Es gibt einen Diskussionsstil, den ich schon vor dreißig Jahren als Moderator im Fidonet kennengelernt und unterbunden habe. Wenn das hier mal passiert, dann stellt sich schnell heraus, dass es immer die gleiche Person ist. Man erkennt das daran, dass eine beliebige Aussage aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen, zitiert und kommentiert wird. Das sieht dann in etwa so aus:
>>> Der Himmel war blau und die Luft roch nach Frühling.
>> Luft riecht nicht. Die Nase riecht. Luft duftet.
> Darauf kam es mir nicht an.
Lern Du erst mal richtig deutsch.
Mit anderen Worten, so wie im Heise-Forum. Was mache ich dagegen? Ich lösche den Kommentar einfach. Machmal schreibe ich dem Kommentator. In der Regel kriege ich dann eine böse Antwort. Warum? Xkcd erklärt es.
Ich habe für sowas keinen Platz. Weder im Kopf noch auf dieser Website. Und ich entscheide das auch. Wenn Sie die Welt korrigieren wollen, dann tun Sie es bitte woanders.
It’s rare for critics, commentators, and especially commenters to admit that they were wrong. ... That’s why it was so refreshing to find a belated positive review of Apple’s AirPods by Vlad Savov, the self-described “resident headphones obsessive” at the Verge, more than a year after the truly wireless earbuds became available in December 2016.
I remain unfazed by the Touch Bar, but there are some interesting ideas here.
Unsurprisingly, the HackerNews thread for this is brimming with people who outright detest it (one of the top grievances being, predictably enough, the absence of a physical Esc key).
Even though this is super neat, I keep wondering if we’ll ever settle on a wireless projection standard. Miracast is still not supported on the Mac, Chromecast sort of works with everything but requires Chrome (and is subject to the fickleness of Google product roadmaps) and Apple has zero interest in making AirPlay an actual open protocol, so we’re still effectively stuck with the VGA cable as the (crummy and overworked) default for using a projector.
Honestly, I think that Apple should just add Miracast support to macOS and iOS and be done with it (it’s not that different from AirPlay) and live up to their “full wireless” and “just works” monikers. But no, they have to think different, even if it inconveniences their business users—some of them will eventually buy Apple TVs, but those of us who travel (and present) a lot still have a crummy, dongle-dependent experience.
The Nubians of Plutonia was recorded by
Sun Ra and his Arkestra before 1960 and released in 1966, but it’s not really
music of either period, it’s of the distant future. Or at least that’s what Sun Ra claimed; mind you, he also claimed he was born on
Saturn and that aliens were going to be arriving any minute. Having said that, Plutonian Nights is one of the coolest
jazz tracks ever recorded in any galaxy; I’m glad it was this one.
Sun Ra combined ludicrous costumery and good-humored erudite craziness with strong songwriting, the exceptional talents
of saxophonist James Gilmore, and pretty deft keyboard playing when he felt like it. Check out some of the video links below.
If you listen to Plutonian Nights and decide you’re a fan, I advise sampling any other Sun Ra before you buy; some of
the music is so far outside it’s heading for orbit, which is exactly the intent, only maybe it doesn’t sound like what you might
consider music. Personally I find that the thrills make up for the spills, most times at least, but then musically I’m a thrillseeker.
Quoting from
a blog I wrote on this piece in 2012: The opening rhythm-section
makes weird but effective use of the piano’s very bottom strings, then it segues into a conventional horn vamp, except for Gilmore’s
bass-saxophone continuo, mixed loud and front and center, is approximately the funkiest sax part in the history of the
universe. Eventually you get some nice breaks, clarinet (I think) and bowed bass, then the funky horns come back to shiver your
timbers for a minute or so on the way out.
He’s someone whose choices inspired me for many decades. When I first heard that he chose to wash dishes rather than capitulate to the way the clubs that would book him wanted him to play, it literally changed the path of my music career. He’s an avatar for choosing the hard road. Choosing a path like that is not a one-off choice that you tell your friends about to make yourself look like some bad-ass. To be as accomplished a musician as Cecil was, and still choose to keep your music as a sacred thing not to be messed with just to pay the bills, is an extraordinary commitment. It’s not like he couldn’t have played standards as well as anyone if he’d wanted to – he even recorded a bunch of standards later in life – but he saw something as bigger than the status of being ‘full time in music’.
I spent a lot of years thinking that being full time was the aim. Cecil’s witness was a huge part of me getting past that point and realising that the music was way too important to make it bland just to get a gig. It’s a position that’s put me at odds with some of the places I’ve worked, and it’s a lesson that I’ve had to relearn a bunch of times, but thinking I could make my music ‘fit’ (and I’ve always been happy to play other people’s music as a ‘job’, and do the occasional function band – it’s just my own creative path that I’ve been more protective of) – but thanks to what I gleaned from Cecil’s path, I’m still doing the thing I do, finding the places where it fits, and refusing to screw it up to fit some booker’s idea of what I ought to be doing. I do WAY fewer gigs than I otherwise might, but Cecil is there to illuminate the long game.
RIP, Cecil – you influenced a huge amount of people, made some extraordinary music, and I’m materially less well-off because of your example, but infinitely happier with my creative choices. Thank you x
There has been a four-month demonstration project with double-decker buses being used by TransLink in Delta, Surrey, White Rock, Langley and Vancouver. The test buses were loaned by Alexander Dennis the firm that manufactures them. The trial was successful enough that Translink hopes to add 32 buses by June 2019.
Despite some early learning moments in Delta, including tree branch encroachments and low overhead wires, the double-decker buses were well received. These buses have an increased passenger capacity and a steady ride. An interim report as mentioned in the Delta Optimist indicated that passengers were 75 per cent more likely to take transit if it was a double-decker. There are a couple of hiccups~diesel double-deckers were found to be more compact and also more efficient, although that’s not necessarily the best fuel source for the environment. But the “panoramic views from the top deck, wide, well-lit staircase with handrails, a screen that allows riders to see vacant seats up top before going upstairs and full accessibility with a low step, flat floor and ramp for boarding” won over passengers.
The new double-deckers are being bought using federal gas tax funds, and will replace the more elderly Orion buses on some TransLink routes.
A Reddit item on designing chess pieces cites this article from last year about something called 'adversarial images' - these are patterns that can fool an artificial intelligence into thinking one thing is something else. See also. It might make a face recognition system think you're the pope. Or it might cause a system to identify something as a weapon, or worse, an accordion. One thing that's interesting is that "the same fooling images can scramble the 'minds' of AI systems developed independently by Google, Mobileye, or Facebook, reveals weaknesses that are apparently endemic to contemporary AI as a whole." Near the end of the article is an even more interesting nugget: "the same category errors made by AI and their decision boundaries also exists in the world of zoology, where animals are tricked by what scientists call 'supernormal stimuli.'"
