According to this article, "whether it's Automad, WordPress, Sanity, Contentful, Ghost, Netlify CMS, or any others in the growing number of API-first options out there, the move toward headless is a space to watch. HeadlessCMS.org is a good place to do that." I'll say. Clicking on the link takes you to links to dozens of open source headless CMS applications. There's also a link to JAMstack, which describes a general approach to "create dynamic apps with JavaScript, APIs, and prerendered Markup, served without web servers." This is definitely a space to watch.

This post reflects on a paper by Arun Narayanan et al., Recognizing Long-Form Speech Using Streaming End-To-End Models. Mark Liberman observes, " Modern AI (almost) works because of machine learning techniques that find patterns in training data, rather than relying on human programming of explicit rules. A weakness of this approach has always been that generalization to material different in any way from the training set can be unpredictably poor. (Though of course rule- or constraint-based approaches to AI generally never even got off the ground at all.) "End-to-end"  techniques, which eliminate human-defined layers like words, so that speech-to-text systems learn to map directly between sound waveforms and letter strings, are especially brittle." What this means is that AI is still (and for the foreseeable future) limited to specific context-insensitive domains.

"In a time where knowledge and skills need to be updated constantly, a three- or four-year degree may not suit the currency required in many jobs and other work," argue the authors. Based on a survey of institutional representatives from the Australasian Council for Open, Distance and e-Learning (ACODE), they conclude that "micro-credentialing is growing significantly in Australian higher education institutions. Most institutions already have presence in the space or are planning to do so."

Twitter today announced long-overdue support for iOS Live Photos. Rolling out now on all compatible platforms, whenever you add a Live Photo to a tweet you’re composing, you’ll see a new GIF button in the corner of the image. By default the button is crossed out, indicating the Live Photo will be shared as a still image. However, with a single tap you can choose to share your Live Photo as a GIF instead.

Live Photos first debuted in 2015 alongside the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, but there were plenty of questions at the time about whether the feature would be adopted by social media services or not. For Twitter we now know that the answer was yes, eventually.

I think turning Live Photos into GIFs is a great idea, especially since Twitter auto-plays GIFs by default as you scroll your timeline. Not every Live Photo deserves to be converted to a GIF, which is why I’m glad the feature isn’t on by default, but being able to change that with a single tap is a nice option to have.

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A few days ago I took a look at my LinkedIn data, and realised while writing it that I exported my Facebook data in the fall of 2017 when I first strongly reduced and then later closed and deleted my original October 2006 account (I do keep a new account with limited interaction and much fewer contacts). The Facebook data also has a list of contacts with the date they became a contact.

From that export I therefore created the same data I did for LinkedIn: the number of added contacts per year and its gender balance, and the cumulative number of contacts and its gender balance. This in response to Rick Klau’s description of his ‘do-it-yourself contact management‘ Between 1 October 2006 and 30 October 2017 I added some 650 people on FB, of which 161 women (25%)
Those numbers are even more out of balance than with LinkedIn, although in recent years it improved in much the same way per year as on LinkedIn, though it comes out slightly below LinkedIn for the total. I suspect for Facebook a social aspect is in play more than on LinkedIn: for a larger social distance I suspect it is socially more likely I’d add a male contact. To test that I would need to arrange the contacts by my perceived social distance, which is an interesting experiment for another moment.

cummulative per year

new contacts added per year

Twitter has added support for iOS Live Photos by turning them into GIFs when they’re tweeted.

Now, when you add a Live Photo to a tweet that you’re composing, a GIF button appears next to the image. The button is crossed out by default, which means that it will be posted as a still image. If you tap the button, then the Live Photo is shared as a GIF.

Give the gift of GIFs. You can now upload your iOS Live Photos as GIFs anywhere you upload photos on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/D8TIfsBwyd

— Twitter (@Twitter) December 11, 2019

Apple first introduced Live Photos in 2015 alongside the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Questions regarding whether the feature would be supported by social media platforms quickly followed. Tumblr and Facebook adopted support for Live Photos in 2015 and now Twitter has finally followed suit.

The ability to change Live Photos into GIFs is a useful feature since GIFs autoplay on the Twitter timeline. It’s nice that the feature isn’t on by default because not every Live Photo needs to be turned into a GIF.

The social media giant also recently announced that it was going to preserve the quality of JPEGs on the platform.

Source: @Twitter 

The post Twitter now supports iOS Live Photos by turning them into GIFs appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Two weeks ago, Business Insider caused a stir with a video titled, “Why Apple Products Are So Expensive.” The video was part of Business Insider’s “So Expensive” series, which takes a look at why certain items are priced the way they are.

The video was troubling for the number of inaccuracies, falsehoods, and outright lies it included about Apple and its pricing strategy. According to Business Insider, Apple products are expensive because loyal users are willing to pay an “Apple Tax,” or a higher price attached to products containing an Apple logo. A closer look at Apple’s actual pricing strategy reveals a fundamentally different explanation for why Apple products are priced the way they are. The days of there being an “Apple Tax” ended years ago.

The Video

The following video was pushed out to Business Insider’s 2.3M YouTube subscribers on November 23rd, 2019. The video currently has a little more than 660,000 views.

The video included a long list of claims regarding Apple, its product pricing strategy, and the company’s overall positioning in the marketplace.

