The TTC Wi-Fi rollout has now reached over 54 TTC locations.
At this point in the ongoing project, there are only 15 stations yet to be equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots. Last month, it was announced that the program had hit the milestone of 50 TTC subway stations around the city.
The goal is to have every station outfitted with Wi-Fi service by May, 2017. Of the 15 remaining stations, blogTOstates that the majority of them are above ground, and therefore accessible by existing subway signals.
In addition, the TTC’s cellular rollout with Freedom Mobile is also progressing. Beyond station platforms, BAI (a communications infrastructure company that builds and maintains underground communication networks), is in the process of installing service in 25 station platforms and inside the tunnels.
Freedom Mobile users may have already noticed some cellular service between Queen and Wellesley as the technology is tested, though the official rollout is not expected until 2018.
What if the ideal office isn’t the coolest or the most aesthetically visionary? What if the ideal office is the one, dog pictures and gnomes and all, that workers make their own?
In 2010, two psychologists conducted an experiment to test that idea. Alex Haslam and Craig Knight set up simple office spaces where they asked experimental subjects to spend an hour doing simple administrative tasks. Haslam and Knight wanted to understand what sort of office space made people productive and happy, and they tested four different layouts.
Two of the layouts were familiar. One was stripped down – bare desk, swivel chair, pencil, paper, nothing else. Most participants found it rather oppressive. “You couldn’t relax in it,” said one. The other layout was softened with pot plants and tasteful close-up photographs of flowers, faintly reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe paintings. Workers got more and better work done there, and enjoyed themselves more.
The next two layouts produced dramatically different outcomes – and yet, photographs of the spaces would offer few clues as to why. They used the same basic elements and the same botanical decorations. But the appearance wasn’t what mattered; what mattered was who got to decide.
In the third and fourth layouts, workers were given the plants and pictures and invited to use them to decorate the space – or not – before they started work. But in the fourth, the experimenter came in after the subject had finished setting everything out to her satisfaction, and then rearranged it all. The office space itself was not much different, but difference in productivity and job satisfaction was dramatic.
When workers were empowered to design their own space, they had fun and worked hard and accurately, producing 30 per cent more work than in the minimalist office and 15 per cent more than in the decorated office. When workers were deliberately disempowered, their work suffered and of course, they hated it. “I wanted to hit you,” one participant later admitted to an experimenter.
Haslam and Knight have confirmed what other researchers have long suspected – that lack of control over one’s physical environment is stressful and distracting. But this perspective is in stark contrast to those who see office design as too important to be left to the people who work in offices.
These concepts don't all relate to education, and their importance most certainly isn't limited to political life, but it's a good list and educators should be aware of all of them. Here's the one-minute version:
Scepticism - "a willingness to evenly assess the scientific evidence available."
Iatrogenesis - illness “ brought forth by the healer," like the opioid epidemic
Architecture critic Martin Filler eviscerates the World Trade Centre development in NYC in this long and worthwhile article from the New York Review of Books; readers who care only somewhat about Manhattan will still enjoy the Battle Royal between architects, developers, politicians and, indeed, critics.
Filler reviews three books on the subject, and at one point quotes Lynne Sagalyn: “This was not city building. Architecture may be art and city building calls for art-like understanding of the fabric of a place, but a city is not a blank canvas to paint at will…”
Filler has never been a fan of Santiago Calatrava: “The most architecturally ambitious portion of the ensemble, Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub (commonly called the Oculus), opened to the public in March 2016, though with no fanfare whatever, doubtless to avoid drawing further attention to this stupendous waste of public funds. The job took twelve years to finish instead of the five originally promised, and part of its exorbitant $4 billion price will be paid by commuters in the form of higher transit fares. The fortune spent on this kitschy jeu d’esprit—nearly twice its already unconscionable initial estimate of $2.2 billion—is even more outrageous for a facility that serves only 40,000 commuters on an average weekday, as opposed to the 750,000 who pass through Grand Central Terminal daily. Astoundingly, the Transportation Hub wound up costing $1 billion more than One World Trade Center itself.”
Is there a cautionary tale here for Vancouver and the nascent plan to redo the downtown waterfront, including expanding Waterfront Station into a larger, more effective transit hub?
Reports indicate that with this acquisition, Airbnb is taking steps towards becoming a global travel company. Airbnb officially unveiled the acquisition on February 16th, and though the service declined to disclose financial terms, the cash and stock deal is reported to be worth approximately $300 million CAD.
In addition to Airbnb however, both travel giant Expedia and European hotel company AccorSA made bids for Luxury Retreats. While those companies’ cash offers were believed to be larger, Luxury Retreats founder Joe Poulin ultimately decided on Airbnb.
Luxury Retreats currently has more than 4,000 properties around the world. The company offers a concierge service that Airbnb will now be able to offer its customers. The Montreal-based company says it will maintain its head office in Montreal, though Poulin will lead its parent company’s luxury homes division in San Francisco.
Airbnb is apparently planning several acquisitions for the 2017 year. The company is considering multiple partnerships and acquisitions in sectors like airfare aggregation, group payments and pricing tools to help those listing their homes on Airbnb make more money.
In addition, the $31 billion rentals company may also be turning its sights to China and India.
Google has started collecting user feedback on the design of the company’s Pixel smartphone.
In a post on Pixel User Community forums, Krishna Kumar, Pixel product lead, asks Pixel users to write what they want to see from Google’s next smartphone.
“I would like to hear your thoughts,” says Kumar. “What do you like about the design? What do you hate about it? What did we get right? What would you like to see us improve?”
Currently, the majority of those who contributed their thoughts to the post have highlighted the Pixel’s large bezels, lack of waterproofing and single bottom-facing speaker as major design issues Google needs to address with the Pixel 2. To be fair, a lot of these are things Google is likely already considering; according to a recent report from 9to5Google, the search giant plans to reportedly add water-resistance to its next smartphone.
What design changes would you like to see Google make when it comes to the Pixel 2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
New website dedicated to The Omni Group's upcoming automation features in their apps, created by Sal Soghoian:
By default, all of the macOS versions of the Omni applications offer robust integrated AppleScript and JavaScript (JXA) support for Apple Events scripting on the Mac. These excellent automation tools will continued to be integrated into every macOS version of Omni software.
And in addition, the Omni Group now offers integrated cross-platform JavaScript support for both the iOS and macOS versions of their popular productivity applications. Finally, the power of automation is available regardless of whether you use Omni tools on mobile devices, laptops, or desktops.
As for the technology itself:
OmniJS, the name for Omni’s new version of the JavaScript language, is based on JavaScript Core, the foundation of the JavaScript implementation in WebKit. Using OmniJS, the Omni Group suite of applications will be able to be queried and controlled on both iOS and macOS in ways similar to how they are automated today using the traditional macOS Apple Event-based scripts.
The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are arguably the best Android smartphone in the market right now, but their design is a major disappointment. For the price that it commands, the design of the Pixel with the huge bezels at the front looks very uninspiring and the lack of waterproofing does not help things either.
Continue reading →
The Economist has just reported that pedestrians may be sharing the sidewalk with a new interloper-a new version of robotic delivery system developed by “Piaggio Fast Forward, a subsidiary of Piaggio, an Italian firm that is best known for making Vespa motor scooters. Gita’s luggage compartment is a squat, drumlike cylinder that has been turned on its side. This, as the picture above shows, is fitted with two wheels of slightly larger diameter than the drum. These let the whole thing roll smoothly along, keeping the luggage compartment upright, at up to 35kph (22mph).”
