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.
BBC launches WhatsApp Ebola service
BBC launches Ebola public health information service on WhatsApp
Feminist Speaker Who Faced Mass Shooting Threat Calls Utah's Gun Laws 'Mindboggling'
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s campus gun laws are in the spotlight after a feminist speaker canceled a speech at Utah State University once she learned the school would allow concealed firearms despite an anonymous threat to kill her and others in a mass shooting.
University officials were set to go ahead with the event with extra police after consulting with federal and state law enforcement who told them the threat was consistent with ones Anita Sarkeesian receives when she gives speeches elsewhere. The threat was later determined not to be credible.
But Sarkeesian, a well-known critic of the portrayal of women in video games, pulled out Tuesday night after learning from university officials that Utah law prohibits colleges from taking away concealed weapons from valid permit holders. Utah is the only state in the country with such a law.
“It’s sort of mindboggling to me that they couldn’t take efforts to make sure there were no guns in an auditorium that was threatened with guns and a mass shooting,” Sarkeesian told The Associated Press. “I don’t understand how they could be so cut and dry about it.”
On Wednesday – as law enforcement tried to track down who made the threat – Utah State University officials defended the measures they were prepared to take for the event amid criticism from Sarkeesian.
“We feel that security would have been sufficient,” spokesman Tim Vitale said.
University President Stan Albrecht said in an email to students and faculty Wednesday that investigators had found the threat wasn’t credible. The university nevertheless planned to prohibit people from entering with backpacks and add officers in both uniform and plainclothes, Vitale said.
One state lawmaker who has been vocal about gun rights defended the law.
“I think she’s overreacting,” said Curt Oda, a Republican from the northern Utah city of Clearfield. “I hope they catch him, and I hope they throw the book at him. But as far as permit-holders, they’re not the problem.”
Utah is one of seven states that allow concealed carry on college campuses, along with Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Idaho and Wisconsin, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But it is the only state that has a separate law prohibiting universities from not allowing concealed weapons at events.
Democratic state lawmaker Carol Spackman Moss worried this incident may lead to other high-profile and controversial speakers declining invitations to speak at college campuses in the state. She would like to change the law that stops colleges from barring concealed weapon carriers at events, but she said a measure like that would never get anywhere in Utah’s Republican-dominated Legislature.
Sarkeesian, meanwhile, said she was disappointed and frustrated that she wouldn’t be able to speak and called the situation ludicrous. “It was a threat about a school shooting that used very specific statements about the types of guns – and it’s unacceptable,” she said.
The threat was sent Monday night via email to dozens of university staffers by a person claiming to have rifles, pistols and pipe bombs and vowing to kill feminists on campus, according to an email provided by Utah State. Investigators don’t believe the threat came from any students who attend the university, which is about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City in Logan.
On Wednesday, more than 75 students protested outside where the speech would have been held. Mikaila Young, a 19-year-old junior from Idaho, said she and others are disappointed they were unable to hear from Sarkeesian about her views on how women are portrayed only as damsels in distress or background decoration in many video games.
“We all look up to Anita,” said Young, who hopes to work in the video-game industry. “She’s a big hero not only in the video-game industry, but in the feminist world.”
—
Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to the report
Giveaway: PowerSkin PoP'n 2 power pack for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
Now that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is in the hands of millions of loyal Apple fans, many people are starting to look for useful accessories that third party manufacturers have to offer. One awesome addition to the list of “must-haves” is the PowerSkin PoP’n 2 portable battery pack. We have two of these battery packs to give away to our readers. Find out more about what makes this mobile charging solution different, and how you can enter to win.
Netflix shares plunge on slow growth
US shares of Netflix, the world’s largest video streaming service, plunged on Wednesday after it reported fewer subscribers than forecast.
Briefly: Mailbox for Mac enters open beta, Skype for iPhone update
Mailbox has officially released its beta versionemail client for OS X this week, now available to all. Mailbox for iOS arrived last year, offering a simplistic interface that aims to improve inbox organization. Mailbox for Mac is similar in design, and features controls to archive and delete email, as well as create lists and enable a “snooze” functionality. The app includes swipe gesture and hotkeys options. Those interested in downloading the beta version of Mailbox for Mac can do so for free through Mailbox.
The zoo where humans are enclosed
Zoos where animals roam free
The Threats Against Anita Sarkeesian Expose The Darkest Aspects Of Online Misogyny
I don’t know how Anita Sarkeesian gets through the day. I really don’t.
The violent threats sent to the Utah organizers of one of Sarkeesian’s recent speaking engagements are just the latest iteration of a torrent of abuse that drove the Canadian-American writer and media critic from her home weeks ago. Death threats have preceded some of her previous public-speaking engagements. In some of those cases, Sarkeesian notified the authorities and went ahead with well-received talks. Not this week: She canceled an event at Utah State University due to safety concerns.