Apple and Qualcomm’s messy legal battles are heating up as Apple CEO Tim Cook prepares to give a deposition on June 27th, 2018.
Cook will testify in regards to a Qualcomm lawsuit that accuses the Cupertino-based tech giant of lying to regulators in order to start investigations of Qualcomm following complaints over chip royalties.
The full legal document can be viewed below.
The two tech giants have been at war with one another for over a year now.
Apple further argued that Qualcomm was charging “at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined.”
In response, Qualcomm later sued Apple contract manufacturers — who are charged by Qualcomm on behalf of Apple — for failing to pay royalties on licensed agreements. “Apple is attempting to inflict severe, immediate, and permanent harm on Qualcomm to force Qualcomm to agree to Apple’s unreasonable demand for a below-market direct license,” Qualcomm wrote in a court filing.
At one point, a May 2017 report suggested Qualcomm was attempting to get the International Trade Commission to ban the iPhone — which is manufactured in Asia — from entering the U.S., although nothing came out of these alleged plans.
Qualcomm later claimed that Apple was in violation of six of its own battery patents, to which Apple responded by alleging that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset was infringing on eight battery life patents.
Specifically, Apple singled out the Snapdragon 800 and 820 as part of the infringements, chips that are a few generations behind Qualcomm’s current 835 flagship but are still used for in-market devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and BlackBerry DTEK60.
Cook’s court appearance seems to be the first major step forward in resolving the long-running legal disputes.
Apple wants to position its new entry level 2018 iPad as an education-focused tablet, but given the cemented position more affordable Chromebooks and Windows devices have in educational institutions across North America — especially in often cash-strapped Canadian public school boards — it’s unlikely this will happen at a vast number of educational institutions.
It’s possible some schools could purchase a lower number iPads for a multi-classroom A/V cart of some sort, but Apple’s one-iPad-for-every-student ‘Schoolwork’ strategy won’t be a realistic option for every Canadian school. That said, Apple says that there are a variety of schools across Canada with varying levels of funding already using iPads on a 1:1 student-to-device ratio.
The price issue is exemplified because schools will also need to purchase the $129 Apple Pencil, a case and a Bluetooth keyboard (more on this later), on top of the $399 ‘education-priced’ tablet. Logitech is also selling a $49 USD ‘Crayon’ stylus exclusively to schools.
Despite the iPad being an arguably more capable device when compared to the average Chromebook, for the tablet to be a legitimate education market contender, Apple needed to hit a significantly lower price point. When the company’s education event was first announced, I envisioned a durable all-plastic, low-end Chromebook competitor destined for a $250 — or possibly even lower — price tag. This theoretical tablet wouldn’t be sold to regular consumers and instead could only be purchased by education institutions, similar to Apple’s early 2000s eMac.
That’s not what the new iPad is, unfortunately. That said, despite not amounting to the education tablet Apple is aiming for, the 2018 iPad remains the most capable under-$500 tablet out there.
It’s been a long time since Apple has released a less than stellar tablet, with last year’s sixth-generation 10.5-inch iPad Pro leapfrogging the competition in almost every category — especially after the release of iOS 11. This year’s base level iPad nixes most of the Pro’s more premium features, including Apple’s magnetic Smart Keyboard connector, its beautiful laminate display with True Tone ambient light matching, and even a modern camera.
The 9.7-inch 2018 iPad is Apple’s best all-around tablet ever when its $429 CAD starting price — a $20 drop over last year’s $449 iPad — cost is taken into consideration.
Apple Pencil support
Along with the expected yearly processor bump, Apple has also added Pencil support to the 2018 iPad, a fact the Cupertino, California-based tech giant placed significant emphasis on during the tablet’s theatrical reveal at U.S. high school late last month.
I’ve never had much use for the Apple Pencil given my inability to even sketch a basic stick person, but I’ve spoken to creators across a variety fields who claim that Apple’s stylus is more technically sound and offers a more tactile feel than Microsoft’s Surface stylus.
I’ve spent a little over a week with the iPad at this point and I can report that using the Apple Pencil with the tablet feels nearly identical to drawing on an iPad Pro display. This includes in apps like iWorks — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — which now all support the Apple Pencil, as well as Affinity Photo, Adobe CC and even Evernote.
That said, as some predicted, there is a visible air gap between the glass and the actual display with the 9.7-inch iPad. Those who haven’t taken an iPad Pro for a spin won’t notice this change, but given that I use the 10.5-inch Pro daily as my main tablet at home, the space between the display’s glass and the actual pixels was immediately apparent to me. With the iPad, it never feels quite like I’m writing on the actual display; the millimetre wide air gap removes the physical feeling that’s present when drawing or writing with the Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro.
Still, apart from this minor gripe, using the Apple Pencil with the iPad is an overall great experience. As expected though, display quality, including colour vibrance, doesn’t compare to the iPad Pro. The 2018 iPad’s glass is also extremely reflective, making me wonder why Apple hasn’t opted for a more matte glass finish, though this could also make the display more difficult to see.
I also find it strange Apple included Pencil support rather than a magnetic Smart Connector Keyboard port. Smart Keyboard compatibility would be generally more useful than a stylus from an education perspective, though this depends on what subject you’re studying, of course.
That said, the 2018 iPad is compatible with Bluetooth keyboards and Logitech is even releasing a specific case that features a magnetic keyboard attachment. Still, Bluetooth keyboards are often a pain to connect and aren’t as convenient as Apple’s Smart Keyboard.
The lack of a magnet accessory connecting port is baffling and was likely only made to differentiate the regular iPad from the Pro line. From a product marketing standpoint the decision makes sense, but that’s not something consumers care about.
In a way, it may have made more sense for Apple to first release the inevitable new version of the Pro that features the iPhone X’s Face ID and minimized bezels, in order to give consumers a reason to buy its more expensive iPad. With this strategy, adding the magnetic Smart KeyBoard Connector to the lower-end iPad could have been a viable option.
Spec bump
The new iPad includes two main features over last year’s offering: support for the $129 Apple Pencil and a new, more powerful processor, Apple’s A10 ‘Fusion’ chip. Everything about the tablet beyond these two changes — and yes, I really do mean everything — is identical to last year’s model, right down to display resolution, camera specs and the iPad’s first-generation Touch ID sensor.