This item called a “Gita” is designed to walk a pace or two behind a human owner wearing an electronic belt, and can carry 18 kilograms of cargo for up to eight hours before needing recharging. Gita carries shopping as well as delivering goods ordered online.
“Piaggio is now putting a dozen or so Gitas to work in pilot projects around America, doing things like carrying tools for workers, guiding people through airports and assisting with deliveries. And it is not alone. Starship Technologies, an Estonian company started by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, two of the founders of Skype, has similar ambitions. Starship’s as-yet unnamed suitcase-sized robot has six small wheels, travels at 6kph and holds 10kg of cargo. Rather than doggedly following a human being, it navigates itself around using cameras and ultrasonic sensors—though a remote operator can take control of it to supervise tricky manoeuvres such as crossing roads.”
One challenged faced by these “robots” and their designers is what is called unstructured environments, mainly the fact that these transporters have to share sidewalk space with unpredictable human beings. Robotics have not learned how to navigate space that is full of people-yet. But engineer Matt Delany is not giving up. “The pedestrian environment is very cultural,” he says. “If you monitor people over many long repetitions in testing, a robot can learn the best routes.”
Because this new generation of robotics will not be on vehicular streets and road surfaces, the regulation and safety concerns have been to this point minimized. These robotics may be the new shape of autonomous home delivery, using a sidewalk near you.
It’s Carnival time! Are you ready to dance your way through the festival? During the month of February and early March, many cities around the world celebrate the occasion with costume parades, masquerades, and fireworks. Full of color, beauty, and tradition, carnivals are the kind of event that any photographer would love to photograph. And if that doesn’t impress you, just check out the official Carnival Flickr 2017 group, where you’ll find thousands of inspiring images!
Because we at Flickr love Carnival, we’ve pulled out some of the best stories behind the images in the group pool. Take a gander and learn more about how different cities around the globe celebrate differently. Each has a unique history!
Carnival in Castiglion Fibocchi, Arezzo, Tuscany
The Castiglion Fibocchi Carnival, also known as “Carnevale dei figli di Bocco” (Carnival of the Sons of Bocco), is an ancient event that hosts over two hundred participants dressed in baroque costumes and paper mache masks each year. During the celebration, the entire town transforms into a scene of fantasy in advance of the nighttime parades.
“It’s not easy to describe with words the charm of an event that is, above all, a feast for the eyes,” said Flickr photographer Mark Soetebier. “Such is the success of the carnival that in recent years the masks have been invited to parade in important cultural events, both in Italian cities and around the world, receiving accolades, even the Patronage of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and, in 2014, the prestigious Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic.”
Carnival in Corrientes, Argentina
The city of Corrientes is popularly known as “Carnival’s National Capital” in Argentina.
“The history of this Carnival comes from the local Afro-descendant communities,” said photographer José Luis Suerte. “That mix between African culture and the strong Catholicism established in the province a long time ago, led to this annual celebration in which, every January 6th, people, accompanied by traditional dances, candombes, and charanga bands, pay tribute to San Baltazar.”
According to José Luis, there are two kinds of Carnival celebrations in his city: the sumptuous Carnaval Caté (reserved to the people who can self-finance their luxury costumes) and the more popular Corso Barrial.
Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
For Brazilian photographer Bruno Martins, the blocos de rua are, without a doubt, the best part of the Rio carnival. Carnival blocks are street bands that mobilize crowds in the streets while performing samba music. “Here the official carnival is four days, but the trials of the blocks usually begin a month before the Carnival. Every weekend there is a block spread throughout the city.”
Carnival in Cádiz, Spain
Cádiz, a coastal city in the far south of Andalusia, is home to the biggest carnival on mainland Spain. Celebrations are marked by the humor and wittiness of the comical bands that come from different cities to perform choral folksongs called chirigotas. These choruses usually dress in costumes and sing satirical verses about politics, current events, and everyday life while competing for the prize of “funniest band” of the Carnival.
Although Carnival celebrations change from city to city, they all have something in common: it’s the best time of the year for those of us who love dancing, putting on costumes, and having fun around the clock. Do you have a fun Carnival experience you’ve photographed or want to share? Add your images and comments to the Carnival Flickr 2017 group. We’ll feature the best stories on our social media channels during the next few days! And be sure to visit our latest gallery on Flickr —The Many Faces of Carnival, for more images.
BC Business profiles a group of bicycle-related businesses now thriving in Vancouver.
As residents ride their bicycles more—trips climbed 32 per cent from 2014 to 2015, according to the city’s 2015 Transportation Panel Survey—an assortment of frame-makers, app designers, repair shops and publications have sprung from the cycling economy.
Two things have held up through decades of research on education and its impact. First, socio-economic background is the single best predictor of educational outcomes. And second, education is a necessary but not sufficient precursor to increased socio-economic outcomes. These are the findings that are rediscovered in the current study published in the journal Social Forces. But Facebook devotes a substantial portion of this article repeating criticism from an outlier study (more here) "finding that college is in fact the great equalizer." According to that outlier critics, "students who graduate from the same Ivy League college -- or any college -- tend to earn similar amounts of money in their adult lives." Well sure - if you ignore selection bias, graduation rates, and the fact that income at age 30 is not an educational outcome, you get similar results. I would caution against making this study the basis of criticism of future studies.
It's hard to believe that it has been 3 years since we launched Casey's Crazy Bar. In a world of drop bars and flat bars, the Crazy Bar was polarizing. But, we'd be remiss if we didn't dig back further into the realm of alternative bars to an original one - the Daija Trekking Bar.
I remember seeing these bars on bikes ridden by an older Austrian couple in New Zealand back in 2001. The bars fitted well with the front and rear panniers, rack top bags and trailer they were each pulling around the south island of New Zealand.
Compared to flat bars, trekking bars offer more hand positions. You can use the sides to rock up a hill, you can stretch out forwards in a headwind, or keep your hands close to the brakes and shifters.
In terms of set up, there seem to be two camps. You either have the open end of the bars face towards you or away from you. A search of photos on the net shows more people run them with the opening towards the rider, thus keeping the brake levers and shifters close to you. Go ahead, do the Google search, we can wait.
OK, so now that you have seen the myriad of cockpits out there, you can see how this bar is the ultimate in individualizing a handle bar. I've never seen flat bars or drop bars get built up with such a personalized feeling about them. In the photo above, we put tape along the sides, but you could easily use another set of grips there as well for more cushioning.
For those of you who are now intrigued by these, some basic spec's - the clamp area is a 25.4 mm, standard for flat bars. The straight section where your main grips, shifters and brake levers would fit is a 22.2 mm clamp area and is 15 cm long. They work best with a 25.4 mm threadless stem, as trying to get a quill stem around all those curves could prove to be a nightmare. If you had a quill stem with a removeable faceplate, that would work as well (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
I can’t make it to MisInfoCon, unfortunately, or the #fakenewssci conference going on right now on the East Coast (can we get a few West Coast misinformation conferences please?) But I thought I’d offer my take on a frame for the problem of misinformation on the web.
When you listen to the psychologists talk about misinformation, it can get pretty depressing. They’ll tell you that once people believe a thing, it can be pretty hard to dislodge that belief. And creating new beliefs doesn’t take that much. Some repeated exposure to information (whether true or false) and an emotional frame to view it through does the trick. Easy to catch, hard to cure. In fact, trying to dislodge existing beliefs — even when they are patently ridiculous, like flat-eartherism — often results in a “backfire effect” causing the beliefs to set in deeper.
When you listen to historians talk, it can be pretty uplifting, in a weird “we’re screwed but we always have been” sort of way. Fake news and slanted news has been around since day one of our species. If you believe theorists like Dan Sperber, our reasoning power evolved not to solve problems, but to slant news. So this is nothing new, and maybe our reaction to this is a moral panic.
