Rolandt

Sunil Sandhu, Medium, Aug 09, 2018

React and Vue are frameworks for creating interactive web applications. I don't use either of them (I'm an old-school JQuery hack) but I've followed their development over the years and (of course) looked at code that uses them. This article will be of interest on two levels. One, if you actually do web application development, you can see the differences in approach. Two, even if you don't develop web applications, it can be interesting to see the nuances of what's involved in doing so - skip over the code fragments and focus on the descriptions of the elements involved.

Adam Pah, Brian Uzzi, Rebecca Hinds, Harvard Business Review, Aug 09, 2018

As this summary stated in its original version, "Dropbox gave us access to project-folder related data, which we aggregated and anonymized." The result was a storm of protest. The story has since been rewritten to say Dropbox anonymized the data before handing it over to researchers. "We designed the study to fall within the scope of our Privacy Policy," said Dropbox in its own report. Julia Poncela-Casasnovas, the author who did most of the work (but is not in the HBR byline) said in an interview, "none of us at Northwestern ever saw the non-anonymized Dropbox data." From where I sit, the real story here is marketing staff at Dropbox using connections at HBR to pump up the readership of a research paper about - and authored with - Dropbox. Considerations like research ethics came a distant second, and this is reflected in the way the HBR article was first drafted.

	sillygwailo shared this story from Rosemary Orchard:
	I bought a Sonos Playbase a year ago, and the lack of AirPlay was an annoyance. Video games and movies sound great, and I could use the Sonos app for music, but no podcasts. AirPlay 2 support has made my investment pay off. Now I can listen to anything via my iPhone to the speaker. Wonderful.

I bought a Sonos One back when it was released late last year, and it quickly became something I used without thinking about it too much. I got a Spotify subscription and liked that I could just switch my stream from my headphones to the Sonos from the Spotify app - in contrast to Apple and Google Music services which required navigating the Sonos app. I prefer Apple Music though - being able to put my headphones on and just press play is a surprisingly powerful factor, so I switched away from Spotify and back to Apple Music.

Airplay 2 has given me the ability to switch where the music is playing to easily once more though, I can switch from my AirPods to my Sonos, there's a very slight pause waiting for the stream to switch - but this is technology, not magic! You can use any app to play the audio elsewhere, though some apps need to update to support Airplay 2 and those are noticeable with a longer pause from when you press a music control button - but I'm confident we'll get an update for these apps.

I'm currently listening to podcasts on my Sonos and it's good - easy, no fiddling, just play and select the audio output. I have a feeling this might cause me to purchase a few more!

Programming could be much much easier most of the time. This unnecessary difficulty wastes the effort of professional programmers, but worse, prevents many people from programming at all. The problem is a nasty hairball of culture and technology and money that is not easily untangled. I’ll try to address this essay to a general audience.

Programming today is exactly what you’d expect to get by paying an isolated subculture of nerdy young men to entertain themselves for fifty years. You get a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and Rubik’s Cube, elaborated a thousand-fold. I’m serious: Dungeons & Dragons requires mastery of an encyclopedia of minutiae; Rubik’s Cube is a puzzle requiring abstract mathematical thinking. That is programming in a nutshell. As a bonus you also get a toxic culture of intellectual one-upmanship.

There is something unique about software that exacerbates these problems. Unlike every other technology, software doesn’t wear out. The traditional cycle of replacement and renewal is halted; there is no evolution. Once a software technology gets adopted it lives forever, enshrining every mistake and obsolete design decision. It is always more expedient to layer more software on top of the obsolete than to redesign and replace it, and so our Tower of Babel grows ever higher. At this point to be a “full stack” developer you must master the content of something like a hundred thousand pages of documentation. Can we keep adding more layers forever? When do we start throwing obsolete things away? Whose responsibility is this?

I don’t blame the kids. Ultimately the problem is a failure of our institutions. We need senior leaders to band together to invest in the long term health of the field. We lack such institutions to a shocking extent. Why is there no American Programmers Association, like what all the other professions have? Instead we have only the Association for Computing Machinery, which is run by and for academic computer scientists, paying only lip service to practitioners. Compounding this bias, academic computer science has become estranged from practice. The stereotypical attitude is that professional programming is such a mess because programmers are stupid. There is some truth to this — most people are stupid compared to computer science professors. But apart from eugenics, isn’t the solution to design technology that doesn’t require a PhD? And maybe it would help if those computer scientists had more actual experience of professional programming. Unfortunately there is no path for practitioners to enter computer science more than a couple of years post graduation. Why is there no Professor of Practice as in other fields? The studied irrelevancy of computer science is a big obstacle to progress, because it absorbs and dissipates the funding from policy makers and philanthropists trying to help.

What of the #CSForAll movement? I have mixed feelings. The name itself betrays confusion — what we really want is #ProgrammingForAll. Computer science is not a prerequisite for most programming, and may in fact be more of a barrier to many. The confusion of computer science with programming is actually part of the problem, which seems invisible to this movement. Instead they are focused on education and social engineering, which has a bad track record for solving knotty cultural problems. I hear talk of equity and fighting toxic culture and offering nurturing learning environments. These are all good things, but I don’t think they are enough, because the cultural problems have become baked into the technology itself. No amount of coaching and cheerleading is going to make most people enjoy spending their lives playing Dungeons & Dragons and Rubik’s Cube. Why is making the technology itself more humane off the agenda? Because that would be too hard or too disruptive? This movement wants to believe we can quickly fix the problem without upsetting any apple carts by just throwing more money at the entrenched institutions that should have prevented the problem in the first place. Good luck with that.

What reason is there to believe we can improve programming technology to be vastly easier and more accessible? To start with, spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are by far the most popular programming tool, used by far more people than “real” programming. Surely it must be possible to carve out other domains like that of spreadsheets without taking on the full complexity of programming. In fact HyperCard was just that, enabling millions of novices to build simple applications. We can also look to the many incarnations of Basic, designed for ease of learning, and particularly Visual Basic, which was a serious business programming language. Visual Basic was an example of “application programming”: using languages and tools designed for simplicity of learning and use in solving relatively pedestrian problems. I recall that application programmers had a more welcoming and supportive culture than the “systems programmers” that looked down upon them. Unfortunately application programming got trampled in the internet gold rush. Suddenly all that mattered was building large-scale systems as fast as possible, and money was no object, so the focus shifted to “rock star” programmers and the sophisticated high-powered tools they preferred. As a result the internet age has seen an exponential increase in the complexity of programming, as well as its exclusivity. It is long past time to return to designing tools not just for rock stars at Google but the vast majority of programmers and laypeople with simple small-scale problems. We’ve done it before so we can do it again, even better this time. The problem is funding. Academic computer science doesn’t reward the kind of work required to build high quality tools (it’s “just” design and engineering). The big internet companies aren’t interested because it doesn’t give them lots more eyeballs. The venture capitalists aren’t interested because there is no hyper-growth play. Open source development has succeeded mostly at solving the problems of expert programmers. This funding barrier is a big reason we need new institutions whose interests are aligned with that of all programmers, expert and casual, present and future.

