Rolandt

A challenge question for PT readers:

How should we start to limit congestion before it becomes unacceptable?

There’s a real-life experiment unfolding on our streets – one that will fundamentally affect our future – discussed here in “Our Real World Experiment in Traffic Congestion. “

As people switch from transit to cars, it won’t take much to fill up available road space.  It may only take a 10-15 percent to reach a level of inefficiency and frustration where we reverse the gains we’ve made in this region, notably with transit, in the last half century.   Without response, something has to break, even if we don’t yet know what that level is.  Waiting until we get to a breaking point seems kinda stupid knowing how much more difficult it is to reverse something if instead we can limit it before it happens.

Knowing we will have to slow, stop and reverse a move to post-Covid motordom worse than pre-March, what steps should we take now?

I say we should start by treating congestion the way we do the weather: agree on what we will measure and how we will do it continually and consistently. Produce really slick graphics to make it understandable, provide regular reports – especially forecasts – and give names to the ugly stuff.

Engineers and planners know we measure what matters, and they are good at doing it scientifically.  But that’s not enough.  Every day we have to tell the ongoing story of our changing transportation patterns at this pandemic-shaping time.  It’s essential if citizens and leaders are willing to go along with drastic actions – just as we have learned from the way we measure, report and proscribe our response to the virus itself.

Here’s an action plan:

(1) Choose key points to measure how fast congestion is emerging – most likely the bridges, but also locations along suburban and exurban roads – and display with graphics similar to weather reports.

(2) Report on these measures as they’re happening – hourly if not in real time. and provide forecasts as we do with weather, air quality, even Covid-19. Use highway signs, as with variable speed limits, to inform drivers on the road.  After all, Google already gives us real-time indicators of congestion.

This is not a substitute for the A-F classification system, based on a false premise that anything less than the posted speed limit is a measure of congestion.  This is telling the story of system failure when we depart from the strategies that actually work – notably transit and active transportation design to accommodate growth, not by building more motordom infrastructure that worsens the problem.

Then the most important step:

(3) Set the limits beyond which we do not wish to pass as a social target – the points at which congestion inefficiencies become too much.  Sure, “too much” is subjective, but it won’t take long before people can see the relationship between the reported data and their experiences on the road.  They then need to know at what rate it is going to get worse, and how unfortunate that would be.

We’re more likely to mobilize and respond as a society when we know the nature of the problem, a measure of its reality, and the choices we need to make in response that have and will work.  We’ve already done that, haven’t we, with Covid.  Now we need to do it with the problem created by the changes in the way we move.

What matters more is whether people know how to properly protect themselves from the virus. Fortunately, the prevention steps for both transmission routes are largely the same: keep your distance and wear a mask. Evidence of the importance of masks, in particular, has been mounting, not only because they trap outgoing particles from escaping, which protects others, but also because they block larger incoming particles from getting into a person’s airways, protecting the mask wearer themselves. And even if some viral particles do get through, the viral dose will still be much smaller, so the person will be less likely to get seriously ill.

A clear example of the benefits of masks is a recent outbreak in South Korea, in which one woman at a Starbucks infected 27 other customers — whom officials assume were not wearing masks because they were eating and drinking — but none of the employees, all of whom were masked the entire time.

Aerosol transmission does increase the importance of one additional protective step, which is proper ventilation and air filtration. Airflow, either introducing new air into a room or filtering the existing air, can disperse and dilute any infectious aerosol particles, reducing a person’s potential exposure. Being outdoors is the ultimate ventilation, and for months public health officials have recommended that people socialize outside rather than in. However, with winter and colder temperatures coming, indoor air filtration and adherence to masks will become even more important.

Excellent post about the progress we have made in understanding how the virus spreads. Don't obsess about the things you touch but rather about the air you breathe. With aerosol transmission keeping six feet apart does not protect you.

More >

I love this drop-dead simple screenshot showing the difference between good and bad discussion titles.

(click here if image doesn’t appear)

Unless you want a lot of “help me!” or “urgent problems” or “I’m wondering…”, show members a message like this in places where they are likely to see it.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology that uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in your phone to enable things like Apple Pay and Google Pay. It's very short range - on my Pixel 4 I have to hold the phone right up to the reader and squeeze the sides. These RFID readers are everywhere here in Canada; I haven't had cash in my wallet since March. It never occurred to me that the manufacturer would limit its use to, well, itself, but I didn't count on Apple, which won't allow any other service to use it. According to Bloomberg, the EU is mulling a requirement that would force Apple to open its platform. But Apple is lagging globally; as this report notes, it's not yet available in India. "Samsung and Google do not take a cut on the interchange fees for payments made on their NFC payments apps, but Apple does, and disallows other NFC payment apps on Apple devices." This is why I stay far far away from anything Apple.

An application programming interface (API) allows one computer program to access data from another. It defines how the request is made, what authentication (if any) is required, and the format of the data. This article briefly describes how to build one using a Node.js application called Express. This is essentially server-side Javascript. The data can be accessed by a remote service or even by Javascript running on your web browser. Though the article doesn't mention it, cloud providers are offering API Gateways. These sit in between your API and the open web and offer "features such as rate limiting, authentication and key validation." This is all relevant to be because gRSShopper is based on a set of APIs, which means I (or you!) can redesign the front end anyway we want.

A friend who is a highly effective PR person sent me this note regarding challenges she has with her clients: I wanted to let you know that I’m a daily reader of your blog.  . . .  I have introduced several of my clients and prospective clients to it.  They are learning a lot, especially … Continued

The post How to blog for influence (if you’re not a freak) appeared first on without bullshit.

Mozilla will shut down two of its popular products, Firefox Send and Firefox Notes, as a result of layoffs from earlier this year.