• Apple was said to be bringing in huge profits by charging higher prices for its products. The progression of pricing from iPhone 6 to iPhone 11 ($649 to $999) and the Mac mini ($499 to $799) were used as examples of Apple charging more for basically the same product. These higher prices are said to be part of Apple’s strategy to squeeze as much profit as possible from loyal customers “unwilling to switch out of the Apple ecosystem.”

• Apple products were said to contain components that are standardized and comparable to what is found in competing products. Accordingly, higher-priced Apple products are more expensive than products from competitors despite not including additional functionality. An iPhone’s bill of materials was positioned as a useful tool for tracking how profitable an iPhone is for Apple.

• Apple was said to rely on “sneaky” tactics to grab additional profit from these loyal users by charging more for higher-end configurations and requiring users to buy expensive dongles, keyboards, mice, and cables.

When assessing the video’s long list of issues, the primary problem was found with how much long-standing narratives about Apple guided Business Insider’s talking points. Numbers and data were cherrypicked to support false narrative after false narrative while Business Insider ignored or brushed aside evidence that would prove its narratives wrong. For example, Apple’s downright aggressive pricing with Apple Watch and AirPods was ignored. Meanwhile, strategies that have proven to be flat out wrong, such as relying on a product’s bill of materials to figure out profitability, went unchecked.

In an effort to come off as more authoritative, Business Insider relied heavily on commentary from Mohan Sawhney, a marketing professor at Northwestern University. The problem was that Sawhney viewed Apple through a marketing prism - the company was said to be nothing more than a luxury brand selling nice-looking tech gadgets. Sawhney claimed the only reason Apple is able to extract so much profit from the industries it operates in is because people are willing to pay more for the Apple logo. There was no mention of Apple controlling much of the profit within an industry by purposely avoiding the low end of that market while also offering a wide range of devices with different amounts of technology.

Apple Tax

The theory of there being an Apple Tax has been around for more than a decade. The term was coined during the mid-2000s to refer primarily to Apple laptops (iBooks and then MacBooks). A MacBook was said to cost more money than a Windows laptop with similar specifications because of there being a premium built into the MacBook’s price. Said another way, the MacBook was more expensive than other products since it included an Apple logo.

The “Apple Tax’ phrase became a way to poke fun at MacBook users for their apparent cluelessness in paying more for a product despite cheaper alternatives being available. In recent years, the Apple Tax definition has morphed to merely refer to higher-priced Apple products like the iMac Pro and new Mac Pro.

There has always been a glaring hole in the Apple Tax narrative: Since Apple does not license its Mac operating system to OEMs, a MacBook running Apple software ends up being very different than a Windows laptop said to have similar specs. In addition, while Apple made a number of content creation applications available for free on the Mac, Windows laptops positioned as direct competitors lacked such free applications. It may be more correct to say that the Apple Tax reflected the price of Mac software instead of some kind of premium created out of thin air.

Apple’s Pricing Strategy

Apple’s pricing strategy is not based on the idea of forcing users to pay an “Apple Tax.” Instead, Apple follows a revenue and gross profit optimization strategy. Here is Apple’s CFO Luca Maestri talking about the strategy on various Apple earnings conference calls:

• 4Q17: “We tend to think about maximizing gross margin dollars because we think that's the most important thing for investors at the end of the day. When we look at our track record over years, I think we've found a good balance between unit sales growth and gross margins and revenue, and we will continue to do that as we go forward.”

• 2Q18: “Our primary consideration is always around maximizing gross margin dollars, and that is the approach that we take around pricing decisions.”

• 4Q18: “[W]e make our decisions from a financial standpoint to try and optimize our revenue and our gross margin dollars.”

• 1Q19: “It is important for us to grow gross margin dollars. And if at times we grow services that are at a level of gross margins, which is below average, as long as this is good for the customer and as long as we generate gross margin dollars we're going to be very pleased.”

• 2Q19: “[W]hat really matters to us and what we look at -- when we look at the elasticity of these [iPhone upgrade] programs is to see the impact on our gross margin dollars.”

While “revenue and gross margin optimization” may sound like loaded terminology, the idea underlying the strategy is straightforward. Instead of Apple including a certain amount of “tax” or premium in a product’s price to maintain a specific gross margin percentage, Apple prices its products in a way that maximizes gross margin and revenue on an absolute basis. Gross margin is cost of goods subtracted from revenue.

The strategy requires Apple to come up with forecasts for how a product’s price will impact customer demand for that product. Price a product too high, and the lower unit sales (as a result of weaker demand) may more than offset the higher amount of revenue and gross margin found with each device. Price a product too low, and the higher unit sales (as a result of stronger demand) may not offset the lower amount of revenue and gross margin found with each device.

Gross Margin Data

A closer look at Apple’s gross margins demonstrates this “revenue and gross margin optimization” strategy in action. Exhibit 1 highlights Apple’s gross margin percentage going back to 2000.

Exhibit 1: Apple Gross Margin (Percent of Revenue)

As shown in Exhibit 1, Apple’s gross margin as a percent of revenue has been steady since 2013. On the surface, such stability would seem to validate Business Insider’s claim of there being some kind of price premium automatically added to Apple products - as if management determines a product’s price by adding a certain premium on top of the cost of goods sold.