In conclusion, to bring programming to everyone we need to fix both our culture and our technology. This is best done in fresh institutions outside of computer science, institutions dedicated to improving the practice of programming, but even more dedicated to bringing the power of programming to everyone. At long last society at large is awakening to the inequities caused by the problems of programming. The time is now ripe to fix programming.

See also

Alan Kay. The inventor of object-oriented programming and grandfather of software contrarians.

Richard Gabriel. A founding father of LISP; author of the influential “Worse is Better” essay; has proposed a Master of Fine Arts in Software.

Ellen Ullman, “Close to the Machine”

Nathan Ensmenger, “The Computer Boys Take Over”

Bret Victor, Dynamicland. A new human interface to software.

Chris Granger, Eve. A moonshot to make programming accessible to everyone.

Evan Czaplicki, Elm. A humane programming language and community.

Brad Myers, CMU. Natural Programming Project

Adam Chilapala, MIT. Another point of view: math for the win.

Education and equity: Margaret Burnett, Oregon State; Mark Guzdial, U Mich; Andy Ko, UW; Philip Guo, UCSD.

My pitiful research.

TODO

Agenda of a Programming Institute

The myth of essential complexity.

The limits of “no code” and “low code” application generators.

The siren call of dataflow.

Tear down this wall: the cost of specialized software components/domains.

The great schism: do specs exist?

Making computer science weird again.

Thanks to Tomas Petricek for helpful comments.

map — nearby photos
My Best View of Mt. Fuji All Day
its slope runs up into the clouds in the upper right

As I wrote in my previous post, I recently hiked on Mt. Fuji. Today's post is about the next day's bike ride, a 100+ mile odyssey that included two cycling climbs up Mt. Fuji as far as the paved roads would allow, a typhoon, and a dead iPhone. The dead iPhone explains why there are few photos on this post.

Here's the ride at Strava:

There are no roads to Mt. Fuji's peak at 3,776m (12,389'), of course, but three roads go fairly high up. My initial goal of the day was to ride one of them, the same road I'd taken on the way to start the previous day's hike: the “Subaru Line”. It's a toll road that ends at the “5th Station”, at about 2,300m of elevation (7,550'). Many people start their Mt. Fuji hikes from where it ends.

I was a bit apprehensive about the long climb, but also looking forward to it because the forecast was for rain all day, due to the typhoon that has passed the previous day; I enjoy riding in the rain when it's warm and I'm properly prepared for it. In this case, “properly prepared” means that I don't mind getting soaked and I don't have anything that'll be hurt by getting wet.

map — nearby photos
View from the Hotel
Kawaguchiko Hotel (河口湖ホテル)

I started out at 8am with an hour-long spin around the lake the hotel sat on. It started to rain a bit during that 18km (11mi) loop, but I still got the “best” view of Mt. Fuji that I'd have all day:

map — nearby photos
Mt Fuji
should be there in the upper right

map — nearby photos
Inexplicable Path

Having made the loop around the lake and returned to the road in front of the hotel, I turned toward Fuji. Within a few minutes I was on the road that heads up to the fifth station, rising quite consistently at a mild-but-relenetless 5% for its entire 30km (19mi) length.

Half an hour in, I got to the toll booth and paid my 200 yen (US$1.80) and chatted with the tolltaker a bit. He said that there were something like five cyclists the previous day. I was probably the only cyclist this day, because, I would later find out, two hours later, just as I was arriving at the top, the road was closed due to high winds.

And those winds, along with rain, started in earnest soon after I passed the toll gate. They didn't bother me much early on, as I just concentrated on passing the roadside markers placed every 100m, counting down the distance to the end of the road 23km away (Strava segment).

I also counted the busses that passed. Extrapolating from the number that passed during one five-kilometer stretch, I estimate that about 120 busses passed me on the climb.

The road on the way up is wide and sweeping and pristine — just lovely — and so when a bus or car wants to pass, it usually just swings out into the oncoming lane to do so. There's usually not that much traffic, but at one point a couple of buses had to wait before they could pass me, and it happened to be at the one short span on the entire climb where the steepness backed off a bit. So, to have some fun and to not make them wait so much, I sped up considerably. Soon the opposing traffic cleared and they passed, but because I was moving along at a good clip they just slowly creeped by me. The bus was full, and smiling faces in the window passed by slowly. It was fun.

And just as I was giving a nod to someone at the window next to me, I saw 50m ahead two deer leap across the road. I'm glad that the buses had had to slow down for me earlier, or the deer might be venison.

As I got closer to the top, the wind and rain got very strong, and for the last 3km or so I had such a strong tailwind that I was going 40kph uphill, where later on the return trip, despite now going downhill, I could barely manage half that speed because it was into the wind.

At the very top, the road ended and the gravel hiking trail I'd taken the previous day started:

map — nearby photos
End of the Road
Mt. Fuji (富士山)

This video doesn't show it well, but the wind was ridiculous:

It was the strongest wind I'd ever tried to ride in, but as it later turned out, that record would stand for only a few hours.

I stopped for 45 minutes at a cafe for coffee and food, then ventured out into the cold, powerful winds for the trip down. (The temperature at the top was 10°C / 50°F)

On the way up, it takes considerable effort to ride, so that kept me warm despite the wind and rain and cold. I wouldn't have that on the way down, so I wore a raincoat, mostly as a windbreaker. I'd not thought to bring full-finger gloves, so I got two small plastic bags from the cafe and put them over my brake levers, and just used the brakes while my hands were inside. It worked great to keep the wind off, which is all I needed.

And that wind was strong at first. I kept one foot unclipped just in case a gust blew me over, and twice within the first few minutes I came to a complete stop because the side-gusts were so scary. After a few kilometers of this stop-and-go, I got below some line and the strength of the gusts receded considerably. After that it was a lovely descent. I took it slowly because of the rain and wind, so it took 35 minutes (Strava segment), but on a nice day it'd have been a lovely descent to hit hard. The current best-recorded time is a 62kph-average 22:46.

