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Rose Eveleth @roseveleth
But what if we all just left Twitter? Would that be so bad?

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It makes no sense for Facebook to deliberately lock HTC out.

• Facebook has updated the firmware for the Oculus Rift that has prevented the HTC Vive from running the Oculus Rift apps.
• The new firmware now performs a platform integrity check to ensure that the Oculus Rift hardware is present before it will allow apps to run.
• This is a pretty standard copyright mechanism used by many platforms to try and fight piracy.
• This test is not trivial to circumvent (and it is illegal to circumvent copy protection in US) meaning that the Vive is now very unlikely to able to run Oculus Vive apps.
• Prior to this an un-official tool called Revive was allowing Rift apps run on the Vive by tricking them into thinking that the Rift hardware was present.
• However, in version 1.4, this test has become more robust and the check is now performed by the Oculus Rift DRM meaning that Revive no longer works.
• For once, I think that this is not a deliberate ploy to lock HTC out of the Oculus Rift platform because strategically it makes no sense.
• I don’t think that HTC is in a very strong position with the Vive because RFM research indicates that HTC does not own the IP for this device and furthermore that it’s licence with Steam is non-exclusive.
• Hence, while HTC has a lead in terms of controllers and the user being able to move around, I don’t think that this will last long nor will it be exclusive to HTC.
• From Facebook’s perspective, HTC is not the competition.
• Steam, Microsoft, Google, Meta Vision, Atheer Labs and Magic Leap are, as these are the platform owners.
• Consequently, the more devices that Facebook can get running Oculus, the better chance it will have at emerging as the dominant force in VR.
• At the end of the day, I don’t think that Facebook is very interested in hardware as a profit centre.
• I think Facebook is much more interested in the data that Oculus generates and how Oculus could be used to migrate the fledging Facebook ecosystem into the all-important gaming segment.
• Hence, it makes complete sense for Facebook to work with the creators of Revive and get it running again on HTC’s VR.
• This is why I think that HTC & revive are collateral damage as a result of this update and I would not be surprised to see revive up and running again sometime soon.
• Neither Facebook nor HTC (see here) shares are in my short-term good books but once Facebook has navigated the heavy expectations the market is placing on it for H2 2016 (see here), there could be real long term upside.

It has been about 30 months now since I took on the role to lead the LINK Research Lab at UTA. (I have retained a cross appointment with Athabasca University and continue to teach and supervise doctoral students there).

It has taken a few years to get fully up and running – hardly surprising. I’ve heard explanations that a lab takes at least three years to move from creation to research identification to data collection to analysis to publication. This post summarizes some of our current research and other activities in the lab.

We, as a lab, have had a busy few years in terms of events. We’ve hosted numerous conferences and workshops and engaged in (too) many research talks and conference presentations. We’ve also grown significantly – from an early staff base of four people to expected twenty three within a few months. Most of these are doctoral or post doctoral students and we have a terrific core of administrative and support staff.

Finding our Identity

In trying to find our identity and focus our efforts, we’ve engaged in numerous activities including book clubs, writing retreats, innovation planning meetings, long slack/email exchanges, and a few testy conversations. We’ve brought in well over 20 established academics and passionate advocates as speakers to help us shape our mission/vision/goals. Members of our team have attended conferences globally, on topics as far ranging as economics, psychology, neuroscience, data science, mindfulness, and education. We’ve engaged with state, national, and international agencies, corporations, as well as the leadership of grant funding agencies and major foundations. Overall, an incredible period of learning as well as deepening existing relationships and building new ones. I love the intersections of knowledge domains. It’s where all the fun stuff happens.

As with many things in life, the most important things aren’t taught. In the past, I’ve owned businesses that have had an employee base of 100+ personnel. There are some lessons that I learned as a business owner that translate well into running a research lab, but with numerous caveats. Running a lab is an entrepreneurial activity. It’s the equivalent of creating a startup. The intent is to identify a key opportunity and then, driven by personal values and passion, meaningfully enact that opportunity through publications, grants, research projects, and collaborative networks. Success, rather than being measured in profits and VC funds, is measured by impact with the proxies being research funds and artifacts (papers, presentations, conferences, workshops). I find it odd when I hear about the need for universities to be more entrepreneurial as the lab culture is essentially a startup environment.

Early stages of establishing a lab are chaotic. Who are we? What do we care about? How do we intersect with the university? With external partners? What are our values? What is the future that we are trying to create through research? Who can we partner with? It took us a long time to identify our key research areas and our over-arching research mandate. We settled on these four areas: new knowledge processes, success for all learners, the future of employment, and new knowledge institutions. While technologies are often touted as equalizers that change the existing power structure by giving everyone a voice, the reality is different. In our society today, a degree is needed to get a job. In the USA, degrees are prohibitively expensive to many learners and the result is a type of poverty lock-in that essentially guarantees growing inequality. While it’s painful to think about, I expect a future of greater racial violence, public protests, and radicalized politicians and religious leaders and institutions. Essentially the economic makeup of our society is one where higher education now prevents, rather than enables, improving one’s lot in life.

What does it mean to be human in a digital age?

Last year, we settled on a defining question: What does it mean to be human in a digital age? So much of the discussion in society today is founded in a fetish to talk about change. The narrative in media is one of “look what’s changing”. Rarely is the surface level assessment explored to begin looking at “what are we becoming?”. It’s clear that there is much that is changing today: technology, religious upheaval, radicalization, social/ethnic/gender tensions, climate, and emerging super powers. It is an exciting and a terrifying time. The greatest generation created the most selfish generation. Public debt, failing social and health systems, and an eroding social fabric suggest humanity is entering a conflicted era of both turmoil and promise.

We can better heal than any other generation. We can also better kill, now from the comfort of a console. Globally, less people live in poverty than ever before. But income inequality is also approaching historical levels. This inequality will explode as automated technologies provide the wealthiest with a means to use capital without needing to pay for human labour. Technology is becoming a destroyer, not enabler, of jobs. The consequences to society will be enormous, reflective of the “spine of the implicit social contract” being snapped due to economic upheaval. The effects of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear are now being felt politically as reasonably sane electorates turn to solutionism founded in desire rather than reality (Middle East, Austria, Trump in the US to highlight only a few).