However, Apple’s overall gross margin doesn’t tell the full story. There are notable shifts underway when looking at the two components that make up overall gross margin. A decline in Apple’s products (hardware) gross margin percentage is being offset by an increase in services gross margin percentage. This dynamic is seen in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2: Apple Gross Margin (Percent of Revenue) - Products vs. Services

In just the past two years, Apple products gross margin percentage has declined by 10% (350 basis points). That is noteworthy. This means that Apple hardware has become less profitable when looking at gross margin as a percent of revenue. The decline is due to two factors:

1. Apple is lowering product pricing which is eating into the delta between revenue and cost of goods sold. Most of these price cuts are designed to roll back the impact from foreign exchange. However, another factor is that Apple is willing to run with lower gross margin profiles for certain products with the goal of selling more products.

2. Apple is including more technology in its products while not increasing prices enough to maintain gross margin percentages. As with the first factor, Apple is becoming more aggressive on price in an effort to sell more products and generate more revenue and gross margin dollars.

The decline in products gross margin percentage doesn’t become apparent when looking at overall gross margin because Apple Services is offsetting the decline. Services gross margin is up a very strong 16% (870 basis points) over the past two years as services with naturally higher margins (licensing, AppleCare, paid iCloud storage) gain momentum.

While Apple’s products gross margin percentage has declined by 10% over the past two years, products gross margin dollars declined by only 2%. This tells us that Apple is willing to let products gross margin percentage decline (less profit found with each device) if it means stronger customer demand results in more units being sold. This is the epitome of Apple’s revenue and gross margin optimization strategy.

Implications

There are two major implications associated with Apple’s revenue and gross profit optimization strategy:

1. Apple’s product portfolio has become increasingly competitive from a pricing perspective. In the case of Apple Watch and AirPods, pricing is downright aggressive compared to the competition. A $159 pair of AirPods sent shockwaves around the industry as competing products were priced in the $200 to $300 range. Even today, it’s difficult for genuine competitors to come close to AirPods pricing. A similar dynamic is found with wrist wearables as Apple Watch pricing remains highly competitive.

2. Apple has embraced a bifurcation strategy in which product lines have been expanded to include a broader range of models and corresponding prices. This dynamic applies to most of Apple’s products including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods. The primary benefit of Apple becoming aggressive both at the low end and high end of the pricing spectrum is more choice for consumers. Products like the 10.2-inch iPad represent the gateway into the iOS ecosystem for millions of people each year. The MacBook Air remains the most popular Mac. The end result is that products with various margin profiles may end up offsetting each other.

Accessories

When it comes to how Apple prices various accessories like dongles, Watch bands, and iPad keyboards, the company isn’t relying on an Apple Tax. Instead, accessories by their very nature have high gross margins given that the items are sold to customers looking to personalize their experience. A similar philosophy applies to Mac memory and storage upgrades. While those upgrades are indeed profitable for Apple, the fact that Apple charges the prices they do is not a sign of Apple users being held hostage and forced to pay an Apple Tax. Instead, positioning certain items as accessories or upgrades plays a role in Apple keeping entry-level product pricing low for the mass market.

Narrative Violations

A new school of thought positions Apple as a monopoly not because it has significant market share, but because it has loyal and engaged users. The idea is that since these users would apparently face such a dreadful experience by moving outside the Apple platform, it’s as if they have no alternatives. Apple is said to be taking unfair advantage of this situation and its position as the only provider of a premium experience. A byproduct of this stance is that certain Apple actions, such as the way the App Store is managed, are viewed as uncompetitive.

There is no question that Apple has loyal, satisfied users. However, the premise that these users are in some way held captive or hostage by Apple, and therefore forced to pay high Apple prices, just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

• Contrary to popular opinion, a new Apple product doesn’t sell simply because it has an Apple logo. Apple users are discerning when it comes to determining what products are worth buying. We see this when it comes to upgrade rates for existing products as well as adoption trends for new products.

• Apple’s declining products gross margin percentage is driven in part by lower iPhone profit margin percentages. This has occurred despite iPhone ASPs rising, which goes against nearly every narrative that has been put forth about higher iPhone prices.

• The App Store is run at just a 10% gross margin (my estimate). This goes against the idea that Apple is being unfair to developers when charging 15% or 30% revenue share. While some developers want Apple to charge them more like 5% to 10% of revenue, or nothing at all, such revenue share arrangements would likely lead to the App Store being operated at a loss considering that a majority of apps do not share any revenue with Apple.

It’s easy to look at Apple pricing and take a cynical view that management is trying to squeeze as much profit as possible from its users. However, Apple’s incentive isn’t to milk users for all they can but rather to expand the Apple user base and provide users great experiences. Apple’s ability to grab monopoly-like share of industry profits isn’t a result of there being an Apple Tax but rather a byproduct of Apple following a design-led product strategy that ultimately marginalizes industries.

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I’ve loved my Proviz Reflect 360+ jacket for how reflective it is. However a couple of weeks ago, after almost four years of hard use, the front zipper failed, and so it was time to shop for a replacement.