This means that the camera still measures in at the same serviceable 8-megapixels for the 1080p rear camera and the tiny 1.2-megapixel 720p front-facing shooter, along with just two speakers, compared to the four speakers the Pro features.
That said the jump to A10 processor does result in some apps running marginally smoother and launching more quickly, when compared to last year’s A9. I spent a brief amount of time playing battle royale shooter Fortnite on the iPad and was impressed with how solidly the game ran.
The iPad’s display also doesn’t feature True Tone ambient light matching and lacks the faster 120Hz refresh rate of the significantly more expensive Pro. Again, both of these features likely won’t be missed by many, especially given the 2018 iPad’s lower price tag. I’ve grown fond of them over the last few months, but neither are worth the extra $400 the 10.5-inch iPad Pro costs in the Canada.
It’s also worth noting that the iPad can’t run three apps at once like the powerful Pro is capable of. If you open a third app in a slide-over window, with two apps split-screened, the background application automatically pauses. This isn’t the case with the latest iPad Pro, which was updated with multi-tasking functionality following the release of iOS 11. Apple likely curbed multi-tasking on the 2018 iPad because it only features 2GB of RAM instead of the Pro’s more sizable 4GB.
Again, like many of the 2018 iPad’s shortcomings, this problem won’t be on the average iPad user’s radar, but it is an issue I encountered a few times when jumping between multiple apps.
Update 04/06/2018: The review has been updated with additional comment from Apple regarding Canadian schools currently using iPads in the classroom.
Snapchat has begun rolling out it its augmented reality TrueDepth selfie lenses today.
The feature was first shown off at the iPhone X launch event as a demo of the TrueDepth camera’s capabilities. It’s now available for use by anyone with an iPhone X.
This silent update will use FaceID’s facial mapping technology to better overlay an augmented reality mask onto users in Snapchat.
So far there are just three lenses that use this new technology, with more likely to appear in the future in the same way regular lenses crop up.
If I wanted to spend $150 or less on a pair of over-ear headphones, the Sony MDR-7506, for the third year running, is the set I would buy. After we researched all of the over-ears in this price range that are currently available (around 110 models in total), read countless professional and Amazon customer reviews, and conducted three separate listening panels of audio professionals, the Sony MDR-7506 emerged as the clear winner yet again.
I was a big fan of Sherlock Holmes and various other fictional detectives growing up; I’m still drawn to the form when I want to relax. There’s a basic pleasure in trying to match wits with Sherlock and figure our who the killer is before the final reveal. Connecting the dots is a rewarding game but it’s a flawed strategy.
The picture is always clear after the fact. But to jump from that fact to the assumption that you can recognize the dots earlier and connect them into one single, compelling, inarguable picture that triggers right action is a leap too far. Detective stories have an advantage that truth lacks; the writer knows where they intend to go.
The problem is that connecting the dots is such a well worn story telling and story organizing technique. The key to using this as a story telling technique is to manage the ratio of story dots and noise dots. Looking backward to make sense of the outcome that came to pass, the storyteller emphasizes the dots that reveal the picture and shares just enough other dots to suggest the work our hero had to do to see the hidden picture. As a good storyteller you might add a clever twist or put our hero in just the right spot to see what others have missed.
Suppose, however, that in the real world our potential hero was looking in the wrong direction or trying to separate the relevant dot from a thousand irrelevant but similar dots. Now our hero might be portrayed as a fool or an incompetent. Our hero’s reputation and future hangs on the objectives of the storyteller, not on the events in the field.
The appeal of the connecting the dots rhetorical strategy obscures its flaws as a thinking strategy. There are two principal flaws from a problem-solving perspective. One, it suggests there is a single, correct, picture of what is going on waiting to be discovered as soon as someone draws the correct thread through the data points that otherwise appear to be noise. Two, it presumes that recognizing the picture offers sufficient, timely, insight into appropriate action steps.
There are always too many dots; in a big data world we seek more dots in the hope that the picture will emerge. All the analytical tools will do, however, is add more possible pictures that might be hiding in the dots. Any collection of dots might form multiple pictures; more dots simply suggest more pictures.
Which brings us to the second problem; how does recognizing a picture connect to effective response? In our detective stories, our goal is to bring the killer to justice, perhaps to intervene before the killer strikes again.
In the world of more dots than time, our goal is to devise a response soon enough to make a difference. We wish to create a new story to be told. The dots behind us are only useful in suggesting where to place the dots that are not yet part of the picture we are in the act of creating.
Our fourth and final SEO experiment for MDN, to optimize internal links within the open web documentation, is now finished. Optimizing internal links involves ensuring that each page (in particular, the ones we want to improve search engine results page (SERP) positions for, are easy to find.
This is done by ensuring that each page is linked to from as many topically relevant pages as possible. In addition, it should in turn link outward to other relevant pages. The more quality links we have among related pages, the better our position is likely to be. The object, from a user’s perspective, is to ensure that even if the first page they find doesn’t answer their question, it will link to a page that does (or at least might help them find the right one).
Creating links on MDN is technically pretty easy. There are several ways to do it, including:
Selecting the text to turn into a link and using the toolbar’s “add link” button
Using the “add link” hotkey (Ctrl-K or Cmd-K)
Any one of a large number of macros that generate properly-formatted links automatically, such as the domxref macro, which creates a link to a page within the MDN API reference; for example: {{domxref(“RTCPeerConnection.createOffer()”)}} creates a link to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/RTCPeerConnection/createOffer, which looks like this: RTCPeerConnection.createOffer(). Many of the macros offer customization options, but the default is usually acceptable and is almost always better than trying to hand-make the links.
10 pages were selected for the internal link optimization experiment.
Changes made to the selected pages
In general, the changes made were only to add links to pages; sometimes content had to be added to accomplish this but ideally the changes were relatively small.
Existing text that should have been a link but was not, such as mentions of terms that need definition, concepts for which pages exist that should have been linked to, were turned into links.
The uses of API names, element names, attributes, CSS properties, SVG element names, and so forth were turned into links when either first used in a section or if a number of paragraphs had elapsed since they were last a link. While repeated links to the same page don’t count, this is good practice for usability purposes.
Any phrase for which a more in-depth explanation is available was turned into a link.
Links to related concepts or topics were added where appropriate; for example, on the article about HTMLFormElement.elements, a note is provided with a link to the related Document.forms property.
Links to related functions or HTML elements or whatever were added.
The “See also” section was reviewed and updated to include appropriate related content.
