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.
These 7 Things Are Even Cooler When They Come In 3D
When you sit and think about it, the world of 3D really is an incredible one. Thanks to innovations in virtual reality and 3D printing, among other things, it appears that the possibilities are truly endless.
In this spirit, we’ve partnered with the makers of Genius 3D Mammography to bring you a list of things that now exist beyond two dimensions. Many of these once seemed like they could only exist in sci-fi movies, but now they’ve become part of our hi-tech reality.
1. Manmade ‘Organs’
It appears that anything can be created using 3D printing. This amazing technology has been used to not only make everyday items like combs but also much more complex objects — like human body parts. Yes, you read that correctly: Ears, kidneys, blood vessels, skin and bones have all been created using 3D printers. Each of these creations incorporates real human cells fused with synthetic materials, such as ceramic (for bones) or sugar filaments (for blood vessels). Scientists are still testing the potential these organs have for transplants, but hopes are high that one day surgeons can implant these and other organs into those who need them.
2. Spacecraft Parts
The medical field isn’t the only one using 3D printing in unique ways. NASA has taken advantage of the technology for building parts of spacecrafts, as well as instruments. The organization predicts that it will soon be sending the printers themselves into space so astronauts can create their own tools while on explorations. Soon we’ll be able to say that 3D printing is literally out of this world.
3. Movies … Since 1922
We all know that movies now exist in 3D, but what you probably didn’t know is that these types of films have been around since the early 1900s. In fact, the first 3D film, “The Power of Love,” was screened for audiences in 1922. It’s safe to say that these films looked pretty different from those we’re used to today, but it’s interesting to consider how long this technology has been around.
4. Your Personal TV
If you’d rather enjoy a 3D film from the comfort of your own home, you’re in luck. 3D televisions now bring something that could once only be enjoyed on the silver screen into your living room. All you need is a little extra cash and a special pair of glasses.
5. Fantasy Video Games
Thanks to companies like Oculus Rift, movies aren’t the only type of entertainment that can be enjoyed in 3D. Now gamers can actually enter their fantasy world by simply wearing a headset. This is made possible by technology similar to that used in 3D movies, where a unique and parallel image is presented to each eye.
6. Ultrasounds
3D has done wonders for sonograms. What once was a barely perceptible black-and-white photo now includes specific details about an unborn baby’s facial features. Doctors have also found these images incredibly useful for checking on a growing baby’s health and for any potential genetic syndromes.
7. Mammograms
Mammograms, in addition to sonograms, have been vastly improved by 3D technology. Doctors can now see a more detailed image that helps better determine whether or not there are any issues of concern. Because of this increased clarity, women also need fewer visits to repeat the imaging process for false alarms.
Genius 3D mammography is available as Hologic Selenia® Dimensions® 3D system. Please consult your physician for a complete list of the benefits and risks associated with mammography.
VIDEO: Windows 10 'brings back familiarity'
Microsoft has disclosed the first details of Windows 10 – its next operating system (OS).
Evercore raises AAPL to $125 on increased iPhone demand
Apple is not the only company that believes the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will not only drive a bigger upgrade cycle, but also bring at least some switchers from the Android platform. Evercore Partners analyst Rob Cihra has reiterated his “overweight” rating for AAPL and raised the price target to $125, along with encouraging investors to buy the stock in a new memo to clients. He also published optimistic estimates for both the September and December quarters in terms of iPhone sales.
The 'click-bait' internet firm
The $250m internet firm at the forefront of ‘lowbrow click-bait’
VIDEO: Students travel by robotic sofa
Australian students travel round campus in comfort
Can We Trust Uber?
I was a big fan of the Uber service since I first saw one of the initial prototypes of the product. Yet, over time, I’ve started to trust the company less and less, causing me to increasingly wonder about the leadership team. The news from August that Uber gave contractors phones and credit cards to create fake Lyft accounts in an attempt to recruit drivers and create false demand (which led to 5,000 lost rides) was the last straw. I’m no longer using Uber, at least until I can trust the brand. Here’s why, and my story. I’m curious how others feel.
Back in 2009, I was hanging out with a couple of friends in San Francisco at the Sheba Lounge — a classic, near legendary little jazz club on lower Fillmore Street — when Garrett Camp showed up to hang out. I had met Garrett previously at an event hosted by the inimitable Tim Ferriss, and got an immediate sense for his creativity and very good product instincts. Sitting there on the couches at Sheba, he demonstrated his latest project, an app for black car pick-up service, and I’ll never forget either how crude the prototype looked, nor the two blinking red lights, representing the two black cars in the fleet at that time. (The prototype was so crude, in fact that my friend commented to me that night, “That’ll never work!” Famous last words.)