Naturally I wanted to get another Proviz jacket, but the question was which one. Originally I chose the 360+ over the 360 since it was advertised as being more breathable. Since that time, Proviz also released a series of coloured jackets that were also reflective, called CRS. To make things even more confusing, CRS was now available in both 360 and 360+ versions.

I would have defaulted to a yellow 360+ CRS jacket, but for whatever reason, they didn’t make the 360+ version in yellow. So I spent a little more time looking at the various choices.

Looking at my old jacket, the most worn section was the back of the collar where the coat was often hung over a hook. You can see the reflective coating has worn off.

That’s when I noticed that some of the black dots were also worn off, leaving actual holes in the fabric. I surmise that the breathability of the 360+ fabric has something to do with the dots, since the 360 fabric doesn’t have dots.

Because of this discovery, I decided to go for the non 360+ version, and I chose a yellow CRS jacket. It arrived today. The cut is similar to the old jacket, but the body is definitely longer, and the sleeves might be a bit longer.

You can see that the yellow fabric does not have the dots. I’m hoping that this will make the jacket a little more durable. The yellow fabric is thinner than the Reflect 360+ fabric; this is borne out in the weights of the jackets: the yellow one is 503 g, versus 603 g for the older one. (both size men’s M)

So what about reflectivity?

You can see that the old jacket is more reflective.

Here is a comparison of from left to right, reflect 360+, reflect 360+ CRS in green, reflect 360 CRS in yellow, and a dog coat across the top in reflect 360. This represents the full range of fabrics offered by Proviz (I think that I’ve given them enough business).

Now the same picture with flash:

It is clear that the non coloured fabrics are considerably more reflective than the CRS fabrics. Interestingly, the yellow CRS jacket is more reflective than the green vest in the 360+ fabric. The green vest looks dark, but you can see that it is still brighter than the white envelope to the upper right. Therefore, if you want the maximum reflectivity, you have to live with the grey daytime colour. If you want colour during the day, then you can go for one of the CRS products, or Proviz also makes some jackets with a combination of bright yellow and reflective fabrics.

This video posted by someone else in 2017 shows that the difference between the CRS and non CRS fabric is less at a distance.

I’ll report on how the new yellow jacket performs. I anticipate that it will be less breathable than my old jacket, but that is not going to be a big deal during the winter.

In case you missed it, season one of Слуга народу (Servant of the People) is available on Netflix in Canada. It’s a sitcom starring Volodymyr Zelensky, who plays a humble school teacher who accidentally becomes President of Ukraine.

Zelensky, of course, went on to become the actual President of Ukraine, running for a party called Слуга народу (Servant of the People).

More recently he’s been embroiled in the impeachment drama of another TV-star-turned-President.

You might assume this means Zelensky, like his American counterpart, is an untalented blowhard; on the contrary: he’s a talented actor, and the sitcom is well-produced and entertaining.

mkalus shared this story from jwz.

Its presence is so subtle, and so pervasive, that we barely even noticed it was an attempt to kill the web.

For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can just link to any old store on the web, how can Instagram -- meaning Facebook, Instagram's increasingly-overbearing owner -- tightly control commerce on its platform? If Instagram users could post links willy-nilly, they might even be able to connect directly to their users, getting their email addresses or finding other ways to communicate with them. Links represent a threat to closed systems. [...]

But killing off links is a strategy. It may be presented as a cost-saving measure, or as a way of reducing the sharing of untrusted links. But it is a strategy, designed to keep people from the open web, the place where they can control how, and whether, someone makes money off of an audience. The web is where we can make sites that don't abuse data in the ways that Facebook properties do.

Links take us to places where we can make choices that Instagram never would.

I wrote basically this same article three months ago, and four years ago, so yeah, all of this.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

After having been pre-announced by nearly 1,000 days, the new Mac Pro finally went up for sale yesterday on Apple.com, alongside the Pro Display XDR. Complementing these two devices, a variety of new accessories have also just launched, some from Apple and others from third-party companies.

The $4,999 Pro Display XDR doesn’t include a stand or mount of any sort out of the box, so buyers will want to either pick up the $999 Pro Stand or the $199 VESA Mount Adapter. The display also does not include a built-in webcam. However, Logitech is offering a new 4K Pro Magnetic Webcam for $199 that attaches magnetically to the top of the display as an add-on for professionals who need that functionality.

Another Apple-designed ‘accessory’ is the $2,000 Afterburner Card, a PCI Express card designed exclusively for the new Mac Pro to accelerate ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs. Along the same lines of Mac Pro-exclusive hardware, Apple has added a variety of options for DDR4 ECC memory to its store, including 16GB for $400, 32GB for $800, 64GB for $1,200, 128GB for $2,800, and 256GB for $6,000.

After spending a small fortune on your Mac Pro, you might reasonably be concerned about the device being stolen. To the rescue is Belkin with a $49 Lock Adapter that enables you to secure your Mac Pro with a third-party lock. Also from Belkin is a $69 AUX Power Cable Kit which provides an assortment of common AUX cables for graphics cards.

Rounding out the accessory options are AMD’s $2,800 Radeon Pro Vega II MPX Module and $5,600 Vega II Duo, along with an MPX module, the Promise Pegasus R4i 32TB RAID ($2,299), and the Promise Pegasus J2i 8TB Internal Storage Enclosure ($399). The optional $400 wheels for the Mac Pro are not available for separate purchase at this time, and instead must be ordered as part of your configured model.