Both of these takes, though, tend to leave me feeling a bit unsatisfied. And it’s partially because the psychological and historical approach provide insights, but an inappropriate frame for improving the information environment. For me, the appropriate way to think about problems of web-based misinformation is through a public health lens. Through the lens of epidemiology, which looks at the spread of disease.
My view is that Misinformation is a stomach bug, one that has existed since the dawn of time in various strains. And the web, it’s a cruise ship. Combine the two things and you get something like this:
BAYONNE, N.J. (AP) — Kim Waite was especially disappointed to fall ill while treating herself to a Caribbean cruise after completing cancer treatment. The London woman thought she was the only sick one as her husband wheeled her to the infirmary — until the elevator doors opened to reveal hundreds of people vomiting into bags, buckets or on the floor, whatever was closest.
“I started crying, I couldn’t believe it,” Waite said. “I was in shock.”
Waite was among nearly 700 passengers and crew members who became ill during a cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas. The voyage was cut short and the ship returned to port Wednesday in New Jersey, where it was being sanitized in preparation for its next voyage.
I won’t go too deep into the whole epidemiology of stomach bugs and cruise ships, but let’s start with this. No web cruise looks at a room of 700 passengers with a norovirus and says “Well, they can’t be cured, so nothing can be done.”
There’s absolutely something to be done: prevent the room from having 701 people in it. The primary focus is on the people outside that room.
And yet, when we talk about fact-checking, the assumption is that the main use of such things is to correct people’s beliefs — to “cure” people who are “sick”. It’s not.
Like the Social Web, Cruise Ships Are Viral by Design
A cruise ship is meant to push you closer to people you don’t know, it provides events, buzz, common meals, trivia contests. And that social virality breeds traditional virality.
I’m no cruise ship expert, but if you think about what a cruise ship has to do to deal with a stomach bug outbreak you’ll get a lot further in thinking about web misinformation than if you cling to this idea of fact-checkers as missionaries.
What cruise ships do is try to stop the spread of the virus. And they do that by adopting many approaches at once.
They set rules and influence behavior patterns that reduce the spread of the disease.
They train their crews to identify potential sick passengers earlier, and to act in ways that don’t further the spread.
They set up isolation rooms.
They sanitize the ship in between voyages.
And so on. Almost none of this activity deals with curing people who are infected.
Fact-Checks Aren’t a Cure, They’re Prevention
I’m not going to bore you with a point-by-point extended analogy of what disease control measures on a ship map to what web misinformation control strategies. But since I run a student-driven fact-checking project, let me talk about fact checks. Because, again, I hear a lot of people saying “You know, if a person believes something and reads a fact-check they just have their beliefs reinforced.” And while it’s a true and important point, it gets the frame wrong.
Fact-checking isn’t a cure for misinformation. It’s prevention. It’s the hand sanitizer and the sinks around the ship that make it easy to wash your hands before you get infected or infect someone else. It’s information hygiene.
How do fact-checks accomplish this?
They incentivize news providers and politicians to not make up lies in the first place.
If news providers and politicians produce lies anyway, an available fact-check can prevent someone from sharing the lie.
If someone shares the lie, the availability of a fact-check allows a commenter on a post or tweet to shame the user into removing the lie.
A habit of checking for fact-checks slows sharers and readers down more generally, resulting in less overall virality (and hopefully more reflection).
What fact-checks don’t do is influence true believers. And that’s OK. That’s not the battle we’re fighting.
Regarding my work with the Digital Polarization Initiative, I’ll add that getting students to produce fact-checks is important not only for the fact-checks they produce, but because it builds good information hygiene habits; in the process of producing these things they become a different sort of reader on the web as well, one more prone to use the interactivity of the web to do a quick check on the headlines that rile them up. So an important part of this is changing our orientation to the web from one of discussion (in which retrenchment is the norm) to one of investigation.
What If Your Context Menu Gave You Context?
The larger point is if we want to deal with misinformation on a network, we have to think in network terms. And in network terms, the most important stuff happens before a person adopts a belief. And a lot of things could be done there.
There’s the design of the web environment, for example. Open a browser like Chrome and go to a page and right click into a context menu. The context menu is so-named because it changes based on the context. But what if it gave you context? What if, when you were confronted with an unfamiliar site, instead of a context menu that read like:
Back
Forward
Reload
Save As…
Print
You got a context menu that said:
Site Info
Fact Checks
Reload
Save As…
etc., where Site Info produced a custom Google search that compiled a bunch of information from Wikipedia descriptions of the site to WHOIS and date created results, and Fact Checks looked for references to the page in prominent fact-checking platforms?
What if your browser could recognize prominent names, such as “Andrew Wakefield” and highlight them, encouraging people to get a hover card summarizing the work, worldview, and issues around an author or a quote source before the reader took the quote at face value?
I know, I know — there are extensions that can do this. I’ve been working with Jon Udell on just such an extension for the Digital Polarization Initiative. But extensions are good for the short term, but the wrong long-term model. It’s like a cruise ship saying “We’ll give hand sanitizer and sinks to those who request them.” If you want to fix the problem, you put the sanitizer in the hallways, not in the rooms.
If you want to stop disinformation, AI is great. But a more effective idea would be to make the browser (or the Facebook interface) a better tool for investigation.
Once you do that, you start to build a web ecosystem where fact-checking can have real impact.
Ending this abruptly, because, well, work beckons. But let’s think a lot bigger than we have been on this.
Sometimes when I mention I am a cyclist, somebody will go off on a rant about how "entitled" cyclists think they are, and how they don't respect the rules of the road. To hear them speak, you'd think almost all cyclists completely ignore the rules of the road. That has not been my experience at all. And I've just found an infographic that shows some actual research to prove it!
Imagine: You’ll soon have one power cord for every device (laptop, desktop, phone, tablet) from every manufacturer. A genuine universal power cord.
There’s no upside-down way to insert a USB-C connector, and there’s no wrong end on the cord. The wattage auto-adjusts to whatever you’re charging. And the same cable carries not just power, but also video, audio, and data! It’s just crazy brilliant. (Here’s my interview with the guy who spent three years with 600 electronics companies designing it.)
USB-C is already on laptops from Apple (AAPL), HP (HPQ), Razer, Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Dell, Asus, Lenovo and others. And it’s already the charging jack on phones from Microsoft, Motorola (MSI), Samsung, LG, Huawei, OnePlus, LeEco, and many others. Rumor is that the iPhone 8 and Galaxy 8 phones will both use USB-C as well.
As I’ve written, the switch to USB-C currently involves adapters and replacement cables. But in the long term, it means we’ll no longer have drawers like these:
The power-adapter drawer: Soon to be extinct.
It also means that we can carry just one charger for all our stuff. Since I’ve been learning to love the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, this is a big deal: Finding a smaller, nicer charger to replace the big white plastic 3-prong Apple one would make a huge difference to my bag’s travel weight.
And so I found this:
Meet the Dart-C.
The Dart-C, billed as the world’s smallest laptop charger. And it really is tiny.
Yet somehow, it provides 65 watts—plenty for laptops like the 12- and 13-inch MacBooks, the Lenovo ThinkPad 13, ASUS ZenBook 3, Dell XPS 13, and so on. Really honking laptops, like the 15-inch MacBook Pro, expect more wattage (85). This charger will work on those machines—just not as fast.
How do I love this thing? Let us count the ways.
It has a standard USB jack embedded in the cable. That means that you can simultaneously charge your phone, tablet, camera, or whatever—with no slowdown in charging your primary gadget.
