette never stood a chance against the 5 ¼-inch floppy disk… which was eventually replaced by the 3 ½-inch floppy, the Zip disc, CDs, USB flash drives, and cloud storage.
The storage formats aren’t the only things that have changed. For both media and software, the entire concept of ownership has been disrupted.
Programs are shifting towards a software as a service (SaaS) model. Music and movies are also following the same progression. People tend to joke about the DVD being a dead format the same way they used to joke about vinyl records being a dead format. After all, why would anybody want to buy a Blu-Ray or DVD when they can stream the same content instantly on Netflix?
Nevertheless, I would like to defend records for what they represent in terms of the relationship between content providers and consumers. Consider, for example, how my father accesses his media library. Sometime back in the mid 1950s, my dad acquired a great LP called Concert by the Sea by jazz pianist Erroll Garner. That was almost 60 years ago, but my father still owns it and it still sounds great. (For younger readers who want to know what a “record” looks like, I forced my dad to pose for this picture.)
Compare my dad’s record collection to the way I consume media.
My Dad: As the owner of the LP, my father is in complete control over when he can listen to it.
Me: As somebody who sometimes streams digital content, I am opting into a service model where I surrender some degree of control.
For example, the rights to Concert by the Sea changed hands when Sony took control of Columbia Records… but none of that disrupted my dad’s ability to play the album. In contrast to that, even though you might pay a monthly subscription fee to stream movies on Netflix, your access is at their discretion. When Netflix doesn’t secure a favorable agreement with movie studios, content that was in your queue vanishes from their service.
Another issue to consider: If my dad didn’t enjoy the record as much as he does, he could have resold it to another owner at a tag sale years ago. The right to resale is under fire as producers work to shutter second-hand markets. These efforts limit the rights of consumers and, in some cases, backfire in the face of the content producers. Microsoft, for example, was originally going to prevent the Xbox One from playing used games until fan backlash forced them to reverse their decision.
While the software as a service model decidedly has its benefits, developers and content creators shouldn’t be so quick to turn their back on the concept of ownership and the value that ownership offers to consumers.
By the way, if you like jazz I definitely recommend that you listen to Concert by the Sea… perhaps on iTunes or Spotify.
Seinfeld Nears Streaming Video Deal, Yada Yada
“Seinfeld” is about to become master of a whole new domain: the Internet.
Free Devices Will Help 1 Million U.K. Students Learn To Code, Enter Booming Job Industry
Coding is the door to the digital future, and kids are holding the key.
On Thursday, the BBC launched a major initiative called Make it Digital that will provide 1 million devices used to teach coding to young students. Every student entering Year 7, mostly kids aged 11 or 12, will receive a device. The program is part of a larger effort to make the U.K. more digitally educated, BBC reported.
Currently, the U.K. is predicting that 1.4 million digital professionals will be needed over the next five years, and there is presently a shortage of qualified people to fill these jobs. Developing these skills in early education could help increase the pursuit of jobs in computer science.
“BBC Make it Digital could help digital creativity become as familiar and fundamental as writing, and I’m truly excited by what Britain, and future great Britons, can achieve,” Tony Hall, BBC director-general, said in a statement.
Last year, the U.K implemented mandatory computer science programs into its curriculum, Bloomberg Business reported in October.
“Learning how to code allows kids to do their own thing, be creative and secure a job in an area where there will be a huge shortage,” Rachel Swidenbank of Codecademy, an online platform that teaches coding, told the news outlet.
In an effort to engage its new audience, Make it Digital is partnering with popular British brands and television shows, including “EastEnders” and “Doctor Who,” to develop its program. By combining computer concepts with popular culture, BBC hopes to retain young user engagement.
Called the Micro Bit, the device will be distributed across the U.K. beginning fall of 2015. Based off the 1980s device, the BBC Micro, the Micro Bit will be a small, wearable device that connects to a computer via USB. It is still in the developmental phase, but will provide programs and activities that teach coding in a fun, interactive way.
“[Micro Bit is] an entry-level device that will enable kids to code and program, and if they enjoy that, clearly they’ll move on to devices like the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi,” Ian Livingstone, co-founder of British game production company Games Workshop, told The Guardian.