Death threats, bomb threats, terrifying abuse: All because, under the banner Feminist Frequency, she created a series of YouTube videos that offer rational, reasonable critiques of the ways in which female characters are used and misused in video games. As a fellow critic, I find her work thought-provoking and valuable.
But let’s review what prompted the death threats: Sarkeesian used words and images to critique a media product. That’s all.
Agree or disagree with Sarkeesian’s critiques all you want — it’s a free country. Except it isn’t for Sarkeesian, who can’t go home and who’s frequently been in touch with law enforcement as threats to her and other women have escalated over the past couple of months.
The flood of abuse directed at Sarkeesian began in 2012, when she announced a Kickstarter for her “Tropes vs. Women” video series. She got far more money than she asked for, but that was partly because of the shocking malevolence hurled at her for even coming up with the idea. She got funded, but she also had a hate mob after her.
The mob has grown, and it’s gotten uglier.
Leigh Alexander, Jenn Frank, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu — these are just a few of the writers, creators, developers and critics who have been harassed by a collection of individuals who operate under a hashtag I hate to even mention, because to invoke its name is to summon the worst of their ilk. Quinn and Wu, independent game developers, were also recently driven from their homes by individuals who published their addresses online. Since August, these women and many others have been threatened, harassed, bullied, doxxed and otherwise put through hell.
They are facing, as activist Melissa McEwan put it, terrorist misogyny.
For months, I’ve been unable to look away from the waves of hatred that they’ve had to put up with, and I’ve read dozens of impassioned pieces decrying the abuse that have accompanied the loose coalition known as “gamergate.” Most people who work in games and play video games are quite rightly horrified by what is going on in their community, and are desperate to find ways to stop the vile behavior of some who lurk behind that banner.
There is a tiny shred of consolation in seeing so many thoughtful writers pen such eloquent, intelligent pieces about the context and the culture that has produced such behavior. After Sarkeesian canceled her talk, the community’s frustrations boiled over into the #StopGamerGate2014 hashtag, which trended for hours on Oct. 14. I’ve come across a host of smart new people as a result of this awful state of affairs (which has occasionally led to some diverting satire).
But that’s not much of a silver lining. Because any mildly positive developments are likely no comfort at all to the women being harassed by those holding torches and pitchforks.
Whatever its purported concerns about “journalistic ethics” — and the movement’s rhetoric has convinced me that its members have little understanding of either of those words — “gamergate” is now a poisoned banner; it’s a product with intensely negative brand awareness. The ferocity with which its defenders still cling to that hashtag, and their general lack of concern for actual ethical concerns enumerated by Alexander and others, tells you all you need to know about their real priorities. That some casual supporters can see what the movement stands for now in the real world and still do not denounce it tells me everything I need to know about their thought processes. (If you want to fall down a nightmarish rabbit hole, look for assertions that Sarkeesian and others have faked the death threats and everything else. Such allegations are not hard to find.)
If only these die-hards would stay inside their echo chambers, reassuring each other of the righteousness of their cause — but they do not. They descend like a plague on anyone who disagrees with them, and they pass the buck when it comes to taking responsibility for the worst actions and most hateful speech promulgated under that banner. Like McEwan, I am sick of being told that “only a small but vocal minority” are to blame. If the large and frequently silent majority doesn’t do its utmost to counter and prevent situations like this, that distinction is meaningless. And if these kinds of vitriolic attacks are truly the future of the culture wars, as a recent Deadspin piece theorizes, I fear for us all. And I’m afraid for what the next generation of boys and girls will find — or heaven help us, are already facing — should they end up in the murkier corners of the Internet.
I’m not suggesting there’s a golden past to which we should return; as someone who first logged on to the Internet in the early ’90s, I’m not that naive about human nature, online or off. I know a certain subset of Internet types has always waited in the wings, primed to create unsafe spaces, tear down unbelievers and prompt abusive and demeaning “dialogues.” For decades, it’s been clear that the most shrill and hateful voices can often drown out other users on forums, message boards and in comment sections, if we let them. In the last decade, much of the focus of online interaction has shifted away from comment areas to social media. Predictably enough, the angriest and most intolerant users are still trying to take over.
Why are we letting them?
It is tremendously disheartening to suspect that the treatment of women online is getting worse, not better. We’ve had decades of experience dealing with those who use the Internet with the intent to cause mental or physical distress or harm. We really haven’t leveled up? As individuals, communities and corporate entities, do we still lack the will, despite seeing the fruits of apathy and averted eyes?