Changes made to targeted pages
Targeted pages—pages to which links were added—in some cases got smaller changes made, such as the addition of a link back to the original page, and in some cases new links were added to other relevant content if the pages were particularly in need of help.
Pages to be updated
The pages selected to be updated for this experiment:
The initial data was taken during the four weeks from December 29, 2017 through January 25th, 2018. The “after” data was taken just over a month after the work was completed, covering the period of March 6 through April 2, 2018.
The results from this experiment were fascinating. Of all of the SEO experiments we’ve done, the results of this one were the most consistently positive.
These results are amazing. Every single value is up, with the sole exception of a small decline in organic search views (that is, appearances in Google search result lists) for the article “HTML in XMLHttpRequest.” Most values are up substantially, with many being impressively improved.
Note: The data in the table above was updated on April 12, 2018 after realizing the “before” data set was inadvertently one day shorter than the “after” set. This reduced the improvements marginally, but did not affect the overall results.
Uncertainties
Due to the implementation of the experiment and certain timing issues, there are uncertainties surrounding these results. Those include:
Ideally, much more time would have elapsed between completing the changes and collecting final data.
The experiment began during the winter holiday season, when overall site usage is at a low point.
There was overall site growth of MDN traffic over the time this experiment was underway.
Decisions
Certain conclusions can be reached:
The degree to which internal link improvements benefited traffic to these pages can’t be ignored, even after factoring in the uncertainties. This is easily the most benefit we got from any experiment, and on top of that, the amount of work required was often much lower. This should be a high priority portion of our SEO plans.
The MDN meta-documentation will be further improved to enhance recommendations around linking among pages on MDN.
We should consider enhancements to macros used to build links to make them easier to use, especially in cases where we commonly have to override default behavior to get the desired output. Simplifying the use of macros to create links will make linking faster and easier and therefore more common.
We’ll re-evaluate the data after more time has passed to ensure the results are correct.
Discussion?
If you’d like to comment on this, or ask questions about the results or the work involved in making these changes, please feel free to follow up or comment on the thread I’ve created on our Discourse forum.
The App Store shrank for the first time in 2017, according to a new report from Appfigures. The report found the App Store lost 5 percent of its total apps over the course of the year, dropping from 2.2 million published iOS apps in the beginning of the year to 2.1 million by year-end.
...
Appfigures speculated the changes had to do with a combination of factors, including stricter enforcement of Apple’s review guidelines, along with a technical change requiring app developers to update their apps to the 64-bit architecture.
With the previously announced App Store cleanup and iOS 11's 32-bit purge, it's no surprise at all that the App Store shrank during the year. To the average user though, a store with 2.1 million apps is no different than one with 2.2 million. Plus, in theory the apps that remain are of a higher overall quality than what was removed, so this should turn out to be a net gain for users.
Another way users benefit: the App Store's search engine has long had a reputation for being ineffective, so a smaller App Store should mean it's easier to find what you're looking for.
In a follow up of sorts to last year's Mac roundtable, Matthew Panazarino of TechCrunch was invited back to Apple HQ for an update on the long-awaited Mac Pro, which Apple shared will not launch until 2019:
“We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year.”
Other than the 2019 date, the lone detail about the new Mac Pro was confirmation that it will be a modular system. Though what exactly that means, we still don't know.
The other main interesting note from Panzarino's report is that Apple has assembled a new internal Pro Workflow Team (not to be confused with the iOS app Workflow) which aims to guide and improve Apple's pro-targeted products. The team is under the oversight of John Ternus, Apple's VP of Hardware Engineering, and a great deal of its focus is learning the workflows of real pro users so it can optimize its hardware and software to make those workflows better. Panzarino writes:
To do that, Ternus says, they want their architects sitting with real customers to understand their actual flow and to see what they’re doing in real time. The challenge with that, unfortunately, is that though customers are typically very responsive when Apple comes calling, it’s not always easy to get what they want because they may be using proprietary content. John Powell, for instance, is a long-time logic user and he’s doing the new Star Wars Han Solo standalone flick. As you can imagine, taking those unreleased and highly secret compositions to Apple to play with them on their machines can be a sticking point.
So Apple decided to go a step further and just begin hiring these creatives directly into Apple. Some of them on a contract basis but many full time as well. These are award-winning artists and technicians that are brought in to shoot real projects (I saw a bunch of them walking by in Apple park toting kit for an outdoor shoot on premises while walking). They then put the hardware and software through their paces and point out sticking points that could cause frustration and friction among pro users.
This work has started in the specific areas of visual effects, video editing, 3D animation, and music production, and Apple plans to expand it out from there.
The efforts of the Pro Workflow Team serve to benefit all of Apple's pro-related hardware and software, and even popular third-party software as well. It's one way Apple is showing its commitment to serving professional users.
In the last year, Apple's output for pro users seems to have made a complete turnaround. Back then we were wondering if the company had become content focusing on the average consumer and letting pros leave for other platforms. That's certainly not the story anymore. With the iMac Pro, continued updates to Apple's pro software, and now the forthcoming Mac Pro and the ongoing investment of the Pro Workflow Team, Apple is positioning itself again as a company committed to serving the pro market.
Income inequality: We already talked about that topic in another Weekly Chart a few weeks back. There I explained what the mean and the median can tell us about income inequality in a country. But hey, why use two numbers when you can use one? That’s what the Gini index is for. It’s a number between 0 and 1 that tells us how equally the total income of a country is distributed to its citizens. If the Gini index in your country is zero, your household earns exactly as much money as every other household. If the Gini index is 1, one person earns all the money. (In the worst case, that’s you.) (Because you wouldn’t be alive for long.)
But wait, inequality is not set in stone! A government has tools to re-distribute income – that’s what taxes are for (among others). Here’s a chart that shows how much the OECD member countries reduce their income inequality with taxes:
That’s a pretty long chart, so I highlighted four countries to draw your attention to: Finland, Germany, France and the United States. As we can see, the income is more equally distributed in Finland (with a Gini index of 0.26) and less equally in the US (0.39). But that’s only the situation after taxes. Before taxes, the income in all four countries is equally unequally distributed (0.5). The European countries – especially Finland – make use of taxes to bring income inequality down by a lot. The US, not so much.