“Both services are being decommissioned and will no longer be a part of our product family,” Mozilla told ZDNet in a statement.

Firefox Send was the more popular of the two services. It was a simple tool that made it easy for people to share files for free. Plus, Send supported encrypted formats, making it popular for people who wanted a secure way to share things online.

Mozilla launched Firefox Send back in March 2019 and it quickly gained a dedicated fan base. Unfortunately, the company took Send offline earlier this year after reports revealed malware groups abused the service. Mozilla initially planned to bring Send back once it found a way to stop the malware issue.

However, that plan changed after Mozilla laid off 250 people in August. The layoffs were an effort to re-focus its business on commercial products while also an attempt to fix some of Mozilla’s revenue issues. The majority of the staff that were supposed to fix Send were included in the layoffs and the ones who remained were reassigned to commercial products like Mozilla VPN and Firefox Monitor.

Firefox Notes to shut down on November 1st

ZDNet notes that many of the same reasons apply to the shutdown of Firefox Notes, which will happen on November 1st. Mozilla created the software to save and sync encrypted notes between Firefox browsers. It was available as an Android app and browser extension.

Mozilla told ZDNet that it would decommission the Android Notes app and syncing service in late October.

“The Firefox Notes desktop browser extension will remain available for existing installs and we will include an option to export all notes, however it will no longer be maintained by Mozilla and will no longer be installable,” a Mozilla spokesperson told ZDNet.

Those who want to save their notes can follow the steps from this Mozilla support page to export the data.

Of the two, I would argue that Send is the greater loss. There are plenty of notes apps available and I’m not sure that Firefox Notes did enough to truly differentiate itself from competitors. Firefox Send, on the other hand, was a fairly novel idea and a great way to quickly and securely share files with other people online. While other solutions do exist, I can’t think of any that boasted the same simplicity as Send.

Source: Mozilla Via: ZDNet

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Mozilla is asking YouTubers to participate in a research program that will turn viewers into watchdogs and hopefully shed some light on the streaming video website’s problematic recommendation algorithm.

In a blog post, Mozilla — the company behind the Firefox browser — points out that the artificial intelligence (AI) that powers YouTube’s recommendation system is one of the “most powerful curators on the internet.” Mozilla says YouTube is the second-most visited website in the world, and cites a CNET article that notes the recommendation engine drives 70 percent of total viewing time.

Mozilla also points out that YouTube is known to recommend conspiracy theories, misinformation and other harmful content, even to people who haven’t viewed that content before. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, upcoming U.S. election, global warming, environmental devastation and myriad other looming or ongoing catastrophes, YouTube arguably has the power to shape and distort public opinion on all these things.

Although YouTube says it made progress on issues with its recommendation engine and reduced harmful recommendations by 70 percent, Mozilla thinks more can be done. The company launched a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome (and theoretically it should work on other Chromium-based browsers like the new Edge) called the ‘RegretsReporter.’ The company says people can use the extension to donate their recommendation data.

Mozilla plans to use the data gathered from the extension to understand what YouTube is recommending and gain insight on how to make recommendation engines more trustworthy. Further, the company says it will leverage the date to uncover things like what type of recommended videos lead to racist, violent or conspiratorial content, if there are patterns in frequency or severity of harmful content and specific YouTube usage patterns that lead to harmful content recommendations.

Additionally, Mozilla says it will share the findings publicly in true “open-source fashion.” It hopes YouTube and others will use the information to improve recommendation engines.

RegretsReporter collects data, which may bring privacy concerns

Mozilla explained that the extension automatically sends data about how much time people spend on YouTube, but doesn’t collect information about what users watch or search for. However, users can choose to submit a report — Mozilla calls it a YouTube Regret — with details about the video someone watched and how they arrived at the video.

The extension doesn’t gather data when users browse in private mode.

The company says it links collected data to a randomly generated user ID and not a YouTube account. Further, Mozilla says only it will have access to the raw data. Any data Mozilla shares will be done in a way that minimizes the risk of identifying users.

Finally, Mozilla asks users not to modify their YouTube behaviour or seek out regrettable content. Instead, participants should use YouTube as normal to help provide the best data picture of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.

Those interested in learning more should check out Mozilla’s blog with all the details about RegretsReporter.

Image credit: Mozilla

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This is a reflection after hundreds of hours of Zoom sessions, and I'm on board with most of the recommendations. The idea of a 'panic' button is especially good. It would stop all video, chat and screen sharing in its tracks. A better way to share video is also a good idea (though I can't imagine YouTube cooperating with Zoom to make this possible). I'm not a fan, though, of handing over control of the layout of the screen to the instructor. I hated it when they did this with Adobe Connect. If you want to control the presentation, just share a video. Otherwise, keep the space interactive, and let people control their own experience. More: feature requests on Zoom. Image: Republicworld.

From snowy slopes to churning whitewater, if you want a camera that can go anywhere and record amazing video, an action camera is the best option. For any activity, you can get great-looking photos and videos that you can share with family, friends, and the world.

The GoPro Hero13 Black is the model we recommend. It’s easy to use, it produces some of the best video quality we’ve ever seen from an action camera, and it has ridiculously effective image stabilization. The app is great, too.

iOS 14 finally offered iPhone users the freedom to change their default web browser and mail app, but it seems that freedom may be short-lived.

9to5Mac discovered that the defaults reset to Apple’s apps when users restart their iPhone, making the change a temporary one. For example, if you change your default browser from Safari to Chrome, then turn off your iPhone, Safari will be back to default next time you turn it on. The same is true with Apple Mail and other email apps.

The Verge confirmed the behaviour, and I also replicated the behaviour on an iPhone XS running iOS 14. Although it’s not immediate clear why this happens, it’s most likely a bug with the new default app feature. If it is intended behaviour, it doesn’t look good for Apple, which currently faces greater levels of antitrust scrutiny.