The question that’s been haunting many observers for weeks is now right out in the open in the wake of the latest threats leveled at Sarkeesian: Is someone going to have to die for things to change?
The abusive incidents against women who speak out and speak up is so demoralizing that it’s hard not to want to crawl into a Wi-Fi-free cave. Developer Adria Richards went through an awful cycle of abuse a year ago. Writer and developer Kathy Sierra’s story is one of the most terrifying accounts I’ve ever read. The response of the titans of the tech community to what Sierra had to endure — or rather, their shrugging non-response — did not make me optimistic for the future. If leading figures in the industry don’t care much about her treatment, what are the chances that the average Silicon Valley firm will take seriously the safety of female users and customers?
Of course, convenient apathy, defensive ignorance and abusive behavior aren’t limited to the gaming and tech worlds. Toxic Internet trolls can be found clinging to the underside of any topic, and if you step out of line — an entirely arbitrary line, of course — they will be sure to let you know it. Try writing about rape and “Game of Thrones” if you want to see what I mean.
Whether such individuals are part of a coordinated effort or not, whether their actions spring from a desire to lash out or a deeply entrenched set of objectionable beliefs, the activities of abusive individuals frequently force women to pay what activist McEwan calls “the Misogyny Tax.”
It’s the price women pay when they encounter abuse and have to process it intellectually and emotionally. It’s the price they pay when they have to stop what they’re doing and report harassment or other intimidating behavior to a website or network. It’s the time and the mental energy they lose when they ponder what to write and create — and what not to write and create — in order to avoid living a life that is not dominated by a dread of what could be lurking around the next corner.
The women who endure this abuse daily, hourly, for months, for years: I don’t know how they get through it, because the tax being levied on them and their loved ones is so high. It’s too goddamn high.
I can’t speak for them, but I can offer my sympathy and solidarity. And I can emphasize this point: This abuse doesn’t happen “online.” It happens in the real world, to a person. It happens to a human being’s heart and mind and body.
The other day I tweeted a screenshot of an email I got from someone who was angry about something I’d written about the TV show “Stalker.”
Just another day of being a woman on the internet. An email I just received: pic.twitter.com/HVgqoqDUov
– Mo Ryan (@moryan) October 9, 2014
In the first few moments after reading that email, my heart raced. Blood pounded in my ears. My mind blanked. I found it hard to focus on what I’d been doing a minute before. I wondered what other thoughts lurked in this person’s mind. I wondered what people who can say things like that are capable of doing in the real world.
These questions do not stay “online.” These doubts and fears take root in your head and your gut, and get between you and the goals you want to accomplish. These questions coalesce into a monster whose breath you can feel on your shoulder.
I did not tweet that screenshot to gain sympathy — though dozens of people were kind to me after seeing it, and I truly appreciate that — but to reaffirm a sad truth: This regularly happens to women on the Internet. This kind of stuff isn’t rare. The response of many women to that tweet? “Yep, that’s run of the mill.”
I took that screenshot on the day I also reported an abusive account that had been tweeting at me. Two small taxes paid. And that’s nothing compared to what some women go through. Friends, colleagues and women I don’t know but admire from afar have endured worse. Much worse. Like many women, I often minimize and downplay what comes at me. When I get vile emails or tweets, often one my first thoughts is, “Well, I don’t have it as bad as [insert the name of activist/writer/critic/author/ creator/artist here].”
I’m not a fantasist: I know large websites and social media networks will never be able to rid themselves of all abusive behavior, whether it arrives on a hashtag or not. But there are at least a dozen commonsense things Twitter could do to make this abuse far less pervasive. Many, many people have come up with lists of straightforward tools to reduce abuse, but the company has yet to do so in response to a toxicity that’s right out in the open.
As thorough, excellent articles from Wired and The Atlantic have pointed out, making social media less hostile and abusive environment is an eminently reachable goal — for companies and sites that care to expend the effort, that is.
Women aren’t the only ones who have to deal with online jerks or who get hate mail, I understand that. Men with online profiles have unpleasant online interactions, too — but how many of those interactions are disturbingly focused on their gender? How many of those messages attempt to argue how rape isn’t really so bad? How much of this communication is intended to feel threatening? How much of it is intended to make them fear for their physical safety? Women who write online are targeted. The authorities and many companies don’t do enough about it. And it has a cost.
I haven’t spoken up before because, frankly, I was afraid. A decade ago, at a previous employer, security called to warn me not to walk to my car alone because of scary communications they’d received about me. That was the worst incident, but I periodically get emails — and now tweets — that gross me out or anger me or make me anxious. (One thing I’ll never do again: Write about a sitting president.)
