Dan.d.shield

As we’ve announced via Twitter, Kent Beck, David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) and I will be doing a series of video hangouts to discuss TDD, and the trade-offs around testing and architecture. The first one is on Friday May 9, at 11:00 Eastern time. The hangout will be around 30 minutes and will be recorded so you can watch it later. We’ll also release an audio version via a podcast stream for those like me who hate watching videos.

The genesis of this is a couple of conversations between us that happened over the internet after DHH’s RailsConf keynote. We found the conversations really interesting so Kent suggested that we should have some more of these, and make them available to the wider internet. We’ve done very little organisation for these - no further than partial outline - so we’ll be sorting out our direction as we go.

Since we announced it, there’s been many suggestions to get more people involved, particularly Bob Martin (Uncle Bob) who has been very active in the post-RailsConf debate. We’d prefer to stick with just the three of us, because adding extra people to the mix usually changes the chemistry of a conversation significantly. We’re sure that if these work well there will be more hangouts with different mixes of people in the future.

We should also say that the conversation may not live up to many people’s expectations - at least judging by many of the tweets we’ve seen. Many people speak of looking forward to a “death match” fight between us. But the whole reason we’re doing this is that our conversations have taken a very thoughtful nature. We hope to be witty and entertaining, but we are more interested in exploring these topics in a way that expands our understanding of each others’ ideas.

Austin is home to some of the best barbecue in the country, a killer live music scene, and an energy that can match any other city in the world. It’s no coincidence, then, that it’s also home to some of the most creative entrepreneurs out there, which is why we’re pleased to welcome Capital Factory, an Austin-based incubator and co-working space for startups, to the Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network. The city’s thriving startup community and deep bench of engineering talent, combined with its natural creativity and eclecticism, make it the perfect place to expand.

Capital Factory is the eighth space to join the Network, a group of partner organizations across the U.S. that does everything from hosting accelerator programs for talented developers to providing desks for entrepreneurs. Google for Entrepreneurs provides funding to all the hubs and give them access to mentorship opportunities and Google products.

In just over six months, the Tech Hub Network is already having a dramatic effect on entrepreneurs around North America. Seventy-one percent of startups say their hub is having a significant impact on their growth, and companies from the Network have raised more than $50 million and created 1,200 jobs since becoming members. Just last month, we hosted a Demo Day for these hubs, where 10 startups raised millions of dollars to help grow their businesses.

To give these entrepreneurs an even greater boost going forward, starting today anyone who works in one of the eight tech hubs or Google’s Campus London and Tel Aviv will be able to work for free from the other member spaces when traveling. This will give startups a home base when they’re on the road, and the chance to spread and exchange ideas from city to city.



Not too long ago, Google was just a small startup in a garage. Now that we’ve grown up a bit, we want to give others a place where they can work on their ideas, and feed off each other’s creativity and ingenuity. Capital Factory is no exception. So, get your boots on, Austin entrepreneurs—we can’t wait to see how your growing startup community plays its part in keeping Austin weird.

Posted by John Lyman, Head of Partnerships, Google for Entrepreneurs

If and when Apple ever comes out with a wearable computer, the term “watch” may not necessarily apply.

According to reports, Apple is going whole hog into health and fitness for its long-rumored wearable device. This morning, a new job listing on Apple’s website called for a “User Studies Exercise Physiologist” who would design, test and run user studies of fitness tracking, including calories burned, metabolic rate, cardiovascular fitness and “measurement/tracking and other key physiological measurements.” That job listing subsequently vanished, although Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac posted a screenshot.

Such physiologists and related sensor and health experts are expected to contribute to an app in the forthcoming version of iOS 8 called “Healthbook,” Gurman reported last week. Apple already has fitness tracking capabilities built into the iPhone 5S via its M7 motion co-processor, and Healthbook will be the software manifestation of Apple’s fitness hardware.

Apple has met with the Food and Drug Administration to discuss mobile medical applications, according to a report in the New York Times. That makes sense if Apple is working on applications that may touch on healthcare issues, as federal laws concerning the gathering, storage and sharing of health information are quite strict. Moving into a field like healthcare is not something a company like Apple would do haphazardly.

It does look like Apple may be acknowledging that smartwatches are not going to recapitulate the capabilities of smartphones any time soon. Today's smartwatches are generally falling into one of two distinctive categories: communication devices like Pebble, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and the Qualcomm Toq and fitness devices like FitBit and the Nike FuelBand. From the reports so far, it appears that Apple is focusing on the latter category.

U.S. healthcare is a $2.8 trillion industry, counting everything from insurance to pharmaceuticals to doctor and hospital fees and so on. Technologists have long considered health and fitness ripe for "disruption" by lower-cost, information-centric approaches, but most attempts so far have run into the shoals of federal regulations and heavily entrenched, bureaucratic incumbents that have proven amazingly resistant to change.