It has an indicator light that lets you know if you’re plugged into a working outlet. (Apple’s chargers no longer have a status light.)
The Dart-C can charge a second device simultaneously.
It comes in a choice of cool metallic colors.
Choose your weapon.
It has a six-foot cord.
It has a two-prong plug, not three, so it fits into older outlets like the ones at my parents’ house.
I keep one laptop charger my laptop bag, and one plugged in by the couch. So I’ve been through the mill, trying to find just the right charging cord to be my spare.
Since USB-C means that I’m no longer locked into Apple’s proprietary chargers, I’ve experimented with a Dell ($27, 30 watts) and a Udoli ($35, 45 watts), shown below. I knew both would take longer to charge than my MacBook Pro’s original charger (61 watts), but that didn’t really matter for hotel-room purposes; they’d have overnight to charge.
What I found, though, was that the Dell makes my laptop chime every few seconds, as though the cord is being unplugged and replugged. (“It’s probably not ‘to spec,’” a buddy of mine guesses—a hazard of the new, open USB-C world.) The Udoli works fine as long as the laptop is open—but when closed, it occasionally does that same chime.
Here’s the lineup.
(I asked Anthony Sagneri, chief technology officer of FINsix, the Dart’s maker, about this chiming business. His suspicion: “The Intel chipsets inside most laptops can draw large peak currents for short periods. But if the charger isn’t designed for those surges, they can trip its overcurrent mode, cutting power; at that point, the charger re-negotiates its connection.” In other words—ding!)
But the Dart? No problems. It’s small, gorgeous, lightweight (3 ounces!), fast, and chime-free.
There are some footnotes. First, the prongs don’t fold up, as they do on some chargers. And the Dart-C is back-ordered; the company says it has begun shipping, but new orders won’t ship until next month.
(It’s worth noting that the actual Dart-C—the “brick” itself—is identical to the original Dart charger, as first seen on Kickstarter. All that’s new is the USB-C cable that plugs into it, which contains all the USB-C electronics and smarts. In fact, if you bought the original Dart—the one that comes with plug tips for a wide range of laptop models—you can get just the USB-C cable for it for $35.)
Second, this charger costs $100, which is even more than Apple’s chargers ($70 and $80). That’s a drag. I’m confident that in the new, open world of USB-C chargers, we’ll have more compact, attractive, well-engineered options.
For now, though, since this will be my one and only charger for all my gadgets, and since I travel a lot, and since space and weight are valued commodities in my laptop bag, I’m going to bite the bullet. I have no problem saying it: The smallest laptop charger in the world is also one of the best. If you’re a rabid USB-C nut like me, you’ll be in heaven.
Scanned 616 format negative from the collection of Bob Loewing, an American streetcar operator who had worked for Pacific Electric as a Hollywood Blvd Line motorman. The negative was purchased in 2017 from the John Bromley Collection. The photographer is believed to be Bob Loewing. via https://flic.kr/p/SdovPD
Fido has started rolling out Android Nougat to LG G Pad III 8.0 tablets on its network.
Nougat will be of particular interest to G Pad users as Google’s latest operating system adds a split-screen multi-tasking mode that makes the tablet far more functional.
If you haven’t received a prompt to download the update yet, pull down the Android notification shade, tap the cog icon to open the settings menu and scroll down to ‘About phone.’
Next, tap the ‘System update’ option to check manually for the update.
There's a pretty common narrative that Google & Facebook have a lot of control of the internet, in that they choose where you go and what you see. While this is true in an obvious sense, it also misses something important: Google and Facebook don't have fundamental control over what's actually in your search results or your news feed.
This is pretty clear for Google - it doesn't control what you search for. It does decide what results you get, but that decision is also in some sense out of its hands, because it has to give you the best results it can. So while Google is always making decisions around search, and those can create or uncreate companies, they are in essence technical, mechanistic judgements (or ought to be, at any rate), and not editorial ones. Google search is and has to be a mirror of the internet - both the content of the internet and human behaviour on the internet. It's useful to compare it with an index fund, that doesn't have opinions about individual stocks, but only makes technical, mechanistic adjustments to how well its holdings reflects the index: so too, Google can only adjust how well it reflects the internet. That's a very partial kind of control.
While this is explicit for Google, it's implicit for Facebook. You tell Google explicitly what you want and you don't think you tell Facebook, but actually you've spent months and years telling it, through everything you've interacted with or ignored. Facebook makes technical, mechanistic judgements about what will be in your newsfeed that are just as bound by things beyond its control - by the internet - as Google's are. It's an index of its users. Every now and then, it decides that it's got off track, no longer aligns with users, and course-corrects. But the need, as for Google, is to mirror the internet (or that large part of it that's accounted for by Facebook itself). And so just as Google can't control what you search for, Facebook can't control what engages you.
This means that Facebook is surfing user behaviour, and must go where the user takes it. This is why it looks like such an unreliable partner: it will invite you onto the surf board, certainly, but if you're unbalancing the board then it will push you off, and that isn't Facebook's choice. If it didn't push you off then the board would upset and Facebook would be at the bottom of the ocean as well, next to MySpace. The genius of Facebook has been to stay on the board all this time. and especially through the transition from desktop to mobile.
Within this, there have been some times where Facebook took user behaviour in places that the users themselves didn't think they wanted to go - with the newsfeed itself, with the algorithmic newsfeed and with the continuous rolling back of privacy (you can see some of this repeated again as it has reworked Instagram, of which more later). But in all of these cases, what drives Facebook is data - metrics and algorithms. You think you want a linear newsfeed, but actually, the data shows that you're wrong. Facebook is the first company to measure false consciousness.
How does this relate to Snapchat? Well, there are several ways you can draw contrasts between Snapchat and Facebook. One, pretty obviously, is that it's a swing of a pendulum away from order and control towards fun and chaos. Another, that it's a swing from passive consumption ('I'm bored - what's in the newsfeed?') to creation (hence opening the app into the camera). Another again is that, like Instagram, it unbundles the camera from Facebook (and from iMessage, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger) into a better stand-alone model.
But it's also a swing away from metrics. Instead of asking where metrics, data and algorithms take us, Snap is looking for creation. Creation is the common thread repeated over and over again all though the IPO filing, and comes out very strongly in the roadshow video - 'we must create the new, different and fun all the time'.
"Our strategy is to invest in product innovation and take risks" - Snap 'S1' IPO filing
Much of this creation is centered on the camera - Snap says it's a camera company, and it's often useful to try taking companies at their word on things like this. But camera is a broad term. As I've written elsewhere, thinking about the image sensors on a smartphone just as taking 'photos' is very limiting. For Snap this is clear with the first product - disappearing photos comes from the idea that imaging on a phone is communication as well as or instead of memory, and hence that making you keep all your photos is like saving all of your phone calls. More broadly, one way to look at Snap's products is as trying to work out what it means that the display, the input and the camera are all the same thing - all one digital piece of glass. Most of Facebook's smartphone apps could be controlled with a mouse and keyboard, or even just the 'tab' key, and use the camera as though it's a webcam sticky-taped to the top of the CRT. In contrast, Snapchat and a whole bunch of other apps are much more mobile-native than they are mobile-first, and have the tabula rasa freedom that they can target only the billion or so people with lots of bandwidth and high-end phones, rather than Facebook and Google's commitment to reaching everyone. That creates a great many possibilities for the completely new idea.