The tidal wave of abuse I’ve seen online lately has awakened the old fears, a palpable and recurrent anxiety that exists in the real world, not online. What if the mob comes after me? But bomb threats? Screeds about a “massacre”? Are you kidding?
I’m done being afraid. I’m angry.
I’m furious about the essays, games, books, videos, films, TV shows and art we won’t get because some women are targeted for having ideas and sharing them with the world.
I want those things. And I’m angry because I know we’re not getting them. Because women have been silenced — are being silenced — through fear. Sarkeesian has vowed to keep going, and she has my eternal admiration for that. But what about the women who have been quietly but quite effectively intimidated into silence? What about the contributions they’ll never make?
So many brilliant, smart, provocative and innovative women are working in so many different creative realms right now. I probably won’t like every single thing they produce, and neither will you. But we might love some of it. On some level the quality of that work (and your opinion of it) are entirely beside the point. No matter what, I want them to be able to create. I want women to have the mental resources to do work that matters to them. I want them to be able to work without fear of harm to their bodies or minds. I want women to be able to write and to speak and to make things and to shout sometimes.
We can all do better. We must do better. The Internet is a home we all share. I don’t want to see one more woman driven from it.
HBO to offer online-only service
The premium channel will offer streaming-only service in 2015. The move is seen a response to competition from Amazon and Netflix and a way to offer younger consumers more choice.
How the Social Media Disconnect Will Affect Business Schools
The ubiquity of social media reveals an interesting irony: Though we are more connected than ever before, loneliness is on the rise and more people report they have no one to talk to, according to a number of research studies. Apparently, having a few real world friends is superior to having a million Facebook friends, which drives home the idea that Facebook is about quantity and not quality. Indeed, the purpose of Facebook is to broadcast, display and report ourselves to our wide world of “friends.” While there is nothing wrong with this new approach, it makes the old-fashioned method of sharing your thoughts with a few close friends seem increasingly antiquated.
For all the good social media brings, a generally unmentioned corollary is the fact that the more someone posts or tweets, the less time he or she has to read, experience or listen. Time is a limited resource. People must choose how to spend their time, and increasingly the choice is to reflect through social media — especially on oneself or one’s experiences — and as a result people are losing their ability to listen and engage others.
Because this dynamic affects human interactions and society, it will affect business schools. I see it exacerbating the existing trend of students coming to school with higher test scores but having a growing need for the development of emotional intelligence and social graces. Good grades alone don’t guarantee jobs. In today’s globally competitive environment, students must also develop social skills — especially the ability to interact, collaborate and communicate. Texting is not the solution.
As a consequence, schools need to address this student deficiency in the curriculum. Doing so will require more than offering isolated non-credit seminars and Toastmasters groups. In my experience, it is highly effective for programs to emphasize hands-on learning activities and team-based projects. My school, for example, offers a variety of MBA and undergraduate consulting projects with companies and an MBA capstone simulation in which students are a firm’s executive team. The experiences take students out of their comfort zone, requiring them not only to use new skills from class, but also to address the concerns of a real board of directors. This helps students understand how it is possible to ace tests and fail interviews.
In some respects, a focus on soft skills is contrary to the traditional business school emphasis on mastery of a set of analytic tools and skills — i.e. foundational courses, specialized electives and knowledge of certain facts. Today’s workplaces, however, require young people to be able to make sound judgments, yet we educate students in a system that emphasizes standardized test results above all else – but that’s another blog entry entirely.
Beyond its influence on interpersonal skills and extroversion, social media may provoke other interesting effects. In the past, relationships forged between students and professors have fueled philanthropy and loyalty to alma mater. Such close relationships are beneficial in other ways, too, as a recent study suggests that having a mentor in college leads to more engagement by students in their future careers. But if students continue to disengage from face-to-face interactions as they spend more time online, such relationships will occur less often. And faculty members, seeking to protect time for research, may prefer the result. For universities, the problem will not become apparent until years in the future. It will be a major issue for public universities, which have more students in the classroom and less state support to pay for their education.
In some cases, students’ reliance on technology and media will lead them to expect the same instantaneous response from faculty as from Siri or the customer service staff at an Apple Store. They will be primed to think it is a wise idea to email the CEO, ask for a raise for everyone and copy much of the company workforce. Already, Internet access in the classroom allows students to publicly “fact-check” professors — that is, when they are not showing their boredom by surfing the web. Professors need to spend time dispelling a student’s incorrect Googled notion instead of discussing the subject matter. Furthermore, the exchanges embolden students to believe they know more than they really do. This tendency is elevated by beliefs that everything can be handled through multi-tasking. I am sure that faculty will eventually take students to task. At the same time, because student satisfaction is part of the data used in business school rankings, the discrepancy between students’ expectations and faculty views may play out in a way schools detest.