The Arduino and Raspberry Pi are programming devices currently used to teach basic computer science skills.
“We want to channel the spirit of the BBC Micro for the digital age,” Hall told The Guardian at the Make it Digital launch. “Everyone involved [wants] this to be a defining moment for digital creativity.”
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Watch These Kids Read Mean Tweets About Themselves To Shed Light On Cyberbullying
Watching celebrities read mean tweets results in a few good laughs and millions of YouTube hits. Watching kids read them isn’t so funny.
Modeled after Jimmy Kimmel’s “Mean Tweets” series, a video from the Canadian Safe School Network and advertising agency John St. shows kids reading mean tweets aloud. Cyberbullies take shots at the kids’ race, weight, appearance and more.
“Allan’s voice is so annoying it makes me wish I was deaf,” one boy said while reading a tweet. Later, a girl reads one where she’s called “a huge loser.”
By mimicking Kimmel’s popular segment, the creators hope their campaign will spread awareness of the effects of cyberbullying on kids.
“We wanted to use the ‘Mean Tweets’ model because in a way, those videos give the message that cyberbullying is OK — even funny,” said Stu Auty, president of the Canadian Safe School Network, on the organization’s blog. “But adult celebrities have the maturity and confidence to overcome these hurtful words. Children don’t. For regular kids, words can cut like a knife.”
The organization also changed up its video to emphasize its message. In the videos of celebrities reading mean tweets, an audience can be heard laughing in the background. For this video, a laugh track fades until it is completely silenced with a final tweet that shows cyberbullying at its worst.
“No one likes you. Do everyone a favor. Just kill yourself,” the last girl said as she read a tweet.
Though the change is simple, it’s powerful. Most importantly, it proves there’s nothing funny about cyberbullying.
Disclaimer: This video contains some inappropriate content.
H/T Adweek
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Recruiting future 'cyber defenders'
Competition aims to find top computer security talent
Sometimes The Boss Is Allowed To Yell. Seriously!
Sometimes it’s OK for the boss to yell. And by sometimes, I mean, almost never.
Apple founder Steve Jobs “only yelled at me four or five times during the 13 years I knew him,” current Apple CEO Tim Cook is quoted as saying in a new book.
Cook describes one of those yelling times in an excerpt from the book published on Fast Company’s website Thursday night.
He had apparently offered to donate part of his liver to Jobs when Jobs was very sick with pancreatic cancer. Jobs cut him off decisively, Cook says. “‘No, I’m not doing that!’ He kind of popped up in bed and said that,” according to the excerpt from Becoming Steve Jobs, a biography by Brent Schlender and Fast Company executive editor Rick Tetzeli coming out later this month.
While no one would begrudge the shouts of a dying man, as Jobs was at that time, the anecdote raises questions: Is it ever OK for a boss to yell? Is “four or five times” of Jobs yelling at Cook a lot of yelling or a little yelling? Cook seems to think it’s no biggie.
There are times when it’s OK for a leader to raise his or her voice, Morag Barrett, the CEO of SkyeTeam, told The Huffington Post. Barrett’s company works with leaders on what she calls “people challenges” within their companies.
Sometimes a little yelling can show that a leader is passionate about a topic, Barrett says. “When you’re trying to rally the troops or inspire them, sometimes showing that passion is important. Raising your voice at the right level and the right time is the skill of a great leader.” If you’re even-keeled all the time that can become a problem, she said.
(Sidenote: The ecstatic shouts and screams of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer are legion.)
Barrett also said that in industries like manufacturing and mining, where worker safety is at issue, yelling can be fine, as well. “It’s literally life and death,” she said. Sometimes you need to get a worker’s attention quickly, and raising your voice does the trick.
Jobs, who died in 2011, was a legendary leader unafraid of brutal honesty or argument. But his yelling could get very personal and very angry, according to published reports. As told in Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography, Jobs once started shouting at a bunch of workers at a different company, calling them “fucking dickless assholes.”
That kind of yelling is unacceptable, Barrett said. When it’s personal and when it’s public, that’s not OK. Yelling can make people uncomfortable around you — afraid of you — and that’s going to stifle creativity and collaboration at work. Yelling can “leave the relationship damaged,” she said. Workers will feel disrespected and will lose respect for the boss.