Two things are immediately obvious upon surveying these accessories: first, they’re clearly for users with very specific high-end needs, and second, Apple has poured significant investment into creating the new Mac Pro, Pro Display XDR, and fostering this new ecosystem of accessories. The target user base may be small, but Apple has nonetheless gone all-out with its most powerful computer.

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Most people buying a 27-inch monitor should get the HP Z27. It’s a color-accurate 4K monitor with plenty of useful ports, and it can charge a USB-C laptop. But if you have an older computer that can’t use a 4K monitor, if you have apps that don’t scale well, or if you want to save some money, HP’s Z27n G2 is your best option.

The New York Times – Opinion: Impeach Trump. Save America. “It is the only thing to do if our country’s democracy is to survive.” By Thomas L. Friedman.

“If we say, as Republicans do, that what Trump did is not an impeachable offense, we are telling ourselves and every future president that — in direct contradiction of what the founders wrote in the Constitution — it is O.K. to enlist a foreign power to tilt the election your way. Can you imagine how much money candidates could raise from Saudi Arabia or China to tilt a future election their way, or how many cyberwarriors they could enlist from Russia or Iran to create fake news, suppress voting or spur outrage?
[…]
If Congress were to do what Republicans demand — forgo impeaching this president for enlisting a foreign power to get him elected, after he refused to hand over any of the documents that Congress had requested and blocked all of his key aides who knew what happened from testifying — we would be saying that a president is henceforth above the law.

We would be saying that we no longer have three coequal branches of government. We would be saying that we no longer have a separation of powers.

We would be saying that our president is now a king.

If we do that, the America you studied in history class, the America you grew up knowing and loving, and the America that the rest of the world has so long admired as a beacon of democracy and justice will be no more. Oh, how we will miss it when it’s gone.”

Link via MetaFilter.

If the pricing of the new Mac Pro seems out of control when you max it out, you probably don’t need that big a beast.

Those $400 wheels, on the other hand… That’s just silly.

Wired reports on how green the three major cloud providers are.

Azure has been 100% renewable powered since 2014 and Google since 2017, both with the help of renewable energy credits. The next step will be to get there without using credits.

Rogers has officially opened the doors to its first flagship, 5G-ready, experiential store right in the heart of downtown-Toronto’s Dundas Square.

The store, which is located at 302 Yonge Street, has replaced the Forever 21 location on the corner of Yonge and Dundas.

The two-storey space incorporates different experiences but at the front features a traditional smartphone retail space. Devices are separated by manufacturer, giving each company its own table with a suite of products that customers can check out.

Bruce Herscovici, vice-president of branded retail at Rogers, said during an interview that each product table features built-in interactive screens that tell customers about the products. The Google table was equipped with the latest Pixel 4 devices, Nest devices and more, while different tables featured a variety of other devices and products.

Herscovici said that there will be about a dozen or so Rogers employees readily available to help customers at all times.

In order to maintain transparency, the Toronto-based carrier has a framed copy of the Wireless Code that customers can read to better understand their rights when signing up for services.

“We want to be transparent and [we are] making sure customers are well aware of what we stand for and what we need to live up to in terms of expectations,” Bruce Herscovici said.

Google’s Pixelville presents interactive space

Customers will also be able to gain a better understanding regarding how specific phone features work in this new retail space, Herscovici explained.

Different manufacturers will have the opportunity to create an interactive space that showcases devices, how to use them and the benefits 5G offers.

The first company to partner with Rogers is Google and in the new space, customers will get to visit ‘Pixelville.’

Christina Peck, Google Canada’s spokesperson, said during an interview that the space has various vignettes “for customers to be able to experience how helpful our products are in their day-to-day life.”

“What they’ll get when they go through each room is a hands-on experience with the device that’s in that room, what it looks like and what the different features are,” Peck said.

The four rooms that Google has showcased include a Nest Hub apartment, the Astro Diner, the Motion Sense Studio and the Google Lens room.

The Nest Hub apartment is a mini kitchen equipped with Google’s Nest Thermostat, Google Nest Hubs and even a Google Nest Hub Doorbell.

Around the mini kitchen are phrases that a customer wanting to learn about Google’s commands can use.

Peck demonstrated by saying “Hey Google I’m home,” at which point the Google Nest Hub Max responded by offering her day’s schedule, before playing music.

The Astro Diner is a simulation of a night out at a retro diner, Peck explained. The purpose of this specific room is for a customer to understand how Google’s ‘Night Sight’ feature works, she said.

The Motion Sense room allowed users to understand how a real-life scenario of being in a gym could help users use the feature.

“It’s not easy to pick a smartphone, so having the opportunity to do some hands-on time in scenarios you can see yourself in is helpful,” she said, adding that there will be one to two Google representatives in each room.

5G possibilities showcased

Herscovici noted that at one corner of the space is what the company likes to call the “Connected Hub,” where customers can experience what their living room will look like when smart devices hooked to Rogers’ Ignite platform are powering it.

“All your connected devices, the key is our Ignite platform,” he said. “People can pretend they’re in a living room and demo the connected devices and how they all work together.”