In this milieu of social, technology, and economic transitions, I’m interested in understanding our humanity and what we are becoming. It is more than technology alone. While I often rant about this through the perspective of educational technology, the challenge has a scope that requires thinking integratively and across boundaries. It’s impossible to explore intractable problems meaningfully through many of the traditional research approaches where the emphasis is on reducing to variables and trying to identify interactions. Instead, a complex and connected view of both the problem space and the research space is required. Trying to explore phenomena through single variable relationships is not going to be effective in planning

Complex and connected explorations are often seen to be too grandiose. As a result, it takes time for individuals to see the value of integrative, connected, and complex answers to problems that also possess those attributes. Too many researchers are accustomed to working only within their lab or institutions. Coupled with the sound-bite narrative in media, sustained and nuanced exploration of complex social challenges seems almost unattainable. At LINK we’ve been actively trying to distribute research much like content and teaching has become distributed. For example, we have doctoral and post-doctoral students at Stanford, Columbia, and U of Edinburgh. Like teaching, learning, and living, knowledge is also networked and the walls of research need the same thinning that is happening to many classrooms. Learning to think in networks is critical and it takes time, especially for established academics and administrators. What I am most proud of with LINK is the progress we have made in modelling and enacting complex approaches to apprehending complex problems.

In the process of this work, we’ve had many successes, detailed below, but we’ve also encountered failures. I’m comfortable with that. Any attempt to innovate will produce failure. At LINK, we tried creating a grant writing network with faculty identified by deans. That bombed. We’ve put in hundreds of hours writing grants. Many of which were not funded. We were involved in a Texas state liberal arts consortium. That didn’t work so well. We’ve cancelled workshops because they didn’t find the resonance we were expecting. And hosted conferences that didn’t work out so well financially. Each failure though, produced valuable insight in sharpening our focus as a lab. While the first few years were primarily marked by exploration and expansion, we are now narrowing and focusing on those things that are most important to our central emphasis on understanding being human in a digital age.

Grants and Projects

It’s been hectic. And productive. And fun. It has required a growing team of exceptionally talented people – we’ll update bios and images on our site in the near future, but for now I want to emphasize the contributions of many members of LINK. It’s certainly not a solo task. Here’s what we’ve been doing:

1. Digital Learning Research Network. This $1.6m grant (Gates Foundation) best reflects my thinking on knowing at intersections and addressing complex problems through complex and nuanced solutions. Our goal here is to create research teams with R1 and state systems and to identify the most urgent research needs in helping under-represented students succeed.

2. Inspark Education. This $5.2m grant (Gates Foundation) involves multiple partners. LINK is researching the support system and adaptive feedback models required to help students become successful in studying science. The platform and model is the inspiration of the good people at Smart Sparrow (also the PIs) and the BEST Network (medical education) in Australia and the Habworlds project at ASU.

3. Intel Education. This grant ($120k annually) funds several post doctoral students and evaluates effectiveness of adaptive learning as well as the research evidence that supports algorithms that drive adaptive learning.

4. Language in conflict. This project is being conducted with several universities in Israel and looks at how legacy conflict is reflected in current discourse. The goal is to create a model for discourse that enables boundary crossing. Currently, the pilot involves dialogue in highly contentious settings (Israeli and Palestinian students) and builds dialogue models in order to reduce legacy dialogue on impacting current understanding. Sadly, I believe this work will have growing relevance in the US as race discourse continues to polarize rather than build shared spaces of understanding and respect.

5. Educational Discourse Research. This NSF grant ($254k) is conducted together with University of Michigan. The project is concerned with evaluating the current state of discourse research and to determine where this research is trending and what is needed to support this community.

6. Big Data: Collaborative Research. This NSF grant ($1.6m), together with CMU, evaluates the impact of how different architectures of knowledge spaces impacts how individuals interact with one another and build knowledge. We are looking at spaces like wikipedia, moocs, and stack overflow. Space drives knowledge production, even (or especially) when that space is digital.

7. aWEAR Project. This project will evaluate the use of wearables and technologies that collect physiological data as learners learn and live life. We’ll provide more information on this soon, in particular a conference that we are organizing at Stanford on this in November.

8. Predictive models for anticipating K-12 challenges. We are working with several school systems in Texas to share data and model challenges related to school violence, drop out, failure, and related emotional and social challenges. This project is still early stages, but holds promise in moving the mindset from one of addressing problems after they have occurred to one of creating positive, developmental, and supportive skillsets with learners and teachers.

9. A large initiative at University of Texas Arlington is the formation of a new department called University Analytics (UA). This department is lead by Prof Pete Smith and is a sister organization to LINK. UA will be the central data and learning analytics department at UTA. SIS, LMS, graduate attributes, employment, etc. will be analyzed by UA. The integration between UA and LINK is one of improving the practice-research-back to practice pipeline. Collaborations with SAS, Civitas, and other vendors are ongoing and will provide important research opportunities for LINK.

10. Personal Learning/Knowledge Graphs and Learner profiles. PLeG is about understanding learners and giving them control over their profiles and their learning history. We’ve made progress on this over the past year, but are still not at a point to release a “prototype” of PLeG for others to test/engage with.

11. Additional projects:
- InterLab – a distributed research lab, we’ll announce more about this in a few weeks.
- CIRTL – teaching in STEM disciplines
- Coh-Metrix – improving usability of the language analysis tool

Going forward

I know I’ve missed several projects, but at least the above list provides an overview of what we’ve been doing. Our focus going forward is very much on the social and affective attributes of being human in our technological age.

Human history is marked by periods of explosive growth in knowledge. Alexandria, the Academy, the printing press, the scientific method, industrial revolution, knowledge classification systems, and so on. The rumoured robotics era seems to be at our doorstep. We are the last generation that will be smarter than our technology. Work will be very different in the future. The prospect of mass unemployment due to automation is real. Technology is changing faster than we can evolve individually and faster than we can re-organize socially. Our future lies not in our intelligence but in our being.

But.

Sometimes when I let myself get a bit optimistic, I’m encouraged by the prospect of what can become of humanity when our lives aren’t defined by work. Perhaps this generation of technology will have the interesting effect of making us more human. Perhaps the next explosion of innovation will be a return to art, culture, music. Perhaps a more compassionate, kinder, and peaceful human being will emerge. At minimum, what it means to be human in a digital age has not been set in stone. The stunning scope of change before us provides a rare window to remake what it means to be human. The only approach that I can envision that will help us to understand our humanness in a technological age is one that recognizes nuance, complexity, and connectedness and that attempts to match solution to problem based on the intractability of the phenomena before us.

Most information in organisations (or brand communities) is shared from the perspective of the creator, not the recipient.

