Facebook is making it a little easier to stalk people through its mobile applications.
The company announced today that it’s testing a redesign of mobile profiles in the United Kingdom and California. Facebook users involved with the test will gain more control over the information shown to prospective friends, the ability to set temporary profile pictures, and other features restricted to the small test group.
Perhaps the most interesting change is a renewed focus on images. Facebook users trying to learn more about someone they just met — or, let’s be honest, stalk people with whom they’ve lost touch over the years — will be tasked with scrolling through walls of photos after they pass larger versions of the profile and background images.
Facebook
Users will also be able to choose up to five photos they wish to highlight underneath their biographical information. Profiles used to be dominated by text, given their focus on showing users’ most recent status updates, but now they’re going to place much more emphasis on allowing Facebook users to view each others’ photographs.
“People love seeing photos and mutual friends when viewing the profiles of friends or someone they’ve just met, so those are easier to see now on profile,” Facebook said in its announcement. “Photos and friends are right at the top, making getting to know someone and seeing the world through your friends’ eyes as easy as scrolling.”
Facebook will also give its users the ability to “film a short, looping video clip that will play for anyone who visits your profile.” These are basically animated GIFs that promise to let you “show a part of yourself you couldn’t before” and “add a new dimension to your profile.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple’s new Live Photos, which are based on a similar concept, were converted for use as these profile videos.
Many of these changes introduce a customizability that didn’t exist on Facebook before. It’s not quite as noticeable as the custom backgrounds and music playlists that used to be tied to people’s MySpace accounts (let’s all agree not to discuss the bad choices we might have made back in those days) but it’s freer than before.
Facebook explained some of the reasoning behind these changes in its blog post. “People visit Facebook profiles more than four billion times per day,” the company said, “and we’re continually looking for ways to make profiles the best place for people to curate their online identities and connect with others.” The profile, which became an afterthought when the News Feed debuted, could now be relevant again.
It’s not clear when this update will be available to the public — Facebook said only that it’s testing the new features with a small number of users, and it will be “rolling them out to more people soon.” Given how big this change is, it’s hard to blame the company for waiting to roll this out instead of quickly giving it to a billion people.
Eyeo has been accused of extorting large companies in exchange for placement on a list of advertisers whose promotions aren’t hidden from consumers by AdBlock Plus, a popular tool which promises to make browsing the Web easier by hiding most ads. Now it’s planning to give control over the controversial list to an independent board that will decide the requirements which must be met by its prospective members.
Details about the independent board remain scarce, but an Eyeo spokesperson told Gigaom that the company is “tentatively hoping for early 2016” and that it doesn’t “have a concrete timeframe” for the board’s establishment. The Guardian reports that the company is seeking “representatives from advertising, publishing and the public” for the board, but it hasn’t yet revealed any specific membership candidates.
Eyeo has been criticized for its revenue model since the Financial Times revealed in February that companies like Taboola, Microsoft, and Google pay to be on its list of acceptable advertisers. A digital media company told the Times that Eyeo asked it to pay “a fee equivalent to 30 per cent of the additional ad revenues that it would make from being unblocked” in exchange for having its advertisements placed on the list.
At the time, I argued that Eyeo’s revenue model was another example of a Silicon Valley company hiding behind lofty ideals, such as improving Web browsing, while covertly using its software to suit other purposes. The company didn’t offer a free ad-blocker just so it could improve the Web; it also used the tool to personally profit based on the sheer number of people who trusted it to block any ad they might see.
That criticism was stoked when the Wall Street Journal reported that Dean Murphy, the maker of the popular Crystal ad-blocker for iOS, would be paid to use Eyeo’s list of acceptable advertisers in his own application. This would provide Murphy with two revenue streams — Crystal’s a paid application — for a software tool that belongs to a category that many believe could prove disastrous to ad-dependent publishers.
[B]y blocking all advertising with brute-force, it doesn’t promote a healthy mobile web that is sustainable and allows publishers to make a living from the free content they provide. By including the option for a user-managed whitelist and Acceptable Ads, I’m hoping to empower users to be able to support the mobile web in any way they see fit. […] In the long term, I’m hoping this convinces advertising agencies and publishers to reassess the kind of advertising they are using and bring them inline to a either the Acceptable Ads (or similar) criteria.
