Rolandt

It was seven o’clock in the morning. We were four self-service screens and four user experience failures into our journey.

It didn’t help that there hadn’t been enough time for coffee before my partner and I left the house, but even fully caffeinated it would have been hard to ignore the feeling all this technology intended to smooth our journey through the airport had rather lost its way.

We’d drawn our first blank with the terminals which print baggage tickets. The queue snaked around the departures area, creeping forward at a snail’s pace as each group of passengers struggled to make sense of the interface. About half of each person’s screen time in front of the machine seemed to be taken up with dismissing interstitials tempting them to spend more on legroom and extra miles. Three out of every four passengers needed assistance to complete their session on the supposedly ‘automated’ systems. The small number of staff on-hand looked increasingly fraught as the queues mounted.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to airports. I can’t remember the last time I visited a supermarket where at least one customer in front of me didn’t need assistance with the self-service checkout.

Even the machines themselves seemed to want out. One of the screens abruptly refused to stop serving. It terminated the customer’s session and simply displayed the word ‘CLOSED’. In the smallest nod to etiquette, it continued to offer a choice of language options, just in case its message wasn’t clear.

Strikes two, three and four came courtesy of a single attempt to purchase a salad, sandwich and bottle of water for the flight. There was a line of three self-service checkout stations, each equipped with barcode scanner and a slot to swipe your credit card. The first crashed with the cryptic message ‘*Service – store log-in’. The second wouldn’t acknowledge multiple swipes of a credit card. We were brusquely moved to the third and final pay station by an assistant whose mood seemed to reflect an existential doubt that her career was now in thrall to machines with a mind of their own.

It took two attempts, but finally the third machine acknowledged it had taken our money from the same credit card its digital colleague had refused just a few seconds earlier.

We went in search of coffee and found ourselves sitting at ‘Saison’, a pseudo-French bistro with the dubious distinction of being one of the few places in Newark airport which will serve you coffee in a real coffee cup. Like every other food outlet in Newark Terminal C, the tables at Saison are divided by two centrally-mounted iPads, creating a physical and metaphorical barrier between you and your travelling companions. I’ve written about them before, in a previous travel grump entitled ‘Antisocial technology‘.

My partner and I sat opposite each other, staring into the abyss of advertising flashing up on the screens. We tapped and swiped away screens tempting us with Amazon-style ‘people who bought this also liked this’ offers until it seemed we’d each done enough to order our cups of coffee.

As if to emphasise the sense it was every man for himself, our coffees were split into separate tabs – one for her side of the table, one for mine. She won the prize by correctly guessing which of the several credit card swipe slots was connected to the iPads. Just in case you ever find yourself in the same café, I won’t spoil the challenge by revealing the answer, but I will share a top tip for fellow travellers: it’s not the one closest to you or the one which faces you…

I was done, at least until the caffeine arrived.

I picked up my napkin from the table and draped it over the iPad. My partner did the same and, in a testament to team work, the combined thickness of the two serviettes was just enough to block out the carousel of upselling which continued to vie for our attention even after we’d placed our order.

Relief arrived in very human form. A waitress walked over and saw the makeshift cover we’d erected over the screens. She smiled, reached down and adjusted something on the base of the what we’d assumed to be immovable clamps holding the tablets. The screens toppled forward – felled – and lay flat and quiet on the table.

“You’re lovely…” My partner said to her.

She picked up one of the napkins and dropped it back on top of the defeated pile of tablets.

“I try,” she replied with a smile. “My husband doesn’t think so, but I try…”

There was something in the proficiency with which she took down the digital wall that suggested this was far from the first time she’d performed this service for diners in her café.

Our coffees came and we found ourselves talking again – of the trip, of the flight to come – with all the subtleties of eyes and expressions which make conversations real. We had our phones, of course – to let us know about our departure gate or to look at a photo together – but they were a choice, and mostly we chose to leave them face down. They augmented, but did not interrupt.

As I sat on the flight, I reflected that more often it is the elements of a customer journey which are hardest to measure that make the greatest difference.

There’s an old adage that you can not change what you can not measure, but what was the value of that waitresses’ smile or her tone? What about the brevity of her intervention, when she correctly judged that what we wanted most was just a little space? What about her willingness to give us just a snippet of confidence and intimacy by sharing a little of her own life?

‘Mood button’ survey machines – with three or four options ranging from green happy face to red sad face – are becoming ubiquitous at airports. There is no possible way the data they generate could tell a company anything useful about our particular airport experience. Nor would increased profitability be a reliable indicator. A company could boost profit by cutting some of the expenses which cost it more – like trained, motivated staff – and replacing them with cheaper, poorly designed machines. Travellers in airports, after all, are a captive audience.

However, as an advocate for user-centred design, I believe it is possible to find a better kind of growth – in both company profitability and customer satisfaction.

It starts with someone in a company deciding that listening, and listening hard, is their single greatest priority. Not just listening to profitability or digital metrics or even survey data. Instead, listening like a grandparent listens to stories of their grandchildren’s lives. When you listen with hunger and revel in the details, you discover nuances that can unlock a new type of growth. Investing in new technology is likely part of that process, but it is probably better spent on mostly invisible elements which enable people to deliver higher levels of service.

A wall of new screens may look like tangible progress, but even assuming they have good UIs (and most don’t), they’re usually customer-facing in name only. In reality, their premise is often an inward-facing motivation to expedite processes with too little thought for how they relate to the reality of customers’ lives.

Perhaps key is the decision to listen first before deciding what it is you really need to measure?

Part of MEX User Stories, an ongoing series of tales about digital user experience in the real world.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on what to consider when choosing colors for data vis. In it, I noted that one should avoid the stereotypical blue for men and pink for women when visualizing gender data. John Burn-Murdoch from the Financial Times responded with a tweet, showing which newsrooms used which colors in their reporting of the UK gender pay gap data.

This article is an extension of that tweet. I’ll start off with some examples of news graphics where pink & blue were used as well as examples where they weren’t - explaining along the way why the classic pink & blue combo is an unawesome choice. Afterwards, we’ll look at two ways of moving away from this color combination in visualizing gender data. Let’s start with the bad news:

1 Pink & blue are not dead

The era of pink & blue isn’t over. Surprisingly many big projects in the last four years used these colors to convey information about men and women, e.g. the New York Times, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. Two The Pudding projects from 2017 that looked at gender in movies used red and blue – a third project in 2017, “Gender Representation of Comic Book Characters”, used dark blue for men and gold for women.

Why? Well, there’s an argument to be made for using pink & blue: Readers will be able to decipher charts with these stereotypical colors faster. It’s not even necessary to explain the colors first. Financial Times’ Alan Smith wrote about this in FT’s column ‘Chart Doctor’: After creating a chart about baby names in pink & blue, …

“… I justified it because the strong cultural association of the colors meant I did not need to put a separate legend on the chart. This, in turn, meant my graphic would be ‘cleaner’, something to which all designers aspire.” – Alan Smith

So what’s the problem with pink & blue? In our western culture, these colors come with the whole gender stereotype baggage. Pink means weak, shy girls who play with dolls and don’t deserve as much as boys. Blue stands for boys who need to be strong & rough. When we create a chart with pink & blue, we endorse gender stereotypes.^[1] Especially when we chart gender (pay) gaps, that’s often the opposite of what we want to achieve.

2 Many newsrooms stay away from pink & blue

Here’s the good news: While some still use it, pink & blue isn’t the norm anymore, at least not in big news organizations. When the gender pay gap data came out in the UK this year, graphics reporters used a very diverse color palette. I had assumed they would still use blue for men and just a rather warm color for women. But I was surprised: The Economist, Guardian, Telegraph, Washington Post, and others used a cooler color for women than for men. Respect! You can’t go further away from the norm. Here are some examples (not exclusively from this year’s gender pay gap data).