There is, thankfully, a small workaround for email apps. Apple allows you to delete the Apple Mail app from your iPhone or iPad. If you do so, and also use an email app that supports the new default app behaviour, iOS sets that app as the default email app automatically. If you reboot your iPhone often, delete the Mail app so iOS doesn’t change your default setting. You can do that by pressing and holding on the Apple Mail app and tapping ‘Delete app.’

Unfortunately, that quick fix doesn’t work for the browser, since Apple doesn’t let you delete Safari. Still, if you don’t reboot your iPhone, iOS won’t mess with your defaults.

Hopefully Apple fixes the bug soon. I’d expect to see an iOS 14.0.1 update in the near future with bug fixes like this and for any other weird quirks or issues with iOS 14.

Source: 9to5Mac Via: The Verge

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I spent nearly two months this summer living in a bubble within a bubble.

The New York Times sent me to Walt Disney World in July, but not for a vacation. I was The Times’s first of two representatives in the media corner of the NBA bubble, assigned to cover everything happening on the league’s restricted-access, highly surveilled Disney campus, where 22 teams were summoned to play out the rest of the 2019–20 season for up to three months. The league’s goal was twofold: It wanted to crown a champion, as it had in each of the NBA’s first 73 seasons, but it also wanted to keep the coronavirus from infiltrating this first-of-its-kind village and forcing a permanent cancellation of its 74th season. As such, in the name of safety, rules kept reporters to a 1-square-mile section of the broader bubble, which housed hundreds of players in three off-limits team hotels.

It’s a secret to everyone! This post is for RSS subscribers only. Read more about RSS Club.

Every once in awhile the idea of “funemployment” pops into my brain. I’m not considering it, I’m thankful to have work in this economy, but after 13 straight years of running my own company I sometimes let my mind wander. It starts looking like this:

• The first week would for sure be coming up with some dumb side project
• The next week would be going through my 1Password, updating all my passwords and closing old accounts
• Two weeks for clearing out my terrible inbox
• I probably need to get fit too, walks, yoga, bike rides, swimming
• I’d start making a video game
• I’d play too many video games
• I’d need a month or two for learning algorithms in case I ever got a whiteboard interview
• I’d start rewriting my new side projects, but with algorithms!
• I’d spend a few days making an over-elaborate Notion system for keeping track of job leads
• I’d probably try reboot my Twitch stream and come to grips with being an old man on an app for teens
• If the virus ever gets better, I’d try to be one of those threatening vagabonds that goes to coffeeshops just with no work. They just sit there and look at people. Maybe just a book. Or worse: having an open-ended chat.
• There’s also those dozens and dozens of TV shows and movies on my watchlist and I’m sure I’d be a better person if I watched them

Ugh. I already feel overwhelmed. It’s certainly not “fun” losing a job, especially when you’re older. There’s a lot of inherent ageism in our industry and it frightens me. If I had to guess it’s because older people are generally more expensive, have house payments, require healthcare, aren’t as adventurous with technology, are more conservative in their estimates, and won’t stay up past midnight working on your dumb ideas. And from what I’ve seen second hand, there’s another downside in that being senior means longer interview processes, less clear job definitions, and bigger disappointments. It makes me thankful for the work I have and I wish I could cast a magic spell for my friends.

The ageism highlights the exploitation of younger people as much as it does the disenfranchisement of older people. Literally, there are billionaires out there who want to drain the blood out of young men. If you got extra blood, go ahead and sell it I guess. Me though, I’m trying to keep all the blood in my body to power my old brain. Keep that going and maybe I’ll be able to finally learn those algorithms everyone keeps talking about.

As Mozilla tightens and refines its product focus in 2020, today we are announcing the end of life for two legacy services that grew out of the Firefox Test Pilot program: Firefox Send and Firefox Notes. Both services are being decommissioned and will no longer be a part of our product family. Details and timelines are discussed below.

Firefox Send was a promising tool for encrypted file sharing. Send garnered good reach, a loyal audience, and real signs of value throughout its life.  Unfortunately, some abusive users were beginning to use Send to ship malware and conduct spear phishing attacks. This summer we took Firefox Send offline to address this challenge.

In the intervening period, as we weighed the cost of our overall portfolio and strategic focus, we made the decision not to relaunch the service. Because the service is already offline, no major changes in status are expected. You can read more here.

Firefox Notes was initially developed to experiment with new methods of encrypted data syncing. Having served that purpose, we kept the product as a little utility tool For Firefox and Android users. In early November, we will decommission the Android Notes app and syncing service. The Firefox Notes desktop browser extension will remain available for existing installs and we will include an option to export all notes, however it will no longer be maintained by Mozilla and will no longer be installable. You can learn more about how to export your notes here.

Thank you for your patience as we’ve refined our product strategy and portfolio over the course of 2020. While saying goodbye is never easy, this decision allows us to sharpen our focus on experiences like Mozilla VPN, Firefox Monitor, and Firefox Private Network.

The post Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

While I’ve always liked the Apple Watch, $529 CAD for the Series 6 is a lot to ask for a device that isn’t entirely integral to most people’s lives.

That’s why I often find myself recommending Fitbit’s Versa series of smartwatches to friends and family looking for a wearable capable of sending them notifications and performing basic fitness tracking. This seems to be the role Apple aims the Apple Watch SE to fill for iPhone users.

Effectively replacing the Series 3 — though the Series 3 is still available in the Apple Store right now for $259 — the Apple Watch SE offers a mix of most of the Series 4’s and Series 5’s best features.

First off, the Apple Watch SE includes the same S5 processor as the Series 4 and 5, giving it ample power for both Apple’s own apps and third-party applications. This also makes the Apple Watch SE two times faster than the Series 3, which is an impressive hardware boost.