After exiting the toll booth, there's a 3km almost-completely-straight downhill section of road cut through the forest. It was still rainy and somewhat gusty, but I give it a good go, passing three buses (the only vehicles I saw the entire way down), earning a #14 spot on the leaderboard.

I still felt good, so I thought I'd swing south to another of the three roads that head up Mt. Fuji. I hadn't researched it well, but I'd made a route for my Garmin so that I could get there. The start of the climb was about 20km away, mostly uphill as it turned out, but the last 6km was a lovely fast (if it weren't raining) descent.

I didn't know it at the time, but the climb I was about to embark on, more than 11km at more than 10%, would end up being the most mentally-difficult climb I'd ever done. The unrelenting steepness for the entirety of its long length made it was far worse than the only climb I've ever given up on, the much shorter but much steeper climb in Osaka mentioned here

It begins near some kind of military base, as evidenced by the tanks that I saw moving around as I turned onto the road for the climb. The first 3km of road is ramrod straight, 10% grade, wide beautifully-paved road through forest, apparently flanked by more unseen military base, because at one point I almost jumped out of my skin when what I can only imagine was high-caliber machine gun fire erupted not far away in the woods to the side.

Also early in the climb, my power-meter pedals started to give really crazy readings. And then, while having stopped to take a photo of something with my iPhone, the screen suddenly spazzed out in a very “the hardware just went bad” kind of way. I immediately powered it off. I didn't know it at the time, but it would never power on again, and Apple ended up replacing it. I lost all the photos from the day, save those I had messagedt to others or posted on Facebook.

The odd timing of these two problems actually had me wonder for a moment whether this was the result of some kind of military jamming.

Anyway, I continued on the absolutely-pristine-road 10% climb as it transitioned from ramrod straight to serpentine, and after about 15 hairpins (and an hour), I'd done about half of the climb. For those who know cycling in Kyoto, I'll point out that this first half by itself is both longer and steeper than Hanase, Kyoto's main hard climb.

And from there, the second half of the climb gets even worse, as the road changes from “gorgeous pristine pavement” to typical old mountain road covered with moss and detritus, and keeps at it for 6km at 11%.

This climb is sometimes used in the Tour de Japan. One of the English-speaking racers describes it here: “The brutal Mt. Fuji and the Tour of Japan. ”

As the road changes from pristine to questionable, it also suddenly ramps up to 15% for a while, and just 50 seconds in I had to stop. I felt defeated and just sat there for five minutes contemplating turning around. This was the mentally-hardest thing I'd ever done on the bike, just to not turn around. Judging from the Strava data, I stopped about 11 times during this second half, though sometimes it's difficult to tell because my riding “speed” was so very slow. For the first time in my cycling life, I actually had to ride zig-zag across the lanes to reduce the grade:

Not My Finest Moment
zigzaggy line is on the way up, straight is on the way down

It took almost two more hours, but I eventually did make it to the top. The wind at the very top — the last minute or so — far exceeded that from earlier in the day, and I was pushed up the last 50m without having to pedal!

Thankfully there was a little store/cafe at the top. I got a $3 Coke and some food to recharge my batteries, and plugged in my Garmin cycling computer to recharge its battery. I also consulted with the guy at the cafe on how to get back, and was crestfallen to realize that the only reasonable way back to the hotel was to retrace my steps. The ride between the two climbs had included that long fast descent that was so lovely going down, but now in this exhausted state I'd have to ride back up it. Ugh.

Steeling myself for the ride back as the cafe closed at 5pm, I braved the strong wind and rain for a minute until I dropped into the trees, and enjoyed the slow winding return down. It took 15 minutes before I returned to the straight section at the start of the climb, and couldn't help but give it a good go.

This stretch of road just invites speed. The road is ramrod straight and beautifully paved. There are no cross streets. No buildings. Nothing.... no signs of civilization along the entire stretch. It just begs you to go as fast as you possibly can.

But I didn't. The gusty wind and rain kept me on the brakes much of the way, but I was still going at 80kph (50mph), with my raincoat flapping like crazy.

Also, the guy at the cafe had warned me that the real danger to this stretch of road was deer. The sides of the roads were mostly clear of trees, a path having been cut through the forest, so I keep an wary eye out for animals. I didn't run into any, figuratively or literally, but I did have to contend with this slow-moving monstrosity, slowing down considerably to pass:

map — nearby photos
Wide Load
slow-moving construction equipment
from my bike's rear camera as I blast by

Because I wasn't at all pushing the edge of my envelope, it was just remarkably fun, and it lifted my spirits. I ended up averaging only 74kph, but at one point before I had to slow down for the construction vehicle I hit 84.2kph (52.3mph), which is my new personal record. (The fastest average for this segment is 91kph (57mph), set by a guy who did it eight times in one day as he Everested the climb.)

After finishing the descent, I spent 25 minutes climbing that hill I'd dreaded earlier, then an easy ride back toward the hotel. Much of it was along a main road choked with traffic (the “Fanuc Jam”, the daily traffic jam from workers at robotics company Fanuc, where Krish and Ram used to be executives). I could fly by on the side, which is always fun.

Once I got near to the hotel, I decided to end with another loop around the lake, so as to give me more than the 161km total distance required for a “century” 100-mile ride. This gave me my 14th-longest ride, and my 21st “century”. With 3,485m (11,434') of climb, it tied for my 6th-most climb in a day.

I got back to the hotel at 7:15pm, in good spirits but quite tired.

According to Strava's “Relative Effort” metric, this was my 2nd-most-difficult ride ever, falling between the 400+km pair of loops around Lake Biwa last fall, and the “Stupid Cycling Tricks” ride from a year prior.

It also bumped up my Eddington number to 68, the first change since the 400-km ride in the fall had put it to 67. It won't bump up again any time soon, as I need 10 rides over 112km for it to move to 69.

Fuji has a third road up its slopes, on the southern edge, which goes up higher than the others, to 2,386m (7,828'). You can ride 50km to it from the ocean, for 2,386m of non-stop climb. I hope to give that a try someday....

John Battelle is making the move to NYC from the Bay Area, a shift I made in 2010. Welcome, John. My rationale is exactly yours:

I feel like a lot of the Valley is habitually talking to itself about things that aren’t that interesting anymore.

And some — sea steading? gamification? cryptocurrencies? — weren’t all that interesting to begin with.