Apple's Wearable Challenges

The technology for the all-on-one smartwatch is not really mature enough for Apple to create a device that is both smartphone and wearable fitness tracker. So, Apple has to establish priorities.

First, it needs to uphold the software and hardware design principles that have made it the most profitable computer company in the world. That may mean a curved display that demonstrates Apple’s usual flair. It will certainly mean packing a device with enough power to collect relevant data and deliver simple but intuitive functions. At a minimum, that means Bluetooth, GPS, a variant of the M7 motion processor (likely an ARM-based Cortex processor of some type) and an accelerometer.

Battery life will be crucial; almost certainly, so will wireless charging. 

Second will be a platform for developers to build on, the same way they do on iOS in the smartphone and tablet world. Apple will likely have several launch partner apps for its fitness band, with Nike a likely suspect (Apple CEO Tim Cook sits on Nike's board) as well as apps like RunKeeper (one of the first fitness trackers in the App Store). If Apple makes its fitness tracker a platform to build on top of—like it did with the iPhone—it could go a long way into creating interest for the product.

The third challenge may be the most difficult: getting the American health system to adopt an Apple-made fitness device as a go-to source for health monitoring. Imagine a doctor prescribing a health tracker to a patient to monitor cardiovascular health with all of that information directly shipped back to the doctor’s computer. This is the sort of idea that would lead Apple straight into discussions with the FDA.

Apple hasn't rushed into the wearable market the way companies like Samsung and Sony have. Apple is taking a classic, pragmatic approach that could ultimately yield not just a consumer-grade fitness tracker, but a life companion device designed to keep you healthy.

So much of our lives revolves around the Internet. We rarely go a day without checking an online account, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email. Some of us even keep those tabs open all day. 

But with openness comes drawbacks. There has been a considerable amount of scrutiny levied on tech companies, from inconsistent privacy policies to quietly supplying the government with user data. As Internet users grow increasingly concerned with their privacy on Web, many people have begun questioning the amount of data they should share online—some have even deleted their accounts as a response to perceived invasions of privacy.

The overabundance of noise and pressure to share—and “Like”—personal details is losing its luster. Even some of us here at ReadWrite are feeling compelled to jettison a small piece of our digital lives. 

If you’re serious about deleting your online profiles, you might be surprised: It’s more difficult than you'd think to completely erase yourself from the Internet. 

1. Say Goodbye To Social

Before you officially delete any of your accounts, make sure you download all the data associated with them first, if you’re able to. 

Archives from Facebook and Twitter can be downloaded from general settings, and you can export your LinkedIn connections via contact settings. 

When you’re ready to sign off your social sites for good, visit the settings pages of the sites you want to leave, and select “Deactivate” or “Close” your account. LinkedIn and Twitter make this easy; with Facebook and Google, it’s a little more tricky. 

You might not even be aware you have a Google+ account. Google+ is Google’s social service that ties together all its applications, from Gmail to YouTube. If you’ve commented on YouTube in recent months, or connected any other Google accounts to a social service, you have a Google+ account. 

But despite Google's sneakiness, once you know you have a Google+ profile, they are rather easy to delete. Simply visit the “Settings” page on your Google+ profile and disable all your accounts. 

If you want to leave Facebook, the company encourages you to simply “Deactivate” your profile on the security settings page. Instead of being gone for good, your information is still stored on the website in case you ever want to come back. This benefits both the user and the company—Facebook doesn’t want to lose your data, even if it loses you.

To entirely delete your Facebook account, you have to fill out a form and tell Facebook why, exactly, you’re leaving the service. 

2. Cut The Rest

It’s likely there are some other long-forgotten websites that have an account tied to your email address. If you need help jogging your memory, Just Delete Me can help. It provides a directory of links to help you delete accounts from over 300 web services. Facebook and Twitter are listed, but so are others like Craigslist and Groupon, which you may have used only once and forgotten about. 

Just Delete Me breaks down just how easy (or impossible) it is to delete accounts from the Internet, and links you directly to the resources to do so. It also provides a Chrome extension that adds a small dot to the browser’s omnibar that will light up when you’re on a site listed on Just Delete Me. Clicking on the dot will take you to the company’s "Delete" page. 

3. Deal With Losing The Convenience

The one thing holding me back from deleting my own accounts—apart from the fact I’m the social reporter here at ReadWrite—is how much of my online life is tied to my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. 

It’s almost second nature to select “Login with Facebook” when using any new website or application. A handful of the mobile apps on my iPhone are powered by social logins: Yelp, on-demand car services like Lyft and Uber, and even my running application RunKeeper. 