[Source: Snap S1 filing]
It's hard to design products like this with metrics - you don't already know what those products would be and your users have no idea. You can iterate with data (that is, 'surf your users'), and you can discover that something you have isn't working, but you can't always create with data - you can't use algorithms to work out what to invent. This is the (much over-used) Steve Jobs argument - it's not the consumer's job to invent new things. Yes, you analyse your users to see if it works, and Snap's S1 talks a lot about listening to users, but that's not how you create.
"You look to customers to define the problem, not prescribe the solution" - John Warnock
So, you could see Snap's emphasis on 'new' as just running away from Facebook. Facebook is, after all, systematically cloning cool new Snapchat features, and with some success - there are clear signs of Snapchat's growth slowing in favour of Facebook's apps, especially in some of its non-core markets. But it's also important that Snap thinks that it's mining imaging, touch, GPUs and experience just as Facebook mined sharing, and thinks that there are many more places that this could go. And, of course, the more you create and the more risks you take, and the more you're interested in fun and anarchy, the more possible it is that you create products that burn brightly and then flame out - so you have to keep creating because your experiences have to be new, not (just) because the old ones are being copied by someone.
This could, perhaps, take Snap to places and generate new 'graphs' that might be structurally more difficult for Facebook to follow . On the other hand, one of Facebook's tactical advantages is that it has four places where it can try to clone features - it could choose to put a Stories clone into Instagram, not Messenger, WhatsApp or the main newsfeed app. It could put other ideas into other places, depending on where it thinks they fit best - on how best it can surf these new waves, to return to the metaphor.
Meanwhile, Instagram hasn't just been implementing Snapchat features - it's gone through a more structural shift that illustrates a more structural question for Snapchat's long-term potential. If Google and Facebook try to mirror the internet (again, in the sense both of content and behaviour), and Snapchat deliberately does not, Instagram has moved from one camp to the other. Instagram has moved not just towards Snapchat but also away from the beautiful, carefully considered image and towards a more general, mass-market use case - towards being another index.
"It became a place where people kept raising the bar on themselves in terms of the quality of what they had to achieve to post. We didn’t want that.” - Kevin Weil, Instagram's Head of Product
"Your connections with your friends and your family are the thing that make Instagram work. All the data supports that if you follow more friends and engage with your friends, your activity goes through the roof. If you just follow more celebrity content or more interest-based content, that doesn’t move the needle at all.” - Kevin Systrom, Instagram's co-founder (source)
To me, this is Instagram moving towards being another index, or mirror - moving towards the behaviour of billions of people instead of the behaviour of millions of people, and to surfing users rather than prescribing for them. There are millions of people who will post beautiful pictures of coffee or 1960s office blocks, or like a photo by a celebrity, but there are billions who'll share a snapshot of their lunch, beer, dog or child. Instagram is moving to capture that in the same way Messenger and WhatsApp captured chat. It's becoming an index.
So, one question for Snapchat is whether you can get to a billion users without being an index, no matter how many new things you create? Is the risk not that it gets overtaken by Facebook but that it can't generalise enough? That's obviously a specific concern with the specific character of the user experience today ('too hard for anyone over 25'), but it's also a much more basic question with the character of the product vision - can you scale from having insight and product vision around 150m people to having them for everyone?
One of the ways I've talked about social on smartphones is that smartphones themselves are a social platform in a way that the desktop web was not. Every app has an icon on the home screen, so it's quicker to switch apps than switch tabs in the same app. Every app has push notifications, and access to your address book, and your photo library. So, it's much easier to use multiple apps on a phone than on the web. This makes it much easier for apps to take off, but they can look like fireworks - burning brightly and then disappearing. Each social app is trying to capture some piece of psychology or of Maslow's hierarchy and encapsulate it in a few interaction mechanics, and each one is trying to find some angle that's unique enough to break out but not so unique that it becomes a fad. They're also trying to find a mechanic that can't entirely co-opted by Facebook (live video is another good example here). Not many have managed all of this.
One could argue that the leading apps have now captured the key parts of the social domain - filled in the 'white space', as some people say - and that though people will keep finding quirky angles, it'll get harder and harder to get onto the first page of apps and stay there. Following this narrative, Snap found the last piece of white space (if it can keep Facebook away, which is actually all that matters) and there may not be another big one. But you could also argue that Snap thinks there will always be entirely new ways to interact (just as there are always more human desires) and that it will be there trying to be the one creating them.
General Motors has long been vocal about its intention to get a head start on the mobility revolution.
In a new development, the auto giant recently announced Waterloo will be its first Canadian location for its Maven car sharing platform. Maven is currently operating in 16 cities in the United States since first rolling out in Ann Arbor, Michigan., in January 2016.
For approximately the past six weeks, the company has been testing a beta version of its Canadian app. The Waterloo rollout will help the team work out any glitches or bugs before expanding to other Canadian cities.
Maven, reports Communitech, is a keyless system. Users of GM’s car sharing service can reserve a car using their iPhone or Android apps that unlocks and starts the vehicle using a Bluetooth connection.
A gas card is kept inside each vehicle and prices range from between $7 CAD per hour for a Chevrolet Spark and $15 per hour for a GMC Yukon, reports Communitech.
GM Canada has demonstrated continued interest in the Canadian driverless space through several announcements made over the past year, including most recently, the launch of the Canadian Technical Centre in Markham.
2016 was a shitty year for most of us . . . but a great year for bullshit. Thanks to your votes, I can now announce the winners of the 2016 Bullshitty Awards. Here’s the live video. Winners listed below. Most disingenuous apology Nominees Cheryl Boone Isaacs, President, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences … Continued
Mark Zuckerberg published a 5800-word letter on the future of Facebook. It’s thoughtful, well-reasoned, articulate, and full of truth. It’s also full of wistful promises, which I don’t trust no matter who offers them. Mark Zuckerberg’s letter, Building Global Community, starts like this: On our journey to connect the world, we often discuss products we’re building … Continued
VICTORIA — V2V Vacations says it expects to launch its passenger ferry service between downtown Victoria and downtown Vancouver on May 1 with three tiers of service, at $120, $199 and $240 one way.
The company is billing its offering as a luxury cruise service, using the V2V Empress, a 254-seat, 126-foot catamaran that will sail from downtown to downtown in 3 1⁄2 hours.
Daily sailings will leave Vancouver at 8 a.m. and Victoria at 2 p.m., travelling from beside the Steamship Terminal Building in Victoria to the Convention Centre docks in Vancouver.
V2V Vacations purchased a used catamaran and is having it refitted for the new service. That work is “at the home stretch” at Point Hope Maritime’s yard in Victoria, said Nick Cheong, V2V Vacations’ vice-president of operations.
“A lot of the core structural work has been done,” he said.
“We’re now moving to more esthetic (work), the stuff that you can actually touch and feel, things like the external decals on the boat, creature comforts like the interior, ceiling panels.”
Cheong has said the cost of the refit will be in the millions.
Australia’s Riverside Marine, parent company of V2V Vacations, had earlier estimated a $15-million cost to establish the service.
Cheong said the company is looking forward to getting started.
“We’re both excited and obviously running full steam ahead to get this together,” he said.
“There’s still a bit to do until launch day, so all hands on deck.”
Cheong said the “tourism demographic” is the main focus, but the company also wants to attract locals.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s exclusive to one group of people.”
One-way fares (taxes not included) start at $120 for adults and $60 for children ages two to 12 in “premium comfort” class, and rise to $199 each for adults and children in first class. The highest level is “royal” class, where the price is $240 each for adults and children.
Royal class, with 22 seats, features a three-course meal, the most luxurious seats and the best views. First class also features a three-course meal and has luxury seats. Personal power ports for charging devices will be available in the two top classes.