The creator publishes an article about a topic s/he finds interesting. The timing, length, format, and target audience (everyone) all suit the creator. Which is exactly why it’s soon forgotten by the target audience.

Successful knowledge sharing efforts provide the right people with the specific information they need at the exact moment they need it in the format that suits them.

This usually means every team member needs to know:

• What information to share.  If we’re working on writing a new consultancy report, it would be useful to have examples of previous reports. Which means we need to share this report when it’s complete. Any time we regret not having a template to work from, we need to share the template we’re creating. Equally important is to share only the essential information. Too much information becomes unwieldly and demotivating to sift through. This also means pruning the information which is never used.

• When to share this information. Too often information is shared once it’s been created instead of when it’s needed. A document shared too early is rarely recalled and used. We need to embed the document within a process by which it’s delivered to the receiver when s/he needs it. A checklist with links to relevant, updated, documents works well here.

• With whom to share this information. At the United Nations we used to receive ‘Addendum to Addendum 3.2’ messages containing entirely irrelevant information to the projects we were working on at that moment. These emails mattered a lot to a small number of people. Finding those people is hard.

• How to share this information. Slack might be a great tool for deliberation, triggering processes or fixing gaps in the process, but it’s not the best tool for sharing useful information (neither is email). PDFs, white papers, video training classes, workshops, books, podcasts, guest speakers can be equally useful tools.

• Why they share information. More information is lost to apathy than retirement. People simply aren’t motivated to share what they need. Either they aren’t personally motivated (belief in the group mission, desire to help, finds the topic interesting) or professionally rewarded (recognition, promotion, salary increases) to share what they have discovered.

Too many discussions begin by asking the creators what they want, they should begin by asking the recipients what they need.

When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want you to show you where it might do the opposite.

Where does technology exploit our minds’ weaknesses?

This is a very interesting piece to read. I had some major discoveries about my own behavior. It was very easy for me to break away from Facebook and I reclaimed a lot of personal time. And I understand now, how the Apple Watch keeps me from getting sucked in. I pick up my iPhone a lot less, because I don't get tricked so often.

More >

Can anyone stop Guangzhou Evergrande? The five-time reigning champions came away from a visit to Liaoning Whowin with a 3-0 victory this weekend to end round 10 with their ninth win in a row.

If you think of network visualization as a collection of nodes and edges, you typically get a bunch of circles and lines that vary in width to represent volume or strength of connection. However, in this visualization, Fathom used dots to represent patients moving between different states of a health network. The more dots the more patients, or in terms of networks, the stronger the connections.

I don’t find the topic all that interesting, but the implementation is pretty sweet.

Tags: Fathom, transitions

We’re excited to announce that Dropbox has dropped anchor in Hamburg. This culturally and economically vibrant city is home to our newest office, and a natural next step for us in Europe.

We love helping people around the world work better together, and users in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) love working with Dropbox. One in three internet users in DACH are now on Dropbox, and they’ve created over 163 million connections to date by sharing documents and folders. This makes Dropbox users in DACH our most collaborative in the world per capita—even more so than the US.

From co-working spaces to corporations, people bring Dropbox to work, and adoption in Germany has been phenomenal. The top three cities in terms of Dropbox signups are also the largest: Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. But Karlsruhe and Dresden are the real hotspots when measuring users per capita.

Dropbox Business has also seen tremendous growth in Germany, with customers tripling over the past two years. Leading European brands such as Bauer Media, Expedia, Mathys & Scheitlin AG, Audibene, TUI Group, and the German Development Institute are among the 8,000 teams in Germany using Dropbox Business to collaborate and stay productive.

From manufacturing to professional services to healthcare, industries in Europe and around the world are discovering the benefits of increased collaboration on Dropbox. And the opening of our Hamburg office is just a part of our European commitment. We launched our Amsterdam office in February, and our offices in London and Paris just celebrated their one-year anniversaries. We’re learning from our customers every day by being where they are. So moin moin, Hamburg!

Ein erfolgreiches Mobile Payment Startup aus F, das nun nach D einwandern will, stand im Mittelpunkt des letzten Beitrags der „Best of Mobile Payment 2016“. Heute geht es wieder um einen Einwanderer, allerdings nicht aus dem Ausland. Aber die beiden haben eine Gemeinsamkeit im Erfolgsrezept, die sich auf drei Buchstaben reduzieren lässt: P2P.

Lendstar ist eine „soziale Finanz-App fürs Zahlen und Chatten unter Freunden“. Damit kann man Geld sammeln, Rechnungen aufteilen und Beträge direkt vom Girokonto überweisen. Die letzten Jahre war Lendstar nie auf dem Radar dieser Payment Serie, denn einen Händler konnte man in der Vergangenheit nicht damit bezahlen. Das hat sich geändert. Als Weihnachtsgeschenk 2015 ist LendstarPay gestartet. Derzeit können damit Rechnungen von Online Shops wie amazon, Esprit oder Conrad bezahlt werden. Wenn man bedenkt, dass fast ein Drittel des Umsatzes in den 1.000 größten Online Shops in Deutschland per Rechnung beglichen werden, ist das ein interessanter Markt. Dafür könnten sich die rund 100.000 Nutzer interessieren, die die Lendstar App bereits installiert haben. Und regelmäßige Web-Shopper könnten als neue User gefallen daran finden, sich nicht mit umständlichen Online Überweisungen rumzuschlagen.

Könnte Lendstar womöglich mittelfristig auch für Proximity Payments im lokalen Geschäft verfügbar werden? Einen Vorreiter gibt es in Dänemark, wo die MobilePay App der Danske Bank bereits von der Hälfte der Bevölkerung genutzt wird. Gestartet ist MobilePay mit P2P Zahlungen („Geld senden so einfach wie eine SMS“). Heute kann die App bereits in vielen lokalen Geschäften als Zahlungsmittel genutzt werden. Vielleicht ein Vorbild aus dem Norden?

Derzeit ist Lendstar allerdings noch mit der „Erst-Education“ der User beschäftigt, weil P2P Zahlungen in Deutschland nach wie vor etwas völlig Neues sind.

Wir haben mit Christopher Kampshoff, Gründer und Geschäftsführer von Lendstar gesprochen und ihm die typischen 4B-Fragen gestellt:

Best Move of Lendstar:

Die Bewerbung bei der Höhle der Löwen und der Pitch in der TV Show. Dieser hat uns eine sehr hohe Bekanntheit und viel Aufmerksamkeit für Lendstar gebracht. Das hat sich natürlich sehr positiv auf die Userentwicklung ausgewirkt.