Arguments about whether or not it’s acceptable for ad-blocking companies to accept fees aren’t likely to be resolved now that Eyeo plans to set up an independent board. Here’s what a spokesperson said in response to my question about how Eyeo will make money when the independent board takes control of the list of acceptable ads:
We will continue to receive compensation from the larger entities on the whitelist. That’s about 10 percent of them all. However, those companies first have to uphold criteria (as do the 90 percent who don’t pay). It’s just that now an independent board made up of representatives from all over the map (figuratively and literally) will alter, update and enforce those criteria. Big, big change.
Big change indeed. I suspect it won’t change much about the conversation around the list, though. Even if it’s managed by an independent board, and even if all its members have to meet stringent requirements about ad quality, there will always be people upset that their favorite ad-blocker is making money by letting ads through. Eyeo could be in the right on this one, but it’s going to be criticized all the same.
Though it may be short on manners and healthy discourse, the Internet is almost certainly never short on content. There is so much content floating around the web, in fact, sorting through it and curating it has become a multi-million dollar business. Enter Nuzzel, the personalized news curation app that just secured a slew of new investors from a land beyond the walled kingdom of Silicon Valley.
Nuzzel, a startup founded by Jonathan Abrams (founder of Friendster, the social networking app of yore), is a news delivery service and app that curates web content based on activity in your social circles, news you might be interested in, and things you might’ve missed in a clear, uncluttered feed. Using Facebook or Twitter, Nuzzel pulls together stories that your friends are reading and sharing under the assumption that if you’re friends with or following someone on either site, it’s likely because you have a fair number of shared interests.
To be clear, this kind of socially influenced content curation isn’t new. It exists on a number of apps both operational and defunct, from Digg to Flipboard. However, the fact that it doesn’t play a huge part in the habits of most content consumers and that we’re often still Gchatting links to one another suggests that it the social curation functionality is still missing a vital piece of the puzzle: Nuzzel, perhaps.
Investors in this round include Matter, a startup accelerator funded by the likes of the McClatchy Group, Associated Press, and Google News Lab, along with a half a dozen individuals touting credentials from a laundry list of media money bigs: The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, The Guardian, CNBC International and more. While the dollar signs are far from unimportant in a funding round, the “who” and “why” are much more noteworthy in this case.
“Since the Nuzzel team comes from the Silicon Valley & Internet world, not the traditional news/media world, and our existing investors were mainly from the Silicon Valley world, we thought it would be useful to Nuzzel to add some investors from the news/media world,” says Jonathan Abrams, founder of Nuzzel. “This was less about money and more about getting news industry veterans as advisors to Nuzzel.”
The fact that investors from the news and media world are backing Nuzzel is key because as former publishers, CEOs and board members of some the largest media organizations, they are likely not easily wooed by attempts at distribution and curation. The media industry is rife with plans and concepts to deliver content to willing and eager eyes. In a world driven by page views, there are many trying to crack the code to simple and effective distribution, but most are wildly ineffective and unsuccessful.
“As CEO of the Guardian I saw many new digital products innovating in the news/content space. Few cut the mustard,” says Andrew Miller, former CEO of the Guardian and one of Nuzzel’s most recent investors. “An exception however is Nuzzel which successfully declutters my newsfeeds and surfaces only relevant content.”
A financial vote of confidence from those who have had plenty of contact with new approaches to content curation is a promising sign for Nuzzel, which is looking to beef up their offerings for publishers.
“For example, we are thinking of how Nuzzel can work with publishers in the future, i.e. perhaps we should offer some sort of widget or way for publishers to use syndicated feeds from Nuzzel,” says Abrams “Those are the kinds of things that these new investors will help advise us on.”
While the funding round is a big step in the right direction for the budding content curation darling, the key to success for Nuzzel will be something that no funding round can provide: more users. With powerful integrations like Slack, Pocket and Buffer, paired with new incentives and tools for publishers and the pedigree of the investors behind it, though, Nuzzel’s just might become content’s next big “must-have.”