In premium comfort class, food and beverages will be sold separately.
The company believes that its pricing will fit in with other transportation services in the area, Cheong said.
Here are some other travel options to and from Vancouver Island:
• Harbour Air — adult fare between Victoria and Vancouver ranges from $99 with seat sales to $207 (tax included).
• Helijet — adult fare between Victoria and Vancouver from $179 (tax included), depending on time of day and other factors.
• B.C. Ferries — standard vehicle and driver from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen costs $73.65 (tax included); walk-on is $17.20 (tax included); dinner buffet is about $25; add the cost of travelling from the terminals to the downtowns.
We tend to lump New Zealand and Australia together. They’re similar culturally and share the same geographical position, relative to North America and Europe, anyway. But according to a new paper published in the Geological Society of America Today, it looks like New Zealand and their neighbor New Caledonia are actually their own continent: ‘Zealandia.’
Continent means something different to geographers and geologists. To be considered a geological continent, like Zealandia, the area in question has to satisfy a few conditions:
the land in question has to be higher than the ocean floor
it has to include a broad range of siliceous igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks
it has to have thicker crust than the ocean floor that surrounds it
it has to have well-defined limits, and be large enough to be considered a continent
In Geology, the first three points are well-understood. But as the authors say in the introduction to their paper, “…the last point—how “major” a piece of continental crust has to be to be called a continent—is almost never discussed… .” Since the Earth has so many micro-continents and continental fragments, defining how large something has to be to be called a continent is challenging. But the researchers did their homework.
They noted that the term “Zealandia” has been used before to describe New Zealand and surrounding regions. But the boundaries were never fully explored. 94% of this new continent is submerged, which helps explain why it’s taken this long to be identified.
This map shows the spatial limits of Zealandia. Note the dotted red line that delineates continental crust from ocean crust. Zealandia is also bisected by a plate boundary between the Pacific Plate and the Australian Plate. Image: Mortimer et. al. 2017, GSA Today
Zealandia seemed to be a collection of broken pieces, but new data collected over the years has challenged that interpretation. Recent satellite data has given us new gravity and elevation maps of the seafloor. This data has shown that Zealandia is a unified region large as large as India.
“This is not a sudden discovery but a gradual realization; as recently as 10 years ago we would not have had the accumulated data or confidence in interpretation to write this paper.”
As the authors point out in their paper, it took a while to determine that Zealandia is a continent. There was no Eureka moment. “This is not a sudden discovery but a gradual realization; as recently as 10 years ago we would not have had the accumulated data or confidence in interpretation to write this paper.”
Besides satisfying our intellectual curiosity about our planet, the discovery is important for other reasons. A proper understanding of the plate structures and continental boundaries is important to other sciences, and may trigger further understandings that we can’t predict yet. It may also point to other areas of research.
Also, many treaties rely on the agreed upon delineation of maritime and continental boundaries, including rights to fish stocks and underground resources. While the recognition of Zealandia seems clear from a scientific standpoint, it remains to be seen if it will be accepted politically.
As the world’s dominant supplier of switches and routers into the datacenter and one of the big providers of servers (with a hope of transforming part of that server businesses into a sizeable hyperconverged storage business), Cisco Systems provides a kind of lens into the glass houses of the world. You can see what companies are doing – and what they are not doing – and watch how Cisco reacts to try to give them what they need while trying to extract the maximum profit out of its customers.
Say what you will, but Cisco has spent the last several decades brilliantly moving from its core routing business into datacenter switching just as the dot-com boom was getting started and, more recently, jumping into servers through its Unified Computing System line of blade and rack machines.
Back in 2009, Cisco radically upset the balance of power in the systems world by merging servers and networks in the UCS line, and it has yet to find a new thing that will set its enterprise businesses on fire in such a flamboyant manner. Many thought that Cisco could not create a server business that would compete against the incumbents, and now it has a business that is generating around $3.5 billion a year in sales.
At this point in its history, Cisco is struggling to grow its core switching and routing businesses, and is focusing on the top ten hyperscaler and cloud building customers, who are increasingly interested in opening up their networking gear and less interested in the kind of closed box appliances that Cisco is known for. Precisely what Cisco is doing for these customers is unclear – it could be building custom hardware and opening up all or part of its iOS and NX-OS software stacks for all we know. What is important is that Cisco not cede this market to the upstarts that are pushing new switch ASICs and open network operating systems and that it learn from the hyperscalers and cloud builders. Many of the technologies it develops for these large customers will trickle down into its core service provider and enterprise networking businesses, and it will also inform its UCS system designs for future generations.
Cisco calls these customers megascale datacenters, or MSDCs, and as Chuck Robbins, the CEO at Cisco for the past two years, explained on a call with Wall Street analysts going over its second quarter of fiscal 2017 financial results, these companies are tough and their spending is lumpy. “I have said over and over that we have been spending a lot of time with these customers, really focused on understanding what their unique needs are,” Robbins said. “Frankly, some of them are so big that they are a market of one unto themselves. And I’m very pleased with the progress we’re making. If you look at those ten, just to give you the numbers this time, overall those ten would be down. But if you normalize out one of those providers and you take the combination of the other nine – and that one has some pretty tough year-over-year comps – the other nine were up double digits. And we have one of the largest that was up triple digits for the second quarter in a row. So I feel like we are making good progress, but we still have a long way to go.”
Getting the hyperscalers and cloud builders to buy Cisco gear is a tough trick, indeed. One wonders how this is possible, but all of these companies have always said they only make stuff because they cannot buy what they need, and given the option, they would rather buy it.
It is a little tougher sledding in the enterprise and service provider sectors, where Cisco makes the bulk of its revenues and profits. (We are fairly certain Cisco is not making any money with the hyperscalers and cloud builders, but by winning that business even at no margin, it can cut off the oxygen of its competitors, like Arista Networks, Edge-Core Networks, and Wistron, who have done well in this part of the IT market peddling networking gear.
In the quarter ended in January, Cisco’s overall sales were down 2.9 percent to $11.58 billion, and net income was down 25.4 percent to $2.35 billion. This is not the direction or relative growth rates that that any company wants to see in its business. (You want revenue to grow, and net income to grow faster.) Cisco’s revenues have declined for the past five quarters, which is the result of a slowdown in enterprise spending and increased competition among service providers.
For the past year and a half, since Robbins took the helm, Cisco has been taking a page out of the IBM playbook and has been trying to build up software and services businesses that have a recurring, annuity-like revenue stream. This will make it less dependent on product sales, and to a certain extent, this strategy is working. Recurring revenue streams now account for 31 percent of revenues, up from 28 percent a year ago and up from 26 percent when Robbins took over from former CEO and current chairman John Chambers, who masterminded Cisco’s expansion from routing to a full-on datacenter hardware provider.
Looking ahead, said Robbins, the plan is to make as much of its products available as a subscription as possible – about 10 percent of current product sales were subscription-based in fiscal Q2, and the company has over $4 billion in deferred subscription revenues, up a staggering 51 percent compared to a year ago.
“As it relates to the core, I think you will see us come out with services around automation and analytics and other things that will be sold as subscriptions on top of the platforms. And the last thing I’ll tell you is that we pulled one of the key leaders from the security portfolio, who had really driven the whole product management portion of that transition to the heavy content of software and subscription that you see today, and he is now leading that force in our core networking space in the enterprise networking. So it’s clearly a focus that he’s trying to drive for us.”