It includes the same OLED display with minimized bezels as the Series 4, and while I didn’t find it quite as bright as the Series 6’s always-on retina display, it’s still easily visible under direct sunlight. Further, the SE features the same altimeter as the Series 6, works with all Watch Bands, includes safety features like fall detection and emergency calling, includes heart low/high heart rate notifications and has the same fitness functionality.

The SE offers nearly everything I actually use with the Apple Watch except for one crucial feature: the always-on display. For me, the Series 5’s always-on display was an absolute game changer and felt like a monumental leap over previous versions of the Apple Watch.

For the first time, I had notifications truly available on my wrist at-a-glance. In a way, the Series 5 finally fulfilled the original Apple Watch’s initial promise.

Unfortunately, the Apple Watch SE includes a display that turns off when idle and lights up when you lift your wrist, just like the Series 3 and Series 4. It also doesn’t feature other, more recent health additions like the Series 4 and 5’s ECG and the Series 6’s new blood oxygen level detection.

The latter two features I don’t miss at all, especially given the SE’s lower price tag, but the always-on display could end up being a deal-breaker for me. My other issue with the Apple Watch SE is its price tag feels a little steep in Canada. While the $279 U.S. cost is perfect, $369 for the SE in Canada is a little steep for it to truly feel entry-level, especially when compared to $179 Fitbit Versa 2 and the recently revealed $229 Versa 3.

That being said, the SE’s raise-to-wake feature is responsive and works quickly. The smartwatch could potentially find an audience of children and older people that aren’t interested in the always-on display featured in Apple’s higher-end smartwatches, but that remains to be seen.

MobileSyrup will have more on the Apple Watch SE in the coming weeks.

The Apple Watch SE is available in ‘Gold,’ ‘Silver,’ and ‘Space Grey’ starting at $369.

For more on Apple’s fall hardware event, check out my early impressions of the iPad (2020) and Apple Watch Series 6.

The post Apple Watch SE is almost the perfect entry-level smartwatch appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Array programming with NumPy - the NumPy paper

The NumPy paper is out, published in Nature. I found this enlightening: for an academic paper it's very understandable, and it filled in quite a few gaps in my mental model of what NumPy is and which problems it addresses, as well as its relationship to the many other tools in the scientific Python stack.

Via @numpy_team

My Kia Soul EV needed a software upgrade, a recall that automatically applies the parking brake when the car is shifted into “park.”

My last parking brake-related automobile repair was that time in the early 1990s when Catherine handcrafted a lovely silver “Y” bracket for our aging Nissan Sentra wagon at her jewellers bench.

My how things have changed.

This left me with an hour to kill uptown.

Killing hours is harder during COVID: after being laughed away from the burger truck across the street when I asked what they had for vegetarians (nothing), I convinced myself that it was okay to hang out in Tim Hortons, at least until a choir arrived. So I hunkered down for a grilled cheese sandwich. And was never less than 20 feet from anyone else.

The Soul was ready in 45 minutes and, as promised, there’s no longer a need for me to manually apply the parking brake (it’s going to take a while for my muscle memory to forget that action).

Discover Kia is about to open a brand new showroom and service department on the old Reliable Motors property on Allen Street, moving them into my neighbourhood, give or take, and an easy walk after a service drop-off.

As LinkedIn has sold Slideshare to Scribd (Slideshare’s more evil twin), and the practical handover happening on September 24th, I am preparing to close down my Slideshare account. As part of that I’m downloading my material on Slideshare. The first step is getting a CSV file from them that lists all the download URLs for my slides. It also provides some statistics with those download links, so for archiving purposes I’m adding some of those stats here.

My usage of Slideshare was always intended for two things: 1) have a way to embed my presentations in my blog and for others to view them, 2) have a place that can store those files, 3) allows others to download those files. Those last two reasons were way more of an issue to solve when I started using Slideshare in 2006. Hosting packages back then were generally too small to also host presentations, both in terms of bandwidth and storage. The first reason still is an issue: having a decent viewer to show these files on a website.

My first Slideshare was in December 2006, my last November 2019, so thirteen years exactly. I uploaded 132 presentations so about 10 per year on average, but in reality it was much less spread out:

The peak years were 2008 through 2013, which coincide with becoming self-employed and doing a lot of awareness raising for open data. From 2014 most of my presentations were for my company, and I posted much less under my own account. (I also will need to download the material from my company’s accounts before the 24th as well).

My 2 most downloaded presentations form an interesting combination:

• My 2008 presentation at Reboot in Copenhagen (332), that I remember very much (and that I recently converted into Notions)
• A 2010 presentation on FabLabs (259) that I gave to an engineering company (says the description) for an internal workshop, but I have no immediate recollection of doing that. (Checking my 2010 calendar just now I do remember, seeing the client’s name)

The total views for my 132 presentations were 292708 (2217 on average)
The three most viewed presentations were:

• My 2010 Lift Marseille, France, talk about FabLabs, 11338 views
• My 2010 brief remarks on private sector open data during Open Data Week in Nantes, France, 8242 views
• My talk at PolitCamp Graz, Austria in 2008, the event where I got interested in open data, but this one was about social media use w.r.t. political communication, 8009 views

The three presentations that were mostly viewed in embeds were:

• My 2010 Lift Marseille, France, talk about FabLabs again, 7157 views in embeds, or about half of total views
• My 2013 opening keynote for a software company’s European customer event, 3285 embed views
• My 2012 workshop on open data as policy instrument, at the Dutch national open data conference, 3055 embed views

Given that Slideshare for me was about allowing downloads, and providing embeds, let’s look at those totals. Thirteen years with 132 uploaded presentations come out at 2286 downloads and 51633 embedded views. It’s not nothing obviously, but one can wonder if it is something worthwile enough to allow thirteen years of third party tracking.