3 There’s no consistency within newsrooms

I love the diversity of colors for gender data across newsrooms. But there is this mantra in Data Vis: In an article, the same colors should represent the same things. If your first chart uses a blue color to show data about men, that same blue shouldn’t show data about women in the second chart. Maybe this should be true even across all visualisations of the same publication?

Apparently, graphics reporters don’t see the need for this. When we look at the colors that designers use within the same newsroom to show gender data, we don’t find much consistency. The colors for gender data are decided for each article individually. The following example shows chart colors by Bloomberg – but I could have chosen any other newsroom, the New York Times, Guardian, ZEIT Online, etc.

But even in a newsroom with normally consistent colors, the assignment to the sexes is unclear. The main colors used in all Quartz charts are pink & blue, so I was wondering which colors they used to show gender data. Turns out: They wonder that themselves. Almost all chart authors at Quartz have agreed on that the pink & blue should be used, but they haven’t quite decided which color should represent which gender:

I’m afraid that this is dangerous. Charts that flip the stereotypical colors can be hard to read: If readers see pink & blue in a chart about sexes, they won’t be very likely to consult the legend.

Showing pink for men and blue for women for gender gap charts can quickly backfire: Instead of challenging stereotypes, they can lead to intuitive interpretations of “Oh, the situation for women is actually better than for men”. That’s especially true if readers are used to the same newsroom showing stereotypical colors “the right way round”.

4 How to choose colors: The Telegraph case

Out of curiosity as to how The Telegraph decided on their purple for women and green for men , I asked Fraser Lyness, Director of Graphic Journalism at The Telegraph. His answer impressed me:

The colors are inspired by the “Votes for Women” campaign in the UK as part of the initial suffrage movement in the early 20th century. At the heart of this movement were “Sylvia Pankhurst and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and essentially the colors were their choice (apparently symbolizing; purple for freedom and dignity, white for purity, green for hope).”

Fraser and his team brought these colors into their charts on the gender gap, making a subtle but unmistakable statement about gender equality.

In the final graphics (for example here (Paywall) or in this scrollytelling article “Born equal. Treated unequally”), women are represented with the purple and men with green. But how was this decision made?

“When deciding which gender aligned with which color, it was more a case of trying to prioritize women in the order of genders. Against white, purple registers with far greater contrast and so should attract more attention when putting alongside the green, not by much but just enough to tip the scales. In a lot of the visualisations men largely outnumber women, so it was a fairly simple method of bringing them back into focus.” –Fraser Lyness

One can see this effect very well in graphics like this one:

Doing research pays off. Fraser was not only able to decide on two beautiful colors but was also able to communicate a reason for this decision: “Having a reference to the suffrage movement helped seal the deal”, he told me.

And did co-workers complain that the faster readable colors pink & blue were not used? Apparently not:

“Essentially no one objected to the idea that genders couldn’t be easily identified by not using commonly referred to combinations like pink & blue. If anything they felt it would harm the message they were hoping to convey.” –Fraser Lyness

5 Rebranding pink & blue

Moving away from pink & blue for gender data is an endeavor from two sides: On the one side, gender data should be communicated with other colors. On the other side, the combination of pink & blue also needs to change its image. I’m happy to see data vis that attempts that. The first three of the following data visualizations all won a Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards 2017 (and the last one is by John Burn-Murdoch, who doesn’t need an Information is Beautiful Award). All of them reinterpret pink & blue. None of them show gender data:

I’m glad to see many newsrooms are moving away from pink & blue. Thanks to everyone who reconsiders their colors before hitting “publish”! Thanks to everyone who goes wild with gender colors, even if it feels a bit wrong in the beginning. You deserve a round of applause. Also, thanks to John Burn-Murdoch for the inspiration and Fraser Lyness for answering my questions about the Telegraph colors.

Edit 11/07/2018: I removed the colors for Bloomberg Quint and Bloomberg Gadfly and added two more color combinations that Bloomberg used in 2018.

1. Not surprisingly, especially women seem to care. Andy Kirk from visualisingdata.com asked 126 data vis designers (76 male, 50 female) in 2015 which colors they would assign to gender values. 41% of men but only 14% of women would use pink and blue. ↩

Recent question about futures markets on software bugs: what's the business model?

As far as I can tell, there are several available models, just as there are multiple kinds of companies that can participate in any securities or commodities market.

Oracle operator: Read bug tracker state, write futures contract state, profit. This business would take an agreed-upon share of any contract in exchange for acting as a referee. The market won't work without the oracle operator, which is needed in order to assign the correct resolution to each contract, but it's possible that a single market could trade contracts resolved by multiple oracles.

Actively managed fund: Invest in many bug futures in order to incentivize a high-level outcome, such as support for a particular use case, platform, or performance target.

Bot fund: An actively managed fund that trades automatically, using open source metrics and other metadata.

Analytics provider: Report to clients on the quality of software projects, and the market-predicted likelihood that the projects will meet the client's maintenance and improvement requirements in the future.

Stake provider: A developer participant in a bug futures market must invest to acquire a position on the fixed side of a contract. The stake provider enables low-budget developers to profit from larger contracts, by lending or by investing alongside them.

Arbitrageur: Helps to re-focus development efforts by buying the fixed side of one contract and the unfixed side of another. For example, an arbitrageur might buy the fixed side of several user-facing contracts and the unfixed side of the contract on a deeper issue whose resolution will result in a fix for them.

Arbitrageurs could also connect bug futures to other kinds of markets, such as subscriptions, token systems, or bug bounties.

Previous items in the bug futures series:

• Are bug futures just high-tech piecework?

• The third connection in Benkler's Tripod

• transactions from a future software market

• more transactions from a future software market

• Smart futures contracts on software issues talk, and bullshit walks?

• Incentivizing production of information goods

• Some ways that bug futures markets differ from prediction markets

• Some ways that bug futures markets differ from open source bounties

• The capital dynamics are all wrong.

• Evancoin and the stake problem

Bugmark paper

A trading market to incentivize secure software: Malvika Rao, Georg Link, Don Marti, Andy Leak & Rich Bodo (PDF) (presented at WEIS 2018)

Bonus link

Corporate Prediction Markets: Evidence from Google, Ford, and Firm X (PDF) by Bo Cowgill and Eric Zitzewitz.

Despite theoretically adverse conditions, we find these markets are relatively efficient, and improve upon the forecasts of experts at all three firms by as much as a 25% reduction in mean squared error.

(This paper covers a related market type, not bug futures. However some of the material about interactions of market data and corporate management could also turn out to be relevant to bug futures markets.)

Creative Commons

Pipeline monument in Cushing, Oklahoma: photo by Roy Luck for Wikimedia Commons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The fracturing, fissuring surface quality of marble seems immune to codification, or at least that’s what I first thought. Over my final semester at ITP, I audited the inimitable Ken Perlin, the mind behind the noise function.

After one particularly lengthy lecture about raytracing, Ken was so kind as to regale us about that time he worked one the vase scene in Weird Science. The director worked with Ken on perfecting the look of marble for a vase flying through space. This is process called procedural solid modeling. Using raytracing and noise, Ken came up with turbulence, a function that creates sudden stops and reversals using absolute values of a fractal of noise.

In 2013 the City of Charlottetown offered free “low flow” shower heads to residents with shower heads rated more than 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm). Ours was exactly 2.5 gpm, so we weren’t eligible, but I took the opportunity to live up to the spirit of the program, and replaced our shower head with a 1.6 gpm model, a simple Waterpik head that I bought at Walmart for $18.

As a result of the change, if I take a 5 minute shower, the savings of 0.9 gallons per minute translates into 4.5 gallons of water saved; over the course of a year that’s 1642 gallons (6215 litres or 6.215 m³), saved.

That’s a lot of water. About 5% of our yearly household water consumption.