The other thing that Cisco is doing to build out its software and services businesses is spending $3.7 billion to acquire application management tool maker AppDynamics, which it snapped up in late January just before the company was set to do its initial public offering on Wall Street. AppDynamics, which competes with fellow APM upstart New Relic and a slew of other incumbent management tool providers, derives 75 percent of its revenues from subscriptions. AppDynamics has already sold into 275 of the Global 2000, according to Robbins. The company had raised $314.5 million in venture capital and had an estimated market value just shy of $2 billion ahead of its planned IPO, so Cisco is paying a pretty hefty premium for AppDynamics. But AppDynamics did not have a channel program at all, and even though it was a Cisco partner, it did not have the full weight of Cisco behind it before.
On the call, Robbins was asked if there was some way to convert its base of customers, who buy switches and routers and servers, to a subscription-based model, he never really answered the question. But there is a way, of course, and it harkens back to the early days of corporate computing when companies didn’t buy data processing gear at all, but only rented it. (Not so much because it was too expensive to buy but because vendors only wanted to rent because it gave them control over product rollouts and great profits.)
Cisco is now sitting on a staggering $71.85 billion in cash, a lot of it overseas and inaccessible for doing acquisitions or anything until it is repatriated to the United States, where it is headquartered. Cisco could borrow money to build its appliances, offsetting its cash hoard without actually drawing it down and incurring taxes, and then simply offer every switch, router, and server with a monthly rental price. It would have to wait three to four years until most of the base converts from purchases to rentals. If Cisco set the rental rate fairly, then it could get off the product sales mouse wheel completely, and if Cisco made more malleable switches, with a mix of FPGAs and maybe ASICs like Cavium’s XPliant or Barefoot Networks’ Tofino chips, it could extend the life of these rented machines quite far and not incur hardware upgrade cycle costs like it is now.
It would be like the mainframe eras of the 1960s and 1970s, all over again. But in a good way, perhaps. The trick is keeping the rental and buy prices reasonably close to each other – or at least enough to not invoke the ire of customers or antitrust lawyers working for various governments.
For now, Cisco is still stuck on the product sales mouse wheel, and it shows as demand rises and falls.
In the quarter, switching revenues were down 5.1 percent to $3.31 billion, with campus switching revenues off considerably more than this. We don’t care about campus switching here at The Next Platform, except when it puts pressure on vendors like Cisco, which bleeds into datacenter switching, either directly when the company has to pump up sales or indirectly as it has to cut costs across the board to make the company’s profits line up with revenues.
Robbins said that sales of high-end Nexus switches supporting the ACI application-centric policy management framework created by the company a few years back, had a 28 percent revenue bump in the most recent quarter. There were 1,300 new Nexus 9000 switch customers and 450 new ACI customers added in the second quarter, bringing the base to ta total of 10,800 Nexus 9000 shops and 3,100 ACI shops. (ACI runs on Nexus gear, but is not required.)
Cisco said that server sales in the quarter were impacted by a shift from blade servers to rack machines, which stands in contrast to the change the Supermicro is seeing, as its blade and modular server sales are growing faster than rack servers. The Data Center division at Cisco posted sales of $790 million, including servers and switching together in UCS systems as well as standalone rack machines, down 3.4 percent. The company’s security business, which has made a substantial shift from products to subscriptions (in part through acquisitions) had a 14.3 percent rise to $528 million. If you add them all up, Cisco’s core “real” datacenter business comprised of these four elements had a 3.9 percent revenue decline to $6.44 billion.
The thing to remember is that Cisco’s core switching and routing businesses are up by about 50 percent since the Great Recession, its security business has about doubled, and the UCS server and integrated Nexus switch businesses have been completely incremental and significant. Growth might be slowing, but had Cisco not made the changes it did, it may not have had any growth at all and it certainly would not be throwing off profits. Cisco is good a striking a balance, whether it is between in-house innovation and acquisitions in the past or shifting from product sales to subscriptions now.
Via Fusion: “ICE detained close to 700 immigrants in a five-day nationwide raid.”
Via Education Week: “Undocumented Teachers Shielded by DACA in Legal and Emotional Limbo.”
Via Reuters: “Mexican ‘DREAMer’ nabbed in immigrant crackdown.”
Via Buzzfeed: “A DREAMer Was Arrested During A Raid And Now Immigration Officials Have Been Ordered To Explain Why.”
More on DACA in the campus section below.
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Texas legislation could force campus police departments to hold on to those they arrest until federal immigration authorities can consider their legal status.”
Also from Texas, via WaPo: “ Texas officials: Schools should teach that slavery was ‘side issue’ to Civil War.”
Instead of a trash DeVos cartoon, I'm sharing this: my fave photo of President Obama, with the REAL painting and its subject, Ruby Bridges. pic.twitter.com/gOvmSOjcSf
“What Betsy DeVos means for edtech,” according to venture capitalist Ryan Craig. Union busting, outsourcing, and “unbundling,” apparently. Edsurge also “forecasts the future” of ed-tech and is hopeful. Screw equality, I guess – or “Ka-ching,” as Edsurge likes to say.
Via The Washington Post: “Influential conservative group: Trump, DeVos should dismantle Education Department and bring God into classrooms.” The group in question: the Council for National Policy. It doesn’t make its members’ names public, but Kellyanne Conway did once service on its executive committee, DeVos’s mother was on its board of governors, and DeVos’s father-in-law served twice as its president.
Apparently now DeVos is getting “beefed-up security” from the US Marshals Service – the only cabinet member who has this protection and the first time something like this has ever been done for a Secretary of Education. This is theatre. Frightening, frightening theatre.
DeVos has also vowed to go after employees who would “subvert” her mission.
Via The Oregonian: “GOP senator introduces bill requiring colleges to expel students convicted of rioting.” That’s Oregon State Senator Kim Thatcher.
Via NPR: “Beyond DeVos, What 5 Key Trump Appointees Could Mean For Schools.” (Not on the list but certainly important to watch, particularly for ed-tech, the head of the FCC.)
Via WaPo: “The FCC talks the talk on the digital divide – and then walks in the other direction.”
Via Univision: “How White House advisor Stephen Miller went from pestering Hispanic students to designing Trump’s immigration policy.”
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Wis. Governor Pushes to Eliminate For-Profit Oversight Board.”
Via The Casper Star Tribune: “School official says $91M cut could result in ‘bloodbath’.” The Wyoming boom-bust cycle continues.
Education in the Courts
Via The Seattle Times: “A cellphone belonging to the man who claims he shot and wounded another man in self-defense during a demonstration last month at the University of Washington had been wiped clean of data before being seized by police, according to search-warrant documents filed in King County Superior Court.” The demonstration was against Milo Yiannopoulos; the shooter a supporter of the white nationalist joker; and the victim of the shooting was antifa.
Via Inside Higher Ed: “The owner of a chain of four Los Angeles-area colleges accused of running a ‘pay-to-stay’ scheme through which foreign nationals fraudulently obtained immigration documents allowing them to stay in the U.S. on student visas though they were not bona fide students pleaded guilty Thursday to federal immigration fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced in a press release.”
Via MarketWatch: “These lawyers may have discovered a way to wipe away student debt in bankruptcy.”
More on legal actions regarding for-profit higher ed in the for-profit higher ed section below.
Testing, Testing…
Via Education Week: “After seven years of tumult and transition fueled by the common core, state testing is settling down, with most states rejecting the federally funded PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessments, and nearly one-quarter embracing the SAT or the ACT as their official high school test.”
“Should Online Courses Go Through ‘Beta Testing’?” asks Edsurge. “How One Provider Taps 2,500 Volunteers.” The provider in question is Coursera, which has raised some $146.1 million and relies on volunteer labor. (Disclosure alert.)