SHARE’s analysis shows fossil fuel companies across the sector participated in lobbying activities out of alignment with Paris Agreement climate goals.

September 16, 2020 –  The latest research from SHARE finds Canadian oil and gas companies are continuing to lobby for weaker climate regulations in the interest of short-term profits, while providing inadequate disclosure to investors.

The report Climate Lobbying in the Canadian Energy Sector: Investor Benchmark of Oversight and Disclosure analyzed 22 companies listed in the S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index (TTEN) on their climate lobbying disclosure and found that all have participated in lobbying activities, while none have disclosed their overall spending.

Because investors cannot protect their portfolios from the systemic nature of the climate crisis, they must rely on effective climate policy and regulation to mitigate those risks across the economy,” said SHARE CEO Kevin Thomas.

Even after the Canadian government adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015, parts of the Canadian oil & gas industry have actively lobbied policymakers to block, delay and weaken federal and provincial attempts to transition towards a low-carbon economy. 

“A failure to reach the Paris Agreement’s climate goals will result in massive costs that will ultimately be borne by investors and society as a whole,” said Sarah Couturier-Tanoh, Senior Shareholder Engagement and Policy Analyst at SHARE. “The millions of dollars spent on lobbying have delayed or undermined climate regulation, even though many oil and gas firms have publicly stated their commitment to tackling climate issues.”

The report identifies opportunities for investors to improve their due diligence of corporate lobbying and to engage with investee companies. It also provides companies with a reporting framework and points to better industry practice in Canada to help them improve their climate lobbying disclosure over time.

Read the full report here: https://share.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SHARE_climate_lobbying_3-1.pdf

About SHARE (Shareholder Association for Research & Education)

SHARE mobilizes investor leadership for a sustainable, inclusive and productive economy. We do this by mobilizing our investor network and amplifying their voices in support of improved corporate sustainability practices and better rules and regulations that govern capital markets.

For more information on SHARE, visit: www.share.ca

The above is copied from a Press Release of unusually appropriate content. I am not sure I agree about being unable to protect your portfolio. Divestment from fossil fuel corporations seems a good place to start. Then looking for promising opportunities in renewables will probably enhance investment performance. Big fossil is not doing very well right now so it is both an ethical and profitable approach to dump your holdings in those 22 companies and get something better oriented to the future.

The Ontario government has launched an online interactive COVID-19 screening tool for parents, students and teachers.

The tool is designed to help students and employees determine if they should go into school. Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the launch of the tool during a press briefing.

“It’s free, voluntary and easy to use. Please use this tool to help with screening your child for symptoms before they go to school everyday. Teachers and school staff should also use this tool to screen themselves before they come to school,” Ford said.

Since the government has asked parents to screen their children each morning before sending them to school, this tool is meant to make it easier to decide if they should attend school.

Students have the option to print off their assessment result and show it to their teacher or another school employee.

“Using this tool is optional and is not tracked or enforced. If your school board or public health unit has another screening process, you can use that instead,” the government notes.

The tool asks if you’re currently experiencing any symptoms, if you’ve travelled outside of Canada in the last 14 days, if you’ve tested positive for COVID-19, if you’ve been close to someone who has tested positive, and if you’ve been asked by a healthcare provider to stay at home.

Once the assessment is complete, you’ll either be led to a green screen that says “Go to school” or a red one that reads “Do not go to school.”

The tool will tell that “you can go to school because you seem to be healthy and have not been exposed to COVID-19,” if you’ve been deemed safe to return.

If you’re advised to not go to school, the tool tells you to contact the school and let them know about this result. You’re then asked to stay home and visit an assessment centre to get tested or talk to a healthcare provider.

You can access the tool here. 

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Has not changed one bit. I don't want to hunt for information, so everything stays where it has been a long time.

There was a time, not that long ago, when advertisers could reach just about everyone pretty easily. All it took was a lot of money and a simple media buy on a handful of TV, radio, and print outlets. Back then, harnessing the power of mass media was not a guarantee of success, but it was almost always a key component.

It helped create enormous brands like McDonald's, Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Apple, Ford, Chevy, AT&T, Tide, Crest, Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, Toyota, Tylenol, Kleenex, Budweiser... OK, I'll stop.

Things are a lot more complicated these days. Media has fractionalized into much smaller entities while media consumption has increased significantly. It is not nearly as easy as it once was to reach mass audiences. While you once only had to choose among 3 or 4 video (TV) options, today you have hundreds. While you once had a few dozen print options to analyze, today there are literally millions of websites serving a similar function. A media strategist's job is far more daunting.

One of the results of this change in media reality has been a change in media strategy. Whereas brand builders once believed that wide reach was essential to building a dominant brand, this belief has gone out of fashion. It has been replaced by the belief that the most effective use of media is one-to-one, personalized messages.

I would like to offer, for your consideration, an alternative point of view.

It is beyond question that it is much harder for brand builders to reach mass audiences these days. But I would like to question the presumption that because reaching mass audiences has become more difficult, pivoting to a personalized, one-to-one media strategy is the correct response.

In other words, have we recognized the disease but prescribed the wrong medication? The fact that online media technology now allows us to tailor messages to individuals, doesn't necessarily mean it's a better idea. The fact that it's more convenient doesn't necessarily make it more suited to the job of building brands.

And the fact that mass reach is much harder to achieve does not mean that it is a bad strategy. It just means that it takes more work and perhaps it takes a more sophisticated strategy - and more sophisticated strategists - to execute properly.