I guessed that there would be an audience of customers like me, people who lived in metropolitan areas who needed a black car every now and then. But I would never have imagined that the company would one-day be valued at a jaw-dropping $18.2 billion.
At the same time, I became a regular user of Uber, often in New York City or San Francisco, and spent hundreds of dollars. Many of my experiences were good, though not all, and the opaque surge pricing was certainly a frustration.
Then, a funny thing happened. One night, I was in an Uber SUV in NYC, headed to Penn Station to catch the train to Washington DC when I got a text message from a tech socialite of sorts (I’ll spare her name because Gawker has already parodied her enough), but she’s someone I hardly know, asking me if I was in an Uber car at 33th and 5th (or, something like that). I replied that I was indeed, thinking that she must be in an adjacent car. Looking around, she continued to text with updates of my car’s whereabouts, so much so that I asked the driver if others could see my Uber location profile? “No,” he replied, “that’s not possible.”
At that point, it all just started to feel weird, until finally she revealed that she was in Chicago at the launch of Uber Chicago, and that the party featured a screen that showed where in NYC certain “known people” (whatever that means) were currently riding in Uber cabs. After learning this, I expressed my outrage to her that the company would use my information and identity to promote its services without my permission. She told me to calm down, and that it was all a “cool” event and as if I should be honored to have been one of the chosen.
What nonsense.
As I saw during my time in venture capital, it’s the little things that reveal what a company is all about at its core.
After that, I began to scale back my Uber rides, and today, much as I am impressed with the product design and many aspects of the user experience, I’ve given up on being able to trust the company, and am no longer using the service. It’s a bit of a bummer, to be honest, and I hope that the board steps up and cleans up the way the company approaches doing business.
The irony is that Uber not only can be a great company without resorting to the hyper-competitive tactics that have gotten it into trouble, it risks a massive downfall if consumers lose trust due to less than ethical tactics.
A great, long-lived brand begins and ends with trust.
Let’s hope that Travis Kalanick and company will learn from these mistakes and take Uber to a new level. I want to come back.
Smartphone App Can Figure Out When College Students Are Stressed
A college student’s smartphone might be smart enough to figure out when its owner is stressed, and in turn, predict what kind of GPA the student has.
StudentLife, a new Android app created by researchers at Dartmouth College, tracked 48 students for 10 weeks to map out their social interactions, physical activity, sleep and stress levels. What the team found comes as no surprise to college students: As the term goes on, stress rises, while sleep, workouts, conversations and class attendance fall.
The researchers also looked at students’ GPAs and asked them to take mental health surveys to see how their behavior affected academic performance and emotional well-being. They found that students who slept more or had more conversations (though not necessarily longer conversations) were less likely to be depressed. Similarly, students who were physically around other students more often were less likely to be depressed, and felt better about themselves.
Going to the gym was also a positive sign — people who were more physically active and mobile were less lonely, researchers found. As the head of the StudentLife project, Andrew Campbell, told Wired, “This is in line with the medical literature where poor sleep habits and social isolation are symptoms of depression.”
The Android app automatically detected what students were doing 24/7, without students having to tell it what they were up to. Using a combination of sensors from the phone — including phone usage, audio, Wi-Fi and location data — the app could tell where the student was, their physical activity level (walking, running, sitting, standing) and how much they were sleeping. And by detecting other bluetooth devices, the app could tell if a person was around other people.
Each day — and multiple times on days near class deadlines — students were given short surveys on the app about their feelings. At the beginning and end of the semester, they were also given surveys on their well-being.
After recording the students’ activity, researchers compared the data to their GPAs. The team found that better grades correlated with less physical activity, less indoor nighttime activity (like partying), and being around more people and having more conversations.
Interestingly, the data also showed that class attendance had no effect on GPA. Students who regularly went to class were no more likely to have a high GPA than students who did not regularly go to class.
Campbell, who led the research, told The Huffington Post that during this initial app trial, the researchers matched automatically collected data to the survey results to determine correlations. But in the future, the researchers want to minimize user interaction. Overall, the findings indicate that the app could accurately determine a person’s mental health — and GPA — without the survey results, he said.
“There are key behaviors that have a lot of impact on us,” Campbell said.