Before you conclude I’m just an old Luddite, know that I see much value in the changes brought by social media and recognize that we are not going back to the quaint old days. Our hyper-connectedness has many clear advantages. It is democratizing and has in many instances increased transparency. Social media channels are revolutionizing how business schools can engage with students, alumni, and other audiences. Now, instead of sending a quarterly magazine, monthly email or annual report, schools can talk to their audience (or a selected segment) on a daily basis. This offers an incredible opportunity to mobilize support for campus events, mentoring programs, employment referrals, fundraising, and more. We would be foolish to ignore the technology that provides such opportunities.
But we must also recognize the importance of how we use our time. As technology becomes further integrated into our lives, it is not clear whether it is fundamentally good (improving efficiency and the quality of life) or fundamentally bad (we are becoming part of the Borg). Moreover, in a world where people blog alone, what will stop them from doing more things alone? If the secret to eternal life is being connected to a central processor (i.e., the Matrix), will evolving generations choose that fate over normal messy interactions with other people?
Business schools must prepare students for the onslaught of technology while being blind to what technologies will do or enable in the future. This makes speed more important than ever in organizations that rely on deliberative governance processes. Will business schools see this shift in the human experience as an opportunity to train students to generate revenue or a societal matter that requires discussion and the exercise of social conscience? Stay tuned for an answer. It may surprise you.
Netflix Shares Collapse Because Of Slowing Subscriber Growth
(Reuters) – Netflix Inc reported quarterly net subscriber additions below its forecast due to lower subscriber growth in the United States, sending the video-streaming company’s shares down as much as 27 percent in extended trading.
Netflix added a net of about 3 million customers worldwide in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, below its forecast of 3.7 million.
The company attracted about 980,000 new customers in the United States, its largest market, down from 1.29 million in the same period a year earlier.
“Year-on-year net additions in the U.S. were down … As best we can tell, the primary cause is the slightly higher prices we now have compared to a year ago,” the company said in a statement.
“This quarter we over-forecasted membership growth,” the company added.
Netflix said in April that it intended to raise its subscription price for new customers by $1 or $2 a month to help it buy more movies and TV shows and improve service for its subscribers.
The company has invested in original series such as “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black” to fend off competition from online video players such as Amazon.com Inc, Time Warner Inc’s HBO Go and on-demand offerings from pay TV providers.
Netflix also recently announced a push into original movies, making deals to finance four Adam Sandler films and a sequel to the Oscar-winning martial-arts drama “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
The world’s largest video-streaming service is spending to ramp up its service in new countries.
The company expanded into six European countries, including France and Germany, in September.
Netflix’s international subscribers grew 72 percent to 15.84 million from a year earlier.
Netflix’s net income rose to $59.3 million, or 96 cents per share, in the quarter, from $31.8 million, or 52 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose about 28 percent to $1.41 billion.
Analysts expected a profit of 93 cents per share on revenue of $1.41 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Netflix shares closed marginally lower on Wednesday after Time Warner’s HBO said it would launch a standalone online streaming service next year to make hit shows such as “Game of Thrones” available to people who do not subscribe to cable television.
Netflix shares were down 25 percent at $333.53 in extended trading on the Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles and Soham Chatterjee in Bangalore; Editing by Kirti Pandey and Simon Jennings)
EBay lowers 2014 sales estimates
EBay said sales for 2014 won’t meet its prior estimates, saying the last three months of the year will be worse than thought.
Revenge Porn Terrorism
The threat of revenge porn has become the weapon of choice to terrorize women. The images are intended to humiliate, to destroy a woman’s reputation, to impact her livelihood, to limit what she can dream to achieve. But we incorrectly characterize the only victims of revenge porn as the women whose bodies are offered for public consumption without their consent. This is not the single expression of the threat. The truth is that all women are the targets and victims of revenge porn terrorism. And like all terrorism, the intent is to intimidate one’s enemy into a state of fear and submission.
Terrorism is not merely a bomb in a public square or a mass shooting at a movie theater. It is the possibility of it. It is this possibility that shapes the decisions we make about where we go, how we behave, whom we trust, and the manner in which we lead our lives. Herein lies the perverse nature of terrorism. It actively debilitates and changes us even if the threat is not executed. It makes us stop doing the things we love. We stop being ourselves.
Revenge porn terrorism compels women to fear those they love. It isolates men and women and places them in opposition of one another. It infuses every interaction between a man and a woman with an imbalanced power dynamic by robbing a woman of control over her own fate and placing it in the hands of another. It doesn’t matter that not every man would exploit this weapon. It matters that any man can. The number of women I know who have been threatened by a partner, a husband, a boyfriend with the images they produced together in an environment of love and respect are innumerable.