Sadly, we have taken media strategy in the opposite direction. Despite the extraordinary complexity of the digital media ecosystem we have substantially tethered our media strategists to the most crude and unsophisticated aspirations -- high click rates and low CPMs. You can sit in media meetings for months listening to highfalutin' jargon, you can suffer endless data analyses, you can scrutinize this-ographics and that-ographics, but in the end when the reports come in and the chips are on the table, most likely it's going to come down to the crudest, least sophisticated and least challenging of outcomes -- clicks and CPMs.

This is evidence that the principles of brand building have been subsumed by the practices of the direct marketing industry.

The fact that brands that were built in advertising's era of wide reach like the aforementioned  McDonald's, Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Apple, Ford, Chevy, AT&T, Tide, Crest, Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, Toyota, Tylenol, Kleenex, Budweiser...still dominate their categories a couple of decades after digital personalization became a "thing," ought to at least give us pause to consider that perhaps we have misdiagnosed the situation. 

There is also evidence outside advertising that mass reach is an essential ingredient to brand dominance. Newer mega-brands like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Tesla, who were launched without huge advertising budgets, have profited from widespread media attention. They've achieved wide public recognition through PR, news stories worth billions, the shenanigans of ceo's, and the actions of investors and business commentators. Although not necessarily tied to advertising, their successes are also evidence of the power of mass attention in media.

One of the key ingredients in creating a dominant brand is fame. As I suggested in Advertising For Skeptics...

"There are several ways for brands to achieve fame. Some do it by being clearly superior and generating exceptional word of mouth. This is obviously the best way to become famous. Some get lucky. They’re good copy. In their formative years these brands spent very little on marketing but (it was) hard to open the business section without finding references to them.

Others become famous through imaginative PR initiatives, clever stunts, the charismatic personalities of their leaders, or a combination of these things. There are many ways to achieve fame. Sadly, positive word of mouth is wonderful, but rarely manageable. The likelihood of the press falling in love with you is one tick above zero. Imaginative PR is invaluable but very hard to come by. And charismatic leaders are one in a thousand and, let’s be honest, usually assholes. The most expensive way to become famous is through advertising. It is the most expensive, but also the most reliable. It is the only avenue to fame that you can buy your way into."

It may be that mass reach is still the key to building a dominant brand, but we need more sophisticated marketers and more sophisticated media strategists to show us how to achieve wide reach economically in an era of media fragmentation. 

What we have a hard time finding are huge dominant brands who have achieved their stature through one-to-one, personalized media. 

Instead of giving up on mass media because it is expensive and difficult to achieve, and defaulting to a problematic and largely unproven theory of personalized media, perhaps we need some smart people to create a better model of what mass reach in the modern advertising world looks like.

The essence of building a dominant brand has not changed -- because human nature has not changed. We are still far more likely to purchase products we are familiar with and we believe are socially acceptable. 

To those who think narrowly-focused, targeted media are more powerful than mass reach in building dominant brands, I would continue to pose this question: Do you think Donald Trump would be president if The Apprentice had been a webinar?

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Smart lighting is our favorite element to start with when creating a smart home. It’s the one area where you’ll notice an instant upgrade, and yet smart lighting is relatively simple to install and control. But what we really love about smart lighting is how easily it can transform your living space, regardless of your budget or skill level.

Heute morgen schrieb ich:

Mit jedem WatchOS Update verliere ich "Auszeichnungen", die ich früher erworben habe. Neulich habe ich erst berichtet, dass ich seit 25 Monaten eine lückenlose Historie aller Herausforderungen hatte. Das ist vorbei. Apple hat wieder mal eine ganze Reihe vergessen. Nun sieht das so aus:

Einen guten halben Tag später hat Apple die meisten Awards wieder vervollständigt.

Schwein gehabt. Gamification funktioniert nur so lange, wie sie funktioniert.

Ich bleibe aber dabei: Diese Truppe muss mal den Code aufräumen statt immer neue Sachen hinten dran zu stricken. Die Rechen- und Anzeigefehler bei den Challenges sind Legion. Und wenn man nicht so gleichmäßig performt wie ich, meistens auch nicht zu schaffen.

There’s an app for everything these days. But until now, the primary way to discover and try all those apps has stayed the same: visiting the App Store. In iOS 14 that’s changing in a significant way. No, you won’t be able to install apps from a third-party store like some companies are asking for, but apps are moving beyond the App Store in a different way thanks to App Clips.

App Clips are small pieces of apps designed to be discovered not in a digital store, but in real-world environments through NFC tags and QR codes. You can find and use App Clips in other places too, like Safari, but the real-world, on-the-go discovery methods are the most intriguing aspect here because of the convenience they promise.

We’ve likely all found ourselves in a situation where we need an app for a specific one-time use, but may or may not need the app again after that. One example when visiting somewhere new is the transaction of paying for parking. Without an App Clip, such a circumstance would mean searching for and downloading an app, then creating an account within the app, and entering your payment details all for the sake of completing this single, far-too-painful transaction. An App Clip would be perfect for that situation, as you could simply hold your iPhone up to an NFC tag, use Apple Pay to pay your parking toll, and be done. These kind of on-the-go situations are where App Clips really shine.

In Apple’s ideal world, you might find an App Clip at every table inside a restaurant, which would enable self-ordering and self-payment. Museums would offer App Clips at prime exhibitions to help visitors engage in a new way with different artifacts. Bikes and scooters could be rented with a single tap of an NFC tag. Stores would use App Clips to offer quick access to online product listings so in-store shoppers could read reviews before they buy. Historic parks and other public spaces would employ App Clips for detailing the significance of a given monument or location. And more – Apple hopes adoption of App Clips will span not only examples like these, but all sorts of other creative uses the company hasn’t yet imagined.

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App Clips will start arriving today with iOS 14’s debut. Here’s what to expect from them, and why they’re such a potentially transformative technology.

The Basics

First, let me explain how App Clips work.