The Old Reader blog — Thanks, Google!:

It’s now clear that the demise of the Google Reader was first really loud warning that you can’t rely on a publicly traded, profit-driven Silicon Valley tech company to deliver content. There is no way that story ends well. They will feed you sponsored crap, undermine your democracy, or pull the rug out from under your feet entirely.

I started Nithya Kannada – ನಿತ್ಯ ಕನ್ನಡ a month back, along with a friend. Nithya Kannada – ನಿತ್ಯ ಕನ್ನಡ is simple and quick learning material to learn Kannada. It’s a collection of audio files. Each audio file is a simple conversation in English and Kannada. It also contains text in English, Kannada Transliterated and Kannada. Idea is to keep each step under 60 seconds. We publish one snippet everyday.

Today I created a flash card version using Anki. So you get to revise them ¹ on regular basis.

Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it’s a lot more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn.

Anki is available for Desktop, iPhone and Android. Once you install the app. Download the NithyaKannada Package (Eg: NithyaKannada_1.apkg ) and import into the App. Then start practising. I have screenshots below for your reference.

Download the .apkg file (NithyaKannada_1.apkg) and open it with Anki app.

Once you import the Deck will appear.

You can start study. It will show the question. Now try to remember the Kannada version.

Show Answer will display the answer (In Kannada) and also plays audio

Both Anki storage format and code is open source. You can also create an online account at AnkiWeb if you like to sync between multiple machines. Its not a need but its convenient if you use multiple machines.

I am planning to add new cards every month. Watch the project page.

If you hate wires but love music, you have a lot of wireless headphones to choose from. We’ve tested more than 300 over the past few years, so we can help you decide on the best set for your needs. Although no single pair of headphones works for everyone, there is a perfect Bluetooth headphone set for you. The trick is figuring out what design works best for your listening needs and lifestyle.

Samsung has announced that new AR Emoji based on characters from Disney’s Frozen are coming to the South Korean electronics giant’s Galaxy S9 series of smartphones.

Galaxy S9 and S9+ owners can now use augmented reality avatars of Elsa, Anna, Olaf and Kristoff.

The Frozen AR Emoji Pack is available for download through the Galaxy Apps Store.

The four Frozen characters join over 10 other Disney AR Emoji that are currently offered, including the Parr family from The Incredibles, Mickey Mouse and Goofy.

While AR Emoji were criticized at launch for appearing somewhat creepy and being spotty to use, an update last week improved face tracking significantly.

Image credit: Walt Disney Pictures

Source: Samsung

The post Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ get ‘cool’ AR Emoji from Disney’s Frozen appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Spect from Steven Frank is based on a single, straightforward idea: separating image navigation from the Mac’s folder hierarchy. Point the app at a folder and tell it how deep to peer into subfolders and the app quickly generates thumbnails of the images to that depth of the folder structure. If you’ve ever found yourself drilling down into folders and subfolders only to have to back out and follow another path, you’ll understand the power of Spect immediately. The app saves users from a tremendous amount of clicking around.

Just like the Finder, your image thumbnails can be resized with a slider in the lower righthand corner of the window. In the bottom lefthand corner is where you specify how deep Spect should look into your folders.

Highlight an image and hit the space bar to toggle preview mode, which fills the window with the selected image. In preview mode, there are navigation arrows in the lower lefthand corner of the window so you can advance through your images one at a time.

Previewing an image in Spect.

Spect can display a wide variety of image formats including JPG, PNG, HEIC, RAW, GIF, and PDF. It’s worth noting, however, that Spect is not a replacement for a PDF document viewer. The app is designed for images and can only display the first page of a document-based PDF.

The toolbar at the top of the window has buttons for moving images to the Trash and revealing them in the Finder that are excellent for basic organization. There are also Slideshow and Shuffle buttons in the toolbar, which are a handy way to create a quick slideshow of images from several folders at once. By default, images change every four seconds, but that can be adjusted in the app’s Preferences.

One preference I’d like to see added to Spect is a way to limit which types of image files are displayed in the app. For example, I’d like the option to exclude PDF files, which in my case, are usually documents that I don’t want to see when I’m browsing photos and screenshots. Spect includes drag and drop support for moving images from Spect to different Finder folders, but it would also be handy to be able to create new folders from inside Spect and move photos into them without switching to the Finder at all.

Spect isn’t designed to replace a photo management tool like Adobe Lightroom. Instead, its power lies in its simplicity and the speed with which you can triage a collection of images without getting lost in a complex folder structure. In the two days I’ve been using it, Spect has already helped me understand what images I have and organize them better. For example, I located Apple press photos scattered throughout multiple folders and consolidated them into one folder. I also quickly scanned and retrieved images I wanted to save from my Downloads folder and deleted the rest. If you work with images on a Mac, Spect is a utility you should definitely check out.

Spect is available on the Mac App Store for $4.99.

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This post is prompted by the regular weekly update I get from the BC Green Party.

Under the Ride-hailing heading there is this paragraph

Adam expressed deep disappointment that the BC NDP has left everyone hanging on ride-hailing once again and discusses solutions.

Followed by two buttons each labelled “Read” which do not link, as you might expect, to a Green Party new release or position paper. One links to an article by Mike Smyth in The Province ten days ago and the other to one by Keith Baldrey in Burnaby Now. Neither is either fair or balanced, has any reliable data source but is mostly about slagging off the NDP.

The first one does not quote Adam: the second just has this

The B.C. Green party has been calling for ridesharing to come to B.C. for years now. Last week, B.C. Green MLA Adam Olsen told me the rest of B.C. is “being held hostage” by the existing industry and those key swing ridings.

So no discussion of solutions there.

Smyth only talks to people who support Uber and Lyft and concludes

And rather than create “absolute chaos” on the streets, ride-hailing in other cities has actually reduced traffic congestion because people discover they can get around without a car.

Which is actually contrary to some genuine recent research. You could read about that in the Washington Post but I do have to warn you that you might hit their paywall, but never fear you can actually go to the source Mike Schaller a former deputy commissioner for traffic and planning at the New York City Department of Transportation. That link takes you to a useful summary and also to the pdf for the whole study.

But I think the Post gets the gist in these two paragraphs

“Shared rides add to traffic because most users switch from non-auto modes,” the report says. “In addition, there is added mileage between trips as drivers wait for the next dispatch and then drive to a pickup location. Finally, even in a shared ride, some of the trip involves just one passenger (e.g., between the first and second pickup).”