Herscovici said there are Sonos speakers on display, LIFX lights, a Roomba and smart plugs all connected so a customer can see what a smart home with 5G technology could look like.

Another side of the store allows customers to experience the Live Nation room, which Herscovici explained showcases a live concert in a hologram.

It is worth noting though that Canada does not yet have all the spectrum necessary for a full 5G rollout. The next generation of wireless service isn’t expected to be broadly available to Canadians until 2021.

Rogers says new space is part of its ‘retail transformation’

Anne Martin-Vachon, Rogers’ chief retail officer, said during an interview that creating this space was part of the company’s retail strategy that involves putting the customer first. It is also a part of keeping up with the evolving space of what a retail experience is for a customer, she said.

“This is the very first for us. It’s about teaching and educating customers of what 5G and the world of its possibilities are,” she said. “Now it still also is a retail store, but there is also an interactive element to it.”

Martin-Vachon explained that while the interactive experiences will remain in the flagship store, some elements might be incorporated in other Rogers retail stores, like the interactive touchscreen tables.

She also added that a retail experience for customers is still important to the company, stating that over 80 percent of Rogers customers still get wireless services from a retail store.

“There are a lot of people, especially younger millennials, that do research online, but when it comes to complicated purchases or things they want to touch and feel they want to come to a store,” she said.

The second floor of the store includes a massive event space and a conference room for business meetings that Rogers says its business clients can book and use.

The store hours for the holidays are 9am to 9:30pm every day except Sunday, which is 10am to 8pm.

Regular hours are 9:30am to 9pm every day except Sunday, which is 10am to 7pm.

The post Rogers opens doors to its first 5G-ready interactive flagship store appeared first on MobileSyrup.

I’ve never wanted to love a smartphone more than the Asus ZenFone 6, but I had to check my biases at the door. While the ZenFone 6 (ZF6) is a lovely device, it has one major issue and includes a few features that prevent it from being one of the better Android devices on the market.

If you’re unaware of Asus’ ZenFone line, that’s because they’re not easy to track down. Asus doesn’t sell its smartphones in carrier stores, but you can find them at retailers like Staples, Best Buy and online at Amazon. In this case, the ZF6 is only at Amazon.

Similar to last year’s ZenFone 5Z, the ZF6 is an ultimate flagship contender. It features top-of-the-line specs and includes an all-screen display that lacks both a notch and a camera cutout. Instead, the device sports a flip-up camera that’s not only fun to show off at a party, but also very useful.

A design that speaks volumes

Similar to the OnePlus 7 Pro, the ZF6’s selfie camera is not easy to spot. OnePlus’ selfie camera pop-ups from within the device’s body, but the ZF6’s rear-facing camera setup flips up to become the selfie shooters, which allow the ZF6’s front-facing display to be unobstructed by any notches or camera cutouts.

I love Asus’ approach, and though it’s not the first company to do this — Samsung was — I’m impressed the Taiwanese phone maker pulled off this technique.

The ZF6 has a speaker grill in the small bezel at the top, and that’s pretty much it.

The back has the dual rear-facing camera setup with a fingerprint scanner and the Asus logo.

The bottom features a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C port and additional speakers. The speakers, by the way, work very well. The ZF6 doesn’t seem to be one of the louder smartphones on the market, at first. However, when you go into the settings, and turn on the device’s ‘outdoor mode,’ the phone uses both of its speakers to produce a thunderous sound.

Continuing with the design, on the right side, the device sports a blue power button, volume rocker and an Assistant button.

It’s nice to see that while Samsung has gotten rid of the headphone jack, Asus opted to keep it.

Unobstructed display

The ZF6 features a 6.4-inch IPS LCD display with a 1080 x 2340 pixel resolution, Corning Gorilla Glass 6, HDR10 and a DCI-P3 colour gamut.

I thought videos and pictures looked good, but when you hold the ZF6 side by side with the OnePlus 7 Pro — which sports a higher 1440 x 3120-pixel resolution — you can tell that the Zenfone 6’s display lacks detail. Additionally, colours look more accurate on the OP7 Pro. Similar to other handsets, the ZF6 has a customizable colour temperature scale. It can also reach 466 nits of brightness, making it bright enough for most lighting conditions. To say the least, I did still enjoy watching and looking at content on the device.

With the weaker pixel resolution and the 466 nits max brightness, the ZenFone 6’s 5,000mAh battery can survive for more than one day. I’d find that the phone would have about 50 percent battery life left when my day was over. However, I’d need to charge the device at the end of the next workday.

Flipping Camera

While the ZF6’s flip-up camera setup is fascinating, the quality of pictures, however, isn’t stellar. Images are clear and look precise when using the primary camera, but the wide-angle camera offers fewer details, and there’s a noticeable difference in quality between the two.

The ZF6 tends to overexpose photos as well, making them look brighter.

Similar to plenty of the other devices on the market, the ZF6 features a scene optimizer. It changes the exposure, colour balance and saturation based on what’s currently in the viewfinder. The scene optimizer worked well, but occasionally when taking pictures of things like food, the colour balance was off.

The ZF6 also has a night mode that I found worked decently when taking pictures at night. In Toronto with street lamps illuminating the area, the images looked good, but lacked detail and were soft. Zooming in made this more evident. This feature isn’t as good as what’s available in the Pixel or iPhone handsets, but I found it superior to Motorola’s and LG’s version of the functionality.