We have become accustomed to the use of revenge porn terrorism. As a matter of course, revenge porn is now the go-to threat for any man seeking to destroy a woman. For any man seeking to extort a woman for sex. To destroy the reputation of his ex-wife. To wield power in divorce proceedings or business negotiations. To ensure that an abused partner won’t leave. And the terrorist doesn’t even have to go through with it. The threat is sufficient to silence her and force her into submission because the consequences are so grave. The perfect weapon.
And it’s working. Women are being hard-wired to associate fear with intimacy. Terrorism has led us to scan the room for hidden cameras rather than look into our lover’s eyes. Terrorism has made us afraid to take pictures of our bodies and to explore our own sexuality in safety. But wherein lies the power of this threat? A bomb and a bullet threaten one’s physical safety and sense of security, but what power, what truth, lies behind my naked body? Judges, doctors, politicians, movie stars, the popular girl in school; no matter her success or contribution, show us her breasts and it is all for naught. It places an enormous amount of power in the hands of weak men. The power not only to destroy everything she has built, but to do so with legal impunity.
But the insanity lies not with the abusers who hack or reveal images shared with them in confidence. The trouble is the power we hand them. We, as a society of men and women, who give life to the grave consequences. We, who believe this naked woman is less commendable for her achievements, less admirable for her intelligence, less worthy of our respect. We, who believe that a woman who engages in consensual sex is engaging in behaviour that is shameful and debased. We, who believe we are entitled to a woman’s naked body simply because she is naked and on camera. That’s all, really. It doesn’t matter if it is a hidden camera. It doesn’t matter if she was documented under threat or agreed to it as a result of emotional abuse by a partner. It doesn’t matter if the victim created the images within the confines of a monogamous intimate relationship which would be a normative expression of female sexuality and thus acceptable, or at least less punishable. It doesn’t matter that she has not consented to the viewing of her naked body and that the publishing and viewing thus constitutes rape. She has forsaken her right to her physical and emotional autonomy and integrity by possessing a female body. We believe something about her now. Something that absolves us of responsibility. Something that makes it ok to capitalize on her abuse. It is this set of beliefs that is the source of the terrorist’s power.
The depraved person cowering behind a screen understands that to reveal a woman’s sexuality is to annul her success. All he has to do is post the image and he knows we will do the rest. We deflect the blame to him because it is easier, but he is only leveraging the power we willingly deliver. We are responsible. Criminalizing revenge porn, while critical, would merely provide a remedy for a symptom. We must address the moral vacuum that permits the terrorists to operate within our society and the irresponsible and schizophrenic education of men and women that feeds it.
We teach young men that they are validated by the power they exert over a woman. We force that boy into a false and detrimental construct of maleness in which it is impossible to view a sexual woman as an equal. We teach him to dismember women in his mind so that a woman is merely the sum of her constituent parts, rather than an entire human being whose physical integrity must be respected, whose consent must be secured.
Yet, we teach young women that they are validated by their sexuality. Every single image we offer that girl, every complement, reinforces the celebration of physical beauty and of male constructs of femininity. We teach her to seek out male validation in social media, that a good measure of her worth is how many men like her pictures on Instagram and to take a slap on the ass as a complement. We teach her to compete for male attention in a race to the bottom that is not her own, a race that has been constructed for the benefit of men. We teach her to act against her own self-interest and then we blame her for her shortsightedness and stupidity in doing so.
We teach them that the whore deserves their love but not their respect, the prude their respect but not their love. We teach them that you can make any woman a whore by revealing her sexuality; and once a woman is reduced to her sexuality, she becomes a public commodity to which we all have a right.
We force women to walk along a tightrope of a false binary of womanhood, balancing the prude and the whore and inevitably tumbling under the weight of the world. It is in this environment that terrorism thrives. It is this set of beliefs, to which both men and women subscribe, that feeds terror. It is here that we cultivate, incubate and nurture the power wielded by terrorists who seek to terrify and silence. And it weakens us all. Imagine what we could achieve if we weren’t so afraid.
We have a problem. The perverts who post these images only shown a mirror in our faces. We must take responsibility for the reflection.
Woman Trapped For 18 Hours After Car Wreck Rescued Thanks To 'Find My iPhone' App
After spending 18 hours trapped in her car at the bottom of a 500-foot deep ravine, a California woman was rescued by officials Tuesday morning — thanks to an ingenious police officer and an app on her iPad.
Melissa Vasquez, 28, lost control of her Chevrolet Cruze around 2 p.m. Monday, driving off the road east of San Jose, California, and tumbling hundreds of feet down a steep slope, ultimately coming to rest in a spot where the OnStar GPS system in her car couldn’t pinpoint her precise location, say police.