Schaller synthesizes data from surveys in eight cities and the state of California to conclude 60 percent of ride-hail users would have otherwise used transit, walked or biked, or stayed home were it not for the availability of services such as Uber and Lyft.

That has not been the only coverage of Uber last week: Uber and Lyft are facing a major crackdown in New York City was the headline from The Verge.

New York City officials are moving to restrict the number of Uber and Lyft vehicles allowed on the road as part of a move to contain the massive growth in the for-hire vehicle industry that has been blamed for worsening congestion and low wages for drivers.

Which even though it was reported widely seems to have escaped Mike Smyth.

There was also quite a lot about vomit fraud – in the Toronto Star and the Guardian 

And finally this tweet from BC Green Party Leader

Which seems to ignore the availability of the Canada Line at 11pm – and Uber’s willingness to switch on surge pricing whenever there is a chance of a quick buck or two.

On the whole I wish there were much more emphasis on expanding transit and increasing the range of services that are on offer in BC. There are, of course, many local variations of ride hailing apps – many of which encourage the use of empty seats on vehicles already on the road. A sort of electronic version of hitch hiking – which, of course, remains illegal in BC. We don’t just need more buses – though that would help – we also need to give buses priority in traffic, recognizing their vastly superior carrying capacity – people per lane per hour – and also their ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the present vehicle fleet which remains almost entirely fuelled by fossil fuels. The Green Party also ought to be pushing hard for more intercity bus services, as well as light rail, and making better use of the existing rail networks by requiring more passenger trains and pushing more of the freight trains into overnight service.  That was, after all, the model successfully adopted in Ottawa when they ventured into local passenger train service.

Frankly I think the promises made by Uber and Lyft have been shown to have been as deceptive as those of the pipelines and LNG. Not to mention hyperloop.

A recent consultation in a client’s slowly dying community showed members wanted the community to remain exactly as it was.

This makes sense, if they’re participating they’re usually somewhat happy with the community. It’s hard to imagine something better. They might want a few small tweaks, but small tweaks won’t drive the community forward. Worse yet, it won’t change the trajectory of the community’s downward direction.

This is the problem with asking members what they want, they often describe what they already have (with a few minor tweaks)

The problem, of course, is you’re researching the wrong audience. It’s not your (happy) members you need data on, it’s the audience you want to expand into.

If you want to grow beyond your current audience, your research needs to go beyond your current audience. Find the people who have left the community, people in the sector who never joined, and people from related sectors who might be good members.

Uncover their problems, wishes, and concerns. Look specifically for rapidly rising trends. If 1% of members were using a new technology last year and 4% are using it this year, that’s a 400% increase. It might be worth paying attention to that.

If you want incremental improvements, ask your active members what they want.

If you want to increase the number of members who participate, ask inactive (or less active) members what they want.

If you want to expand, ask non-members what they want.

PT contributor Scot Bathgate forwarded us this video from Ford from a few months ago that takes the “kids on bikes witnessing the otherworldly” trope last seen in the Netflix series Stranger Things, and goes one step beyond.

And although it’s odd for a car manufacturer, one so long steeped in motordom mythology, not only embrace the role of the bicycle in a liveable community, with fleeting glimpses of mass transit and pedestrian activity (and always a glowing, flying orb), it’s all about Ford telling us that the company really understands the importance of mobility mix — the new marketing mix.

The video’s YouTube description includes a link to the Ford Innovation marketing campaign, and it’s worth understanding what they’re ultimately selling us.

The company extolls its commitment — not to anything related to active transportation in communities, but to the kinds of truly transformative technologies our communities apparently really need: electric vehicles (definitely), pothole mitigation technology (sure), driver-assist features like ‘Blind Spot Information System with Cross-Traffic Alert’ (hm?) and pedestrian detection (ok, now hold up a sec).

Yes, now we know this all too well — some of the things humans used to do can now be done by your vehicle. And now the car companies are pushing this evolutionary step forward with slick, persuasive, “the future is now” marketing.

However, as Ford notes in a large footnote-type link, the objects pictured in the future may move less dynamically, less predictably, or let’s just say “less accurate-like”, than the ads may infer:

Driver-assist features are supplemental and do not replace the driver’s attention, judgment and need to control the vehicle. … While Pre-Collision Assist with Pedestrian Detection may be especially helpful in unexpected situations, and can assist to detect walking pedestrians, it does not replace the driver and has limitations, including nighttime, low and harsh lighting conditions, vehicles moving in a different direction and certain weather conditions.

Harkening back to the early days of pharmaceutical warnings, how long before the disclaimers begin to bloat and swallow up the ads?

The video also previews Ford’s Chariot public shuttle service, an acquisition Scot alerted us to a few years ago. Though this type of smaller-scale public transit is far less sexy than crowd-sourced, venture-backed private schemes like Uber and Lyft, it resembles the kind of “share taxi” more common elsewhere in the world. Something like Chariot could actually be very useful in many large North American cities suffering from congestion and chronic issues with taxi licensing, regulation or capacity. (Know of any?)

Finally, what about that bike thing? Is Ford getting into the bicycle infrastructure business? Lobbying state and federal governments for mobility equity? About to wade into 3P projects, and stamp their logo on major active transportation investments?

No. But they made an app called InfoCycle, and are working on taking our cycling trip data and doing something great with it. Because according to Ford, it’s not people on bike or foot who are suffering; it’s the infrastructure — struggling to keep up.

Thus, part of “changing the way we move” is using data to teach us how to share the road. Or something.

To Ford, it appears to be our common future. And that image of that future?

They saved it for the final few seconds of the video. Enjoy.

Firefox 60 (the current release) displays an “untrusted connection” error for any website using a TLS/SSL certificate issued before June 1, 2016 that chains up to a Symantec root certificate. This is part of the consensus proposal for removing trust in Symantec TLS certificates that Mozilla adopted in 2017. This proposal was also adopted by the Google Chrome team, and more recently Apple announced their plan to distrust Symantec TLS certificates. As previously stated, DigiCert’s acquisition of Symantec’s Certification Authority has not changed these plans.

In early March when we last blogged on this topic, roughly 1% of websites were broken in Firefox 60 due to the change described above. Just before the release of Firefox 60 on May 9, 2018, less than 0.15% of websites were impacted – a major improvement in just a few months’ time.