A visual explanation of the Gini index
But what is the Gini index telling us exactly? How is it calculated? Since I’m a visual thinking person, here’s a visual explanation: When plotting the cumulative percentage of total national income against the cumulative percentage of the population for a country, the resulting line is called a “Lorenz curve”. The Gini index shows us how much space exists between the Lorenz curve for your country and the Lorenz curve of a perfectly equal country. Let’s look at three Lorenz curves, to understand that better:
If we hover over the area that represents Mexico, we can learn that the 20% poorest Mexicans earn 5% of the national income. The bottom 30% earn 8%. The bottom 40% earn 13%, etc. The bottom 90% earn 60%, which means that the 10% richest Mexicans earn 40% of the national income. This distribution is pretty far away from a perfectly equal world, in which the top 10% would earn exactly 10% of the national income.
And that’s what the Gini index shows us: How far away that distribution is from perfection. Better said, the Gini index tells us how big the difference is between the perfectly equal world (the grey line) and your country[1]. The more curved the Lorenz line for your country, the bigger the difference, the higher the Gini index, the more unequal the income distribution in a country. That’s why the Gini index is zero when the income distribution of your country is completely equal: The grey line and the country line would lay on top of each other, and there would be zero space between them.
There’s a lot to say about indices: Every single one of them has shortcomings, and so does the Gini index. If you want to understand when and why the Gini index isn’t the best choice, I can recommend this great Scientific American article. Also, I’d love to visualize the Lorenz curves for aaaall the countries, but I couldn’t find a good data source. Maybe you know one? Tell me!
Ok, here’s the actual calculation: In the chart above, take the only-grey area; meaning, subtract the red area from the complete grey area. Then divide this area by the complete grey area (the triangle). The result is your Gini index. ↩
We’re pleased to announce that Safari 11.1 on macOS and Safari on iOS 11.3 now support the W3C Payment Request API for conducting Apple Pay transactions on the web.
We first introduced Apple Pay on the Web in macOS Sierra and iOS 10. Apple Pay brought novel ease-of-use, security, and privacy to online transactions, so we’ve been encouraged to see it widely adopted by merchants in the years since. However, we recognize that merchants need to support multiple payment methods, and doing so comes at the cost of increased complexity. Payment Request aims to reduce this complexity by supporting payment methods across multiple browsers using a standard API.
Today I’ll take you step-by-step through an Apple Pay transaction using Payment Request. If you’ve already worked with Apple Pay JS, this should look familiar to you. If you haven’t, this is a great place to get started!
Apple Pay transactions are always initiated by your customer, so you’ll need to display an Apple Pay button for them to tap or click. For a consistent visual appearance, WebKit provides built-in support for rendering Apple Pay buttons. Here’s how to display the most basic type of Apple Pay button:
if (window.ApplePaySession && ApplePaySession.canMakePayments())
// Show Apple Pay button.
If your customer taps or clicks an Apple Pay button, you should always present the Apple Pay payment sheet. If they haven’t yet enrolled a payment card you can accept in Apple Pay, Safari prompts them to do so before continuing with your transaction. Since these rules are specific to Apple Pay, Apple Pay JS’s ApplePaySession API is required for this step. The remainder of the transaction can be conducted using standard Payment Request API.
var request = null;
if (window.PaymentRequest)
request = new PaymentRequest(methods, details, options);
else
// Consider using Apple Pay JS instead.
The PaymentRequest constructor takes three arguments: the payment methods you support, the details to show to your customer (like shipping options and total amount), and any options you require.
Payment Methods
Payment methods represent the means by which you can accept payments from your customer using Payment Request. You specify the payment methods you accept as a sequence of PaymentMethodData dictionaries, each of which contains an identifier (supportedMethods) and associated data.
To use Apple Pay with Payment Request, include it as a payment method. Apple Pay’s URL-based payment method identifier is "https://apple.com/apple-pay", and its associated data is an ApplePayRequest dictionary. Here’s what a PaymentMethodData dictionary for Apple Pay might look like:
Safari only supports the Apple Pay payment method, but other browsers might support additional payment methods. When you specify multiple payment methods in a request, the browser decides which to present to your customer based on device availability and user preference.
Payment Details
Payment details are represented by the PaymentDetailsInit dictionary. It contains your transaction’s total amount, display items, shipping options, and payment method-specific modifiers (more on modifiers below). Here’s what valid payment details might look like for a $20 item plus tax and two shipping options:
You can choose a default shipping option by setting the selected attribute to true as we did above for "Ground Shipping". The total amount must not be negative, and when using Apple Pay, all payment amounts in your request must use the same ISO 4217 currency code. It is up to you to ensure the correctness of your payment details; Safari does not do any currency calculations on your behalf.
What about modifiers?
You can optionally include a sequence of modifiers in your payment details. Modifiers update your transaction’s display items and total when criteria you specify for a given payment method are satisfied. In Apple Pay, you can use modifiers to adjust the price based on the type of payment card selected in the Apple Pay payment sheet. For instance, the following modifier applies a $1.00 discount when your customer selects a debit card in Apple Pay:
Modifiers provide some of the functionality present in the paymentmethodselected event from Apple Pay JS. See ApplePayModifier for more information.
Payment Options
Payment options are represented by the PaymentOptions dictionary. If you need to request your customer’s name, email address, or phone number – or request a certain type of shipping – you can do so here:
If you set requestShipping to true, the shipping options you specified in Payment Details are presented in the payment sheet for your customer to choose between. You receive the requested information once your customer authorizes payment.
Exceptions
Safari might raise an exception when constructing a new PaymentRequest. Exceptions can occur for the following reasons:
Calling JSON.stringify() on the payment method data failed.
Invalid currency amounts were specified (e.g., negative total or multiple currencies).
canMakePayment() method
Once you’ve constructed a PaymentRequest, you can ask it if your customer will be able to authorize a transaction given the payment methods you can accept. You do this by calling the canMakePayment() method, which returns a promise that resolves to either true or false. In Safari, when Apple Pay is one of the payment methods, canMakePayment() resolves to true only if your customer has an active card enrolled in Apple Pay. This is the equivalent of how ApplePaySession.canMakePaymentsWithActiveCard() behaves in Apple Pay JS.
As we discussed in Showing Apple Pay Buttons, the Apple Pay Human Interface Guidelines require you to show an Apple Pay button whenever your customer is on supported hardware, whether or not they have an active card enrolled. Therefore, you should not hide Apple Pay buttons when canMakePayment() resolves to false. Always show an Apple Pay button if ApplePaySession.canMakePayments() returns true, and always present the Apple Pay payment sheet when your customer taps or clicks the button. Safari prompts your customer to enroll a payment card if they haven’t done so already before continuing with your transaction. For more information, see Human Interface Guidelines > Apple Pay on the Web.
show() method
When your customer taps or clicks an Apple Pay button, you should present the Apple Pay payment sheet. You do this by calling the show() method, which returns a promise that resolves to a PaymentResponse once your customer authorizes payment. The promise is rejected with an AbortError if your customer cancels the transaction.