Bad Idea of Lendstar:

Ganz zu Anfang haben wir uns auf einen technischen Partner verlassen, der am Ende abgesprungen ist. Das hatte uns damals fast 6 Monate Zeit gekostet. Aber in Problemen liegen auch immer Chancen, heute ist unsere eigene technische Lösung EasyPay ein Erfolgsbaustein.

Brilliant Idea for Lendstar:

Unsere Co-Branding Lösung für Banken. Das tolle Feedback unserer aktuellen Partner, aber auch die Akzeptanz der User zeigt, dass wir hier auf dem richtigen Weg sind.

Biggest Challenge of Lendstar:

Eine Monetarisierung zu schaffen, mit der wir gleichzeitig weitere Nutzer begeistern können. Wir sehen uns dabei auf einem guten Weg und haben noch viele gute Ideen.

User First – dann ein Geschäftsmodell

Das Startup Lendstar ist zwar heute noch nicht im Proximity Payment aktiv, könnte sich aber potentiell dort hin entwickeln. Ein erster Schritt mit LendstarPay zur Zahlung von Online Shop Rechnungen ist getan. Und wenn auch nicht geografisch zu nehmen, so kann auch Lendstar in die Kategorie „Einwanderer“ eingeordnet werden, denn sie wandern aus dem Markt der P2P Payments in den Markt der Commerce Payments ein. Und Lendstar muss noch Neuland erobern, um seinen Service monetarisieren zu können. Leider wollte Lendstar uns nicht verraten, wie die vielen guten Ideen konkret aussehen.

Ein anderer Player im deutschen Markt der Online Commerce Payments ist Klarna (Kauf auf Rechnung). Das Unternehmen hat gerade erst in seinem Heimatmarkt Schweden eine Zahllösung für stationäre Geschäfte gestartet. Kunden müssen dafür ihre Telefonnummer angeben, erhalten Sekunden später eine SMS mit einem Link zum Klarna Portal. Da wird sozusagen ein Remote (=Online) Mobile Payment im Offline Shop erzeugt. Oder man könnte auch sagen, es ist wie ein InApp Payment in einem physischen Geschäft. So wie z. B. Apple Pay bei der größten Tankstellenkette ExxonMobil in den USA, wo Kunden an der Zapfsäule per InApp Payment zahlen können. All dies beweist nur einmal wieder, es gilt nicht in den alten Kategorien zu denken. Cross-Channel birgt innovative neue Verknüpfungen von Commerce & Payment. Wer vom Standpunkt des Kunden aus denkt (customer centric), kommt dabei oft zuerst auf die richtigen Ideen.

#BoMP: Best of Mobile Payment 2016 – Übersicht der Artikel-Serie: PaySerie 2016

Rather regretting not having done a deep dive into programming environments for the Lego EV3 somewhat earlier, I came across the block.ly inspired OpenRobertaLab (code, docs) only a couple of days ago.

(Way back when , in the first incarnation of the OU Robotics Outreach Group, we were part of the original Roberta project which was developing a European educational robotics pack, so it’s nice to see it’s continued.)

OpenRobertaLab is a browser accessible environment that allows users to use block.ly blocks to program a simulated robot.

I’m not sure how easy it is to change the test track used in the simulator? That said, the default does have some nice features – a line to follow, colour bars to detect, a square to drive round.

The OU Robotlab simulator supported a pen down option that meant you could trace the path taken by the robot – I’m not sure if RobertaLab has a similar feature?

It also looks as if user accounts are available, presumably so you can save your programmes and return to them at a later date:

Account creation looks to be self-service:

OpenRobertaLab also allows you to program a connected EV3 robot running leJOS, the community developed Java programming environment for the EV3s. It seems that it’s also possible to connect to a brick running ev3dev to OpenRobertaLab using the robertalab-ev3dev connector. This package is preinstalled in ev3dev, although it needs enabling (and the brick rebooting) to run. ssh into the brick and then from the brick commandline, run:

sudo systemctl unmask openrobertalab.service
sudo systemctl start openrobertalab.service

Following a reboot, the Open Robertalab client should now automatically run and be available from the OpenRobertaLab menu on the brick. To stop the service / cancel it from running automatically, run:

sudo systemctl stop openrobertalab.service
sudo systemctl mask openrobertalab.service

If the brick has access to the internet, you should now be able to simply connect to the OpenRobertalab server (lab.open-roberta.org).

Requesting a connection from the brick gives you an access code you need to enter on the OpenRobertaLab server. From the robots menu, select connect...:

and enter the provided connection code (use the connection code displayed on your EV3):

On connecting, you should hear a celebratory beep!

Note that this was as far as I got – Open Robertalab told me a more recent version of the brick firmware was available and suggested I installed it. Whilst claiming I may still be possible to run commands using old firmware, that didn’t seem to be the case?

As we well as accessing the public Open Robertalab environment on the web, you can also run your own server. There are a few dependencies required for this, so I put together a Docker container psychemedia/robertalab (Dockerfile) containing the server, which means you should be able to run it using Kitematic:

(For persisting things like user accounts, and and saved programmes, there should probably be a shared data container to persist that info?)

A random port will be assigned, though you can change this to the original default (1999):

The simulator should run fine using the IP address assigned to the docker machine, but in order to connect a robot on the same local WiFi network to the Open RobertaLab server, or connect to the programming environment from another computer on the local network, you will need to set up proter forwarding from the Docker VM:

See Exposing Services Running in a Docker Container Running in Virtualbox to Other Computers on a Local Network for more information on exposing the containerised Open Robertalab server to a local network.

On the EV3, you will need to connect to a custom Open Robertalab server. The settings will be the IP address of the computer on which the server is running, which you can find on a Mac from the Mac Network settings, along with the port number the server is running on:

So for example, if Kitematic has assigned the port number 32567, and you didn’t otherwise change it, and you host computer IP address is 192.168.1.86, you should connect to: 192.168.1.86:32567 from the Open Robertalab connection settings on the brick. On connecting, you will be presented with a pass code as above, which you should connect to from your local OpenRobertaLab webpage.

Note that when trying to run programmes on a connected brick, I suffered the firmware mismatch problem again.