Selfies looked good in perfect lighting conditions, but details aren’t preserved in features like a beard or hair. Further, under less than ideal lighting conditions, you can tell that the phone wants to overexpose pictures. In my case, it made my dark skin brighter.

The ZF6 can use the primary camera to follow as a user moves around when taking videos. This is a pretty cool feature and allows users to keep the phone stable while the subject is moving around out of frame.

In my testing, the ZenFone’s front-facing camera makes a mechanical sound when it flips up. You can choose to hide that sound with another, I personally picked a whoosh sound that made it sound like I was going into hyperspace. Like the OnePlus 7 Pro, if you drop the phone, it’ll retract the camera immediately.

You can also manually close the camera with your hand and control how it moves with the volume rocker. If you’re afraid about the camera breaking, YouTuber JerryRigsEverything put it through its paces and it survives pretty well; you can check out the video here.

ZenUI is so clean

The ZF6 uses a Snapdragon 855 processor with 6GB of RAM. The phone is quick and can handle somewhat graphically intensive games like Evertale and Gears Pop! without getting hot.

Additionally, the ZF6 can keep more than 15 apps open without any hiccups.

What’s one of the best things about the device, however, is ZenUI 6. While ZenUI isn’t stock Android, it’s interface is slim and doesn’t include a lot of bloatware out-of-the-box. The few extra apps it does have, you can delete or hide. You can also lock apps so that you need a passcode or fingerprint scanner to get into them.

Even though the ZF6 has a fingerprint scanner, you can use the flip-up camera to unlock your handset. This works well, but sometimes I found the camera would try to flip up in my pocket, which was annoying.

Further, the ZF6 has an Assistant button. The button can be used to call Assistant or open the Assistant page, through long or short presses. You can also retask it to perform several functions like to toggle on and off your flashlight or NFC.

The post Asus ZenFone 6 Review: Death of the selfie camera appeared first on MobileSyrup.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice are reportedly concerned about Google’s $2.1 billion USD ($2.8 billion CAD) acquisition of fitness wearable company Fitbit.

The New York Post reported that the government agencies are concerned that the acquisition will give Google more access to personal data and that the two agencies are looking to investigate.

A source with knowledge of the situation told The New York Post that “The DOJ’s handling of Fitbit will give an early read on the Google investigation.”

The DOJ has already been looking into Google’s practices concerning anti-competition, and now reports suggest the department will also be reviewing the merger.

Google said at the time of the merger that data from Fitbit users regarding health and wellness would not be used for advertising purposes.

Source: The New York Post Via: Engadget

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The latest update for the Google Dialer app has a bug that is impacting the functionality of the dial pad when users are on a call.

A number of recent negative reviews on Google Play outline that the update has broken the functionality of dial pad because it disappears when people make a call.

This means that users cannot navigate telephone menu options for a number of different things such as entering a PIN for conference calls or checking your voicemail.

A large number of the reports are coming from users who are on Nexus and Pixel devices. It’s currently unknown how widespread this problem is as reports are still coming in.

MobileSyrup has reached out to Google to determine if there is an upcoming fix for the issue. We will update this article once we get a response.

Are you having problems with Google Dialer? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Google Play, Android Authority 

The post Bug in latest Google Dialer update making dial pad disappear for some users appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Twitter is changing the way it processes images uploaded to the platform to maintain the quality of a JPEG.

Nolan O’Brien, one of the social media giant’s engineers, shared a tweet outlining that the platform will preserve uploaded JPEG by no longer transcoding them. Twitter used to previously transcode images, which compresses them and would reduce the quality of images.

Starting today, Twitter will preserve JPEGs as they are encoded for upload on Twitter for Web. (Caveat, cannot have EXIF orientation)

For example: the attached photo is actually a guetzli encoded JPEG at 97% quality with no chroma subsampling.https://t.co/1u37vTopkY pic.twitter.com/Eyq67nfM0E

— Nolan O’Brien (@NolanOBrien) December 11, 2019

However, the platform will still compress images for thumbnails that seen in the Twitter feed. Once users click on the image, they will then see the full uncompressed image if it’s a JPEG.

Twitter is also going to strip EXIF data, which includes information about the image such when it was taken or edited. The data is being stripped to prevent peoples’ location data from being available to others.

This small but great feature is a welcome addition to the platform and takes it a step towards becoming a more photo-friendly app.

Source: @NolanOBrien, TechCrunch

The post Twitter now keeps the image quality of JPEGs uploaded to the platform appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Apple’s expensive, ultra-high-end, Pro Display XDR costs an astounding $6,299 CAD — and that’s without the additional ‘Nano-texture glass,’ which brings the price up to $7,499.

If you opt for the more expensive, glare-reducing screen, don’t assume you can just clean the Pro Display XDR with a generic screen cleaner and microfiber cloth. According to Apple support documents regarding the display, its Nano-texture glass can only be cleaned with a special “dry polishing cloth” that comes with the screen.

It’s unclear why Apple says you can only use this special cloth to clean the screen, but it likely has something to do with the Nano-texture technology. The Pro Display XDR’s nanometer finish has been “etched into the glass to maintain contrast and the screen’s matte finish, so perhaps its incredibly delicate.