For the past two decades, the web has been optimized for sight and touch. This is about to change in a big way. Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and the Amazon Echo are ushering in an era of voice-controlled devices and services. Soon, Facebook M will join the fray. These digital assistants all reveal the beginnings of a transformation within the Internet. We will increasingly interact with the web and all it contains primarily using our voice.
There’s one glaring problem with this brave new world: as the Internet of Things talks back to us, much of what it has to say will be for our ears only. How do we keep these conversations private and personal? Answer: With hearables. I spoke to several in the budding hearables industry. All, no surprise, are big believers in the technology.
Better hearing means smarter listening
San Francisco-based Nuheara makes a wearable for the ear — scheduled to go on sale in early 2016 — that allows the wearer to connect with specialized voice-enabled apps.
David Cannington, co-founder at Nuheara told me that his company believes most of us will soon “be interacting with our smart devices more and more with our voices than our fingers.” The newly launched Apple TV speaks to just such a vision, though Cannington believes we are only at the start of this great transformation.
Soon, our car, refrigerator, thermostat, the subway turnstile and all manner of futuristic devices will verbally communicate with each of us. The possibilities, he says, “range from personal digital assistants, to translation on the fly, to AI-driven voice enabled apps.”
Cannington’s hope, of course, is that Nuheara is the device of choice relaying these voices to our brains while cutting through all the noise. “As thousands of developers around the world (start) working on voice recognition apps, we plan to be their partner of choice as an innovative hearing technology platform.”
Gadgets that listen better than ears
Hearables will not just enable what we hear but how we hear. Noah Kraft, CEO and co-founder of Doppler Labs told me his company is “focused on hearables because we think that hearing enhancement and optimization of real world experiences like concerts is a new scenario that can dramatically improve life’s most amazing experiences.”
Want to pump up the bass at a live concert? Remove extraneous noise while having a conversation on a crowded bus? That’s what Doppler Labs earbuds are designed to achieve. The product, which began as a Kickstarter, is expected to ship in December at a cost of $199 a pair.
Think altering how we hear is unnecessary? Not so fast. Our ability to control screens — what we see — has become so commonplace that we may not realize just how much potential there is in controlling what and how we hear. As Kraft told me, “in 5 years everyone will be signal processing their hearing 24×7, allowing for cool AR (augmented reality) scenarios but also passively ensuring they never hear noise again.”
Doppler isn’t alone in this vision. It’s rumored that Apple’s recent hiring of a key Microsoft audio engineer reflects the company’s interest in augmented reality. After all, artificially augmented sounds created just for you will make virtual experiences seem radically more realistic — and also way more cool.
“Once people put a computer, speaker and mic in their ear they will of course be able to do telephony, alerts and virtual assistant scenarios, but we think hearing optimization is a better way to get people to adopt hearables,” Kraft told me.
Why hearables may be overdue for innovation
The vision for hearables, pun intended, is still in the early days. Design and battery life are the primary stumbling blocks holding back the industry. Scott Amyx, founder and CEO of Amyx+McKinsey, which provides strategy and support for the wearables industry, told me that current ear-based wearables remain “fatiguing and inconvenient.” However, he is very optimistic over the long-term.
“Advancements in battery life and sensor miniaturization will allow for smaller, more comfortable forms for extended use,” Amyx said. “As objects around us awaken, information will be seamlessly communicated to us via hearables.” In fact, Amyx, like so many others, believes the “primary human-computer interface” will not be touch, keys or screens, but voice — and voice requires hearing.
There was probably a time when we might all fret over the intrusiveness of a voice speaking directly into our ear. But with Siri and Cortana becoming more commonplace, and with a billion people constantly staring into their smartphones, the idea of the web inside our ear may actually be long overdue.
Axel Springer has acquired 88 percent of Business Insider at a cost of $343 million. This means the German media conglomerate, which previously owned 9 percent of the publication co-founded by Henry Blodget, Kevin Ryan, and Dwight Merriman in 2007, now owns 97 percent of the primarily business-and tech-focused news site.
According to Axel Springer’s announcement, the rest of the company (all 3 percent) will be owned by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos’ personal investment vehicle, Bezos Expeditions. Business Insider’s leaders — chief executive Henry Blodget and chief operating officer and president Julie Hansen — will remain in their positions.