It’s been a busy week for Google, and a frantic development year for wearable technology. In just the last three weeks, we’ve already seen the latest research from Carnegie Mellon and Samsung, showing off revolutionary smartwatch interfaces. At the Google I/O keynote, we also saw the first glimpses of Android Wear 2.0, but it turns out Google has been working on much more exciting smartwatch tech than that.

It’s been almost exactly a year since Project Soli was first announced at Google I/O 2015, in a project that aimed to give users a new way to interact with wearable devices, using gestures in the air. At the time, incorporating the technology into a wrist-worn computer was simply not possible, and so development kits required a connection to a laptop.

Project Soli uses radar and motion analysis of the human hand with high accuracy to control software interfaces, and the aim is to put fine gesture control into wearable devices like smartwatches. The technology isn’t limited to tiny smartwatch screens though, with last fall’s alpha development program resulting in a number of amazing applications.

This year at Google I/O, the engineers working on Project Soli have announced what they’ve managed to accomplish in the last year, and it’s really impressive. Power requirements were holding the team back in 2015, and so the primary improvements are in the amount of energy required to run the Soli system. The group says that the current device runs on 22 times less energy than last year’s development kit, using only 54 mW.

The new Soli system fits into a normal smartwatch, and runs on vanilla Android. While the Soli won’t be in customers’ hands for at least a couple more years, this and the other projects coming out of Google’s ATAP lab are definitely pushing the boundaries of technology forward.

Ludovic Hirlimann has posted a comment:

The black and white version is better ! <3 this one.

One of our partner companies, Sense Tecnic Systems Inc, was recently invited to participate in a Canadian trade mission to Europe representing Canada’s Smart City technology companies.

The trade mission, involving 15 Canadian companies first visited the UK for a 1 day smart city workshop. This was well attended by UK companies and innovation groups including:

• Future Cities Catapult: UK’s innovation hub for Smart Cities: video link, seek to 15 minutes in
• Bristol is Open: Smart City platform and projects from Bristol
• Peterborough DNA: Mid sized UK city developing a smart city strategy
• HyperCat consortium: Smart City & IoT interoperability standard (Urban Opus supports HyperCat)

From there the mission flew to Stockholm where the Euopean Eureka network was hosting a 2 day smart city event as part of it’s yearly innovation conference. For those of you not familiar with the Eureka program, it is an industry driven innovation network that aims to bring together small and large european companies. Recently Eureka has reached out to non-european countries and Canada has joined in 2014. Eureka projects are funded partly by companies and partly by national innovation bodies. In Canada, funding is provided by NRC-IRAP, and is aimed at helping Canadian companies, particularly SMEs, build technical and business partnerships with European companies. More information on Eureka for Canadian companies can be found HERE

Over 500 companies and 1200 delegates attended the Eureka innovation week, which was a mix of keynotes, project presentations, panel sessions as well as several matchmaking events where copanies discuss potential project ideas and seek partners.

Some highlights included:

Winn Nielsen Head of City Data at the City of Copenhagen (video link) and Sara Mazur Head of Ericsson research (video link), gave two different perspectives on how we can shape the future of the smart cities with the help of innovative technology and the Internet of Things.

The participants also had the chance to visit 50 exhibitors with innovative projects from the different programs within the EUREKA Network and the co-organisers.

 

Study visits in Smart Cities

Participants also had the opportunity to visit and try out self-driving buses at Ericsson Studios in Kista, see how a smart city is emerging in Stockholm Royal Seaport and in the City of Stockholm’s project – Grow Smarter.

Sense Tecnic, who build a Smart City platform CityHub, actually provide the Urban Opus data hub used by many of our projects. They have recently developed a rapid prototyping tool (FRED), based on IBM’s visual programming language Node-RED, which they have been using to build smart city and IoT applications.

After the dust settled from the Google I/O keynote presentation I caught up with Matthew Izatt, product management lead for Gmail, at one of its Extended events at Lighthouse Labs’ Dev Hub. We discussed how email has evolved and where it belongs in the growing, cluttered world of messaging.

Q: What was most exciting for you that was unveiled during the Google I/O keynote presentation?

Matthew Izatt: Personally, for me, all the Android updates because that’s my team. If I was taking off my official position hat, the Firebase updates are really powerful for smaller developers.

Q: What are you specifically responsible for?

Matthew Izatt: I am product manager responsible for Gmail on mobile and have been with Google for five years.

Q: How does it feel to have well over a billion people use a product that you have worked on?

Matthew Izatt: I think it’s a great sense of responsibility. Every day millions of users use the app to communicate with each other, get their jobs done, and they rely upon it day in and day out. So it’s a big responsibility for us to ensure that we deliver a great experience.

Q: What is the difference of Gmail 5 years ago to Gmail today?

Matthew Izatt: Our user base have obviously grown. The rise of mobile is significant compared to five years ago. Back then it was BlackBerry and iPhones were still in its very early stages. The world has really evolved and switched over onto mobile.

Q: What is the connection for you with Inbox?

Matthew Izatt: Inbox is built by the Gmail team. There is a Gmail app on iOS and Android and also an Inbox app on iOS and Android.

Q: Why is there two different email platforms? Why not just merge them together?

Matthew Izatt: I think when we were building Inbox we wanted to start from the ground up and totally fresh of how we build an app. More so, a lot of people who use email are consumers and wanted to think of Inbox under that model. Inbox has gone down the path of rethink mail and what to do with it, now and in the future.

Q: How will the two co-exist together?

Matthew Izatt: I’m not sure that I want to predict the future but Inbox launched almost two years ago so you have already seen how they will co-exist. We will have two apps with a different model in terms of what their core user experience is and what their long-term path is.

Q: With Allo and Duo, how will these play in the Google experience?

Matthew Izatt: I think we look at messaging as an alternative for of communication to email. Messaging is very much real time and very personal. Whereas email has certain differentiators to it where you typically do not need to respond immediately. However, there are a number of learnings that we have seen in email that have been transferred over to messaging.

Q: Do you think messaging apps or services like Slack have disrupted email?

Matthew Izatt: Disrupted is an aggressive word. Certainly I think we have seen an explosion of all forms of electronic communication. All forms are growing and so ten years ago email was the primary and only form of electronic communication, but now, especially as majority of our communication moves online, there are several complimentary products to select from. There is no question there has been an explosion of tool and explosion of content.

Q: What do you see the future of email being?

Matthew Izatt: Email remains a very open platform so it’s very easy to adopt and we are working on a number of projects, including interpersonal messages, to promotional mail and transactional mail. Gmail has also invested and will invest heavily into anti-spam, security and encryption.

