Edward Snowden is a 29-year-old who had been a technical assistant at the CIA and is currently employed at Booz Allen Hamilton, a firm contracted by the US Department of Defence. He took medical leave before leaking the documents but is currently in Hong Kong — a destination chosen for its potential to resist US dictates — where he has watched his efforts ripple across media and society in the US and worldwide.
The interview is quite incredible. Snowden is portrayed as a man of principle who is fully aware of his actions. He did what he did because he could no longer continue to watch the program and its work.
“I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets,” he is quoted as saying, despite the immense danger and uncertainty that he now faces for leaking the documents.
Selected excerpts that explain his background and reasoning in more detail are below this video.
His motivation:
“I’m willing to sacrifice all of that [his "comfortable" life] because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”
Why he is not staying anonymous:
From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.
His expectations of what’s next:
In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”
“All my options are bad,” he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US territory.
His disinterest in becoming famous over the leak (although that is an inevitable reality given the huge profile and storm around PRISM):
Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.”
Read the article in full to learn more about this incredible man who is sure to go down in US history. The big question is how will the story go.
Today, Microsoft has posted a series of articles detailing exactly the way that the Xbox One will handle a permanent internet connection requirement, how it allows users to trade and sell games and exactly how private your Kinect will let your house be. Many of the most titillating and specious rumors about how the Xbox One will handle these tricky situations has been proved false with this post.
All of them except the Internet connection requirement that is. That one is still going to raise some eyebrows. The Xbox One will let you play your ‘home console’ for 24 hours without an internet connection, then will require that you log on to continue playing. If you’re logged on to someone else’s console, you’ll have to check every hour. That’s even for single player games.
Microsoft says that this internet connection will allow developers to create ‘massive games in the cloud’, which was one of the big features touted at the launch event. This means that large sections of some games may require a cloud connection to operate as planned. The Xbox One will always be running in a ‘low power’ state in order to automatically download updates when you’re away.
Here’s what Microsoft says are the network requirements for the Xbox One:
A persistent connection is ‘not required’, but one is if you want to ‘verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend.’
1.5MB internet connection is recommended
You can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.
Used games
On the games licensing front, Microsoft says you’ll be able to buy any game you want on day one on disc or in digital format. Disc-based games will get sold through all of the regular outlets, and the online games will be handled by Microsoft. Once you purchase a game, it will sit in Microsoft’s cloud for you to install at any time. Once you install it, it will be on your console, but if you want access to it at a friend’s house, you can log in, download and install it there, without any disc.
One of the big controversies surrounding the Xbox One has been how it will handle used games. This is another very tricky area, because, while Microsoft says that used games will be able to be sold, it also says that it’s up to the publisher to decide whether that’s possible. A publisher that sees no benefit from that used game sale.
“Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit,” says the post. “We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.”
There’s still one question here with regards to whether publishers will be able to get a slice of those used game sales. That’s carefully stepped around in this statement, as it says ‘can enable you’, and says that Microsoft itself doesn’t charge a fee. Either way, it seems doubtful that they’d agree to used game sales unless they got some benefit from it.
Family sharing
A few more tidbits about how the Xbox One will handle sharing games inside the family were also shared. Namely, you’ll be able to have anyone play the games on your console as long as you’re logged in. No real change there from what’s happened in the past. You can also allow up to 10 members of your family to log in and play from your ‘shared games’ library on the Xbox One.
“Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house,” says Microsoft. “Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.”
However, there is some weird behavior around ‘giving’ games to friends. You can only give a game once to a friend and they have to have been on your list for 30 days and it can only be given out once. No word if that game can then be given by them to someone else freely or not.
And on the Kinect 2 and its habit of ‘always listening’ to you
You are in control of what Kinect can see and hear: By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded.
You are in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused: If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command — “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences.
You are in control of your personal data: You can play games or enjoy applications that use data,such as videos, photos, facial expressions, heart rate and more, but this data will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission. Here are a few examples of potential future scenarios:
A fitness game could measure heart rate data to provide you with improved feedback on your workout, allow you to track your progress, or even measure calories burned.
A card game could allow you to bluff your virtual opponent using your facial expressions.