Oddly, though, it’s not much of a cost savings: the city bills water usage at 26.4 cents/m³ and sewer usage at 58 cents/m³, so our yearly cost savings is only $5.25; usage-based billing amounts to only 23% or so of my quarterly water bill, the remainder coming from flat-rate daily charges. So, even though we cut our consumption by 5%, we save only about 1% on our water bill over the course of the year from the switch (of course I’m not accounting for the 6215 litres of water we don’t have to heat up every year, which has its own cost saving attached to it).

But, still, saving water is good, no matter the financial pay-off.

I didn’t suffer from the decreased flow; the Waterpik unit does a good job at maximizing power even with less water. The only negative side-effect of the switch is that, because there’s less water running through the shower head, it takes the cold water all that much longer to flush out of the system when I start up the shower in the morning. It’s not that there’s any more cold water to be flushed out, but the increased time means that I’m far more inclined to start up the shower and then go and do something else.

Like shave, for example. Or empty the washer. Or fold up the towels.

And that something else often takes longer than the cold water takes to flush out, meaning that the water is needlessly running, hot, while I’m distracted otherwise.

The Evolve ShowerStart TSV is a technical solution to this very problem:

Behavioral waste occurs when bathers use their time comfortably and efficiently while waiting for hot water to reach the shower. Instead of patiently waiting for cold water to exit the shower head most people leave to do something else. Typical activities include brushing teeth, using the washroom and picking out clothes. Because bathing only begins after the tasks have been completed, countless gallons of hot water are unintentionally wasted at the start of every shower.

I came across a mention of it via Cool Tools, and sent a note to Charlottetown Water & Sewer about it to see if they’d had any experience with it. They hadn’t. So they went out and bought one, and offered to loan it to me to beta test.

I picked it up today and did just that.

It’s an easy device to install: you just unscrew the existing shower head, screw on the ShowerStart, and then screw the shower head into the ShowerStart.

It works like this: you turn on the water as you normally would, and the cold water flushes out; as soon as 95ºF water starts to flow, the water slows to a trickle, leaving me free to shave or whatever else occupies me. When I’m ready to shower, I simply pull on the pull-cord, and the hot water starts to flow.

Here’s the beta test on video:

The water slows to a trickle after 41 seconds, meaning that, at 1.6 gpm, it’s flushing out about 4.1 litres of cold water.

Assuming that it takes me 4 minutes to shave, that means that, with the ShowerStart in place, I’m saving 3 minutes and 20 seconds in hot water needlessly running, or 20 litres of water.

Over the course of the year then, ballpark, I’ll save 7300 litres of water using this device. Which is more than I saved by switching to a low-flow showerhead.

I’ll use the ShowerStart for a couple of weeks and report back on how it works in day-to-day use.

Real World Test Results

…when there is an overwhelming demand for one.

Most organizations launch their community far too early. They stagger along for years without ever reaching a critical mass of people. You don’t need a big bang launch, but you do need a decent pop. You need to launch and quickly get to a few hundred people within a few weeks. These people should be passionate about the community concept already.

If you don’t have relationships with the top influencers in your sector, an audience of hundreds (or, ideally, thousands of people), or a solid group of 50+ members committed to participating in the community, keep going until you do.

This is what the CHIP process is for. It’s to build huge demand for the community before it exists. You should be constantly out there scheduling coffee meetings, attending meetup groups, and reaching out to potential attendees to get the community going.

You should design a community that breaks new ground, brings together a different group of people, and solves new problems. People should be incredibly excited by the idea of it before it exists.

Few people will casually drift by and join the community. It’s all on you to make it happen. To find people, talk to them, and gradually build your tribe. The time to launch a community (i.e. with a platform for people to chat to one another) is when your audience practically demands it…when you can’t keep up….when there are just too many great ideas to share.

Surprisingly beautiful high-tech thriller.

Mike Loukides, Hilary Mason, and DJ Patil published a first post in a series on data ethics on O’Reilly.

We particularly need to think about the unintended consequences of our use of data. It will never be possible to predict all the unintended consequences; we’re only human, and our ability to foresee the future is limited. But plenty of unintended consequences could easily have been foreseen: for example, Facebook’s “Year in Review” that reminded people of deaths and other painful events. Moving fast and breaking things is unacceptable if we don’t think about the things we are likely to break. And we need the space to do that thinking: space in project schedules, and space to tell management that a product needs to be rethought.

Because data might just be computer output — cold and mechanical — but what data represents and the things it leads to are not.

Tags: ethics

So sehr ich die Apple Watch liebe, das Ladekabel ist sehr lästig auf Reisen. Abhilfe schafft diese kleine Powerbank mit 700 mAh Kapazität. Die reicht aus, den Akku der Uhr ein bis zwei mal aufzuladen. Man kann auch größere Powerbanks mit diesem Adapter kaufen, aber ich mag gerade dieses kleine Gerät sehr.

More >

Tesla nimmt jetzt für 2500 US-Dollar Bestellungen für das Model 3 entgegen. Eine Reservierung für 1000 US-Dollar ist dafür nicht erforderlich. Einstiegspreis 49.000 US-Dollar plus Extras und Steuer, minus Steuervergünstigung solange verfügbar. Mit 400.000 Bestellungen könnte das Unternehmen eine Milliarde einnehmen. Geld, das Tesla dringend braucht. Die 2500 für die Bestellung sind anders als die 1000 für die Reservierung, die man auch zurückfordern kann, in jedem Fall weg.

Wer vor gut zwei Jahren 1000 für die Reservierung eines Model 3 für 35.000 eingezahlt hat, guckt weiter in die Röhre. Deutsche können das Modell 3 nicht bestellen, Reservierung hin oder her.

Wer den ganzen Zirkus nicht mitmachen will, kann übrigens einfach einen Tesla S kaufen. Ich denke, der ist sogar billiger als das Model 3 wird. Das wäre natürlich auch vor drei Jahren schon gegangen.

Was funktioniert:

• Windows 10 Professional: gpedit.msc suchen und ausführen.
  Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Search/Allow Cortana/Disabled
• Windows 10 Home: regedit.exe suchen und ausführen.
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search.
  Rechts klicken, Neu, Dword-Wert (32 bit), Name: AllowCortana, Wert: 0

Was nicht funktioniert:

• Sich auf Twitter beschweren.

Cortana ist doof. Mein Windows steht auf deutschem Locale mit englischer Sprache. Die Kombination kann sie nicht. Also hält Karl Klammers Tochter den Mund.

Das sind übrigens keine "geheimen Tipps", wie manche Autoren behaupten. Windows ist beinahe beliebig konfigurierbar.

sillygwailo shared this story from The Atlantic Photo.

One of the most appealing aspects of soccer is its simplicity—a ball, some open space, goal markers, and you can play. As the 2018 World Cup kicks off in Russia, with matches held in massive modern arenas, here is a look at the beautiful game in action in some smaller and more unusual venues around the world, including pitches built on a glacier, on a beach, floating in a river, made of straw, on a rooftop, and more.

sillygwailo shared this story from The Omni Group.

Ken Case, CEO of The Omni Group, tweeted:

Now that we’ve had a chance to evaluate how WWDC’s announcements affect our development schedules, I’m happy to share that we plan to ship the Mac edition of OmniFocus 3 in September.

We’ve got details…

OmniFocus 3 for Mac will be available from the Mac App Store and from our website. It will be a free download with a 14-day trial. The Standard edition will cost $39.99, and Pro will cost $79.99.

Everyone who bought a previous version of OmniFocus for Mac will get a 50% discount, and everyone who bought OmniFocus for Mac since our announcement last October will get a free upgrade. (Which also means that you can buy OmniFocus 2 for Mac today and you’ll get a free upgrade to OmniFocus 3 for Mac.)

OmniFocus 3 for Mac will bring tags, enhanced custom perspectives, interleaved Forecast, the Forecast tag, enhanced repeating tasks, and other new features already found in OmniFocus 3 for iOS.