One key to “acceptable” yelling is to communicate the rules of the game to your workers beforehand. Barrett said that you have to have a conversation in which you say, “Sometimes I’m going to raise my voice.” You should check in with them and ask if it makes them uncomfortable. “If you haven’t had those overt conversations up front, then it’s not OK,” she said. “You’re gonna cause workers to go on the defensive.”
And, crucially, leaders shouldn’t raise their voices very often — less is more. The four or five times Jobs yelled at Cook were likely “very memorable and meaningful,” she said.
Generally speaking, yelly bosses are quickly going out of fashion, as Wall Street Journal columnist Sue Shellenbarger noted in this 2012 article.
“While underlings may work hard for difficult bosses, hoping for a shred of praise, few employees do their best work amid yelling,” she writes.
Some of Jobs’ defenders would disagree. “If you don’t want to work for a boss that yells at you, don’t work for Apple,” writes Mike Elgan for Cult of Mac in 2011. “If you don’t want to be screamed at by a lunatic perfectionist, don’t enter into a business partnership with Apple.”
UPDATE – Gabe Aul Confirms No Windows 10 Build To Be Released Today
– The Insider Hub now confirms that the Fast Ring will be getting faster with a much more discernable difference in release drops between it and the Slow ring. If you want a more polished, stable Windows 10 experience then you should move to the Slow ring. If you want more updates but with likely more bugs/issues, stay in the Fast ring. For those in the Windows Insider program waiting for an updated build of Windows 10 Technical Preview, time to start looking towards next week. Microsoft’s Gabe Aul has just tweeted that there will be no new build
The post UPDATE – Gabe Aul Confirms No Windows 10 Build To Be Released Today appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
Carbon Emissions Stabilized In 2014; Shows Efforts To Combat Climate Change May Be Working
This story originally appeared on Climate Central.
Solar, wind and other renewables are making such a big difference in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide that global emissions from the energy sector flatlined during a time of economic growth for the first time in 40 years.
The International Energy Agency announced Friday that energy-related CO2 emissions last year were unchanged from the year before, totaling 32.3 billion metric tons of CO2 in both 2013 and 2014. It shows that efforts to reduce emissions to combat climate change may be more effective than previously thought.
“This is both a very welcome surprise and a significant one,” IEA Chief Economist and incoming IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement. “It provides much-needed momentum to negotiators preparing to forge a global climate deal in Paris in December. For the first time, greenhouse gas emissions are decoupling from economic growth.”
Following an announcement earlier this week that China’s CO2 emissions fell 2 percent in 2014, the IEA is crediting 2014’s progress to China using more solar, wind and hydropower while burning less coal. Western Europe’s focus on sustainable growth, energy efficiency and renewables has shown that emissions from energy consumption can fall even as economies grow globally, according to the IEA.
Global CO2 emissions stalled or fell in the early 1980s, 1992 and 2009, each time correlating with a faltering global economy. In 2014, the economy grew 3 percent worldwide.
In the U.S., energy-related CO2 emissions fell during seven of the past 23 years, most notably during the recession of 2009, U.S. Energy Information Administration data show. Emissions in 2013 — the most recent year for which U.S. data is available — were higher than they were in the previous year, but 10 percent lower than they were in 2005.
At the same time, the carbon intensity of the U.S. economy — CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP — has been trending downward over the past 25 years, according to the administration.
The IEA will release a more detailed analysis of global energy-related CO2 emissions in a special energy and climate report to be released in June.
“The latest data on emissions are indeed encouraging, but this is no time for complacency and certainly not the time to use this positive news as an excuse to stall further action,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in a statement.
Nielsen Calls On Industry To Help 'Total Up' Audience Measurement In Digital Age
Earlier this week, Nielsen, a measurement company that keeps track of television ratings and consumer trends, rolled out its first marketing campaign in roughly five years. Titled “Total It Up,” the initiative seeks to modernize how Nielsen tallies audience viewership by finally incorporating online content into its purview.
Though the company has kept track of television ratings since 1950 — and recently started monitoring digital video recorders and video on-demand — the idea is that online platforms, like Netflix and Hulu, and mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, represent the next frontier.