You can optionally call show() with a promise for a PaymentDetailsUpdate. Sometimes you might still be in the process of calculating payment details when your customer taps or clicks the Apple Pay button. In this case, you can construct a new PaymentRequest with placeholders for details, then call show() with a promise to provide up-to-date details later. When you resolve this promise, Safari displays the updated details in the Apple Pay payment sheet.
Safari might reject the promise returned by show() with an exception. Exceptions can occur for the following reasons:
show() was not triggered by user activation (e.g., a tap or click).
The request has already been aborted.
An Apple Pay session is already active.
Payment method data is invalid (e.g., is missing required fields).
abort() method
If you need to abort the presented transaction, you can call the abort() method. When you do this, Safari dismisses the Apple Pay payment sheet and rejects the promise returned by show() with an AbortError. If the transaction has already been aborted, or show() has not yet been called, calling abort() throws an InvalidStateError.
Merchant Validation
Before Safari can present the Apple Pay payment sheet, you must acquire a payment session from Apple. This process is referred to as merchant validation.
Soon after you call show(), Safari dispatches the merchantvalidation event to your PaymentRequest object. The event defines a validationURL attribute representing the Apple URL your server contacts to receive a payment session. You must call the event’s complete() method with a promise that you resolve with this payment session once you receive it.
Here is what a merchantvalidation event handler might look like:
Once you’ve received a merchant session, Safari presents the Apple Pay payment sheet to your customer. If you’ve requested shipping, your customer is able to select between your shipping options and provide a shipping address. When they make these selections in the payment sheet, Safari dispatches a shippingoptionchange or shippingaddresschange event to your PaymentRequest object.
shippingoptionchange
When the user selects a shipping option, Safari dispatches the shippingoptionchange event. In your event handler, you can determine the selected shipping option by checking the PaymentRequest‘s shippingOption attribute. To update the payment details based on the selected shipping option, call updateWith() on the event object with a promise that resolves to a PaymentDetailsUpdate.
When requesting shipping with Apple Pay, you must always listen for shippingoptionchange and call updateWith() with a promise that resolves within 30 seconds, otherwise, the transaction will time out.
shippingaddresschange
When your customer selects a shipping address, Safari dispatches the shippingaddresschange event. In your event handler, you can determine the selected shipping address by checking the PaymentRequest‘s shippingAddress attribute. To update the payment details based on the selected shipping address, call updateWith() on the event object with a promise that resolves to a PaymentDetailsUpdate. If you are unable to ship to the selected address, you can provide an error message in your PaymentDetailsUpdate that Safari displays to your customer.
When using Apple Pay, Safari might redact some details from the shipping address. For instance, in the United States, only city, state, 5-digit ZIP code, and country are provided. Safari provides the full, un-redacted shipping address once your customer authorizes payment.
When requesting shipping with Apple Pay, you must always listen for shippingaddresschange and call updateWith() with a promise that resolves within 30 seconds, otherwise the transaction will time out.
Handling Payment Authorization
When your customer authorizes payment, Safari resolves the promise you received from calling show() with a PaymentResponse. Depending on what you requested in your PaymentOptions, the response might contain the selected shipping option, shipping address, name, email, and phone number of your customer.
The response also contains the payment method identifier used to conduct the transaction (methodName), along with its associated details. When Apple Pay is the selected payment method, the associated details is an ApplePayPayment dictionary. ApplePayPayment contains the Apple Pay token you use to process the payment authorization. It also includes your customer’s billing and shipping contact information as ApplePayPaymentContacts if you required this in your ApplePayRequest.
When you have finished processing the payment authorization, you call the complete() method on PaymentResponse to indicate the result of your processing. You can call complete() with a status of "success" or "failure". At this point, the Apple Pay payment sheet is dismissed.
Demo
You now have all the pieces you need to conduct an Apple Pay transaction using Payment Request. Here’s what an Apple Pay session might look like using Payment Request:
async function applePayButtonClicked()
{
// Consider falling back to Apple Pay JS if Payment Request is not available.
if (!window.PaymentRequest)
return;
try {
const request = new PaymentRequest([applePayMethod], paymentDetails, paymentOptions);
request.onmerchantvalidation = function (event) {
// Have your server fetch a payment session from event.validationURL.
const sessionPromise = fetchPaymentSession(event.validationURL);
event.complete(sessionPromise);
};
request.onshippingoptionchange = function (event) {
// Compute new payment details based on the selected shipping option.
const detailsUpdatePromise = computeDetails();
event.updateWith(detailsUpdatePromise);
};
request.onshippingaddresschange = function (event) {
// Compute new payment details based on the selected shipping address.
const detailsUpdatePromise = computeDetails();
event.updateWith(detailsUpdatePromise);
};
const response = await request.show();
const status = processResponse(response);
response.complete(status);
} catch (e) {
// Handle errors
}
}
Let’s see how this works in a live demo. If you are viewing this post on a device capable of Apple Pay, you should see an Apple Pay button below. Feel free to click it! Don’t worry, no matter what you do in the payment sheet, your card won’t be charged anything.
Availability
The Payment Request API is available in Safari 11.1 on macOS Sierra and macOS High Sierra, Safari on iOS 11.3, and Safari Technology Preview.
More Information
Apple provides comprehensive documentation for Apple Pay on the Web. Here are a few links you might find useful:
We’d love to hear your feedback! If you find a Payment Request bug, please report it at bugs.webkit.org. On Twitter, you can reach the WebKit team at @webkit, or our web technologies evangelist Jonathan Davis at @jonathandavis.
Motorola has updated its Android camera app to include additional functionality, including new gesture-based controls.
The app is now controlled by swiping between modes like ‘camera,’ ‘video,’ ‘panorama,’ and ‘slo-motion,’ as opposed to the pop-up menu that was featured before in the app.
There is also now an extra button along the top of the screen that allows users to switch between automatic and manual shooting modes — this was hidden in the pop-up menu before the new update.
These changes make the app a little faster and easier to use and could possibly point to a focus on photography in Motorola’s upcomiong smartphones.
People use Wi-Fi cameras for all kinds of things, from checking on the dog to confirming that they turned off the stove burner. But people who use them for home security expect the camera to be able to record everything that happens in front of them. However, that’s not always how these things work.