One possible usage for the app would be for students to share some of the data with others — clinicians, close friends or family members — who could help watch for warning signs, Campbell said. In the future, the team hopes to expand the app, bringing it to more students and possibly going beyond schools. By constantly tracking activity, the researchers hope that the app can alert people who may be overstressed, lonely or depressed — and trigger interventions.
Good2Go Is An App For Consenting To Sex
Want to have safe and consensual sex? There’s an app for that.
Good2Go is a new smartphone application that encourages users to give consent before engaging in any sexual acts. The app targets college-aged adults and its creators from Sandton Technologies hope it will prevent unwanted sexual conduct by facilitating a step-by-step process to ensure both parties are on the same page.
Lee Ann Allman, president of Sandton Technologies, created Good2Go along with seven other mothers and fathers of college-aged children. The idea emerged from conversations with their children and their children’s friends about the overwhelming number of sexual assaults that happen on college campuses all over the country.
So, once a user decides she or he wants to have to sex with someone, the app works as follows:
Launch and log in to Good2Go and hand the phone to your potential partner.
Good2Go then asks your potential partner if she/he is ready to give consent by asking “Are we Good2Go?”
The three answer options are: 1. “No, thanks”; 2. “Yes, but… we need to talk”; and 3. “I’m Good2Go.”
If the potential partner decides “No, thanks” a screen pops up that says “Remember! No means No! Only Yes means Yes BUT can be changed to NO at anytime!”
If the potential partner decides “No, thanks” a screen pops up that says “Remember! No means No! Only Yes means Yes BUT can be changed to NO at anytime!”
If she/he decides “Yes… but we need to talk,” a small bar at the bottom reads “Let’s talk!”
If the potential partner says they’re Good2Go the app asks if she/he is “Sober,” “Mildly Intoxicated,” “Intoxicated but Good2Go” or “Pretty Wasted.” If the potential partner chooses “Sober,” “Mildly Intoxicated,” “Intoxicated but Good2Go” the user can give consent, however, if she/he is “Pretty Wasted” the app says the partner cannot consent and to give the phone back to its owner.
When asked why the app informs a “Pretty Wasted” user that she/he can’t consent (even though they’re sober enough to be using Good2Go), Allman told The Huffington Post in an email: “If someone answers ‘I’m Pretty Wasted’ the app will not allow an affirmative consent answer even though they probably aren’t at the legal threshold of incapacitation. We have set a higher bar concerning sobriety than the law defines.”
Allman also made it very clear that the purpose of the app is to teach young people “the language of affirmative consent.” “If the app becomes a tool that is adopted across campuses, we believe that it will reduce sexual assaults, unwanted or regretted encounters,” she said.
These days, it seems like there’s an app for everything, so why wouldn’t there be one to facilitate consent? But some are skeptical about whether Good2Go could actually prove effective at combatting sexual assault.
As Slate’s Amanda Hess pointed out the app doesn’t clarify what kind of sex people are consenting to: “Good2Go is obviously a euphemism for sexual activity, but it’s not clear what that means exactly — is it making out, oral sex, vaginal intercourse, or anal sex, and with protection or not?”
When asked about this gap, Allman told HuffPost that, “Affirmative consent should be asked for and given for all sexual acts, no matter what they are. This should be part of the conversation that they will have as part of using the app.”
Molly Mirhashem from The New Republic also criticized the app, writing that “situations where consent is often misunderstood or disregarded — one or both parties being intoxicated, ‘implied’ consent within relationships — will not be addressed with this or any app.”
While Good2Go’s structure could be helpful in making sure that there’s no miscommunication between two parties, it doesn’t necessarily allow for any of the gray area that exists in real life sexual situations and conversations. For example, the app doesn’t address exactly what you and your partner are comfortable (or not comfortable) doing in the bedroom.
HuffPost spoke to the managing attorney of the Victim Rights Law Center (VRLC) Colby Bruno to find out if the 11-year veteran of the field thinks this app could be useful on college campuses. Overall, she seemed hopeful.
“Anything that helps students get to a mutual understanding is important for consent,” Bruno told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. “If it helps just one student or one couple with understanding what they’re about to do then terrific.”
If young people are willing to use it, Good2Go could definitely signal a step in the right direction.
Bruno put it perfectly, stating: “There are clearly flaws [with Good2Go], but if it brings some consciousness to the issue [of consent] then fantastic. Why not?”
To download the app for free go to iTunes or Google Play.
H/T Slate
10 Words You Must NEVER Use to Describe Yourself
Who am I to tell you how you can describe yourself? Nobody. So ignore me at your leisure.