At 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Vasquez’s family called the police to report her missing after she failed to return home. Campbell Police Officer Dave Cameron, who responded to the house, asked her family if Vasquez had an iPad with “Find My iPhone” on it — an app that lets a user remotely track down their phone in the event they misplace it.
Vasquez’s stepmother found the iPad, and though it was locked, Cameron — who acknowledged he’s “kind of a tech geek” to SFGate — guessed the password after only 3 or 4 tries using his knowledge of common password combinations.
From there, using the Find My iPhone feature, Officer Cameron pinpointed Vasquez’s location on a map, then sent a screenshot of the map to San Jose Police Department Officers, who found the vehicle 20 minutes later.
By 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, nearly a full day after the accident, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter responded and transported Vasquez to Regional Medical Center, where police say she’s in stable condition.
The day before, the OnStar system in Vasquez’s car had alerted authorities to an accident in San Jose and first responders searched the area for two hours while OnStar honked the car horn remotely, reported CBS San Francisco, in an attempt to clue them in to the car’s location, but with no luck. At around 4 p.m., a second OnStar signal indicated the car was in downtown San Jose, though police didn’t find the vehicle there, either. Officers told the San Jose Mercury News they responded by issuing a “be on the lookout” for the car to other law enforcement agencies in the county.
Reached for comment by CBS San Francisco, an OnStar spokesman declined an interview request, but released this statement:
We are saddened by this incident involving one of our subscribers. Our subscribers’ safety and security is OnStar’s utmost concern. We are currently conducting a complete investigation, including information we have received from our call centers, our cellular network provider, our engineering team and the local authorities to better understand what occurred.
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5 Ways to Scale Your Marketing Content
Let’s face it: most of the content on the web today is really bad. There’s click-bait content that doesn’t provide any useful insights, pop-up content that makes you want to throw your laptop across, and (worst of all) filler content, that companies publish just because.
The root cause of all of this content waste? A lack of a scalable content strategy. Too often, in a mad rush to drive traffic, leads and engagement, marketers lean on aggressive attention-seeking tactics without taking the time to dig into what their prospects and customers actually want. The result? They get short-lived bursts of engagement that don’t drive any revenue or new business for their company.
Here are five ways to stop the madness and scale your marketing content the right way:
FORM A CONTENT BOARD
A content board is a group of representative leaders from every team in your company that meet each quarter to discuss major themes they want to address with content. These themes can stem from customer needs, user behavioral data, strategic initiatives, frequently asked questions, and current thematic gaps. When the content board identifies themes that align with your companies’ needs, marketers are equipped to build the content to address them.
USE A CONTENT PILLAR APPROACH
Content that’s created in an ad-hoc fashion is doomed for the trash bin. Each and every piece of content you’re company creates — from whitepapers to tweets — should be connected to one of your overarching content themes. The best way to do it? Use a content pillar approach. A content pillar is one substantive piece of content on a specific topic or theme that can be broken out into many derivative assets. It can be an eBook, guide, whitepaper, or report that spawns a variety of different blog posts, emails, social media posts, SlideShare presentations, videos, and webinars on the same topic.
CREATE A COLLABORATIVE EDITORIAL CALENDAR
Establishing a process for scheduling your content is essential for its’ success. Without and editorial calendar you risk duplicating your content efforts, missing deadlines and clashing with other teams and colleagues. Assign someone to manage your editorial calendar, host it on a collaborative platform to maximize visibility, and include deadlines not only for publishing content, but also submitting, editing, designing, and promoting content.
IMPLEMENT WORKFLOWS
Without a step-by-step workflow for planning, producing, editing, distributing, and analyzing the content associated with your global campaign, you’re risking a chaotic campaign launch. Workflows differ based on your needs. A blog post workflow won’t look like a webinar workflow, because each content type requires different tasks. To identify the right workflow tasks for all the content in your campaign, follow these steps:
Identify what content types you’re creating
List the tasks for each content type (submit, edit, design, revise, publish, etc.)
Organize these tasks in the order they should be performed
Assign a point person and deadline for each of these tasks
BUILD A CAMPAIGN FLOWCHART
A campaign flowchart is a visual representation of how a buyer will move through your marketing campaign. It includes the pillar content asset anchoring the campaign (i.e. an eBook, whitepaper, guide), each additional asset supporting the campaign (i.e. outbound emails, videos, blog posts, infographics), and the call to action (CTA) for each of those assets.
They display the ideal path users will follow, help identify holes in your processes, and keep your inbound and outbound teams on the same page. For a detailed guide on how to build your own campaign flowchart, check out this template.