You can use other inputs to control your games, TV and entertainment experiences: While it’s faster to find what you’re looking for using your voice and gesture commands with Kinect, you can use a controller, your remote controls or your smart devices instead. And you can use all of these devices when Kinect is paused.
The “Bag Men” — who are decidedly not the Tsarnaev brothers — claim defamation.
Three days after the Boston Marathon attack — and hours before officials released photos of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev — two separate men were pictured on the cover of the New York Post with the headline "Bag Men: Feds seek this duo pictured as Boston Marathon." Now, seven weeks later, this duo is suing the newspaper for defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.
In a complaint filed Wednesday, Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi's lawyers argue that the New York Post "unambiguously asserted that plaintiffs were persons suspected by law enforcement of having committed these horrific crimes" — a widely-spread assertion "derived from the activities of certain 'crowd-sourcing' websites." (That would be Reddit and 4chan.)
The Post fingered them as suspects after reports surfaced that the FBI was pursuing two men pictured at the marathon wearing backpacks. Those men, of course, turned out to be the Tsarnaev brothers. From the complaint:
Plantiffs Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, residents of Revere and Malden, and 16 and 24 years old, respectively, are avid runners. Earlier in the day, they were present at the finish line to watch the elite runners. They carried their own running gear in their backpacks. They left at 12:45 p.m. They had nothing whatsoever to do with the bombing.
You can read the full court document below, which is capped off by three pieces of evidence: the New York Post cover, its corresponding story, and an FBI press release issued the day before the "Bag Men" incident that states no arrests have been made and urges the media to be cautious when reporting on suspects.
Google has already proven surprisingly adept at predicting Oscar winners with search data, and now it says it's figured out how to predict box office results too. With between 90 and 92 percent accuracy, Google can tell how much money any picture will make during its first two weeks in theaters — be it a blockbuster like The Avengers or a run-of-the-mill comedy like Identity Thief. To figure that amount out, Google looks at how heavily a film's trailer is searched for during the month before its premiere, both on YouTube and in traditional search. But data from immediately before a picture's release is just as important: if one movie receives 250,000 more searches than another movie that's opening the same weekend, the first picture...
In preparation for the anniversary of the 1989 Tianamen Square protests, Chinese censors reportedly blocked several search terms on the country's top microblogging site Sina Weibo, including "1989," "in today," "anniversary" and "big yellow duck." The odd water fowl reference was banned in response to a viral photoshopped version of the iconic 1989 photograph "Tank Man," which Weibo user Weibolg altered by replacing the tanks with superimposed photos of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's famous Rubber Duck floating sculpture.
Digital agency Breakfast has launched an interactive digital street sign with arms that rotate in response to user requests
Points is powered by online content such as RSS feeds, Twitter hashtags and Foursquare check-ins. From afar, it looks like a traditional three-arm street sign but up close, the arms rotate and the digital display is updated depending on the online content it is programmed to respond to; pointing passers-by to local events, landmarks and popular spots.
Each one also has a menu which passers-by can use to select whether they want to find local transport, offers, meals or events (above).
It can be used by national tourist boards and councils to direct to local landmarks:
To promote conferences, sports matches and concerts:
And even to tell pedestrians when and where the next bus, train or subway is stopping:
It's the latest in a series of impressive and unusual products from Breakfast – the New York-based agency has also built realtime billboards for concerts using instantly printed Instagrams of attendees and a NASA-inspired Mission Control system for Major League Baseball that collates and analyses ballpark wind speeds and live feeds of game data.
“When we were crafting the idea that would become Breakfast, we gave ourselves the challenge of coming up with concept products that would define the goal our company wanted to achieve - finding completely new ways to connect the real world to the online world. Points was one of those ideas, but in the early days we didn't have the money, time of skills to pull it off,” explains creative director Andrew Zolty.
“Over the last three years we've been slowly designing Points in pockets of time between other projects and a couple of months ago, we committed ourselves to the final manufacturing and development,” he adds.
The biggest challenge for Breakfast, says Zolty, was creating a product that looks like a traditional sign but contains “a massive amount of complex mechanical and electronic parts.”
“We were squeezing so much technology into such a small space (the width of an inner arm is less than 1.5") that we had to custom manufacture every part [of the sign] in house to make it fit perfectly,” he says.