On the other hand, I can tell you for free that the words you use in your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter bio, your cover letter, and in spoken language, create a response in the reader, which can condemn you faster than the blink of an eye.
Believe me on this. Recruiters, hiring managers, potential clients, and those in your social community will scorn you, even ‘delete’ you, based on the emotion these words evoke. I am not saying it’s right, but you will be judged if you use these words. And not judged well.
‘Guru,’ ‘legend,’ ‘maven,’ and ‘ninja:’ Incredibly, these are used a lot! They are very common in Twitter bios, for example. Seriously? Have you paused to consider what these words actually mean? What they imply? And you are happy to ascribe them to yourself? You are a ‘legend’, are you? And you say so? Publicly? Nothing writes you off and smashes your credibility as quickly as describing yourself with words like these.
‘Expert:’ Not as bad as the words above, but from the same stable. You have gone too big. You may be an expert. Just don’t say it. We will be the judge of that.
‘Humble:’ Just by saying it, you prove that you are not.
‘Generous:’ You may be, but if you are prepared to say it in public, then you are not humble (see above). And we value ‘humble’. And we want our ‘generosity’ without thought for personal gain and acknowledgement. So don’t say it. Live it.
‘Honest:’ If you have to say it, it’s clear you think it’s a ‘special talent’. We view it as a given. Do you have to work at it, we wonder?
‘Rock-star:’ Oh, heaven help us! (Unless you are, in fact, a rock-star, but we doubt that.)
‘Nice guy:’ No, seriously, I have seen this on three twitter bios recently. You are announcing you are a ‘nice guy’? Surely that is the ultimate accolade that has to be bestowed by others. Narcissistic, much?
‘Exceptional:’ Too big. Too much. Too bad.
‘Funny:’ Pretty much every person I have ever met who describes him or herself as ‘funny’… isn’t.
‘Visionary:’ Just (don’t) do it.
If these traits are true about you, then other people will say them about you. In references. On social media. In private conversations. Say them about yourself, you look silly at best, and a right plonker at worst.
Got any more? Please leave your comments below.
This post first appeared on The Savage Truth.
Princeton And UW-Madison Have A Weird Twitter Fight About Fall
Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison got into a strange Twitter spat Tuesday afternoon that involved squirrels and the Taco Bell chihuahua from the 90′s.
UW-Madison had shared a page of photos students were tweeting of the fall colors on campus, after Princeton bragged about their Instagram account:
Then DO NOT look at our @Instagram: http://t.co/34mvlmtCr3 RT @kaylonnn: @Princeton is so gorgeous in the fall I CAN’T DEAL
— Princeton University (@Princeton) September 30, 2014
@Princeton @Instagram Officially declaring a fall color war http://t.co/Y8pc3wEth4 #uwfall
— UW-Madison (@UWMadison) September 30, 2014
Squirrels got involved pretty quickly:
“@UWMadison: @Princeton @instagram Officially declaring a fall color war http://t.co/NG8B5WsLgn #uwfall” pic.twitter.com/q4k1I44Qge
— Princeton University (@Princeton) September 30, 2014
Then things got morbid:
@Princeton @instagram Thanks for the afternoon snack pic.twitter.com/I46K6H1f1s
— UW-Madison (@UWMadison) September 30, 2014
And then it was weird:
.@UWMadison pic.twitter.com/71DV0Z1p4I
— Princeton University (@Princeton) September 30, 2014
And the Taco Bell dog (R.I.P.) was brought into the picture:
@Princeton http://t.co/y09Et80kWK
— UW-Madison (@UWMadison) September 30, 2014
Now we’re not sure where things are going.
.@Princeton pic.twitter.com/LofNZnVYb7
— UW-Madison (@UWMadison) September 30, 2014
This is a developing story. If there are more squirrels tweeted, we will update promptly.
USB Drives Have Serious Security Flaws
That little thing that you stick in your computer to store or transfer data can also mean very bad news.
The USB device or “flash drive” can be reconfigured to work like a little thief, for instance, being made to mimic a keyboard and take instructions from the master thief to rip off data or install malware. It can be made to secrete a virus before the operating system boots up, or be programmed to alter the computer’s DNS setting to reroute traffic.
There’s no good defense for these kinds of attacks. The firmware on the USB devices can’t be detected by malware scanners. Biometrics are out because when the firmware changes, it simply passes as the user plugging in a new flash drive.