How You Can Help

It’s not in beta-testing yet, but our team’s hard at work and it will be in testing this summer, and you can sign up to help test. We appreciate it!

If you previously signed up to help test OmniFocus 3 for iOS, you don’t need to sign up again. We’ve got you. :)

Sony Pictures Animation has announced a partnership with Vancouver-based smart playground company Biba Ventures on a children’s augmented reality mobile game inspired by its upcoming animated film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.

The game, Hotel Transylvania: Crazy Cruise, follows the events of the film, which sees Dracula and his family take a vacation on a Monster Cruise Ship. In terms of gameplay, Crazy Cruise leverages Biba’s experience in creating mobile games that get children physically active in the playground.

To play the game, parents will have to hold a smartphone and use playground equipment with their children as they avoid AR-created “hazards” in the real world and complete on-screen mini-games. Using Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore AR technology, Crazy Cruise will transform the playground into elements from the film, such as rigging the monkey bars with monster traps.

If parents get ensnared in one of these traps, children will be able to help them escape through smartphone mini-games. Throughout playtime, parents and children can also pose with the AR items they find in-game to take photos that can be shared on social media.

“We’re excited to bring the theme of Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation to the playground. This game allows parents and kids to assume the role of the movie’s characters through collaborative gameplay for a playground adventure they’ll never forget,” said Matt Toner, CEO of Biba Ventures, in a press statement. “We’re excited to work with Sony Pictures Consumer Products as they join us in our mission of encouraging kids to play outdoors and motivating parents to join with them.”

“We are excited to work with Biba to bring the Hotel Transylvania franchise into the interactive digital space with the mission of helping children learn to use technology responsibly, while increasing their activity and interaction with their parents,” added Jamie Stevens, Sony Pictures Entertainment executive vice president of worldwide consumer products.

“Hotel Transylvania: Crazy Cruise bridges the gap between digital and physical play and allows families to experience the world of Hotel Transylvania in a very unique way.”

Hotel Transylvania: Crazy Cruise is now available on Android for $0.99 CAD and iOS for $1.39.

Meanwhile, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which features the voice talents of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, will hit theatres on July 13th.

The post Sony partners with Vancouver-based Biba on Hotel Transylvania AR mobile game appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Anyone that missed I/O 2018 now has a chance to talk to the team behind Android P.

On July 19th, the Android engineering team will host an official Reddit AMA on r/androiddev. Starting at 3pm ET / 12pm PT, the team will answer questions from the developer community. However, you can send in your questions now.

The team is specifically looking to answer technical and engineering-related questions on upcoming Android P features and low-level enhancements like Actions and Slices, Android Jetpack and more.

A whopping 29 members of the Android team, including notable names like Chet Haase and Romain Guy, will take part in the AMA.

We’ll update this article when the AMA goes live.

Source: Reddit Via: Android Police

The post Android P engineering team to host Reddit AMA on July 19 appeared first on MobileSyrup.

It's hard to remember using an iPhone before the App Store. However, for the first year, the iPhone could only run the handful of apps that Apple created for it. Anything else required using mobile web apps in Safari.¹

On March 6, 2008, just nine months after the original iPhone went on sale, Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall announced that Apple would ship an SDK for third-party developers to write applications that could run natively on the iPhone, without the clumsiness inherent in web apps.

After Forstall took some time going through the details of the SDK, Steve Jobs came back on stage to answer a question that had no doubt been circulating the room:

How do you distribute software on a device like the iPhone?

The answer was an App Store.

2008 - iPhone OS 2.0: Genesis

The App Store, Steve Jobs said, would put large and small developers on an even playing field, and would put their apps in front of every iPhone user on the planet.

The original App Store.

The original App Store owed a lot to its iTunes roots, and it showed. The tabs across the bottom of the interface would have felt very familiar to anyone who had purchased music from the iTunes Store iPhone app. The Featured tab was home to staff favorites, but was updated on a weekly basis, at best, in the early days. Categories and Search helped users navigate the App Store, while Top 25 showed the most popular apps across the Store at a given time, divided into a list for free apps and another for paid titles.

App updates were handled through the Store as well, listed in the Updates tab.

Apple's press release went into more detail about how the business end of things would work:

The iPhone 2.0 software release will contain the App Store, a new application that lets users browse, search, purchase and wirelessly download third party applications directly onto their iPhone or iPod touch. The App Store enables developers to reach every iPhone and iPod touch user. Developers set the price for their applications—including free—and retain 70 percent of all sales revenues. Users can download free applications at no charge to either the user or developer, or purchase priced applications with just one click. Enterprise customers will be able to create a secure, private page on the App Store accessible only by their employees. Apple will cover all credit card, web hosting, infrastructure and DRM costs associated with offering applications on the App Store. Third party iPhone and iPod touch applications must be approved by Apple and will be available exclusively through the App Store.

Reading that press release,² it's amazing how little has changed in the decade since the App Store was announced. While a lot has evolved since iPhone OS 2.0, the structure Apple put in place all those years ago is still intact.

(One thing that hasn't survived is the inclusion of iOS apps in iTunes. For years, users could purchase apps on a Mac or PC, then sync them over USB to their iPhones. That was present from day one, but has been gone for almost a year.)

In short, the App Store worked. Over its first weekend, Apple clocked some 10 million app downloads:

Developers have created a wide array of innovative mobile applications ranging from games to location-based social networking to medical applications to enterprise productivity tools. Users can wirelessly download applications directly onto their iPhone or iPod touch and start using them immediately. More than 800 native applications are now available on the App Store, with more than 200 offered for free and more than 90 percent priced at less than $10.

“The App Store is a grand slam, with a staggering 10 million applications downloaded in just three days,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Developers have created some extraordinary applications, and the App Store can wirelessly deliver them to every iPhone and iPod touch user instantly.”

As impressive as 10 million downloads was at the time, that number is a mere drop in the bucket ten years later. Apple has evolved the App Store over time, changing things, adding and adjusting features as time has gone on. Forces from within and outside the App Store have changed what developers and customers need from the platform.

2009 - iPhone OS 3 & Evolution

In March 2009, Apple spoke about its iPhone OS 3.0 software update. It came with some pretty big features, like copy and paste, MMS, and Spotlight. The native app SDK grew substantially, shipping with 1,000 new APIs, unlocking new functionality and allowing new types of apps.

By the time this press event rolled around, the App Store had been live for eight months, and was home to 25,000 apps, racking up 800 million downloads.

After reviewing the 70/30 developer/Apple split and other business basics, Scott Forstall announced some changes coming to the App Store.

One change was the addition of subscriptions. This was not the wide-ranging app subscriptions we have now, but was targeted toward magazines and other publications as a way to share their content within their applications.

The second change was for game developers who wanted to sell extra levels to users as they progressed through a game. Other types of new content were lumped into this announcement as well, such as eBooks.

These changes were part of what Apple called "In-App Purchases." These purchases could be reviewed and executed from within the app, without a trip back to the App Store, hence the name.

The business model was the same for In-App Purchases as regular downloads; developers set the price and got 70% of the revenue. However, they were only available in paid applications. Developers could not attach in-app purchases to free apps to avoid confusion, according to Forstall.

Visually, the App Store received few changes for iPhone OS 3. The five tabs across the bottom remained the same, but developers could now include full-screen screenshots of their apps on their App Store pages. Users could swipe between them easily, getting a feel for the app before purchasing or downloading.

2009 marked the release of Apple's "There's an App for That" campaign, highlighting third-party apps and what they allowed users to do with their iPhones:

That ad campaign highlighted the start of a shift for the App Store. As the iPhone became more popular, iPhone apps were starting to become mainstream. By September 2009, 85,000 apps were on the store, accumulating 2 billion downloads.

That fall also marked the release of iPhone OS 3.1,³ which brought what Apple called "Genius Recommendations" to the App Store.