Most Wi-Fi cameras can’t actually catch everything, and we’re not talking about angles and field of view. After spending months testing over 20 indoor and outdoor cameras, I’ve discovered that less than a handful of units can make reliable recordings where you won’t miss a second of the action.
Almost every Wi-Fi camera is designed to record when it detects motion happening. Most also have a recording time limit, anywhere between five seconds and five minutes, so the video sizes don’t get unmanageable. If motion continues beyond that time limit, you expect the camera to instantly start another clip. That way, you don’t miss a face, a raccoon, or whatever else is going bump in the night. However, most cameras leave a gap in between those recorded clips. Camera manufacturers call this a “reset” period or “retrigger” time.
This footage gap first came to my attention when reviewing the original Netgear Arlo Pro for our wireless outdoor home security camera guide. I went back and retested the unit, only to find that, on average, the camera left gaps up to 35 seconds in between recordings. In one recording, enough time elapsed between clips to leave me wondering which one of my neighbors was kind enough to put my trash cans away. It’s also long enough to miss someone breaking into your home or stealing a package from your porch.
Pull Quote
Nest, Logitech, and Amazon are a few of the companies currently making cameras that don’t leave any sort of a gap.
When I asked Netgear about the issue, a representative stated that this was put in place so the camera sensor could reset, so the video wouldn’t be stuck in a loop and kill the battery. They also said the company planned to fix it by adding a “record until motion stops” feature, which was included on some of the company’s AC-powered cameras. Once the camera was updated, the gaps still remained, but were shorter and slightly more consistent in duration.
This got me wondering about other cordless, battery-powered cameras. But after a bit more research and testing, I realized that some cameras connected to AC power still left gaps anywhere from a few seconds and up to five minutes. When it comes to choosing a camera for security, this is a big deal.
A few manufacturers have acknowledged that by allowing you to adjust the downtime. For instance, Blink allows users to set the retrigger time on the outdoor XT between 10 and 60 seconds. Blink says this feature helps to conserve battery life, but that doesn’t explain why so many corded cameras also do this.
Wi-Fi cameras often cut off recordings after a predetermined time, then leave a gap in between clips. Image: Ryan Hines
Having that reset can ensure that the camera isn’t making endless recordings triggered by people, cars, or animals. Of course, recent features like defined activity zones and person detection are better ways to address that problem.
Nest, Logitech, and Amazon are a few of the companies currently making cameras that don’t leave any sort of a gap. Logitech cuts off clips a little after three minutes, but uses a “per frame tracking approach” to start a new clip immediately. Amazon bumps clips up to five minutes and “records a few seconds of video in temporary storage on the device and continually writes over it” to make sure you never miss any of the action. Nest just records everything 24/7 and makes a note when motion occurs—and charges from $50 to $300 a year for it.
Why might you be willing to live with the gaps? Price is definitely a consideration. Nest cameras and Logitech’s Circle 2 cost two and, in some cases, three times more than other security cameras. At $120, the Amazon Cloud Cam is more affordable, but has trade-offs on image and features.
Another reason you may be willing to live with gaps is convenience. This is especially something to consider with outdoor cameras. If you don’t have an outside outlet, you may be willing to accept gaps in exchange for a cordless camera. With almost 12,000 reviews and a 4.3-star (out of five) rating on Amazon, Arlo Pro users don’t seem too concerned with missing a few seconds here and there.
If you’re worried about not catching something (or someone), setting up a system with multiple overlapping cameras may help. This is what pro security companies do, but that gets expensive.
Before buying, think about how you’re going to use the camera. If it’s for live viewing, watching the dog, or checking to see when the kids get home, recording gaps might not matter. Plus, it’s just a few seconds, right?
A press invite has confirmed that Motorola will be holding a press event in on April 19th, likely to reveal its next generation of phones.
The bright green invitation was sent to tech blog Android Pit.
The colouring of the invitation seems to be the same gradient of green revealed in recent leaks of the Moto G6 Plus, so it would only make sense for the company to show off the G6 line of phones on the 19th.
It has been over a year since the Motorola G5 line of phones was released so it is about time for the company to release its next generation of devices.
While this invitation is for Brazil it’s unclear whether this will be the location of the global launch or just one of the reveal locales. One way or another, you can stay tuned to MobileSyrup for details.
Many thanks to Frances Bula for this info. It seems that Vision Vancouver is hedging their bets on a Vision-branded entry into the swirl of mayoral candidates running in the October civic election.
Just so there's no uproar later on. I checked re yesterday's stories and Vision Vancouver is CONSIDERING not running a mayoral candidate, but not totally ruling it out and, from what I hear, party members quite divided on this.
My Affordable City is a series profiling people in cities to learn more about their housing situation, how they budget for urban life, and what cost-saving tips they can share. Email me if you, or someone you know, wants to participate!
Adrian Crook, a tech entrepreneur and blogger at 5 Kids 1 Condo, has been profiled extensively in local and international media as a single dad raising five kids in a three-bedroom, Downtown Vancouver condo.
In our interview, Adrian shares why he made his private life public to advocate for the benefits of urban family life, and how he saves money raising children in the city.
How much of your monthly income goes toward housing?
Our rent comprises 29% of my monthly gross income. We are quite fortunate as we got into the rental market five years ago with a fairly low rent and despite annual increases, our rent is still well below market rate. I estimate we’d need to pay $500-$1000 more a month if we had to relocate to a similar place tomorrow.
Are you satisfied with your current housing situation?
We love our current unit, which we have been in for five years. The building is a 1994 condo, so the floorplans are family sized, as opposed to condos built even five years later, which started to use acute angles, curved facades and generally smaller square footages. The building has about 50 or 60 kids in it, but it could be a lot more communal. Instead, it’s a mix of owners and renters mostly thrown together by circumstance, rather than intention (such as what you might find in a co-op tenure type).
If I could afford to buy it, I would. That said, it’s likely in the range of $1.5M at least to purchase. I recently had to turn down an opening in a new co-op building because the rent there would have been more than I pay now and the unit wasn’t as nice. We have a very large bike room to store all our bikes, which is amazing. And our apartment has an in-suite storage unit that we’ve converted to be used as a Maker Lab - including 3D printing, gaming, green screen and more. The kids love it.
There is also a pool and a small gym, but not much else for amenities. Every floor is also fobbed off from one another, meaning it’s tough to coordinate going between floors to visit neighbours. I can definitely see how a co-op would have a more intentional community, and long for that a bit. I tried to start a social network for our building via a Facebook group, but it never really took off.
Is unaffordability affecting your quality of life?