Behind the scenes every App Clip, no matter how you access it, is invoked via a URL. That URL loads a card that describes exactly what the App Clip will do if you use it and provides the option of opening it. App Clips must be less than 10MB so that whenever you tap that Open button the experience of loading the App Clip should feel immediate.

Paying for parking with an App Clip.

As I mentioned, there are a variety of ways to access App Clips. You can find them through:

• Scanning NFC tags or QR codes out in the wild.
• Apple Maps listings, where App Clip buttons will live next to the blue Directions button for a location, offering for example a quick way to place a mobile order at a restaurant before you head there.
• Safari smart banners, like the banners that advertise a website’s app but linked to an App Clip instead.
• Links sent to you through Messages, perhaps because an app employed App Clips rather than standard URLs for when users share content.

Apple is also developing a proprietary physical tag called an App Clip Code, but it won’t be available until after the initial iOS 14 launch. App Clip Codes can either be tapped or scanned, combining the benefits of both NFC and QR. They also carry a distinct design, such that if you see an App Clip Code you’ll know there’s an App Clip available to access there; standard NFC tags or QR codes, on the other hand, need additional verbiage explaining they contain App Clips otherwise users wouldn’t know until they tried them.

The new App Clip Code that Apple will make available to businesses and developers later this year.

Scooter bearing an App Clip Code.

App Clips can only be created by developers who have a full app already, because they’re essentially mini-versions of that app that have been stripped down to include a limited set of functionality – though developers can still tap into the normal range of tools available when building full apps, and system options like Apple Pay and Sign In with Apple are encouraged where appropriate. The basic concept is to provide an experience tailored to the exact needs of a user at a given moment.

To explore this design ethos in practice, let’s use the Starbucks app as an example.

App Clip Design

Starbucks’ app offers five different navigation tabs – Home, Scan, Order, Gift, and Offers – each of which contain a lot of functionality. That’s great for someone who’s well-versed using the full app, but throwing all those options in front of someone unfamiliar with the app wouldn’t be a good experience when they’re on-the-go and ready for coffee. Starbucks might want to create an App Clip that takes just the Order tab and strips it down to just the options that need to be there.

A portion of Starbucks’ Order tab would make a perfect App Clip.

Ideally, such an App Clip would be accessed via an NFC tag or QR code inside a given Starbucks location. If the App Clip is configured specifically for that location, there’s no need for users to then choose a pickup location for their order – if you interact with a physical tag in a specific location, you obviously want to order there. The App Clip wouldn’t need a Favorites section anymore either, since favoriting is better suited for the full app than a one-time transaction; the Previous section should be dropped for the same reason. All that would leave you with in the App Clip is featured items and a way to search and browse the full menu. These things could fit on a single screen and offer a simple, streamlined way for people on-the-go to place an order. After selecting their favorite drink and/or pastry, the user could pay using Apple Pay, and the entire transaction would be over in a matter of seconds. The App Clip could then present the option of downloading the full Starbucks app, telling the user they can earn rewards if they do so.

Apple wants developers to walk through this exact kind of thought experiment when it comes to building App Clips, considering use cases and drilling down to the bare minimum functionality needed for a given task. Everything extraneous has to go. App Clips’ 10 MB limit isn’t just for speedy downloads, it also serves a second purpose of forcing developers to thoughtfully and intentionally streamline the user experience.

I’ve tested App Clips that enable quickly logging water intake (WaterMinder), performing a breathing exercise (Unwind), and more. None that I’ve tried are designed for the on-the-go scenarios I’ve outlined, but they nonetheless demonstrate the principles of being lightweight and singularly-focused, and show the potential of such App Clips for aiding app adoption. ChibiStudio has an App Clip in beta, for example, that enables users to create their own chibi without needing to download the full app, eliminating a key barrier to entry. If that user enjoys the experience, they’re likely to download the full app afterward – something that can be done from ChibiStudio’s App Clip with a single tap after sharing or saving your chibi.

ChibiStudio’s App Clip lets you build and share your chibi (left) then provides the option of downloading the full app (right).

Even though ChibiStudio isn’t the type of app I expect to encounter an App Clip for out in the real world, it’s a great example of how App Clips can also function as a way to sample an app. From a developer’s standpoint, that’s really the main purpose of App Clips that are accessed via Safari or Messages – they offer users a chance to discover your app in a new way, with minimal commitment necessary. The hope is then that users download your full app and become a loyal customer.

With this perspective in mind, I’m surprised Apple didn’t integrate App Clips into the App Store and bill them as samples. Similar to how you can download free samples of titles in Apple Books, then purchase the full title in a seamless process, App Clips could provide a nice taste of whether an app is for you or not. Getting to experience an app’s core functionality and UI with no annoying account creation or login screens in your way would be great. I’ll be interested to see if Apple moves this direction in the future.

Etsy (right) is an example of an App Clip designed for sharing.

Miscellany

There are a variety of other interesting details about App Clips worth noting.

Notification privileges. App Clips can send notifications for up to eight hours after you opened them without needing to request permission. Such notifications could let you know your to-go order is ready at a restaurant, or that your parking time is nearly up. If an App Clip needs to send a notification further than eight hours out, it can request permission to notify for up to a week. This extended permission might be useful for airport parking garages, for example.

System requirements. All iPhones running iOS 14 will support App Clips, but the experience with NFC tags will vary based on the model in use. Newer devices, like the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, XS, XS Max, and XR, can read NFC tags automatically. With the iPhone X, 8, 8 Plus, 7, and 7 Plus, users will first need to turn on NFC scan mode from Control Center before NFC interactions will work. Apple’s documentation isn’t clear on where the iPhone SE stands.

Frequent use. Normally an App Clip is intended for a single transaction at the time of use, so iOS takes care of clearing its data from your device some time after you use it. If you use the App Clip regularly though, and don’t download the full app, iOS will learn to keep the App Clip saved on-device and may even start suggesting it in the Siri Suggestions found in Search and the new widget.