Cleaning up the aftermath is no picnic, either. Reinstalling the operating system doesn’t resolve the problem because the USB device, from which installation occurs, may already be infected. So may be other USB components inside one’s computer.
Whitelisting USB drives is pointless because not all have unique serial numbers. Plus, operating systems lack effective whitelisting mechanisms. Also, Malicious firmware can pass for legitimate firmware.
To prevent a bad USB from infesting a computer, the controller firmware must be locked down, unchangeable by an unauthorized user. USB storage devices must be able to prevent a cybercriminal from reading or altering the firmware. It must make sure that the firmware is digitally signed, so that in the event it does become altered, the device will not interface with the altered firmware.
Watch your USB drive – don’t set it down and make sure you keep track of it so it’s not lost or stolen.
Disable auto-run – Turn off auto-run on your computer so that if a USB drive has malware, then it won’t automatically be transferred to your machine.
Be careful who you share your USB drives with – Be careful what computers you place your USB drive in and who you let borrow your USB drive.
Use comprehensive security software – make sure your security software not only scans your computer for threats, but also any drives that are attached.
Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247. Disclosures.
Settlement checks from liquid damage lawsuit arriving for iOS owners
Participants in a class action lawsuit regarding liquid damage indicators for the iPhone and iPod touch are beginning to receive settlement checks, accounts say. In April 2013, Apple agreed to pay $53 million to compensate people who may have been denied warranty coverage because of the indicators. Their maker, 3M, admitted that they could be tripped simply by humidity. Apple later adjusted its policies to require additional checks before blocking repairs, but the lawsuit continued.
Your Author Platform Is Not Your Social Media Following
I’ve spent the past five or six years not only educating authors about how to build an author platform, but about how to position themselves in such a way that the platform they already have truly shines.
So this week, when I received multiple emails and links asking what I thought about an article on Creative Nonfiction called “Platforms Are ‘Overrated,’” my response was that I was bummed out about it because the author, in equating platform to social media, is so incredibly limited in her scope and understanding of what a platform actually is, and she’s promoting a defeatist attitude around the importance of building one.
Back in May I wrote a post called “Author Platform: Here’s What All the Fuss Is About,” in which I broke down the components of a platform like this:
social media: 10 percent
previous media: percent
previous books: percent
personality: percent
existing readership: percent
contacts: 10 percent
expertise: 25 percent
ability to execute: 15 percent
As you can see, I allotted only 10 percent to social media. The author of the Creative Nonfiction article is not alone in her misunderstanding about what makes a platform. But book industry professionals are not clueless. They don’t believe that a book can be made or broken on social media alone. I’m sure there are a few exceptions, like the book Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern, which exists because the author had an extraordinary Twitter following. But this is not the norm, and it’s a total impulse-buy book. Novels and memoirs and serious nonfiction will never get book deals based on an author’s brilliant Twitter feed, I assure you.
I’m not sure where the idea got seeded that author platform equals social media, but it’s time to dislodge that from your head if you believe it to be true. Social media alone is pretty ineffective at moving people to action. What moves people to action is content, and touching them again and again with really good content — and not ONLY on your social media feeds.
I gave expertise such a high percentage of the pie because your expertise dictates your content. Personality is in there because your personality shines through in your writing. Your blog is part of your expertise, but also part of your existing readership. If it’s popular great, but blogs also DO NOT make or break book deals. They’re kind of like icing on the cake, or if you have a hugely impressive blog then that can carry a lot of weight. What’s infinitely more valuable than how many followers you have on social media is how many people are in your database, and believe me, publishers know this, and they want that data. After all, those are your true followers, people who have actually given you their email addresses to hear from you. A big vote of confidence.
In my May article on platform, I wrote about how certain parts of your platform can tip the balance for you, and this is true. I wrote about two authors I’ve worked with who got huge advances, who had zero social media presence when they got their book deals. They got their deals solely based on other parts of the platform equation. I still come into contact with authors all the time who are getting book deals regardless of what I would call their very modest platforms.
One thing the author of the Creative Nonfiction piece and I agree on is that you continuing to write is paramount. I’ve written extensively about the fact that publishing a book is part of building a platform. Many authors today are in need of finding alternative publishing options (self, hybrid, etc.) because the barriers to entry to traditional publishing are so high. For authors struggling to break through, a first book is a calling card, and if it does well it will open doors to those of you who dream to publish traditionally in the future.