Q: What do you think the future of mobile is?

Matthew Izatt: Personal opinion only, I think there will be more devices and more device form factors. People generally see mobile as phones but the ability to use apps without your phone. We will also see touch devices, wearables are the obvious thought, which are not tied down to anything.

The end of the month is upon us once more, and as usual a lot has happened in the mobile industry during May. Here’s our brief roundup of five newsworthy stories that you may have missed.

Project Ara modular phone launched date set for 2017

In the past year, Google’s Project Ara modular phone seems to have almost disappeared from the tech press’ consciousness. However, at last week’s Google I/O it was revealed that the device will in fact be available to buy from next year.

Project Ara development kits will also ship to eager developers later this year, allowing third parties to start building all sorts of exciting modules.

Prices for both the developer and consumer versions was not revealed, but Google said that Ara will be a high-end device, at least in the beginning.

Swedish mobile masts possibly sabotaged by foreign powers

In the last few weeks, several telecommunications masts in Sweden were damaged, suspected of being intentionally sabotaged. This has prompted fears of foreign spies, as well as calling into question the ability of Sweden’s security services to deal with such a situation, especially considering the country’s tensions with Russia.

A 300 metre mast in southern Sweden collapsed, apparently sabotaged according to the local police. Police also stated that it could either be a prankster, local extremists or international saboteurs.

“We are 100 percent certain the tower has been sabotaged”, investigators told the Aftonbladet newspaper. “It could be something international, that they want to test what happens when taking out a mast like this”.

Microsoft sells Nokia brand to Foxconn for $350 million

Nokia is still on track to make a comeback, with a selection of new feature phones and tablets. The firm has entered into a deal with a new Helsinki-based firm, HMD, to make Nokia-branded phones and tablets, and will receive a percentage of royalties from every sale.

Foxconn’s purchase of Nokia was made in partnership with HMD, a new Finnish company that has an exclusive global license to build Nokia devices for next 10 years.

Manufacturing, sales and distribution will be handled by FIH Mobile Limited, itself a subsidiary of Foxconn.

It’s another positive for the Nokia brand, but comes after Microsoft hinted that its Lumia range may be in demise.

“Microsoft will continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile and support Lumia phones such as the Lumia 650, Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, and phones from OEM partners like Acer, Alcatel, HP, Trinity and VAIO”, said a statement issued by Microsoft.

The purchase of Nokia’s mobile business back in 2014 was an effort to challenge Google and Apple, but both Microsoft and Nokia largely failed to make any significant impact with the Lumia range.

BT will invest £6 billion in faster broadband and mobile

BT Group announced earlier this month its plans to invest more than £6 billion in faster broadband and mobile over the next three years.

Consumers will be offered “ultra-fast” broadband, reaching 12 million premised by 2020, in addition to boosting 4G mobile coverage.

BT’s competitors however aren’t impressed. Sky said BT’s plan had limited ambition and said BT should invest more in the UK’s fibre network, adding that Openreach (which operates the network) should be split off from BT.

Most of the 12 million premises will have access to BT’s G.fast technology which can deliver up to 300 Mbps today, rising to around 500 Mbps in time.

Australian study finds no link between mobile phones and brain cancer

“Mobile phones don’t increase the risk of brain cancer, 30-year study concludes”, claims a study reported in the Mail Online.

The study found the increase in mobile phone usage over the past three decades was not matched by a similar rise in brain cancer rates.

Today, mobile phone ownership in Australia is around 94 percent of the population.

One point of note however is that the researchers only had access to data regarding the number of people with mobile phone contracts, rather than individual data about how often or how long people had phones to their heads.

You can read the full article on the NHS UK website.

In the early days of the Raspberry Pi I mostly used 4 or 8 GB SD-cards to run a system. These days however, 16 GB cards seem to be the smallest and for an Owncloud emergency backup server I’m even using a 64 GB SD-card now. While creating backup image files of 4 or 8 GB SD-cards was quick and didn’t take too much space, creating an image file of the 64 GB SD-card is somewhat of a stretch. Fortunately, there is a way to create and restore images of individual partitions which makes the process a lot quicker and much less storage intensive.

A Separate Data Partition

By default, a Raspian image consists of two partitions on the SD-card. One for the boot files with a size of around 50 MB and a second partition for the system which usually takes up all the rest of an SD-card’s flash memory.So far, so good.

In the case of my Owncloud backup server that uses a 64 GB SD-card I deviated from this scheme by assigning 5 GB to the system partition and the remaining 49 GB for a standalone data partition. As the data on the data partition is backed up separately a backup system image of the server only requires to create an image of the 50 MB boot partition and the 5 GB system partition. No image of the 49 GB partition is required as I would restore the data separately if I ever had to rebuild the server from the two backup partition images.

Creating A Backup

In a first step it’s a good idea to read and save the partition information of the SD-card on a PC in a text file as this information helps a lot during the restore procedure described below. On Ubuntu, sfdisk is the command of choice:

sudo sfdisk -d /dev/mmcblk0

# partition table of /dev/mmcblk0
unit: sectors

/dev/mmcblk0p1 : start=     8192, size=   122880, Id= c
/dev/mmcblk0p2 : start=   131072, size= 10240000, Id=83
/dev/mmcblk0p3 : start= 10373120, size=114362368, Id=83
/dev/mmcblk0p4 : start=        0, size=        0, Id= 0

mmcblk0p1 is the 50 MB boot partition, mmcblk0p2 is the 5 GB system partition and mmcblk0p3 is the 49 GB data partition.

To backup the boot and system partition into two files, two commands are required on Ubuntu:

sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/mmcblk0p1 of=backup-pi2-mmcblk0p1.dd
sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/mmcblk0p2 of=backup-pi2-mmcblk0p2.dd

And that’s it, you are done!

Restore The Server On A Different SD-card

Restoring the server on another SD-card is much easier than I first imagined. If the new SD-card is of the same size as the old one, one can use the partition information taken above and write it directly to the new SD-card with the following sfdisk command:

sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 < saved-parition-information.txt

If the new SD-card is smaller (e.g. only 16 GB to test the restoration procedure), remove the mmcblk0p3 and p4 lines from the text file before running the sfdisk command. An extra data partition can then be created manually later and is not even needed for a restore test as the server on the new SD-card will boot just fine without the data partition.