Genius Recommendations were designed to make it easier for users to navigate the growing App Store. The feature started life as a way to automatically make iTunes playlists with songs that went well together, based on genre, tempo, and more.

For iPhone OS 3.1, which Apple released in September 2009, Genius Recommendations were tinkered with to make recommendations from the App Store based on apps the user already owned. For example, if a user had downloaded several apps pertaining to yoga, Genius Recommendations may surface apps that included additional training, relaxation methods, and more.

Genius Recommendations didn't take away from the editorial work Apple was doing as it featured apps in the App Store, but lived alongside that work in a new section of the Featured tab in the App Store, living next to New and What's Hot. The App Store would tell you what apps it had used to make any given recommendation.

iPhone OS 3.1 also added a Top Grossing list aside the Top Paid and Top Free sections of the Top 25 tab.

With iOS 3.1, iTunes Store credit and gift card balances could now be used in the App Store, which now included a Redemption screen.

A month later, in October 2009, Apple allowed free apps to take advantage of in-app purchases, starting the era of "free to play' games. Here's Jason Kincaid, writing at TechCrunch at the time:

Up until now developers of premium applications have faced a major problem: they had no way to offer a feature-restricted version of an application for free that users could pay to unlock if they liked what they saw — a model that’s quite common on desktop software. This led to the creation of the so-called ‘Lite’ versions of applications, which generally offer a reduced featureset, but require users to download an entirely new application to access more features, which obviously isn’t ideal. Now, they won’t face this hurdle. They’ll be able to ditch the Lite version entirely, switch their currently premium app over to free (which will lead to more impulse downloads), and give users the chance to upgrade their featureset down the road.

I think this is probably one of the most important changes Apple made to the App Store in the early days. It fundamentally changed the economics of the App Store, forever.

Enter the iPad

When the iPad was released in early 2010, it ran iPhone OS 3, complete with a larger version of the App Store.

Developers could elect to sell separate versions of their app for the iPad, and many did, often adding an "HD" to the end of the app's name to note the difference. However, the App Store also allowed for "universal apps," which were single binaries that ran on both the iPhone/iPod touch and the iPad, without a user needing to repurchase the title.

2010 - iOS 4: More of the Same

"App" was named Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society in 2010.

That was a reflection of the massive growth the App Store was seeing by this point, and with iOS 4, Apple worked to make the software that powered its devices better for users and developers. The release was an important one that brought many changes to the iPhone and iPad.

Multitasking let certain apps continue to run in the background. For example, apps that played audio, held VoIP calls, or needed location access could be left running.

On the consumer front, the inclusion of folders on the Home screen made it easier to keep a larger number of apps organized.

iOS 4 also brought with it the release of iBooks on the iPhone, after it debuted on the iPad. While it was not bundled with the operating system, it could be downloaded from the App Store like a third-party app:

Of course, iBooks contained its own Store within the application. The whole interface swung around, revealing the Store as if it were a secret room located behind the bookcase in some sort of castle.

Game Center relied on the popularity of mobile games, making it easy for players to go head-to-head and compare rankings, without developers having to build their own solutions. It included lists of games users could buy. Purchases were made within the Game Center app, and just like in-app purchases, they didn't require a trip out to the App Store app.

Another new feature was iAd, which let developers use high-quality ads, managed by Apple, in their applications. As we now know, this was never a huge hit, and Apple killed it in 2016.

For all the changes under the hood that came with iOS 4, the App Store remained very much the same. Apple simplified the Features tab and tweaked the Categories listings a bit, but that was about it:

The iOS 4 App Store.

2011 - iOS 5: Even More of the Same

Introduced at WWDC 2011, iOS 5 was the first to include support for iCloud, native Twitter sharing, Notification Center, Siri (on the iPhone 4S), and iMessage. By the announcement Apple had sold 25 million iPads, and the inclusion of the tablet was felt in the keynote. Many of iOS 5's features felt at home on the larger screen, whereas iPhone OS 3 and iOS 4 felt a little clunky in places.

iOS 5 was hailed by Apple as being "PC-free"; no longer was plugging into iTunes needed to upgrade iOS, and content from iTunes could be synced over Wi-Fi instead of just USB.

With all of these great features – not to mention the inclusion of Reminders, a new Videos app, and a streamlined Camera app – updates to the App Store were conspicuously absent. In fact, side by side, the two versions look basically identical. I promise this is iOS 5:

A Brief Sidebar on Newsstand

With iOS 5, Apple introduced Newsstand, a single place to purchase and read newspaper and magazine content.

Newsstand was weird. It couldn't be put into a folder on the Home screen as if it were an application, and it had its own wood shelf theme, as seen in this image:

Besides being in this weird, not-a-folder folder, Newsstand apps had other entitlements, as Graham Spencer wrote:

One of the benefits of declaring an app a Newsstand app is that it can get a special icon that doesn’t have to be a rounded rectangle. Instead the icons are slightly larger, can take the proportions of the physical copy, and (most importantly) can be dynamically updated with the front page/cover of the latest issue.

Developers could also send helpful push notifications:

Now with iOS 5, developers that are developing Newsstand apps can deliver a new “souped-up” push notification that informs their app (rather than the user as push notifications normally do), that a new issue is ready to be downloaded. When a Newsstand app receives such a notification, it can download in the background if the device is on WiFi. The main limitation here is that each app can only send 1 of these push notifications per day, so at the moment developers cannot develop newspapers that deliver both a morning edition and evening edition - although I suspect this might change eventually.

Newsstand apps had their own special section within the iOS 5 App Store's Categories listing:

2012 - iOS 6: The Last of Its Kind

2012 would bring the last version of iOS stewarded by Scott Forstall. It brought a slightly revised user interface, a bunch of new information domains for Siri, Passbook (aka Wallet), Facebook integration, improvements across iOS' bundled apps and, of course, Apple Maps.⁴

The App Store saw its first organizational changes in several years with iOS 6.

iOS 6 App Store.

Categories lost its place on the bottom bar of the App Store, and was stuffed into a button within the Top Charts section of the App Store.

Genius and its smart recommendations took over the center tab, graduating from the Featured section.

Inside each tab, Apple moved to horizontally scrolling lists for various sections. This made the entire App Store feel more modern and more dense, packing in more apps and data than ever before.

Beyond this re-arranging of items, the iOS 6 App Store made app pages more vibrant, and included a share button to make it easy to tell a friend about an app they should check out:

Left: iOS 5; Center and right: iOS 6.

iOS 6's Facebook integration came to the App Store, giving users the ability to "like" an app, and to see which of their friends had also liked any given app.

Apple added another way to make it easier for developers promote their apps in iOS 6: smart app banners. These let a user quickly jump into the App Store from a developer's website:

This particular example brings up something about the App Store that I haven't mentioned yet. Like the iTunes Store technology it was built on, much of the iOS App Store is made up of web views, which means that all old versions of the App Store see (more or less) the same data as newer versions. I have iPod touches running iOS 3, 4, 5 and 6, and they all show current Top Chart data, not data frozen in time at some point in the past.

Moreover, as of this writing, Overcast requires iOS 11, but it's visible in the App Store running on versions of iOS that debuted years before Overcast ever went on sale.

2013 - The iOS 7 Redesign

While even nerdy iPhone users would be hard-pressed to visually identify early versions of iOS when placed side-by-side, iOS 7 was a massive departure⁵ in terms of iOS' visual design. Every single screen in the OS and its bundled apps was overhauled. Gone were the glossy black panels and linen patterns, replaced with white backgrounds, thin text, and bright colors.

The App Store was no exception:

Beyond the striking visual changes, the iOS 7 App Store returned to vertically-scrolling lists, decreasing data density on screens like the Top Charts list.