Scaling your content marketing efforts is hard. But the results can be a game-changer. With careful planning and vetted processes, you can skyrocket your reach, drive new business for your organization, and meet the needs of your mobile, global, hyperconnected consumer.
Want to scale your marketing content to markets around the world? Read this guide.
'Adorable-izing Hate' Is The Best Way To Deal With Spiteful Internet Comments
What to do when someone writes terrible things about you on the Internet? Turn their comments into cute pieces of embroidery, obviously.
Marie Brian, also known as the Cotton Floozy, creates and sells hilarious stitchings online. When she started receiving negative feedback — like so many other women on the Internet — she decided to respond by incorporating those offensive comments into her pieces.
“When you see something so horrible written about you in print form, it has a way of searing itself onto your psyche,” Brian told The Huffington Post in an email. “I found so much relief in facing those words head on, exorcising their power with a few adorable stitches and some pom-pom trim.”
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I recently became aware of some internet hate towards me and my business, so I skipped over the F-bombs and the threats and lifted this one, admittedly, poetic sentence and stitched it. Sometimes hate can be frickin’ adorable. #hatersgonnahate #embroidery #restrainingorder
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The result is “Adorable-izing Hate,” a fledgling project turning negative internet commentary into cute artwork. In a blog post about the project, Brian explained how soothing she found the process and invited her followers to share their own experiences with hateful comments.
“All I know is that stitching a bit of the hate directed towards me was immensely cathartic,” she wrote. “It turned my tears (thin-skin) into laughter. If you have any bit of hate that you have received from a crazy ex or an online troll, let me know… Maybe I can adorable-ize it through the power of embroidery.”
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One of my favorite lady bloggers – @thekimbongiorno – received this comment. “That woman’s face is terrifying as f*ck.” I added an asterisk to make it family restaurant friendly for my viewers. Because my mom.
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The project isn’t limited to Internet commentary — Brian has also stitched excerpts from angry texts and personal messages.
As long as Internet trolls are around, the possibility of being torn down in the comments is real. Brian has a fantastic attitude about it, though. As she wrote in her blog post, “Haters gonna hate, stitchers gonna stitch.”
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Today’s adorablized hate embroidery. For my friend Mary Ellen who received this gem in the form of a text: “you are no longer relivant. [sic].”
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Check out more embroidery from Marie Brian here.
How One Musician Helped A Teen With Hearing Impairment Enjoy Her First Live Concert
Dutch teenager Vera van Dijk was born with a severe hearing impairment that made it impossible to understand her mother’s voice or listen to pop music. But thanks to one savvy musician, the 19-year-old was recently able to experience her first live music concert, as reported by Alt Sounds.
The innovative concert was part of mobile company Vodafone’s “Firsts” series, which celebrates the many ways technology can help people enjoy new experiences. As part of the series, thousands of Vodafone voters selected popular progressive Netherlands musician Kyteman to compose music specifically tailored to Vera’s limited hearing range.
Though a special cochlear implant hearing aid she received two and half years ago allows Vera to hear a certain range of sounds, music remains difficult for her to enjoy. For Vera, the excitement of a live music concert always held an allure.
As she says in the heartwarming video, “At a concert, I want to experience a big family feeling. All these people coming together and listening to music together.”
To make that happen, Kyteman composed music tailored to Vera’s hearing strengths and weaknesses. Vera tested the music in studio to ensure that she could hear all the notes and instrumentals. Then, Kyteman performed the music with an 18-piece orchestra for a crowd of 400 people in Amsterdam this past August — including Vera.
Rock on.
[h/t Alt Sounds]
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An Instagram Post Gave This Teen His Eyesight Back
When North Carolina teen Jon Dase was diagnosed with keratoconus, a rare eyesight condition that can cause blindness, he feared he’d have to give up his lifelong dreams of serving in the Air Force.
Earlier this week, Jon had surgery that will restore his eyesight and his dreams — and it’s all thanks to this Instagram post, according to The Fay Observer:
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This is John. His dad is a Marine. Some of you may know that I’m married to a Marine, so I really want to do all I can to help spread the word. John has keratoconus in both eyes (which can cause blindness) and suffers from seizures. They are raising money to help pay for the the out of state surgery, trips costs etc. please share or consider donating at http://gofundme.com/cxgc40 #helpjohnsee #keratoconus #charity #pleasehelp
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Jon’s mother, Billie, took to social media for help saving Jon’s vision. When Brittany Jones learned about Jon’s illness, she posted the above photo to Instagram and tagged a number of people, including famous veteran and former talk-show host Montel Williams.
Williams connected Billie to Brian S. Boxer Wachler, a Beverly Hills doctor who performs eye surgery that corrects keratoconus. An anonymous donor generously offered to cover the cost of the $32,000 sur