At the moment, the only Point in use is the one in Breakfast's office - it can be powered remotely using the hashtag #PointsSign, which will make the sign point towards the origin of the tweet. But since launching the product this week, Zolty says he has received requests from hotels, sporting events and conferences around the world.
“It's able to be broken down into smaller pieces for transit, then erected in half an hour, and it's built mainly out of aluminium, so it should withstand the elements of travel without a problem,” he adds.
Pink Floyd fans may recognise the cover of our June issue. It's the original marked-up artwork for Dark Side of the Moon: one of a number of treasures from the archive of design studio Hipgnosis featured in the issue, along with an interview with Aubrey Powell, co-founder of Hipgnosis with the late, great Storm Thorgerson. Elsewhere in the issue we take a first look at The Purple Book: Symbolism and Sensuality in Contemporary Illustration, hear from the curators of a fascinating new V&A show conceived as a 'walk-in book' plus we have all the regular debate and analysis on the world of visual communications.
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"I'm willing to talk about the company that all gamers love to hate if anyone wants to know more about it. I need to keep my identity on the down-low because I'm job hunting now and not trying to burn bridges. So I can't give specifics on the the projects I worked on, but can talk to a lot of the games, processes, culture, infamous game copying, etc.," the ex-employee, who admitted to working in a "creative position," added.
Curious redditors flocked to the thread, littering it with hundreds of comments and upvotes. Interestingly enough, the top-voted comment has nothing to do with the company's flailing titles or business practices, but rather its snacks.
"What kind of snacks were in the break room?" boringaccount asked.
"Depends on the room, but the basics were granola bars, cookies, liquorish bites, kettle chips, pop chips, pretzel bites, hard boiled eggs, cereal, nuts, chex mix, coffee and tea" former_zyngite replied.
ccatlr added, "Once the snacks start drying up or going downhill, or when they go from being a huge spread, to being a box or two of nutter butters a week. It's not a good sign. I've been part of 7 or so layoffs/buyouts over the years and the one constant indicator as to how the companies financials were doing was the snacks, and if you went from getting those kick ass gel glide pens, and the next week, it's a simple stick bic. Yup, time to update the cv."
It wasn't long before the session shifted to more juicy topics.
How do you feel about the revolving door mentality for employees working in a lot of development studios (basically as soon as the game gets done there is a mass layoff)? (sryii)
It's the worst aspect of working in the industry, easily. It's an unstable industry and you have to accept that you're going to lose your job, and change companies multiple times throughout your career.
Some people in normal industries can get a job, work there for 40 years and retire. That's virtually impossible in the games industry.
Just how prolific is their theft of other games? (Escapist83)
That's a broad question. But it varies. They got a lot better recently. After The Ville got sued by EA it was much less okay to "fast follow" a game (The term for copying a game).
I think that early on it was blatant. Later it became well known practice at Zynga, but rather poor taste. Dream Heights/Tiny Tower was a big slap in the face. Sims Social/The Ville was the last straw. Towards the end of my time it was not so much that games were straight up ripped off, but key features would be. Such as the general method or menu flow that a game handles it's multiplayer. The idea being that if it works for that game, it would work for our game.
In general though, most of us knew what game was copying what. Bubble Safari was a copy of Bubble Witch Saga. The Ville was Sims Social. Hidden Chronicles was Gardens of Time. The company didn't call it out for what it was, but you knew because whatever project you were on most likely had similar pressures to match and beat a game on the market.
Do you think they have a sound business strategy? i mean its doubtful if they are laying off so many people but i just assumed they would be making a killing. (Mostlyatnight_mostly)
Oh hell no. Their business strategy is terrible.
Their major issues are the inability to adjust to the changing market. They did great when Facebook gaming was on the rise, but now it's declining and Mobile is on the rise. They're trying to change over, but employ too many of the same game development "best practices" that were developed for Facebook games. These just don't translate to the mobile market, which is why they're suffering in that market.
There's also lots of other issues internally.
A lot of micro-management from the top down that stifles the creativity and hinders the production of many games.
An over reliance on every game being a blockbuster hit which makes the fun aspect of games suffer while making the money grabbing tactics all too transparent to the users.