Vancouver’s lack of affordability for both rentals and units for sale has had a pretty profound effect on my sense of housing security. I’m acutely aware that we’re walking on eggshells in this unit, dreading the day our landlord decides to sell.
That said, it’s also this lack of affordability that motivated me to start Abundant Housing Vancouver and to run for Council. It’s definitely possible for us to restore affordability to Vancouver - but it will take some tough decisions. Decisions that so far have not been made at a civic level.
What lifestyle changes have you have made to afford living in the city?
We don’t own a car, but that’s as much about safety, health and teaching the kids to use transit as it is about saving money. And I prefer small spaces, so I doubt I’d want a much larger apartment if affordability wasn’t an issue. I’ve owned a house before and it’s just not worth the time to maintain it, versus spending time on relationships that matter.
I think the biggest change I’ve made is turning my private life public, by starting my 5 Kids 1 Condo blog. I chose to do this several years ago in order to advocate for the benefits of urban family life. I suppose if this wasn’t such an odd or seemingly tough thing to do in Vancouver, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to advocate for it so strongly.
It’s resulted in publicly sharing issues like the Ministry investigation into my kids taking the bus without a guardian, which I was believe was a decision rooted in an anti-urban bias. I did so because I knew this issue needed to be addressed.
What are your favourite low budget activities in the city?
We’re surrounded by parks, so that’s a favourite. Also, a Vancouver Art Gallery family membership is remarkably cheap for the year of unfettered access you get. Same goes for the Aquarium or Science World, although the kids seem to have outgrown both of those things for now. There are frequently parades, festivals and other outdoor events, especially during the summer. I wrote up a bunch of them on a friend’s blog.
What are your money saving tips for living in the city?
Ditch your car. You don’t need it.
Will you stay there long term? Why or why not?
I’m married to Vancouver for the long haul. But like any long-term relationship, I know I need to work on it. That’s why I started 5K1C, Abundant Housing Vancouver and why I’m now running for City Council. Not many people are as fortunate as we are to live in this great city. Vancouver is far from full. We’re a city of immigrants and we have a lot more room to welcome newcomers, provided we have the political will to make better use of our land for affordable housing.
What do you think needs to be done to make city living more affordable?
Over 75% of our residential land is zoned only to allow detached housing. The median price of a detached house on this land is over $2M. We’re well past the time when this millionaire’s preserve should be opened up for multi-family housing, such as low- and mid-rise apartment buildings, bungalow courts, rowhomes and more.
Our previous government spent 10 years taking incremental approaches toward solving our housing crisis. What’s needed now is a big leap forward, so that young people and families can remain in Vancouver, and newcomers can call Vancouver home.
Canada’s privacy commissioner took the stage at a Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) privacy summit in Toronto yesterday to advocate for the right to online reputation.
The half-day summit was an opportunity for members of the media, as well as lawyers and legislators to meet and discuss the right to privacy in relation to freedom of expression.
Daniel Therrien’s core position is that Canadians should be able to access the internet without having to fear that their reputations will be ruined as a result.
A draft paper published in January 2018 established the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s (OPC) position, while also suggesting that ‘de-indexing’ and ‘source takedown’ are possible solutions to maintain individual online reputation.
Also known as the ‘right to be forgotten,’ de-indexing refers to the process by which individuals can request that search engines — like Google, Bing and Yahoo — remove results when an individual’s name is used in the search.
Source takedown, by comparison, refers to the removal of the original source of content from the internet entirely.
As individuals at the summit pointed out, there’s some contention between the right to privacy, freedom of expression and the freedom to access information.
“We’re talking about information that the Globe and Mail would publish legally,” said Simon Houpt, a Globe and Mail reporter, during a discussion with Therrien. “Why would information that is freely available on the Globe website… not be searchable?”
However, as Therrien himself argued, “there are real consequences to incorrect information being out there to be seen by many.”
“The solution can be discussed at length, and a reason why we have put this out as a draft position paper is that we’re pretty sure that there’s a harm to be remedied here, and as a regulator, the tool that I have… is the legislation to limit or enforce,” said Therrien.
Therrien further argued that the in the age of the internet, more information is easily accessible than ever before. As such, it’s necessary to find some way to regulate the information that’s available.
“This information that is found will often be taken out of context,” said Therrien. “It is often replicable and difficult to delete.”
The European Union and the right to be forgotten
The public debate surrounding the right to be forgotten truly came to a head in 2014, after a decision from the EU Court of Justice ruled that internet search engines have a responsibility for processing the personal information that is presented on websites published by third parties.
In effect, the EU determined that search engines like Google are responsible in part for managing the information that users are able to access, even if that information is published on third-party websites like MobileSyrup.
Since 2014, Google has received roughly 666,000 requests demanding the removal of almost 2.5 million links, according to the company’s own transparency report.
Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer was also at the CJF privacy summit, and spoke about the search engines work in upholding its part of the bargain in the right to be forgotten arena.
“At the end of the day, this is not really the question of money for Google, this is a question of principle,” said Fleischer, while speaking with the Globe and Mail’s Christine Dobby. “I would say as a company, we are a search engine. Our mission is to help people find the most relevant information out there.”
“Any ruling that says ‘Google, you may not show [information], you must intentionally omit [information]… it’s really the principle.”
Individuals should note that the OPC is currently accepting feedback regarding its position paper right now. Submissions will no longer be accepted as of April 19th, 2018.
The Avast Secure Browser was revamped today with a new name and features.
The browser, previously known as SafeZone, has taken the mantle of being one of the most secure and private browsers on the market. Avast is based on the Chromium browser framework and is designed to be a leader in three areas of web browsing: speed, security and privacy.
In terms of speed, Avast claims to load web pages four times faster than other popular browsers, all while being secure against ransomware, phishing, and malware. The browser also has another layer of security when users enable the ‘banking mode’ which protects users payment card information and passwords.
Avast says its adblocking software is what helps web pages load faster, due to the fact that the browser doesn’t have to load ads alongside the regular webpage.
Along with adblocking, Avast ships with anti-tracking and anti-fingerprinting features to help protect users from profile building, mass surveillance and other invasions of privacy online.
Avast manages these features in its ‘Security and Privacy Centre’ to make it easier for users to manage their browsers setting all on one web page.
The browser is currently available on Windows with mobile versions for iOS and Android coming at some point during 2018.
I was a big fan of Sherlock Holmes and various other fictional detectives growing up; I’m still drawn to the form when I want to relax. There’s a basic pleasure in trying to match wits with Sherlock and figure our who the killer is before the final reveal. Connecting the dots is a rewarding game but it’s a flawed strategy.