Beyond the visual changes, with iOS 7 Apple once again tinkered with the sections of the App Store. After just one year out in the sun, Genius was not only banished from the tab bar, but removed from the Store altogether. In its place in the center tab was something Apple called Near Me. This section featured apps popular in your location. For me, that's a handful of local news outlets and the local movie theatre chain:

In addition to the Near Me section, iOS 7 included a section of the App Store that was home to apps just for kids. It could also automatically download and install app updates.

Apps on iOS 7 benefited from a new multitasking system that expanded upon what was built into iOS 4. Before, only few, select categories of apps could run in the background, but with iOS 7, all apps could take advantage of this. The system would wake up apps when the screen was on, and batch network operations to limit the time the radios had to be transferring data. Those Newsstand-type notifications from iOS 6 that could send a message to an application, alerting it of new content in the background, were now everywhere.

iOS 7 wasn't just a pretty face, however. It debuted Control Center, CarPlay, AirDrop, and the UI we're still used to seeing while switching between apps. It may have been introduced back in 2013, but a lot about iOS 7 still feels modern.

2014 - iOS 8: Going Modular

In 2014 Apple introduced iOS 8, complete with iCloud Photo Library, Health, Continuity, and Extensibility. The latter two features helped usher in the current age of iOS productivity. Take it from the master himself, Federico:

Thanks to Apple's work on extensibility and new technologies available to third-party developers, apps are finally able to talk to each other, working in unison to offer their services when and where they make sense. With iOS 8 extensions, apps can become features available in other apps. And while that won't mean the end of some of my automation workflows, dozens of workarounds I set up for basic inter-app communication won't be needed anymore.

Suddenly, users could perform actions with interactive notifications, quickly view content in widgets, and move content between apps with the share sheet.

With all this functionality, Apple didn't drastically overhaul the definition of the app. Extensions, widgets, and third-party keyboards all had to be embedded inside a full-blown app, just like they do today; they could not be purchased or installed as standalone chunks of functionality.

However, the App Store did see a number of changes in 2014. By this point Apple was hosting 1.2 million apps on the Store, and users had downloaded 75 billion apps. To help these users navigate the App Store more easily, Apple replaced the iOS Near Me App Store section with one labeled Explore. This tab let users quickly skim categories and subcategories in a clever new view:

Search had been overhauled, surfacing screenshots and the release's new ability to show app preview videos, right on the results page.

Apple also included a list of trending search terms on the search page, saving some users the hassle of needing to type if what they were looking for was popular at the moment.

iOS 8's App Store was the first to support App Bundles, giving developers the ability to sell multiple apps at once at a discounted rate.

It also brought support for iCloud Family Sharing, making it easy to share purchases with a loved one, set parental controls for kids, and approve purchases for them remotely.

2015 - iOS 9: Hold the Course

WWDC 2015 was a busy one. iOS 9 brought a new multi-tasking paradigm to the iPad, Apple News, a revamped Notes app, and more. The keynote ended with a lengthy Apple Music segment that felt out of place at the time and still does, frankly.

iOS 9 allowed developers to expose their apps' content to search. Instead of having to open Evernote and then search for a specific note, a user could search that file name using iOS itself, then jump right into it.

As much as iOS 9 brought to the table, Apple didn't spend any time on the App Store. Like iOS 4 and 5, iOS 9 was a quiet release for the App Store itself. So much so, we should just move on to iOS 10.

2016 - iOS 10: Put a Sticker on It

iOS 10, introduced at WWDC 2016, was called "the biggest iOS release ever" on stage by Craig Federighi. With a redesigned Lock screen, limited third-party support for Siri, an overhauled Maps app, and of course, iMessage improvements.

Apple's messaging service now came complete with iMessage apps. That meant a new App Store.

The iOS 10 iMessage App Store.

The iMessage App Store was modeled after the watchOS App Store, which launched the year before. Sticker packs and apps were curated by Apple in the Featured tab, while Categories allowed for quick scrolling through all the options. The last section, named Manage, let users enable or disable installed apps and manage what happened when a third-party app update installed an iMessage application.

The long-term success of the iMessage App Store is still unknown. iMessage itself is a massive platform, but at most, I think users may have a few sticker packs they use from time to time. I don't think it's taken off the way Apple envisioned.

As far as the App Store itself, iOS 10 was a bit of a return to form. The Explore tab was removed, with Categories making a triumphant return to the tab bar, with popular categories in a separate section above the main list:

The iOS 10 App Store.

Welcome back, buddy.

iOS 10 included Siri App Suggestions, a feature that would surface apps iOS thought you would want at a specific time or location. For example, if a user often walked into their favorite Starbucks location, then opened the Starbucks app, the system would eventually start showing the Starbucks app icon on the Lock screen (and in the app switcher) just in time for that morning Java Chip Frappuccino.⁶

2016 also brought App Store Search Ads to the table. Developers could run ads against keywords and be inserted at the top of search results. Listings appear above organic search results:

App Store Search Ads in iOS 10.

2017 - iOS 11: A Whole New World

Last year marked the single biggest change to the App Store since it launched. It warranted a whole section of Federico's review:

For years, the App Store followed a music-like approach in highlighting noteworthy releases and emphasizing top charts. The App Store’s weekly refresh and prominent placement of charts were relics of the iTunes Music Store which, both in terms of infrastructure and executive decisions, predated the App Store and provided most of its foundation. Lessons from the music industry, however, don't necessarily apply to the app economy as well. Given the cultural and economic impact of apps on our society, treating the App Store as a mere extension of the iTunes Store is unwise and shortsighted.

Federico credited the changes in iOS 11's App Store to Phil Schiller, who was put in charge of the App Store in late 2015, and I think he was right to do so. The changes made with iOS 11 were almost all positive, and highlighted the power of a curated, editorial approach in an ever-growing ecosystem.

The iOS 11 App Store.

The new App Store is divided into five sections, as in previous years. The first, named Today, is a cascading collection of stories, collections, and features. It's updated every day in the American market, and really shows just how much work Apple is putting into this:

Sample "Today" Stories.

Remember, this isn't just visible to users in the United States; Apple's editorial teams are generating content around the world. This is well-written, beautifully-illustrated work.

Beyond the Today tab, the iOS 11 App Store has a section for Games as well as Apps. For years, games dominated the Top Charts, drowning out apps in productivity, fitness, entertainment, and countless other categories. I like the split; as someone who usually has zero games installed on their iPhone, I like that I can easily ignore that section of the App Store.

Inside of the Games and Apps tabs, things look more or less like they did in the old App Store. New titles are highlighted, as are collections from Apple's editorial team, intermixed with recommendations based on your previous purchases.⁷ These tabs feel familiar, but I rarely check them; the Today tab really is that good.

One big drawback to the new App Store is the removal of the Wish List feature. I would like to see Apple restore it in a future update, as it was an easy way to keep a short list of apps you may want to check out in the future.

The Future

I think the future of the iOS App Store is bright. Apple's editorial teams are firing on all cylinders, and with iOS 12, that will only improve – the next version of the App Store will do more to surface relevant content based on your purchase history, interests, and more.

Of course, the App Store has cousins across multiple platforms. watchOS 5 promises big improvements, making apps like full-featured podcast clients possible for the first time. macOS Mojave will ship with an all-new Mac App Store, curtailing years of neglect and preparing for the onslaught of iOS apps that will appear on the Mac starting later next year. The tvOS App Store is small, but Apple is making huge investments in programming for the platform, and I think the attention garnered by that content will only help the small ecosystem around the streaming box.

We live in a world of apps. They connect us, help us learn, let us relax, and so much more. Steve Jobs' audience may have been a little confused about what an "Internet communicator" could be, but now we know: it's a screen that can do anything. You just need an app for that.

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Charred burgers with all the fixings, ice-cold beer under a beach umbrella, toast with eggs scrambled over a campfire—food just tastes better in the summer. Whether you want a dialed-in picnic setup for concerts in the park, better tableware for camping, or great grill tools for cookouts, investing in a few carefully selected items will make the difference between roughing it and dining in style.