The price paid for Business Insider is less than the $560 million reported by Recode last week, but it’s still the most expensive acquisition of a Web-based publication since AOL spent $315 million on the Huffington Post in 2011. So what will Axel Springer get for the hundreds of millions it will spend on the growing news site?
Here’s what the German media company had to say about that in its announcement:
This acquisition is a vital part of Axel Springer’s strategy to broaden its global reach, diversify its English-language offerings and expand its commitment to innovative digital journalism.
The addition of Business Insider’s 76 million unique monthly visitors will increase Axel Springer’s worldwide digital audience by two-thirds to approximately 200 million users, making the company one of the world’s six largest digital publishers in terms of reach.
Recode says Axel Springer might also have been motivated by its failure to acquire the Financial Times earlier this year. The company’s also said to have wanted a Web asset, and Business Insider was “more affordable than publishers like BuzzFeed and Vox Media” despite the record-setting price it fetched as a Web-only news outlet.
Both of those companies have had their suitors, though. Reports surfaced last year that Disney had engaged in acquisition talks with BuzzFeed, and rumors about Vox Media selling to Comcast (one of its investors) have popped up throughout the year. Perhaps Business Insider’s sale will prompt some of these other talks to resume.
Unless you’ve been camping out under a rock for the last decade, you probably know that we’re totally destroying the Earth. We of wanton use of fossil fuels and reluctance to buy into change en masse are driving the single biggest crisis that faces our planet, and the folks behind the just-announced NRG COSIA Carbon Xprize are looking to help save us from ourselves.
The Carbon Xprize will challenge teams to harness carbon dioxide output from coal and natural gas power plants and transform it into something that is valuable, effectively incentivizing governments and the open market to become invested in solutions that make a big and necessary step towards cutting carbon emissions. That’s the legacy of Xprize, really. For the better part of twenty years, Xprize has been putting up money and calling upon global thinkers to solve global problems.
“Xprize, in a nutshell, is about looking at the world’s grand challenges…the big, thorny problems,” says Dr. Paul Bunje, Xprize Program Director for Energy and the Environment. “There are few challenges on the planet more urgent than CO2-driven climate change…If you look at the science of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, you get his exponential curve of warming,” says Bunje. “So, as much as you can do as soon as possible reduces by a similar exponent the amount of impact that we might expect to see…that’s the urgency: it’s quite literally ‘do everything you can, as soon as you can.'”
As the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in late November approaches, the stage seems to be set for an increase of focus on the global issue, and that’s exactly what the Carbon Xprize aims to do. The problem is hulking, growing and urgent, and by effectively crowd sourcing the research and development process, Xprize hopes to expedite change. “We want to accelerate the coming of different carbon solutions as rapidly as we possibly can,” says Bunje.
Participants will vie for one of ten finalists spots and the opportunity to “bench-test” their solutions at coal and natural gas power plants in competition for two $7.5 million prizes–one in each of the coal and natural gas tracks. All ten of the finalists will receive $500,000, rounding out the prize’s $20 million bottom line. This approach differs slightly from the structure of previous Xprize competitions, and was implemented with the intention of facilitating more solutions and projects.
“In an Xprize competition, though there are only a couple of teams that will share in the money, there are way more winners,” says Bunje. “And we want to see as many teams as possible going into the marketplace as quickly as possible…We want to give them a chance to accelerate the deployment of their technology because that’s the kind of thing that’s really going to drive the ultimate impact of the prize.”
The Carbon Xprize joins the lineage the Google Lunar Xprize, the Adult Literacy Xprize, and the legendary Ansari Xprize, which helped develop the foundation of the private space exploration industry. Beginning today, anyone looking to participate can register and get to work. The competition will span nine months and, with any luck, will produce some profoundly world-changing solutions to our rock’s little warming problem.
“We have to find a way to limit these carbon emissions,” says Bunje. “When somebody wins that prize, having that technology in the world is going to be transformative. It’s a clear demonstration of technology that can begin taking CO2 out of power plants instead of putting it into the immediately.”
Though the prize is the raison d’être for the competition, Bunje is hopeful that the effects of the Carbon Xprize will be felt far and wide, and will resonate in other industries with different problems.