The next phase of the consensus plan is to distrust any TLS certificate that chains up to a Symantec root, regardless of when it was issued (note that there is a small exception for TLS certificates issued by a few intermediate certificates that are managed by certain companies, and this phase does not affect S/MIME certificates). This change is scheduled for Firefox 63, with the following planned release dates:

• Beta – September 5
• Release – October 23

We have begun to assess the impact of the upcoming change to Firefox 63. We found that 3.5% of the top 1 million websites are still using Symantec certificates that will be distrusted in September and October (sooner in Firefox Nightly)! This number represents a very significant impact to Firefox users, but it has declined by over 20% in the past two months, and as the Firefox 63 release approaches, we expect the same rapid pace of improvement that we observed with the Firefox 60 release.

We strongly encourage website operators to replace any remaining Symantec TLS certificates immediately to avoid impacting their users as these certificates become distrusted in Firefox Nightly and Beta over the next few months. This upcoming change can already be tested in Firefox Nightly by setting the security.pki.distrust_ca_policy preference to “2” via the Configuration Editor.

The post Update on the Distrust of Symantec TLS Certificates appeared first on Mozilla Security Blog.

If you’re a coffee aficionado interested in pulling great shots at home, our review of the best espresso machine, grinder, and accessories can help you pick out a great beginner setup—but you’ll need a little practice and patience to get the hang of it. With that in mind, we enlisted David Castillo, the training and education manager at Joe Coffee Company in New York City (I also work at Joe Coffee Company as a consultant), to spend some time with the Breville Infuser (our top-pick machine), and give us some advice on getting started.

Though I have a long coffee background myself, including not just consulting at Joe Coffee Company but researching and writing Wirecutter’s guides to coffee grinders and drip coffee makers, and serving as associate editor at coffee news website Sprudge.com, I’ve spent nearly all of my time in the coffee industry on the drinking side of the bar. So I asked my colleague David if he might drop by my home testing lab and share his award-winning expertise using the beginner-friendly gear we recommend.

The bare minimum setup you’ll need to get started brewing espresso is the machine itself (which, in the case of the Breville Infuser, comes with a portafilter and tamper already) and, whether you do the grinding yourself or not, some coffee ground correctly for espresso (a much finer grind than you may be used to for filter coffee). Ideally you’ll grind coffee for each espresso right before you pull the shot, because coffee goes stale rapidly once it’s ground. And although picking out a coffee bean strictly marketed as “espresso” isn’t necessary, you’ll find that the best roasters strive to build coffee blends that taste balanced and pleasing in the espresso brewing process—as well as retain their best characteristics when served with milk.

Grinding and measuring your coffee

For precision, it’s best to use a scale to confirm that you’re dosing each shot (that is, measuring out the coffee grounds) correctly—at least until you’re sure you’re doing the exact same steps the exact same way every time. At Joe Coffee Company in New York City, where United States Barista Champion finalist David Castillo directs the public education program, “Everything we teach first is by weight,” he told us.

For a double shot of espresso (about 2 ounces), a standard dose is between 13 and 18 grams of coffee. But because every espresso machine is different, you may start to home in on your ideal dose by having just enough head space left over once you’ve tamped down the shot to gain good clearance for brewing when you lock the portafilter into the machine. We found that for the Infuser 15 grams was a good place to start for a double shot.

Once you know how much coffee you want to put in and start pulling shots, you’ll have to dial in your grind size to the right parameters so that water saturates the grinds properly, rather than under-extracting (grind too coarse, tastes sour) or over-extracting (grind too fine, tastes bitter). As a general guidepost, coffee ground for espresso should be very finely ground, less coarse than sand, but not so fine that the machine can’t even push water through the portafilter. Trial, error, taste, and visual inspection—call in Dr. YouTube for a consult if you need to—of the shots as they are flowing out will help get you to the right grind size.

When adjusting your grind size, always remember to purge the grinder by letting it run for a couple of seconds to flush out any remaining particles of the previous grind setting, or you’ll get a potpourri of grind sizes in your next shot, and will be none the wiser to what the right grind should be.

Pulling a good shot

Ready to get started? Fill your portafilter with a double-shot dose of coffee, weighing it if you can. You’ll have a mound of espresso that needs distribution to make sure the portafilter fills evenly without leaving huge gaps or channels for water to seek. Distribute the coffee by hand, then set the portafilter down on a steady surface like the edge of a countertop and tamp as evenly as you can (it’s important to do this with the same pressure each time to ensure consistent brewing from one shot to the next).

Run the machine briefly without a portafilter in place to purge the group head (the nozzle where you insert the portafilter). Now lock that portafilter in the machine, get out a vessel—clear glass like the 3-ounce version of our favorite Duralex drinking glass is easiest for beginners to see the consistency and layering of their espresso—and start your shot!

Castillo advises timing your shots to get the best brew ratio (the ratio of ground coffee to hot water). “Typically with espresso we use a 1:2 brew ratio, because espresso inherently is a very concentrated drink,” he said. To achieve that ratio, he recommends a shot time between 24 and 30 seconds. If your machine seems to be pulling shots way faster or slower than that, it’s likely that your grind size is off—make adjustments and work your way toward that target time range.

Some semiautomatic machines like the Breville Infuser come with preset times for both single and double shots, but you can also start and stop them manually. And once you’ve figured out your ideal timing, you can adjust the preset times accordingly and repeat them at the touch of a button.

Now that you’ve pulled your first shots, you can get down to the nitty-gritty of making them more perfect. If everything looks visually okay at first—a nice volume of viscous liquid, with a caramel-colored crema on top of the shot—taste it, and go from there. Just remember: Nothing you can read will train you to produce good espresso more than training your palate by tasting, tasting, tasting, and adjusting, adjusting, adjusting.

You should clean and dry the portafilter after each use to ensure that coffee buildup doesn’t form on the inside (here’s a good video on how to do it from Whole Latte Love).

Castillo has one last tip: “It’s crucial that you make a mess in the kitchen. That’s part of it.”

Frothing milk

Want to add milk? We recommend a full-fat cow’s milk (because it’s delicious), but there are many made-for-baristas milk alternatives (oat, almond, soy, and beyond) available that perform well when steamed. Castillo recommends filling the pitcher to just about a finger’s width below where the spout begins. Before plunging the steam wand in, make sure to purge any condensation first by turning it on for a moment. Otherwise, especially with the Infuser, you’ll get a bunch of dribbles of hot water in your milk before the pump is ready to go. (You’ll also want to purge the wand again, then wipe it down fastidiously with a wet rag, when you’re done.)