The only way to get another one of these special cloths if you happen to lose yours is through Apple’s support line. It’s unclear how much a replacement cloth costs.

The cloth even requires specific cleaning instructions: wash it by hand with dish soap and water, rinse it and then let it air dry for 24 hours. It’s almost shocking that the magical cloth can be washed with regular dish soap and not some sort of specialized fluid.

The Pro Display XDR’s various accessories are also rather pricey. For example, the ‘Pro Stand’ is priced at $1,299, with the Vesa Mount adapter costing $249.

Apple’s new Mac Pro, on the other hand, maxes out at $73,396 for the highest-end version of the powerful desktop.

Source: Apple Via: MacRumors

The post You need to clean Apple’s pricey Pro Display XDR with a special cloth appeared first on MobileSyrup.

I’ve been going to meetings of the PEI Electric Vehicle Association since the spring, and always find them interesting. The PEIEVA is an informal mix of EV owners, EV-aspirants, and the EV-curious, and the meetings are casual and conversational and a great place to ask and answer questions.

The December meeting promises to be a more-than-usually-interesting one, as it’s being hosted by Maritime Electric and, in addition to the regular program, the company will provide a brief presentation on its “technology roadmap.”

The meeting is Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. in the boardroom at Maritime Electric headquarters, 180 Kent Street in Charlottetown.

All are welcome to attend: you need not own an EV; indeed you need not know anything about electric vehicles. There is step-free access to the boardroom by elevator.

Nearest EV chargers are in the underground parking garage of the Delta Prince Edward. T3 Transit Route № 1 stops nearby at the corner of Great George and Fitzroy and has service until 10:00 p.m.

Here’s a poster suitable for printing; here’s an image suitable for sharing.

If you’d rather consume this blog by email, a reminder that you can sign up for a daily digest of posts.

The digest gets sent daily at 6:00 a.m. (a shift forward at the suggestion of my friend Ray, my trusted source for all things early-morning-related).

Here’s what it will look like in your inbox:

There are 62 subscribers as I type. All you receive is what I post here (no ads or other promotions), and I don’t share the list of subscribers with anyone.

I was in Peterborough, New Hampshire in September and, as is my habit, I checked out the community notice board that’s located between Toadstool Books and Twelve Pine.

Peterborough is an active, progressive community, and there’s always a lot going on, so the notice board never disappoints (it’s where I saw the notice for Cafeteria Man, which inspired me to see the film and then invite its subject to visit PEI, which helped to move the school food project ahead here).

On the notice board in September I saw a poster for a screening of a film called MOTHERLOAD that looked intriguing: what’s not to love about a film about parenting and cargo bikes. When I got back to my motel I watched the trailer and read the reviews, and when I got back to PEI I proposed to my colleagues on the Mayor’s Task Force on Active Transportation that we sponsor a screening.

I’m happy to report that they agreed, that the city came forward with funding to support this, and that a free public screening of MOTHERLOAD will be held Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. at City Cinema.

It’s a remarkable film–I previewed it last month–and if you’re interested in learning about the intersection of cycling, family, cargo bikes, urban planning, and the human spirit, I encourage you to save the date.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has unveiled a new project called ‘Bluesky,’ which is designed to develop an open social media standard.

Dorsey said the social media giant is funding a small independent team that consists of five open source architects, engineers and designers to develop the standard.

Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard.

— jack (@jack) December 11, 2019

Dorsey believes that Twitter used to be more open but has recently become centralized, which has made it difficult to enforce global policies to deal with misinformation.

He also thinks the value of social media is moving away from content hosting and more towards recommendation algorithms, and that there currently isn’t a better alternative.

The team will collaborate with companies, researchers and civil society leaders to develop the standard, which is expected to take years to form.

Source: @jack 

The post Twitter aims to develop open social media standard with new project appeared first on MobileSyrup.

German automaker BMW is finally adding support for Android Auto in some of its cars starting in July 2020.

BMW is taking things to the next level by supporting wireless Android Auto. Only Nexus, Pixel and some Samsung phones support the wireless version.

This means that anyone with a OnePlus, LG, Sony or another type of Android device will be out of luck until their phone updates to support the wireless standard, which could be never.

The company has supported Apple’s CarPlay for a while and recently removed the annual fee for using the service.

All cars with BMW Operating System 7.0 will support Android Auto.

Source: BMW

The post BMW is going to add Android Auto in 2020, but only the wireless version appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Not everyone can sacrifice a mortgage payment to buy a high-performance 4K TV. Many shoppers are content to find a TV that looks good, is easy to use, has a variety of streaming features built in, and—most importantly—doesn’t cost a lot. For those people, we recommend the TCL 5-Series. It delivers a great-looking 4K picture with good contrast and accurate colors, integrates our favorite smart-TV system from Roku, and is also good for gaming.

mkalus shared this story from Das Kraftfuttermischwerk.

Ob das Leuten wie Dieter Nuhr nun schmeckt oder nicht, ist mir ziemlich latte, das TIME Magazine hat Greta Thunberg zur Person des Jahres 2019 ernannt – und ich finde, ganz zu Recht.

.@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v pic.twitter.com/SWALBfeGl6

— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2019