And a serious lack of foresight over all. Too many major decisions are quick reactions to sudden changes in the market. If some games jumps to the top of the Top Grossing charts then everyone need to drop everything and change to follow it. Which wastes time, makes for bad design and ultimately puts projects behind schedule. It just means they're always late to the party, and whatever game they're trying to compete with has already faded away by the time their own version hits the market.
They rely too much on reacting to what is making money now, and too much on their own data. They don't strive to make anything new or innovative and that's no way to excel in the games market. You need to lead the pack, not try emulate the best practices of top games with the hopes that you can out perform and already established IP.
What are the benefits of working at Zynga? (renzss)
Lots of perks, like a gym in the building, three free meals a day, happy hour every Friday with free booze, unlimited vacation days. Not everyone takes advantage of them all. I loved getting a free 15 minute massage once a week.
The Daily Dot's subreddit, r/dailydot, highlights the most interesting and important discussions from around the social news site every day.
A new project combining the collective talents of four French design studios literally allows you to see sound in a whole different light. Murmur is a device that allows passers-by to interact with an LED light wall, turning their voice into visible sound waves. Building a "luminous bridge between the physical and virtual worlds," it transfers sound waves towards the wall using an LED strip, displaying the movement of each spoken word.
Experts in visual, sound, and object design, participating studios Chevalvert, 2roqs, Polygraphik, and Splank utilized Raspberry Pi and open-source toolkits to create the installation, referring to it as “echo’s room” — which alludes to both the audio effect and Echo nymphs in Greek mythology.
A new iPhone app helps you prevent microwave popcorn from getting burned better than any automatic preset could.
Microwave popcorn instructions are just glorified guesstimates. Anyone who has ever nuked up a bowl knows that it takes a complex, interlinked ballet between one’s full range of senses and his or her intuition to determine the best time to evacuate. A new app, however, boldly suggests otherwise.
Pop Secret and agency Deutsch LA have created Perfect Pop, a new app that may finally put an end to the scourge of burned popcorn. The agency and brand teamed before on an app designed to connect popcorn lovers with their natural ally--movies. Now, they’ve taken another step in creating the perfect popcorn experience.
Available at Apple’s App Store or Pop Secret Labs, Perfect Pop professes to be the end-all-be-all solution to a problem that’s curdled the appetites of the hungry and couch bound for far too long.
According to Deutsch, burned popcorn is the number one consumer complaint faced by the microwave popcorn category, with over 400 tweeted complaints about it weekly. (In fact, the agency compiled several of these missives into an autotuned video that explains and justifies its new app.) The agency says that since the app hit iTunes, it’s become a top 10 food app and has had 80,000 downloads, without a formal public launch.
Perfect Pop works by listening to popcorn while it’s in the microwave and notifying its hungry owner at just the right moment to help avoid the risk of burn. Once users turn the app on and place it near the microwave, a kernel widget listens and analyzes the sounds of popping corn. It then weighs the sound against data collected from dozens of microwave models and hundreds of bags of popcorn, waiting for just the right “popping acoustics.”
The result is the kind of fluffy, buttery goodness that usually takes active microwave surveillance to achieve. Finally, popcorn lovers will be able to stand the heat while getting out of the kitchen.
Do you measure your product’s time to utility? If not, you should.
The best products reward users as quickly as possible after installation and account creation. But it’s easy to forget about this and as a result, watch conversion rates from download/install-to-active fall.
CRM products have the longest time to utility of most software products. The end user, a salesperson, logs into a blank Salesforce installation. She must type in a bunch of data about a customer. If the customer account closes, great. But it’s not until twelve or eighteen months later when the customer considers renewal and she has to strategize how to best pitch the customer that this salesperson benefits from any of the data entered into the CRM.
On the other hand, sales managers' time to utility for CRM products is much faster. As soon as the team enters in current pipeline data, he can see the sales forecast for the current month.
This difference in time to utility is one of the causes of the tension in adopting CRM tools. It’s present in many enterprise tools that generate reports for management because there’s a time-to-value mismatch between the roles.
Consumer products tend to offer faster time to utility. Google search, Facebook news feed, Twitter feed. Immediately after searching or logging in, the user receives some value: the right results or some relevant updates.
But if you think about the most frustrating software to use, by and large, the time to utility will be long and the magnitude of that utility will be small.
Measure your time to utility for all your product’s segments and try to minimize it. You’ll see the impact at every step of the conversion funnel.