The majority of apps offer other login options, but since Facebook already stores all my data, it’s convenient for me to use Facebook login instead of setting up new, separate accounts for each and every new service I come upon.

Relinquishing your social accounts comes with a cost—you’ll lose the ease of use for other applications, and in some instances, the ability to use different services at all. 

When YouTube began requiring Google+ accounts to comment on videos last year, the Internet was righteously miffed. Even YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim got in on the firestorm of negative comments, posting his first comment in eight years to question Google’s new policy. 

If you ditch Google+, you’ll lose the ability to comment on YouTube. Getting rid of Facebook would make logging to different sites and services more tedious. And some applications, like Lyft, require Facebook login. No Facebook, no Lyft.

We’ve been happily providing Facebook and the extended suite of social applications with our data simply because they collectively make our lives easier. If Mark Zuckerberg gets his way, Facebook will eventually integrate with everything, which would make disconnecting our various social accounts from that "master account" nearly impossible.

4. Accept Unintended Consequences

Even if you do delete your social accounts, some parts of your digital life will be chiseled into eternity—and there's nothing you can do about it.

In 2013, the Library of Congress struck a deal with Twitter to collect and archive all public tweets on an ongoing basis. That means anything you’ve publicly tweeted since 2006 is in the possession of the government, even if you've deleted your account. 

Facebook users also learned their data gets stored by the social network whether or not they like it, or even give it in the first place. Last year, Facebook faced intense user scrutiny after the company was found unintentionally combining user data with so-called “shadow profiles,” which are databases of alternate emails and phone numbers collected by Facebook when it asks a user's permission to access their Contacts, and sharing all that information with the users' friends who used Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool. 

Facebook collects data from millions of people, even those without Facebook accounts, creating these "shadow profiles" of people around the world. So even if you delete your account, your phone number or email will still be on the Facebook's servers if one of your friends saved it in their address book and then gave Facebook permission to access it. 

Apart from your information remaining in the Internet ether, there are other downsides to disconnecting your accounts. 

Shon Burton, founder and CEO of the online talent search agency HiringSolved, told me that employers are skeptical of potential hires when they can’t be found online.

“It freaks employers out if there's no trace at all, unless the person has reason to be secretive, think NSA analyst or top secret,” Burton said. “In most roles, lack of any social presence would at least raise questions. How the candidate answered would be key.”

Most of us try to hide our private lives from potential employers, but services like LinkedIn let us own a digital profile dedicated entirely to our careers.

Personal relationships could suffer from cutting off one's online presence, too. As the popularity of online dating climbs, the desire to Google your dates increases. To many, a non-existent online identity could be considered suspicious. (I suffered a serious inquisition from my best friend when she couldn’t find the guy I was dating online.) And even friendships, which can usually be easily saved with the tap of the “Like” button, could begin to disintegrate with no easy way to extend event invitations or tag you in photos. 

If you own an email address or use online services for banking, shopping or business transactions, it will be nigh impossible to remove yourself from the Internet entirely. But by cutting the identity-related social networks, you can begin to become anonymous, providing more privacy and allowing you to be the select few (and impressive) people that haven’t succumbed to the social media monster. 

Image via mikemelrose on Flickr. 

After the update, Evernote lets you place attachments in-line within the notes, so everything can be positioned where you think it belongs. Also on the list is improved note editing. Now you will be able to edit and maintain notes made on other devices without compromising their style, even if a given style is unsupported on Android...

Every day we all see, hear or think of things we need to remember. Usually we grab a pad of sticky-notes, scribble a reminder and put it on the desk, the fridge or the relevant page of a magazine. Unfortunately, if you’re like me you probably often discover that the desk, fridge or magazine wasn’t such a clever place to leave the note after all...it’s rarely where you need it when you need it.

To solve this problem we’ve created Google Keep. With Keep you can quickly jot ideas down when you think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what’s important to you. Your notes are safely stored in Google Drive and synced to all your devices so you can always have them at hand.

If it’s more convenient to speak than to type that’s fine—Keep transcribes voice memos for you automatically. There’s super-fast search to find what you’re looking for and when you’re finished with a note you can archive or delete it.



Changing priorities isn’t a problem: just open Keep on your Android phone or tablet (there’s a widget so you can have Keep front and center all the time) and drag your notes around to reflect what matters. You can choose the color for each note too.

Pro tip: for adding thoughts quickly without unlocking your device there's a lock screen widget (on devices running Android 4.2+).


Google Keep is available on Google Play for devices running Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich and above. You can access, edit and create new notes on the web at http://drive.google.com/keep and in the coming weeks you'll be able to do the same directly from Google Drive.

Posted by Katherine Kuan, Software Engineer