Whenever flashy new smartphones debut, manufacturers inevitably claim they’ve produced the best camera phone ever. Sharper! Faster! More accurate colors! Smoother bokeh! Tech sites compare the cameras endlessly, and benchmarks like DxOMark’s mobile reviews attempt to rank them in a controlled lab setting. It’s enough to give any smartphone owner an inferiority complex, but all the experts we interviewed (including one who helped design DxOMark’s test) agree that stressing over which flagship phone has the most impressive camera is a waste of time, because they’re all impressive.

U.S.-based streaming giant Netflix has announced plans to tape comedy sets at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, for a stand-up comedy series set to debut in 2019.

While the actual festival will take place between July 11th and July 29th, 2018 participating Canadian comedians — including Adib Alkhalidey, Dave Merheje and Deanne Smith — will be taped at between July 24th and July 29th.

According to a July 10th, 2018 media release, this investment is part of the $500 million Netflix Canada venture announced in September 2017.

In total, Netflix plans on assembling a roster of 47 comedians from 13 regions to perform a collection of half-hour stand-up sets.

Sets will also be taped in Brazil, Mexico, India, Germany and the Netherlands. All episodes will be released at once.

“Few things are better than discovering a new comedian you love,” said Lisa Nishimura, vice president of original documentary and comedy content at Netflix, in the same July 10th media release.

“With this event, we’re creating a true comedy festival experience for our members where they can scour the globe from home to find some of the freshest voices in comedy.”

As a result of the series’ diverse cast of comedians, episodes will be taped in seven languages — French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Dutch, German and English.

The first Netflix production company outside of the U.S.

Netflix Canada is a partnership between Canada’s federal government and Netflix.

Netflix is expected to invest $500 million CAD in original Canadian productions over the next five years.

Additionally, according to Canadian Heritage minister Melanie Joly, the partnership will lead to the creation of Netflix’s first permanent production presence outside of the U.S. — a production house that Canadian Heritage confirmed would be “based and incorporated in Canada.”

The post Netflix to tape Montreal Just for Laughs festival as part of $500 million Netflix Canada venture appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Bell MTS has ended flat rates for new customers, the company confirmed to MobileSyrup. Additionally, the company has increased pricing by about $5 CAD for new customers on most plans.

Bell MTS’ flat rates allow users to use as much data as they want across Manitoba without any sort of overages.

A Bell spokesperson had the following to say about the change:

We have made some adjustments to various wireless plans in Manitoba at Bell and Bell MTS.

For new customers, prices generally will be about $5 per month higher than previously, which keeps us competitive in the marketplace. Current customers are not affected unless they change plans or upgrade their phones in future.

Bell MTS now offers a Canada-wide 15GB plan that replaces the former provincial flat rate plan. We’ve found that 15GB is far more data than the average customer uses per month, but those who already have the provincial plan can keep it unless they change plans/upgrade later – and if they’re already on this plan, they’ll continue to have a flat-rate option if they want one.

The spokesperson further stated that this wireless pricing change was the first to occur in 21 months.

When BCE completed its purchase of Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) last year, in March, Bell CEO, George Cope stated that, “the company will maintain current MTS wireless price plans for at least 12 months after the closing of the acquisition.”

It has been over 12 months since the acquisition, so a change in pricing isn’t breaking any promises.

Wider picture, this is a big change for the province’s telecom pricing.

Just recently, Bell and Telus and were offering up to 40GB for $95 (when including unlimited nationwide calling). However, it now seems BCE is attempting to force Manitoba more inline with the pricing found in provinces like Ontario.

This also means these “double data promotions” are unlikely to make a return.

To note: Xplornet is looking to open wireless services in Manitoba. If the company decides to pick up where Bell MTS has left off with flat data rates, Xplornet will present a challenge to the BCE-owned company.

In the province next door, Saskatchewan-based telecom SaskTel also provides flat rates for unlimited Canada-wide data, though the company will reduce the speeds after 15GB of data to 2Mbps upload and download speeds.

The post Bell MTS ends its unlimited flat rate data plan for new customers in Manitoba appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Freedom Mobile has announced an extension of its LTE coverage in Toronto’s TTC subway.

The carrier, owned by Calgary-based Shaw, extended LTE coverage from King Station to St. Patrick Station.

The added coverage extends the existing tunnel coverage available from Bloor-Yonge Station to King Station.

Currently, Freedom is the only carrier to offer coverage in the TTC subway. Freedom also offers cellular coverage across all station platforms, mezzanines and toll booths.

For a full list of coverage available, check out Freedom Mobile’s Transit Coverage site.

Freedom started working to bring service to the subway in 2015. The network is built on infrastructure installed by Australian network operator BAI Canada. BAI won a $25 million bid to provide Wi-Fi and cellular service in the TTC.

In 2016, MobileSyrup took a tour of the TTC’s underground network. The network infrastructure BAI used is unique, considering it was built for dense traffic and an environment that is constantly moving. However, the bigger challenge is getting the carriers on board.

The network BAI built in the TTC is capable of supporting every licensed carrier in the city of Toronto, CEO Ken Ranger told MobileSyrup.

Freedom has made good use of that adaptability. It added support for its network in stations first and is now working to expand that to tunnels.

Hopefully some of the other carriers get on board and begin rolling out network in the TTC as well.

Freedom has been particularly faithful at expanding service to areas that typically don’t have service. Freedom expanded service to the Dunsmuir Tunnel for the Vancouver SkyTrain in May.

Source: Freedom

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Shaw is launching a new Internet 300 plan that offers unlimited data and double its previous fastest residential speeds.

The plan offers up to 300Mbps download speeds and up to 20Mbps upload speeds.

Shaw says its enhanced speeds are made possible through significant network improvements and the implementation of DOCSIS 3.1 technology, a suite of cable technology specs that support capacities of up to 10Gbps downstream and 1Gbps upstream.

Shaw says this gives it the ability to “deliver its fastest speeds immediately, without needing to dig up lawns or wait indefinitely for new fibre lines.”

Internet 300 is available immediately, and to kick off service Shaw is offering a paired promotion. The introductory offer starts at $55 per month for the first six months on a price-guaranteed two-year ‘ValuePlan.’ For months seven to 24, it’s $105 per month. Regular price is $120 per month.

Shaw’s ‘Advanced’ Wi-Fi modem is included with Internet 300. The modem features dual band technology and 10 antennas (two for 2.4GHz and eight for 5GHz).

Previously, the internet plan with the highest speeds was Internet 150, with up to 150Mbps download speeds and up to 15Mbps upload speeds.

Source: Shaw

The post Shaw’s new unlimited Internet 300 plan doubles its previous residential speeds appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Earlier this year The New York Times reported that Apple had made a big new hire: John Giannandrea, at the time Google's Chief of Search and Artificial Intelligence. Today Giannandrea officially joined the ranks of Apple's leadership page on Apple.com.

As part of Giannandrea's employee profile, we learn his official title with Apple: 'Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.' He reports directly to Tim Cook and oversees technologies related to Siri and machine learning.

Breaking the news of Giannandrea's new role, Matthew Panzarino wrote for TechCrunch:

Apple is creating a new AI/ML team that brings together its Core ML and Siri teams under one leader in John Giannandrea.
[...]
The internal structures of the Siri and Core ML teams will remain the same, but they will now answer to Giannandrea. Apple’s internal structure means that the teams will likely remain integrated across the org as they’re wedded to various projects including developer tools, mapping, Core OS and more. ML is everywhere, basically.

The last two years especially, AI and machine learning have been heavy focuses of Apple, particularly on iOS. Giannandrea is a major hire for the company, and while it may take some time for his impact to be seen in user-facing products, bringing together Siri and machine learning teams under this new leader is a key step toward realizing future potential in an area that's bound to grow more important as time passes.