Once the sfdisk command is done, eject and re-insert the SD-card from the PC just to make sure the PC re-reads the partition table and then restore the boot and system partition as follows:

sudo dd bs=4M of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 if=backup-pi2-mmcblk0p1.dd
sudo dd bs=4M of=/dev/mmcblk0p2 if=backup-pi2-mmcblk0p2.dd

The commands are the same as above with input and output inverted. Once the second dd command has finished it’s done, the SD-card can now be inserted into a Raspberry Pi and boots just fine.

But hold on, what about a Master Boot Record!?

Coming from the PC world, I was a bit surprised that this worked as the procedure doesn’t write an MBR on the SD-card which would be required if a PC with a BIOS wanted to boot from it. But a Raspberry Pi is not a PC and doesn’t require an MBR in the first sector of the SD-card. Instead the Raspi boot code searches for the first partition on the SD-card an then looks for a specific file there it uses for the boot process. For the details, have a look here.

So as you can see, backing up and restoring the boot and system partition on a large SD-card with a separate data partition is a piece of cake, much easier than I thought!

Stowe Boyd, Work Futures, May 25, 2016

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The idea of this post is to point to the new role of documents as communications tools. Of course, they're always been communications tools, but only as attachments, or worse, printed paper. The new role of documents will see them stored in places like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Sharepoint. Of course many companies already do this, and are beginning to see the second trend identified here: the shifting of a lot of incidental communications to social networks (or social-network-like systems).   They're quick, informal, and can be used to refer to documents. But there's also a third trend, hinted at but not explicitly stated: documents themselves will disappear over time, becoming instead entities in a linked database. We need a better approach to databases to make this work, but this is just on the horizon. Via Doug Belshaw.

[Link] [Comment]

You probably remember One Big Thing from a few weeks ago when MobileSyrup covered it for the first time. The app was developed by Nick Burka, the co-founder of the Canadian design company silverorange.

Since the app’s launch last month, I haven’t stopped using it. It’s an incredibly simple concept that puts your most important task at the forefront of your phone screen, and therefore, your mind.

In the middle of the screen, users see what resembles a large sticky note with a prompt to type the most important task into that space. Flanking it are three smaller sticky-note-like squares for the user’s less important daily tasks.

Nick Burka is the brother of a rather famous influence in the tech world, Daniel Burka. Daniel is the former creative director for the website Digg and is currently a design partner at Google Ventures.

This app initially caught my eye because I’m a list person. I wake up…and make a to-do list. I get to work…and I make a to-do list. I get home, and you guessed it, I make a to-do list. I live to check boxes and cross out sentences on a 6 cm by 4 cm notepad.

However, I eventually realized that I wasn’t accomplishing anything meaningful by making lists. I was simply tricking my brain into thinking I was being productive, when in reality I’d fill my notebooks with miniature sub-tasks that felt good to cross off, but didn’t feel nearly as good when I realized how much more I still had to do.

Since using One Big Thing, I’ve trained my brain to stay focused on the most important thing I need to accomplish on any given day, instead of getting distracted by minor tasks. Since the team at MobileSyrup discovered the app last month I’ve been at my most productive. While it requires some discipline, it’s an exercise in human efficiency that’s worth taking on if you’re up to it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the One Big Thing I need to do today.

One Big Thing is available for free on iOS, but unfortunately the app hasn’t made its way to Android. Users can upgrade to a version that includes stickers and themes for $6.99.

From the Straight:

When the former Chief of Staff to Gordon Campbell writes an essay as scathing as this on the housing crisis, it’s another serious sign that a tide is turning.   Worth reading in its entirety, but here are some selected quotes:

• Enough already. Metro Vancouver’s real estate frenzy is out of control. Like a virus, it is a killer concern that is spreading. Metro Vancouver’s affordability crisis is now Greater Victoria’s unfolding nightmare.
• Each level of government blames the others for failing to address the supply problem. Yet the provincial government is hardly in any position to point fingers at local governments. Its refusal to properly invest in desperately needed public transit infrastructure has clearly inhibited the densities and investments needed to rapidly liberate more affordable housing. Plus, the Clark government wants Metro’s governments to raise property taxes and community amenity “contributions” to finance critically needed TransLink investments. It wants to hike taxes that would only further add to the costs of new homes and existing homes alike. And now it has the gall to attack the NDP for its proposed new speculators’ tax? Spare me.
• … the province now collects about three times more in property transfer taxes than it receives from the natural gas royalties, despite Premier Christy Clark’s endless yattering about the wealth that sector generates.  Arguably, the proportional benefit and impact of the money the B.C. Liberals receive from their paymasters in the property development and real estate sectors is even greater.
• In politics, money talks. And the cash the B.C. Liberals get from their wealthy benefactors in those sectors has made the NDP’s demonstrably sensible demand-side measures targeting foreign speculators and absentee owners a mute point for the Clark government.
•  ….homeowners … have seen their property values soar with the offshore investment tide that supposedly “raises all boats”, as it also quietly drowns out hope for young families and swamps those most in need of affordable housing.  Most homeowners want to stop the worst abuses and negative side effects of unwanted foreign investment, but only to the extent that it does not reduce the new market value of their most valuable investment.
• … unwanted demand, it must be noted, is also largely driving certain new supplies of new housing that is being built primarily to attract those wealthy foreign buyers and the higher prices their investments leverage.  It is also hiving off huge portions of our existing housing supply to sell to those wealthy foreign buyers, who are typically wealthier than most Canadians and who enjoy a competitive edge over all domestic buyers by dint of the substantial premium they gain on our struggling currency.  Contrary to what the Clark government maintains, we do need to address the demand side of the housing crisis. Because that unquenchable demand is arguably doing more harm than good.
• British Columbians are being inundated with story after story that rightly makes their blood boil. Stories about coercive pressure tactics, deceptive sales pitches, dishonest brokerage practices, and even threats of personal violence that paint an ugly picture of a Wild West real estate industry that is hurting British Columbian sellers and buyers.
• As the Globe and Mail reported, “An in-depth look at public data—including land titles, tax reporting and court records—revealed a distinct pattern, suggesting the typical wealthy foreign family buying Vancouver real estate pays little or no income or capital gain tax…
• Some of Vancouver’s wealthiest and most desirable neighborhoods are being alienated before our eyes, as wealthy absentee buyers and foreign investors scoop up those iconic properties, only to let them sit empty.  It is happening in slow motion, as a crime against our culture.
• … none of those measures would fundamentally address the legal ability of those with deep enough pockets to buy whatever they want, wherever it is for sale in British Columbia.  And therein lies the greater problem, in my view.
• I think it is time to say that here, in British Columbia, if you are not a citizen, a permanent resident, or otherwise demonstrably committed to living and/or working in our province, you cannot buy B.C. land or fee simple property that is specially designated for protection. Period.
• A good start might be to strike an independent expert advisory group that is charged with consulting British Columbians and assessing the many mechanisms now employed around the world for restricting foreign ownership of residential and agricultural properties.
• To be clear, I am not talking about in any way restricting or inhibiting immigration.  Nor am I arguing to restrict foreign property investment or ownership specifically from China, per se. …It should be possible in this country, of all countries, to have a respectful, intelligent debate that is grounded in the principles of mutual tolerance and respect, which most of us consider defining hallmarks of Canada. We should talk about this issue openly and honestly, without fear of recrimination or being branded as “racists”.
• It is time to openly discuss the vision we hold as a society for the land beneath our feet and who should own it. If anything, we need to deal directly with that “elephant in the room” before it crushes Canadians’ welcoming attitudes towards immigration and much-needed foreign investment. Otherwise, I submit, public resentment and anger will build in ways that are anathema to Canada and to our multicultural society.