Via Inside Higher Ed: “FutureLearn, the massive open online course provider owned by the Open University in the U.K., expands to the U.S.”
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Oregon’s free community college scholarship, which began last year, is encouraging more students to consider going to college and to feel more confident about being able to afford it, according the results of a survey conducted by Education Northwest, a nonprofit research group.”
Also via Inside Higher Ed: “Oregon’s free community college scholarship faces money woes and criticism, particularly from the state’s four-year university leaders, who cite the program’s higher-income beneficiaries while also worrying about enrollment declines at their institutions.”
The “New” For-Profit Higher Ed
Tressie McMillan Cottom’s new book, Lower Ed, is now out, and you should buy it and read it.
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Bob Jones University lost its nonprofit tax exemption after the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in 1976 found that the conservative religious college was practicing racial discrimination with its ban on interracial dating. That decision sparked a long court battle, which ended when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982 upheld the IRS’s decision.” Now, the school is poised to become a non-profit once again.
Via NPR: “Despite Protests And A Fire Alarm, Martin Shkreli’s Show Goes On At Harvard.”
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Central Michigan University has determined that an individual who is not a student was responsible for a Hitler-referencing Valentine’s Day card that was in a gift bag distributed by the university’s College Republicans last week, and that the Republicans were unaware the card was placed there.”
Via The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Why Is a University’s Top Lawyer Seeking an Outspoken Professor’s Emails?” The University of Oregon is seeking the emails of professor William Harbaugh, who operates the blog UOMatters, and his correspondence with the media.
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Minnesota philosophy professor writes that immigrants have low IQs and refugees are part of ‘religious-political cult.’ Reaction is intense.”
Via Inside Higher Ed: “After 10 years of state oversight, a locally elected board will now govern Compton Community College District, in California.”
Via Geekwire: “Google quietly donates $10M to University of Washington in another major computer science gift.”
Accreditation and Certification
A story to watch under the Trump administration: accreditation. Here’s an op-ed in The Hill: “College accreditation goes rogue: Another unaccountable system.”
Via Inside Higher Ed: “The U.S. Department of Education has recommended a renewal of recognition for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, a controversial regional accreditor of two-year colleges in California and other Western states. The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, a federal panel, is slated to review ACCJC’s recognition and scope at a meeting next week.”
Go, School Sports Team!
Via WaPo: “Trump will not fill out an NCAA tournament bracket.” IMPEACH.
Via NJ.com: “Coed CYO hoops team defies archdiocese order to kick girls out, forfeits season.”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has a new CEO: John “Jack” Lynch, formerly the head of Renaissance Learning.
Bridget Foster has been named the head of the SIIA’s ed-tech association, the Education Technology Industry Network.
More on layoffs at the University of Phoenix in the for-profit higher ed section above.
Contests and Awards
Edsurge reports that NewSchools Venture Fund is running another competition – this one to fund entrepreneurs who build PreK–12 special education apps. Edsurge fails to disclose that NSVF is one of its investors.
Via The New York Times: “Intel Drops Its Sponsorship of Science Fairs, Prompting an Identity Crisis.”
Via The Verge: “Yik Yak is secretly pivoting to group messaging.” I’ll use this as an excuse to remind you all that the founders of this terrible company are named Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll.
“College Leaders Show Growing Interest In Teaching Information Literacy,” according to Edsurge.
Also by Phil Hill: “Ellucian Stops Support for Brainstorm, its CBE platform.” (Do be sure to check out the Horizon Report which predicts “next generation LMSes,” like Brainstorm, are “on the horizon.” More below in the “research” section.)
Via Edutechnica: “One Course to Rule Them All: A Return to the Course Management System.”
Via Fast Company: “Want to Fight Inequality? Forget Design Thinking.”
Via Techcrunch: “Pixar offers free online lessons in storytelling via Khan Academy.”
Robots and Other Ed-Tech SF
“In an age of robots, schools are teaching our children to be redundant,” says George Monbiot.
Via Getting Smart: “#AskAboutAI: Informing Educators, Parents and Policymakers About Life With Smart Machines.”
Venture Capital and the Business of Ed-Tech
Top Hat has raised $22.5 million in Series C funding from Union Square Ventures, Emergence Capital Partners, Georgian Partners, Golden Venture Partners, iNovia Capital , SoftTech VC , and Version One Ventures. The company, which lets students use their phones to respond to prompts in class, has raised $41.9 million.
Brightwheel has raised $10 million in Series A funding from GGV Capital, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, ICONIQ, Eniac Ventures, Golden Venture Partners, Lowercase Capital, Mark Cuban Companies, and RRE Ventures. The startup, which records activity at daycare to send to parents, has raised $10.6 million total.
SmartUp.io has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding from Notion Capital and Hong Leong Group for “a peer-to-peer learning management system to encourage users to create communities filled with micro-learning activities,” whatever the hell that means.
Learn-to-code company Ozobot has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Mark Rampolla and Tribeca Venture Partners.
MiDrive has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding from Chrystal Capital, Force Over Mass, Holiday Extras, Initial Capital, Kelvin Capital, and Wild Blue Cohort. The startup, which offers a driving test app and a marketplace for driving instructors, also lost its CEO, Scott Taylor. But hey, it’s raised $7.29 million total.
TinyTap has raised $1.5 million from Animoca, Inimiti VC, and New York Angels. The company, which offers a “marketplace of teacher-created apps,” has raised $2.05 million total.
Via Doug Levin: “IRS Official to Schools: ‘One of the Most Dangerous Email Phishing Scams We’ve Seen’.” Just one example of this, via MPR News: “Data breach of W–2 forms hits thousands of Bloomington school employees.”
Via the BBC: “Facebook algorithms ‘will identify terrorists’.”
Via the BBC: “German parents told to destroy Cayla dolls over hacking fears.”
Via Techcrunch: “This baby monitor uses radar to detect infant breathing patterns.” Raybaby also “builds a photo/video collage of the baby for posterity.” Yuck.
Via The Orlando Sentinel: “Teacher merit-pay law hasn’t boosted student learning, Orange says.” That’s the Orange County school district which says it hasn’t seen any significant improvement in student performance since Florida passed a merit-pay law in 2011.
Via Inside Higher Ed: “2017 Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers.”
Via Education Dive: “Texas district sees learning gains after giving kindergartners Chromebooks.”
Via Inside Higher Ed: “Despite higher education’s progressive reputation, new research shows a stubborn pay gap between women and men who are administrators.”
Via Politico: “Researchers from the University of Virginia have found that former first lady Michelle Obama’s visit to high schools as part of her Reach Higher initiative led to a ‘substantial’ increase in the percent of students at those schools who complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.”
Via The Atlantic: “The School-Voucher Paradox,” an article about a study on vouchers and school segregation.
The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are arguably the best Android smartphone in the market right now, but their design is a major disappointment. For the price that it commands, the design of the Pixel with the huge bezels at the front looks very uninspiring and the lack of waterproofing does not help things either.
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Compared to flat bars, trekking bars offer more hand positions. You can use the sides to rock up a hill, you can stretch out forwards in a headwind, or keep your hands close to the brakes and shifters.
Sometimes when I mention I am a cyclist, somebody will go off on a rant about how "entitled" cyclists think they are, and how they don't respect the rules of the road. To hear them speak, you'd think almost all cyclists completely ignore the rules of the road. That has not been my experience at all. And I've just found an infographic that shows some actual research to prove it!
![[Source: Snap S1 filing]](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50363cf324ac8e905e7df861/t/58a76409a5790a1849d9f879/1487365141296/?format=1000w)
Vancouver Sun.
Universe Today.