To steam, place both hands on the pitcher (you’ll need to feel the temperature of the milk) and position the wand’s nozzle at a slight angle near the pitcher wall. “As soon as you turn it on, you want to lower the pitcher,” said Castillo. “Move it farther away from the steam wand until you hear a hissing noise, which is air being introduced into the milk—that’s what creates all the texture.” The trick (which takes some practice) is to keep the nozzle just below the surface of the milk, maintaining a quiet hiss that creates fine, velvety bubbles, rather than a loud screech or gurgle that creates unwanted large ones.

Though some instruction manuals say to swirl the milk while steaming, Castillo recommends holding the steam wand just off-center, to allow the force of the steam to create a whirlpool effect by itself. “When the pitcher gets to about hand temperature, you want to push it back up and stop the hissing,” he warned. “You don’t want to aerate past hand temperate because that’s when your milk changes from smooth and silky to grainy and bubbly.” Did you oversteam your milk and end up with giant foamy bubbles, instead of a tight silk? You can always coax the bubbles out a little bit by swirling the pitcher and thunking it on the countertop.

Keep learning and improving

As you refine your technique, you’ll definitely want to dig deeper into online tutorials and YouTube videos (Seattle Coffee Gear has a lot of great how-tos, as does Whole Latte Love). Or, if you want to go really far down the rabbit hole, Scott Rao’s The Professional Barista’s Handbook is chock full of both espresso theory and science. And with coffee having the renaissance that it is, local coffee companies in many major (and some minor) cities offer barista classes that can give the hands-on experience that no amount of reading will provide.

Microlino EV now street legal in EU. When can I get one here in US?

Logitech is expanding its lineup of tools for content creators by acquiring the popular microphone company Blue. From Blue's announcement post:

Logitech has announced plans to acquire Blue Microphones—and we are super excited about it! Blue’s mission is to help our users find and amplify their voice by making the coolest microphones on the planet, and we’re going to keep doing exactly that. With Logitech’s vast resources behind us, we can be supercharged. We can be better, stronger, faster…

The union of the companies makes a lot of sense, as each creates gear in overlapping domains like gaming, YouTube, and podcasting.

We both have strong brands in the gaming market. We make the most popular streaming mic, they make the most popular streaming cam. And we both want to put excellent, high-performance gear on every desktop.

Blue also makes professional-level microphones for musicians, but to most consumers the company may be best known for its Yeti and Snowball mics, which are favorite choices among podcasters. It will be interesting to see how Blue's additional resources enable it to better serve the needs of its existing customer base.

→ Source: blog.bluedesigns.com

Amazon is working on a new design and user interface for its streaming video service, Prime Video.

Head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke has teased that a significant update was in the pipeline for Prime Video, going so far as to state that she’s already running it on her phone.

What Salke has shared so far is short on details, resulting in intense speculation from some subscribers. Some people are suggesting bringing over features from competing services like Netflix and Hulu, including more comprehensive recommendations.

What Salke did mention is that the new interface is significantly more intuitive, according to TechCrunch.

There isn’t really any information about the new user interface, though we’ve learned that there’s a new app coming for sure. That should be exciting enough for anyone who is using Prime Video’s lacklustre mobile app.

Source: TechCrunch

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While the HomePod is currently capable of handling calls after they’ve either been dialled or answered on an iPhone, it’s not possible to make or answer a call with the smart home speaker independently.

We didn’t hear anything about this feature coming to the speaker at this year’s WWDC keynote, but it looks like Apple’s smart speaker is getting the functionality when  Apple releases iOS 12 publicly this September.

This isn’t the first time this rumour has popped up, with an earlier report indicating select retail and corporate employees at Apple were testing a new feature that allows the HomePod to make phone calls on its own, as well as setting multiple timers.

iOS 12’s developer beta 5 has confirmed that phone calls are coming to the HomePod, while the verdict on multiple timers is still unknown. Unfortunately since there’s no developer or public beta for the HomePod, it’s not possible to test the feature out.

Given that the smart speaker runs on a modified version of Apple’s mobile operating system, code designed for the HomePod is often included in developer updates for iOS, according to 9to5Mac, the original source of this report.

Both Amazon’s Echo devices and the Google Home are capable of answering and making calls independently and have been for some time. It makes sense for Apple to bring this functionality to its smart home speaker as well.

It’s likely that we’ll learn more about new features coming to Apple’s smart speaker at the company’s annual September hardware event.

Source: 9to5Mac 

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Mozilla is working on potential redesigns for its Firefox browser and is seeking help from users.

The company feels it’s time to update the familiar fox logo because it doesn’t offer enough adaptability. While the current logo is certainly iconic, Mozilla can only change colours or isolate the fox aspect. This doesn’t result in a lot of options, especially for a company working on so many different apps and tools for users.

Instead, Mozilla wants to have a system of adaptable, recognizable icons that stay true to Firefox.

The company already has two systems for users to look at. However, Mozilla stresses that these icons and designs are not final. Everything will go under several rounds of refinement or change entirely.

Both systems incorporate a ‘masterbrand’ icon — an umbrella under which all the other product icons will live. These masterbrand icons determine the feel and look of all other icons. Right now, System 1 has a geometric fox head and System 2 has a fiery swoosh. Both look good, but some have noted that the System 1 icon is similar to the GitLab logo.

Additionally, both systems feature a redesign of the Firefox browser icons. Firefox has three main variants right now — Firefox Quantum, Developer Edition and Nightly. These three icons correspond with those three variants.

The systems also have new designs for Mozilla’s single-focus browsers, like Firefox Reality for VR and the privacy-focused Firefox Focus mobile browser.

Finally, the systems include five new icons for potential new services as an example of how the masterbrand can be adapted into a unique but familiar new icon.

Mozilla is encouraging users to make their opinions known. Importantly, the company says it isn’t crowdsourcing answers or asking people to vote on what they like. Instead, Mozilla wants people to share their thoughts on the designs in the blog post’s comments.

It’s also important to note that Mozilla is still exploring options for typography, graphic patterns, motion, naming and more as it works to overhaul the brand experience.

Source: Mozilla

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In Nintendo’s most recent Q1 2018 quarterly earnings report, the company revealed that the Switch has sold 19.67 million units since its release back in March of 2017.

While there’s no way to know for sure given official sales numbers are only up to June 30th, with July statistics not yet being made available, it’s likely that Nintendo has already sold more than 20 million Switch consoles in total.