My two cents here is this. If you want to traditionally publish, platform is not at all “overrated” because it matters to the publishing industry — to marketing and sales folks especially. To say it’s bullshit is to take an entitled attitude. (Read this article by Steve Almond if you want a better understanding of what I mean by this.) And it’s not about how many followers you have. Platform is about how many people you can reach and how authentic your connection with those people is. There are innumerable vehicles for reaching people (teaching, speaking, performing, interviews, multimedia, articles, guest posts — and yes, social media and blogging too).
But how you get your message to people will vary, and the publishing industry is very savvy to this point. What you need to focus on is engaging your readership and audience in conversation. When you have a message people care about, and you present it consistently and well, people get hooked. They listen and they come back for more. This, my friends, is the simplest definition of “platform” there is. Be the voice your readers care to listen to and you will succeed.
Sexism in Tech, and What One NYU Student Is Doing About It
The Tumblr blog Hackers of NY launched in February this year and very quickly became a phenomenon, spawning spin off sites everywhere from Miami to Bangalore — there’s now a “Hackers of…” in nine countries and 13 cities.
It was all the brainchild of NYU undergraduate Dani Grant, who created the site in an attempt to reclaim the moniker “hacker.” We talked with Grant, as well as Hackers of LA founding editor Terri Burns (also an NYU undergrad), about the site’s runaway success.
Unfortunately, Grant also reveals how the misogynistic behavior that’s plagued hacker and tech culture can infiltrate even the most uplifting of projects.
Wakefield: When you launched Hackers of NY, was it always going to be this kind of Humans of New York format, with a large image and interview text?
Dani Grant: You’re going to laugh — when I first started I thought it was going to be the first Snapchat blog. I wanted to interrupt people for ten seconds of their day and say “This is a person who is doing this right now, check them out.”
W: And how long did that last?
DG: Three posts. No one was happy with the information they were receiving… [laughs] It wasn’t working, and Tumblr is a great format for a blog.
W: What has surprised you about the community as it’s grown?
DG: We’re very lucky in that we get to see comments from people all over the world, talking about hacks and hackers. And recently, we noticed that we have to delete many of the comments made about women hackers. People say things like “I would hack her,” or “She’s not a hacker, she’s a stripper” which is not okay.
W: So as the site grew you found the Internet trolls kind of came out?
DG: Yeah, what’s interesting is how comfortable people seem to be making these comments with their names and Facebook profiles attached.
W: They’re not even anonymous?
DG: No, and I think it offers this really interesting insight into the tech world and something that not everyone gets to see every day.
W: Is there a solution to all of this, aside from constantly policing the comments?
DG: I think every community has its problems, but the hacker ethic strives to solve problems. So I don’t think this is going to be a problem for long – the hacker community is working on it.
W: What was the first moment you realized that the site had reached this critical mass?
DG: It was the first TechCrunch article about us in June. It’s so funny, they never interviewed me, and I actually received an email afterwards from the woman who wrote it… It came as a total surprise. It was the best day.
Terri Burns: I remember that day really well. I remember waking up and I had a text from my friend that was like “Hackers is on TechCrunch!”
W: So how has the site suddenly exploded into this international phenomenon?
DG: When people hear about the hacker community being celebrated, they want theirs to join in. So, for example, in Romania hackers are known as this cheap labor that you outsource to, but they want their community to be celebrated for all the individual projects.
Another example is in Santa Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. Last year, they had no startups, and this year they have twelve, and it’s someone in that startup scene, in that hacker scene that wants to celebrate those twelve.
W: How do you find your profile subjects?
TB: The tech scene in LA is definitely not as real as it is here, so I reached out to a lot of universities, and I was cold emailing people saying “Hey do you want to sit down for half an hour and just chat?” People got really excited about it and they would recommend their friends… so I was able to find out about people who were working on projects that I would otherwise have no idea about.
W: And what’s the future of “Hackers of…”?
DG: We’re planning something right now — it’s still super new and super in the works. The idea is a worldwide hack night, every hacker in their community gets together in their respective cities, and just hacks together for a few hours.
You can check out all the “Hackers of…” sites here.
Now go forth (and hack at it).
This interview originally appeared on Uncubed. It has been edited and condensed.
Forums: Yosemite coming soon, contract confusion and more
With the release of the golden master candidate of Yosemite to developers, there has been renewed interest in the MacNN forums about when this next update will be out of beta and in the App store for everyone. Forum Regular “webraider” was attempting to purchase a contract free factory unlocked iPhone 6, but has run unto some problems and wonders if anyone has an answer.
Mobileoptx makes iPhone into portable endoscope
Transforming a smartphone into a portable endoscope.