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Google’s browser has pretty much looked the same since it launched back in 2008, and now it looks like it’s finally going to get a modern facelift.

According to the latest version of the Chrome Canary test browser, Google is testing out a new style of Material Design.

While most versions of the Canary browser are now sporting the new look by default, the Mac version needs to have its new coat of paint applied manually.

Mac users can enable two Chrome Flags in order to apply the new look to Chrome Canary. Mac users need to first make sure that they have Chrome Canary downloaded on their computer.

Next users need to go to ‘chrome://flags/#top-chrome-md’ and select the ‘Refresh’ option from the drop-down menu. The second flag that needs to be enabled is ‘chrome://flags/#views-browser-windows.’

While this option is here for users to test out the new design, it’s likely that it’s going to start rolling out to regular Chrome users soon.

There are a few other visual changes that come along with the re-designed tabs and search bar.

For example, when a user right-clicks on something, there’s now a custom contextual menu that follows Material Design principles. Additionally, the auto-fill suggestions from the Chrome search bar now display in a Material Design-themed box, instead of the very plain white rectangle from before.

Both of these changes are small but they do make using Chrome feel a little more modern and complete.

Google has been testing out this redesign for a while now, so it stands to reason that it must be nearing completion if it’s enabled by default in most versions of Chrome Canary.

The Mountain View search giant is also looking to have both the mobile and desktop versions of Chrome look similar with this new design.

There are flags that can alter this version of Chrome as well, but the easiest way to get a modern-looking Chrome browser on mobile is to use the Kiwi Browser.

Source: Google Plus Via: Android Police

The post Google Chrome is getting a Material Design makeover and you can try it now appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Microsoft hat einen Nachfolger für Surface 3 und nennt das Gerät Surface Go. Wie schon bei Surface Pro verzichtet man in Zukunft auf eine Nummer bei der Namensgebung. Ein kleineres Gerät hat auch eine kleinere Tastatur und ich bin gespannt, ob sie noch groß genug ist. Ich habe Surface 3 gerne auf Reisen verwendet, allerdings war damals die Tastatur und das Trackpad eher schwach, verglichen mit dem Cover von Surface Pro 4 und Surface Pro. Surface Go sollte hier mächtig aufgeholt haben.

Surface Go ist kleiner, leichter, hat weder Lüfter noch Lüftungsschlitze. Die Laufzeitangabe von "bis zu 9 Stunden" ist mit Vorsicht zu genießen. Im echten Einsatz werden es eher halb so viele sein. Mit diesem Gerät wechselt Microsoft von USB Type A auf USB Type C. Über diesen Port lässt sich Surface auch laden. Dennoch behält Surface Go den Magsafe-ähnlichen Surface Connector. In der kleinsten Ausführung hat das Gerät 4 GB RAM und 64 GB Storage. Über SDXC-Karten lässt sich der Speicher erweitern. Wie bei Surface Pro ist der Anschluss dafür unter dem Kickstand. Es gibt noch mindestens zwei weitere Konfigurationen 8/128 und 8/256. Später folgt eine LTE-Variante. Über die Performance des Pentium Gold 4415Y mag ich noch nicht urteilen. Es handelt sich um eine CPU mit Kaby-Lake-Architektur – ein deutlicher Fortschritt gegenüber dem Surface 3, das mit einem sparsamen, aber auch lahmen Intel Atom bestückt war.

Microsoft positioniert das Gerät für den Einsatz in Schulen, in Logistik und Außendienst. Entsprechende Schutzhüllen wird es geben. Tastatur und Stift muss man wie bei Surface Pro separat erwerben.

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Über den Klang sprachen wir schon. Nun habe ich mal etwas probiert, wonach Karl gefragt hat. Man kann einen Mac anweisen, den Ton über Airplay 2 auf einem anderen Lautsprecher auszugeben. Das funktioniert, aber es ist hakelig. Das Umschalten dauert. Dazu kommt noch ein Latenzproblem. Statt den Ton auszugeben, wird er über das Netz transportiert. In Airplay 2 sind Buffer vorgesehen, aus denen sich die Abspieler bedienen. Das vermeidet Aussetzer und Tonverschiebungen (Jitter).

Wie man hoffentlich sieht, passt der Ton nicht mehr zum Bild, wenn ich auf den HomePod umschalte. Was ich spüren kann und im Bild sichtbar ist: Sobald ich umschalte, vibriert die Tischplatte und das überträgt sich auf das Stativ.

Die phasenrichtige Synchronisierung mehrerer Lautsprecher über unsichere Netzverbindungen ist übrigens eine Leistungen von Sonos, die ein anderes Protokoll als Airplay verwenden. Das nützt einem aber nichts in dieser Situation, weil auch Sonos-Lautsprecher mit Apple-Geräten über Airplay sprechen müssen.

Noch ein Versuch. Diesmal ein Vergleich zwischen Alexa und Siri. Bei der Musik ist HomePod im Nachteil, weil es weder den Radiosender noch die Musik abspielen kann. HomePod kann kein Spotify. Mit Apple Music würde Pink Floyd funktionieren, nicht aber HR1, oder?

Legacy automaker Ford has a prototype cycling jacket that will make the road safer for cyclists.

Ford partnered with cycling clothing specialist LUMO and mobility software experts Tome to create the prototype. The concept jacket features LED lights and vibration motors to help cyclists with navigation.

The jacket sleeves light up when a cyclist plans to turn left or right. This helps make hand signals more visible for motorists on the road. Furthermore, the jacket features brake lights that illuminate when stopping.

The vibration motors aid the cyclist in navigation. Instead of looking at a phone screen, the jacket can connect to the phone and vibrate the sleeves to tell cyclists when to turn. The jacket’s bike-friendly navigation app powers the feature. The app helps cyclists by navigating them through bike-friendly routes and helping them avoid particularly busy or dangerous intersections.

The prototype jacket also features bone-conduction headphones that allow riders to communicate via phone call and receive audio messages without blocking important sounds around them.

Ford hopes to enable new features in the jacket. The next planned ideas include hand gestures and voice commands that allow riders to access calls and messages.

A group of cycling enthusiasts that work at the Ford Smart Mobility Innovation offices in London, England came up with the idea. The employees test the prototype on their daily cycle commute to the office.

Smart clothing like this jacket can definitely go a long way to helping create safer roads. With the chaos of busy streets, cyclists need every advantage to stand out to motorists.

The smart jacket could also help cyclists avoid fines. Quebec recently introduced heftier fines for cyclists using cell phones and also bans using earphones when biking. This jacket could allow cyclists to utilize navigational apps and make phone calls without using their phones, keeping them safe and avoiding fines too.

Ford isn’t just switching gears to cycling. The company is also planning to go all in on electric, a marked shift in priorities for the automaker.

Image credit: Ford

Source: Ford

The post Ford smart jacket prototype aims to help make cyclists safer appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Waiting for the AirPlay 2 upgrade? Part of that upgrade is a larger latency, which is the opposite of what you want. What is latency? It is a delay in the signal. Why is Apple doing it? It is a lazy way to solve dropouts.This is quite noticeable if you play a piece of video on your computer and send the sound via Airplay 2 to a speaker.

If you send music across a network, packets don't arrive in a steady stream. Some packets are fast, others take more time. You can solve this by creating a buffer at the receiving end that makes sure you always have the next piece of music ready so you can continue to play. With Airplay 2 the problem got worse since Apple now needs to be able to serve the same signal to multiple speakers and keep them all in sync.

A large latency isn't tolerable if you do real time communications. Can you remember a time when long distance calls would have this terrible latency so that you couldn't easily have a normal conversation because you would not know if the other person has started talking? That is no longer the case. VoIP development is all about reducing latency. Not Apple. They just increased the latency. Airplay continues to be a terrible design.