Nintendo projects to sell another 20 million Switch consoles between April 2018 and March 2019, though the company has only sold 10 percent or 1.88 million of its overall goal since April. That said, Nintendo has a promising holiday release schedule coming up, with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Let’s Go games launching this fall — two titles that are sure to help the system’s sales.

Strong Switch performance has resulted in an 88.4 percent surge in revenue year-over-year, with Nintendo pulling in $275 million USD ( approximately $357 CAD), according to the company. The Japanese gaming giant also revealed that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 10 million copies.

To put the Switch’s impressive sales in perspective, the console is on track to outsell the GameCube’s 22 million unit six-year lifecycle in far less than half the time.

In terms of the Wii U, Nintendo’s ill-fated predecessor to the Switch only sold 5.86 million units by the end of its first year on the market, with sales slowing significantly in subsequent years.

Given that Nintendo’s consoles typically sell well for their first 12 months or so on the market, followed by a significant drop in shipments in subsequent years, it’s going to be interesting to see if the company can continue to sustain this momentum.

Source: Nintendo Via: The Verge 

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Internet users rejoice: Google and Mozilla are working to reduce how much memory websites hog on your computer.

Both companies introduced potential fixes for their respective browsers.

Google added a new feature called the Page Lifecycle API to Chrome in version 68. The feature will help browsers pause websites easier. Additionally, it will help browsers reallocate system resources. Most importantly, the feature also makes it easier for browsers to start webpages up again when you need them.

Page Lifecycle attempts to standardize the web by creating universal lifecycle states. These states allow browsers and webpages to work together so that system resources can be managed appropriately without affecting webpage or browser performance.

However, the API requires web developers to build support into their webpages to work effectively. In the long term, this may prove a significant change, not just for Chrome but for browsers as a whole. However, it will take time for developers to support it.

Even worse, some older websites may never support it.

Reducing overall memory usage

Firefox has a solution as well, but it’s specific to Firefox. Dubbed ‘Fission MemShrink,’ the project seeks to shave 7MB off of each of Firefox’s content processes the browser uses to render a webpage. A process is an instance of a program being executed.

The project belongs to a broader Fission program hoping to make webpages feel faster.

MemShrink however isn’t entirely about reducing memory usage. MemShrink is an offshoot of Firefox’s work to implement site isolation to the browser. Chrome implemented this earlier in July as a safeguard against attacks like Meltdown and Spectre. However, site isolation increases the number of processes used by the browser. More processes result in additional memory usage.

MemShrink’s goal is to get every process Firefox runs to 10MB of data or less. Since a single session of Firefox requires at least 100 processes, that would put memory usage at about 1GB instead of 2 to 3.5GB we see now.

According to a newsletter from Mozillian Kris Maglione, that means cutting every process by at least 7MB. The newsletter breaks down just how monumental a task this is — monumental, but not impossible. Maglione also wrote that in “the past month, unique memory per process has dropped 3-4MB and [Java Script] memory usage in particular has dropped 1.1-1.9MB.”

Over 100 processes, that kind of reduction in memory usage certainly adds up.

Ultimately, both fixes will lead to better resource management when using a browser. Firefox’s solution will certainly provide Firfox users a snappier, more secure browser. That said, Chrome’s Page Lifecycle API will have deeper effects in the long term.

Source: Google Developers, Mozilla Via: CNET

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Google Maps for iOS now supports the company’s new restaurant recommendation feature ‘Match.’

Match was announced at Google I/O in May and it made its way to the Android version of the app in June. Now it’s rolling out to iOS users as well.

Google built the feature to make Maps more competitive with Tripadvisor and Yelp. Its main focus is to learn what kinds of restaurants and bars the user likes and then recommend similar establishments.

To see what places you match with on iOS tap the explore button. The app then presents the users with a list of recommended restaurants. Match rates locations out of 100 which means anything above 70 percent is probably pretty good.

This feature uses all of the relevant data that Google has on the user, like where they’ve been in the past and what preferences they’ve loaded into the app. The app then uses machine learning to evolve these scores as it gathers more data.

To input some starter information, tap on a Match score and you’re given the opportunity to add some reviews and personal preferences.

Getting this update on iOS brings the app closer to its Android sibling, but it’s still missing the ‘For you’ tab which presents users with a simple list of recommendations.

The Match score doesn’t show up for every location, but maybe as Google gathers more data this will become less of an issue.

Via: Mashable 

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Those holding out for the mythical MacBook Air refresh in the face of Apple’s controversial 2018 MacBook Pro, will be pleased to learn that it looks like it could get a significant upgrade.

The latest rumours indicate the next version of the company’s low-end laptop will feature Intel’s eighth-generation Kaby Lake processors, according to a report from Taiwanese publication Economic Daily News.

Further, the report suggests the new Air will still measure in at 13-inches and that the laptop will also include a Retina Display. Whether or not Apple opts to update the laptop’s physical design remains unknown.

Regardless, if there’s truth to this rumour, this is a significant hardware upgrade over the current generation of MacBook Air, which features Intel’s fifth-generation, dual core i5 and i7 processors released all the way back in 2015. That said, Kaby Lake processors are already a year old at this point.

Additionally, it’s unclear if Apple will brand the upcoming laptop as the MacBook, MacBook Pro or if it will stick with the well-known MacBook Air name. Rumours suggest that the laptop will have a price tag that starts below $1,000 USD (roughly $1,302 CAD).

Intel’s 8-generation Kaby Lake processors feature 14nm chips, with the next-generation Cannon Lake chips being based on 10nm technology. Canon Lake chips likely won’t release until the end of 2019, according to reports.

While little has leaked about the MacBook Air refresh, KGI Securities Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, an often-reliable source of Apple rumours, recently reported that the laptop does indeed exist.

Source: Economic Daily News Via: MacRumors

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Google is adding the official Chrome web browser to its Daydream VR platform, allowing users to browse the web in virtual reality.

Daydream is Google’s virtual reality platform for Android phones and the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset.

The new update brings an icon for Chrome right to the headset’s home screen. Users are now select the web browser and navigate the web while wearing the headset.

One of the minor changes that Google added to the browser to make it VR ready is a new mode for watching web-videos called  ‘Cinema Mode.’

The new mode formats videos so they display better on the headset and takes advantage of the display being so close to the user’s eyes.

The VR version of Chrome also supports WebVR, which is a standard format for making VR content on the web.

Daydream users were able to access a test version of Chrome in the past, which means these features have been usable for some time now. Now Google is officially rolling them out to all Daydream users.

Source: The Verge

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