The post Mobileoptx makes iPhone into portable endoscope appeared first on iMedicalApps.
Jimmy Fallon Proves Kim Kardashian Doesn't Know The Alphabet
Sometimes celebrity tweets don’t make a lot of sense until you find out they were just replying to someone.
For instance, when Vladimir Putin tweets about “A Walk Among the Tombstones,” you might think he’s talking about the Liam Neeson movie, but further investigation reveals he’s actually just describing a perfect first date.
Thankfully, Jimmy Fallon is here to decode those confusing tweets during his “In Reply To” segment, and now we can finally understand what celebs like Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama and Hugh Hefner are talking about.
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” airs weekdays at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC.
The New Scourge
One of the problems with confronting and dealing with racism (and sexism) in this country is that we’re locked into old stereotypes. This prevents us from recognizing new forms of prejudice, and blocks efforts to confront these practices and change them. If they don’t exist, no one will ever do anything about them.
To the general public, it is clear where the problems are, what the bad guys look like. In issues of race, the culprits are the cops; police officers have long been at the flash point of racial tension. Back in the heyday of the civil rights movement, it was a Southern sheriff with a fat gut and aviator sunglasses, with his dogs and water cannon. In the 1990s it was LAPD officers beating Rodney King. Today it is cops in a small Missouri town shooting Michael Brown. The men who suppress women, on the other hand, wear suits and smoke cigars.
Back when I worked at the Chicago Urban League we used to talk about racism by habit, rather than by intent. Prejudice committed by the nicest people, who would disdain any use of the “n” word or any attempt to block equal access. All they do is what we all do, hang out with people like themselves. And hire them and give contracts to them as well. And by so doing, exclude others.
Thus, the new face of bias is not Mississippi but in tech industry places like California’s Silicon Valley. Inequality prevails there at every level. A broad survey of overall hiring in the giants of the tech industry, by USA Today in August 2014, clearly shows this pattern. Apple has a gender ratio of 70-30, men to women, which roughly prevails at every firm looked at. The home of the iPhone also has a workforce 55% white, 11% Hispanic, and 7% black. And this is the best in the business, courtesy of increased diversity, relatively speaking, at its retail stores.
Look at the figures for other brand name firms. As noted, gender levels are all about the same; Yahoo is best at 62-37. But their workforce is only 4% Hispanic, 2% black, as is Facebook’s. Google is a bit lower, at 3% Hispanic, 2% black.
It is not just the average worker either. It goes all the way up to what entrepreneurs face, trying to woo investors to high tech startups. Wired ran an article that opened with the story of Kathryn Tucker, founder of RedRover, an app for kids’ events. At a tech event in NYC she pitched her idea, only to find a potential angel rejected it because “he didn’t invest in women”. Far from shy, he explained, “I don’t like the way women think…They haven’t mastered linear thinking.” As evidence he described how his wife had problems organizing her to-do lists. He concluded with a big compliment for Ms. Tucker: “You’re more male.”
Randall Munroe, author of What If? blamed this, not on any overt desire to discriminate, but on a kind of “nerd pride or revenge of the nerds attitude”. The folks previously excluded can now get to work solely with their own kind. “This can easily become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that can make a community steadily more homogeneous and exclusionary.” And block the hiring of other peoples, not out of overt prejudice but through habit, with the results the same as they would be in a segregated society.
Some firms are trying to do better. Google’s HR department (called People Operations in California softspeak), has been working to alert the whole company to the role of hidden biases. But we need to do more. Tech is too big, with millions of employees, and is the employer of the future. And they’re not alone. This kind of invisible bias is going on across the board.
A lot can be done to tackle this problem. Start with data. The old term was patterns and practices; individual acts may or not be prejudicial, but long running patterns cannot be ignored. Education can help; alert people to what is happening, usually as the result of unintentional acts. There can also be efforts to build capacity, establishing programs to increase interest in STEM fields among non-traditional groups.
But first, we have to recognize what is going on. Bias today is not just a cop misusing his power. It’s the tech guy down the block, and it’s your local bank official. Noam Cohen titled a NY Times article on pop culture, which referred in passing to bias in the tech industry, “We’re All Nerds Now”. Change starts here.
Why Scientists Need to Stop Being People Pleasers
“Supply and demand”: It’s a commonly used term that is so familiar that we don’t even think about it. We all have an idea about what it means. If demand outstrips supply, the price of the thing that is in demand goes up, because lots of people want it. It’s a very simple economic argument, and encouragingly intuitive. No wonder we all feel so comfortable with it.