 

We have made an update to the look and feel of Price Tags.

Many people have assisted us with this, but any blunders are certain to be mine.  Please pass them on to me.

The major work is done, and I’ll be adding customization over the the next while.

Price Tags, while lively and busy, was looking stale to us.  Plus, the “theme” was outdated and no longer supported.  It did not provide access to new features, none of them huge, but all useful, which I will be adding.

Hope you like the new look.

If there’s one company you can count on to shake things up with something different for each year’s flagship then it’s probably LG. They like taking risks – and that’s fine – but after evaluating the latest, the G5, it does seem as if they went a bit too far this time. Unpleasant edges, a wacky replaceable bottom concept, a dual camera that doesn’t really add much. Read on for the details in our LG G5 review, but it just doesn’t feel like a top-end flagship. And that’s a crying shame, given the absolute top end specifications and ambitions. Continue reading →

Earlier this year, Instagram announced its intention to debut a new feature called Instagram Business Profiles.

The photo sharing platform will give every company with a business profile access to its analytics, or as it’s calling the new addition, Insights. Photos of Insights were shared on the Later Blog last week.

Insights will provide companies with information about who their followers are, when they’re online and how many people viewed a post. Furthermore companies will have access to which time zones their followers are located in so they can schedule posts for the best time.

According to reports from TechCrunch, the full launch of Insights is expected in the coming months. This initiative follows a slew of hints that Instagram will be further developing its for-business products. Several outlets have pointed out the similarities between Insights and Facebook’s analytics tool.

Several recently released features, such as 60-second videos and video view counts, seem to be directed towards advertisers. It seems like the main focuses of Insights are followed demographics and post analytics.

In addition to the analytics tool, Instagram has alluded to the release of a mobile ad-buying experience.

Related reading: Instagram reveals new, more modern icon and interface

This week I gave a short talk on a paper I love: End-to-End Arguments in System Design

The talk was recorded and uploaded (but not captioned), and you can watch it here: https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/8200-end-to-end-arguments-in-system-design-by-saltzer-reed-and-clark

On Friday I took the ferry to Bowen Island and took this photo by the lake. It was nice to relax and enjoy the view. Bowen Island is a beautiful place and I look forward to returning.

To recap: On Sunday, May 15th, I completed Cycle 17 Week 2. I have Multiple Myeloma and anemia, a rare blood cancer. It is incurable, but treatable. From February to November 2013, I received Velcade chemo through weekly in-hospital injections as an outpatient. Since February 9th 2015, I have been on Pomalyst and dexamethasone chemo treatment (Pom/dex).

Weekly chemo-inspired self-portraits can be viewed in my flickr album.

May 2014: Steveston – Britannia Shipyards

The post Week 66 chemo complete: Hello Bowen Island appeared first on Fade to Play.

mozillamemes:

I dare you; I double dog dare you!

The changes also suggest that parties at a much higher pay scale than Duong's are highly resistant to providing the type of end-to-end encryption that's on by default in messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp.

Very good analysis by Ars Technica. Allo does not make any sense to Google, if they cannot listen to your conversation. Hangouts does not have it, Talk did not have it. And in Allo you have to turn it on each and every time. For Google to do its magic it needs to know what you are talking about.

More >

Christopher Soghoian @csoghoian
Google engineer responsible for end-to-end encryption feature in Allo: I wish it was on by default. vnhacker.blogspot.com/2016/05/securi…

Tom Dale @tomdale
I'm happy publishers are finally worried about mobile web performance but I'm sad it took a technology as patronizing as AMP to do it.

According to Uber, people with dying phone batteries are willing to pay a higher price for its service. Despite possessing this knowledge, the company denies ever capitalizing on it.

An article on Gizmodo refers to the many components on a customer’s phone that Uber has access to your camera, your contacts, your location and even your battery life.

Keith Chen, the head of economic research for Uber, claims that this feature exists to allow the app to go into low power mode, but adds in an episode of NPR’s “The Hidden Brain” podcast that people with dying batteries are willing to pay higher amounts for a ride.

While Chen insisted that the company would never use that information to goad customers into a higher surge price, Uber has come under fire in the past for surge pricing during times of panic.

Chen goes on to describe how customers are willing to pay 9.9x times in surge pricing if their phone batteries are low. The reasoning here is that customers with fully charged phones can afford to wait until the price goes down.

Related reading: Toronto taxi brokerages say they won’t use surge pricing

 

My favourite thing. I got to work for a month on a story about how commuting is changing (or not) in the Lower Mainland.

It was an eye-opener.

I heard a lot of stories about how people make their transit choices with factors I hadn’t thought about. Childcare is key. (Living close to a daycare where you got in or grandparents is like a life-or-death thing.)

Having a bus route that you relied on get altered means choosing a car over transit. Having a great transit option is the best part of some people’s days. And, for some, the chance to live in a place close to nature seemed to compensate for the most horrible commutes imaginable.

Then there are the big factors. Like what is going to happen to millennials as they abandon the craft breweries for marriage and kids.

And the nerd factors. Like, what do local planners look at to try to figure out how to tip a few more people in the region into taking transit.

I won’t rewrite all 4,000 words here. Instead, here’s the link to my BCBusiness story, which I guarantee will make you think twice about how commuting works in this city.