The new Siri Suggestions widget featuring a frequently used Panera App Clip.

App Clip unnecessary. If you find yourself in a situation where you access an App Clip, perhaps via an NFC tag, and that App Clip’s full app is already installed on your device, tapping the Open button will open the full app rather than the App Clip. If everything works right, you should be taken to the part of the app on which the App Clip is based, offering the exact functionality you were looking for despite being in the full app.

When iOS 14 releases today, many of its features will be immediately available to all users. Widgets will be brand new and able to live on the Home screen, iPhones will be able to do Picture in Picture video for the first time, and there will be lots of updates to built-in apps across the system. Many third-party apps will be ready with new widgets and support of fresh iPad app designs. On day one we’ll start getting a sense of which new features are a hit with the masses and which fall a little flat. App Clips, however, will take significantly more time to measure because their success or failure depends on physical businesses’ adoption.

The number of businesses that create App Clips and feature them in physical locations is anyone’s guess. App Clip Codes not being available until later this year is unfortunate since they provide the best experience for users, so hopefully Apple can get them into businesses’ hands soon. But in any case, it may be quite a while before the average user encounters an App Clip out in the world.

If App Clips do take off, they should serve as a seamless way to complement physical experiences with digital convenience. And who knows? Maybe in a couple years we’ll have AR glasses to make discovering and interacting with App Clips even easier.

App Clips are a bold play for the future, but we’ll have to wait a while yet to learn their fate. Will they become ubiquitous, or end up a failed experiment? Only time will tell.

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Though it only appeared briefly on a slide related to the Apple Watch Series 6 during the keynote, the tech giant’s new smartwatch is the first wearable from the company to feature its U1 Ultra Wideband (UWB) chip.

The U1 chip first appeared in last year’s iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, but as of right now, the U1 is only used for increased location accuracy with AirDrop, and with iOS 14’s new Car Key feature allowing drivers to replace physical keys with their iPhone or Apple Watch using NFC.

That said, it’s believed Apple has plans to utilize the U1 chip’s spatial awareness with the company’s often-rumoured AirTags tracking device.

It’s worth noting the lower-cost Apple Watch SE doesn’t feature an Ultra Wideband chip, and neither does the new iPad or iPad Air. Strangely, even the recently released iPad Pro (2020), iPhone SE (2020), MacBook Pro (2020) and MacBook Air (2020) don’t feature a UWB chip. It’s unclear why Apple is selective when it comes to implementing the technology in its devices.

In theory, the UWB chip would allow the precise location of the AirTags to be detected, even offline. The technology is also far more accurate than Bluetooth LE or Wi-Fi. Apple’s Tile-like Bluetooth tracking device is rumoured to be a small tag that can be attached to objects like a backpack or pair of headphones in order to track it using Apple’s ‘Find My’ network.

While some rumours pointed to the AirTags finally being revealed during Apple’s first fall hardware event on September 16th, that didn’t turn out to be accurate. It’s possible the AirTags could still appear at the rumoured upcoming October iPhone 12 keynote.

The post Apple Watch Series 6 features spatial awareness U1 Ultra Wideband chip appeared first on MobileSyrup.

It’s hard to concentrate right now. If you are working at home (as I have been for the last five years), you may have to deal with noise from neighbors, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and people cutting down trees. You may have children at home who need attention. You may have others in the house … Continued

The post Time to concentrate appeared first on without bullshit.

Microsoft is reportedly set to refresh its ARM-powered Surface Pro X in the fall.

According to Windows Central, Microsoft will update the 2-in-1 with a new ‘SQ2’ processor and introduce the ‘platinum’ colour option along with new Type Cover colours. Unfortunately, sources told Windows Central that the new Pro X — Pro X 2? — won’t feature any significant design changes.

The biggest external change will be the new colour option. Microsoft has long offered its Surface devices in a ‘platinum’ colour, and more recently in matte black. It looks like the Surface Pro X 2 will also be available in platinum. The first Pro X only came in black. Windows Central suggests this is Microsoft’s way of indicating the Pro X 2 will be ready for the mainstream consumer.

Additionally, the Type Cover accessories for the Pro X 2 will come in the same colours as what’s available for the standard Surface Pro device.

As for the new SQ2 processor, it’s likely based on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 and will boast improved performance over last year’s SQ1. Interestingly, Microsoft reportedly plans to announce x86 64-bit app emulation, which could enter preview later this year. If that the case, the Surface Pro X2 may not suffer from the app problem that plagued the original Pro X.

Currently, Windows on ARM can only emulate 32-bit x86 apps — x86 being the instruction set used by Intel and AMD CPUs and also what most apps and games use. However, most modern programs use the 64-bit variant which, unfortunately, ARM CPUs currently can’t emulate. That meant for the Surface Pro X, there was an unfortunate lack of apps.

With the more powerful SQ2 and support for 64-bit x86 emulation, the Surface Pro X 2 could be an excellent option when it arrives, assuming the emulation works well. And with more platforms adopting ARM, it could encourage developers to begin transitioning their apps to ARM as well.

Finally, Windows Central notes that it hasn’t heard any rumours about the Surface Pro X 2 supporting 5G. Considering one of the big benefits of the 8cx Gen 2 is 5G support, if the SQ2 is based on that chip, it could very well include 5G. If so, the Pro X 2 would be the first Surface device to offer 5G connectivity.

The Surface Pro X 2 could arrive in October alongside a new, low-cost 12.5-inch Surface Laptop codenamed ‘Sparti.’

Source: Windows Central

The post Microsoft reportedly refreshing Surface Pro X this fall with new chip, colour appeared first on MobileSyrup.