But the problem for me is that my peer group — professional scientists — has internalized the concept so much that it has left us blinkered. It isn’t that we don’t understand the idea; it’s that we no longer bother to think about it. Even more worryingly, the same is true of policy makers, governments and consumers. And by doing so, we have set ourselves up for a situation where we will solve one difficulty but create even bigger ones as we go along.
It’s partly because most scientists like to solve problems. That makes us very susceptible to anyone who asks us to come up with a solution to a technical challenge. Even worse, we love scientifically and technologically glamourous problems. And as a consequence, we and our paymasters/paymistresses (that’s you, dear taxpaying citizen) are making decisions that I can only categorize as “really very stupid.”
We can’t feed the world’s growing population: That’s what we hear all the time. But don’t panic, we’re told, because the scientists are working on the problem for us. We’re even making progress. Recently, the development of meat that was grown in a culture dish in a laboratory was hailed as a great breakthrough. Admittedly, the lab burger was so expensive that it made Kobe beef seem like a cheap cut, but it’s a start. We’ll be saved. There has also been a lot of coverage in the media of intensive farming of insects. Hooray for the geeks, rescuing us from imminent starvation once again.
Except of course it’s all ridiculous. We can easily feed the world’s population, even as it continues to increase in number. What we can’t do is feed everyone a Western diet, nor should we be aiming to. It’s killing millions of people, and killing them slowly, driving health services into bankruptcy.
Because of this, there is a desperate need for new drugs that can combat obesity and its medical consequences. But weight-loss drugs have consistently failed to make more than a 5- to 10-percent difference in an individual’s weight, and for the morbidly obese this may have little real impact. There isn’t much clinical improvement to be gained by dropping your weight from 300 pounds to a mere 270. Type-2 diabetes is rampaging through Western populations like a particularly tubby apocalyptic horseman. Creating pharmaceuticals with an acceptable safety profile that can tackle this issue has broken the hearts of many a drug developer.
What we need is to quit trying to fix the supply side of food in the West, and increasingly in all those other countries like South Africa that have switched to eating themselves into early but rather large graves. It’s the demand side that needs sorting out: fruit, vegetables and grains as the basics, with animal proteins as the exceptional item. You’ll tell me that people won’t be willing to go for that, but I’m not convinced. We live in a world where insects are being put forward as a viable protein source. Can it really be harder to convince people to eat chickpeas, lentils or mycoprotein than it will be to encourage them to chow down on cockroaches, locusts or mealworms?
To reverse the obesity and food disaster that is engulfing the planet, governments need to work together and be prepared to plan for the long term. It’s tough to do this for all sorts of reasons. The pseudo-libertarian obsession with not interfering with an individual’s right to make incredibly dumb decisions — no matter the deleterious effects for themselves, their families and society in general — doesn’t help. It’s also always tempting for governments to favor work where they can measure the outcomes quickly and easily. It’s simple to measure how many tons of insects are sold as food, and the financial costs or savings from doing so. It’s much harder to monitor preventative health, educational and social interventions that may take 20 years to mature.
But as scientists we could and should do a lot more to challenge our funders and policy makers when we are asked to solve a supply-side issue. Surely we have a responsibility to point out, very publicly, that in many cases we are being asked to come up with solutions that we know will be limited in their impact and expensive to develop. We should be highlighting the stupidity and non-sustainability of excessive demand.
We also have to learn to look at ourselves and wonder why as scientists and citizens we are so seduced by glamour. Why is building a supersonic car more exciting than creating a vehicle that can get over 100 miles to the gallon? Why is the idea of sending a few people to Mars more thrilling than ensuring that all inhabitants of Earth can access toilets? Steve Jobs is adored, yet almost no one has heard of Nevin Scrimshaw, whose work on nutrition affected millions of lives. Why does growing a hunk of pretend beef in a Petri dish have more appeal than solving the technically far less challenging problems of food wastage that bedevil many distribution networks and lead to hunger and ultimately environmental catastrophe?
I’m not suggesting that every scientist should be working on research with direct impact. I am a huge fan of innovative research, which is carried out simply because the question it’s addressing is fascinating. Good scientists change what we know, but great scientists change how we think. Great science is one of the glories of our cultural history.
But I am not a great scientist; I am a good one. And the same is true of most professional geeks, if we are honest about ourselves. So, when faced with a request to fix a supply issue, don’t we have at least some responsibility to insist that we also look critically at the demand? Surely that is the minimum we should be doing as good citizens.
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