“Content is moving into so many new places and if you create content you want to be able to total that audience up,” Cheryl Idell, an executive vice president at Nielsen, said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “You want to be able to take your traditional television viewership and combine it with your video on demand viewership and combine it with your DVR viewership and combine it with your mobile viewership, so you can truly have one number that tracks the audience to that content wherever it goes.”
With networks locked in fierce competition over eyeballs and advertising dollars, ratings have long-functioned as the measuring stick of success in the TV industry. According to Idell, those numbers are the “currency” on which the entire industry is built, a way of telling what content is selling and what content isn’t. But as more and more Americans migrate away from the television set and toward the tablet, there is a growing need to adapt the system along with them.
“[I]t will be measurement that holds a key to enabling true understanding of this audience behavior (in real-time) to inform dynamic content and advertising in an ever-fragmenting media,” Dounia Turrill, Nielsen’s senior vice president of insights, wrote in the company’s most recent “Total Audience Report,” released Wednesday. “Accordingly, to do so, audience measurement will transform dramatically to capture and accurately value the ‘total audience.’”
Nielsen cannot make audience measurement more all-inclusive alone, however. The company already collaborates with networks to produce TV ratings, and is asking that measurement on digital platforms be an even greater team effort. Nielsen hopes its clients will help by putting software development kits into their apps and devices and flagging content with “tags or watermarks” for easy identification and monitoring.
“It isn’t something Nielsen can do alone, we can’t flip a switch and turn on this measurement,” Idell said. “We need our clients, we need the content creators, we need the advertisers to all collaborate into this process to make measurements possible across all platforms.”
Nielsen hopes the result will be a more comprehensive ratings system — one that takes all viewership, regardless of platform or device, into account.
In a short video for the “Total It Up” campaign posted to the company’s website, Nielsen puts it simply:
“Let’s count the binge-watchers; the cord-cutters; the on-the-go multi-taskers,” the video says. “Let’s evolve the ratings to include every view on every screen.”
Twitter Takes Steps To Ban Revenge Porn
Taking a stand against trolls everywhere, Twitter has banned revenge porn.
The social media platform updated its rules Wednesday, adding a new guideline that reads: “You may not post intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject’s consent.”
A representative from Twitter told BuzzFeed that users will be able to report tweets that contain intimate photos or videos of them shared without their permission:
[Twitter] will ask a reporting user to verify that he or she is the individual in question in content alleged to be violating our policy and to confirm that the photo or video in question was posted without consent. Agents will then act on content posted in violation of the policy. Users who believe that content they post has been incorrectly identified is [sic] violating the policy can appeal the decision and agents will review that request as well.
This change comes just weeks after the leak of an internal memo in which Twitter CEO Dick Costelo discussed the problem of harassment on the site.
“We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years,” Costelo had written. “It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.”
In the memo, Costelo vowed to take responsibility for the issue and work hard to eliminate trolls and harassers from the site. Making Twitter a place where posting “revenge porn” isn’t tolerated is a great step in the right direction.
This Emoji Keyboard Will Make You Forget You Ever Used The Alphabet
No more words. Ever. Letters are about to become obsolete, thanks to the new Kickstarter campaign for The Emoji Keyboard.
The keyboard is actually a keyboard cover, which comes with software for typing emoji on your computer — just like you would type letters. This is what it looks like:
(Credit: Kickstarter)
The group behind the Emoji Keyboard is Disk Cactus, an art and technology studio based in Oakland, California. They’re looking to raise $20,000 by April 9, 2015.
The keyboard features “over 150 emoji,” but there are 722 emoji in the world, according to Emojipedia. Which emoji did they leave out?!
(Credit: Kickstarter)
You can switch between your regular, boring keyboard and the emoji keyboard by pushing caps lock. You can also use the shift, option and control keys to get more emoji options.
The emoji keyboard cover is made for Mac keyboards only and comes in two sizes: one for a standard Mac keyboard and one for an 11-inch MacBook Air. (Sorry, non-Mac users.) If you pledge at least $10, you’ll get a keyboard cover and the software that makes it work.
(Credit: Kickstarter)
If only I had this keyboard now. I would just type “heart, computer, smiley face, dollar sign, cake” instead of all of these stupid words. What a time saver!
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