“Just by showcasing the fact that it’s possible to solve a really hard problem,” says Bunje, “others become inspired to do something even greater.”
I got married this month, and as most legally-bound couples can tell you, a wedding is a lot of work. Businesses need to be paid, family members have to be corralled, and members of the wedding party must be able to work together for the night to be successful. It’s a bit like throwing a house party with the added pressure of spending a few grand on a hopefully-once-in-a-lifetime moment.
That said, the last thing we wanted was to get upstaged by modern technology.
My wife and I, being the busybodies that we are, decided we needed to manage a few other things on top of all the other craziness: Making sure people kept their phones in their pockets during the ceremony, and (stereotypical millennials that we are) encouraging them to use a dedicated hashtag for pictures from the reception.
We decided to ban phones from the ceremony years before we even picked our venue. We had attended a family member’s wedding, and so many people were taking pictures as the bride walked down the aisle that trying to catch a glimpse of her was like trying to check out your reflection in the fragments of a shattered mirror.
That makes sense. Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks thrive because people use them to share images of things that make them happy. It’s almost a Pavlovian response: “Did I feel a squirt of dopamine? Better grab my phone!” Still, we decided to fight those instincts by adding a rule to our program and having the officiant repeat it before the ceremony started in earnest.
And it worked! I didn’t see a single phone out while I, my wife, nor anyone else in the wedding party walked down the aisle. A shirtless man on a bicycle screaming classic rock songs at the top of his lungs did make an appearance, but by some miracle, the audience managed to leave their phones alone for about 5 minutes.
We didn’t have as much luck with the hashtag. The only person who has used it, in fact, is my wife. (I tend not to share much to social media, so I haven’t posted any pictures myself.) Most of the people attending took pictures, but many of them either shared them without the hashtag or didn’t share them at all.
I suppose that shouldn’t come as much of a shock. Many of our family members qualify for senior citizen discounts at Denny’s, and at one point a thirty-something cousin had to ask my teenage brother how to use Snapchat. These people all know how to use Facebook — at least to play games or “poke” their grandkids — but I doubt most of them even know what purpose a “hashtag” serves.
Yet, I was surprised. Maybe it’s because I spend most of my time writing about tech, or maybe it’s because people my age were among the first to start using many different social networks, but I just kind of assumed that I’d see more pictures of the reception when I went searching through Facebook and Instagram.
Either way, it’s strange how some stereotypes (everyone taking pictures regardless of what’s happening around them) rang true while others (people knowing what a hashtag is and why they should use it) failed to manifest themselves in the real world.
And here I thought that if something happened and it wasn’t catalogued on Facebook that it might as well have been a dream.
It has been 89 days since Twitter has had a full-time chief executive. That might change now that the company’s board has reportedly warmed to the idea of making Jack Dorsey, the interim CEO, the permanent leader of the company he co-founded.
The New York Times reports that Twitter’s board is considering the possibility of having Dorsey lead the company again, despite initial misgivings about how he’d do the job while remaining the CEO of Square, the payments company he co-founded.
Dick Costolo left his position as Twitter’s CEO on July 1. “I initiated conversations with some members of the board at the end of last year about CEO succession as I contemplated what was next for me,” Costolo said in June. “And ultimately following discussions with the full board and at February meeting and then at our meeting last week, we agree that now is the right time to begin this transition.”
Costolo remains on Twitter’s board of directors, and is presumably helping the company find his replacement. Yet he has reportedly planned to leave the board — thus severing all ties with the company he led between 2010 and 2015 — as well.
Twitter’s board has been searching for Costolo’s permanent replacement since that announcement was made in June. But now, almost three months after Costolo left, the question of whether or not Dorsey will receive the title remains unanswered.
This has frustrated Chris Sacca, a venture capitalist and Twitter board member. “Good board of directors? They can name a new CEO by the end of the week,” he tweeted when Volkswagen replaced its CEO following the emissions scandal. “But the Twitter board? Nothing for months.” Sacca has been vocal about his support for Dorsey being named Twitter’s CEO and praised the company under his leadership.
There has already been one sign that Dorsey leading both Twitter and Square could benefit the companies: A partnership that makes it easy for Twitter users to donate to politicians. That partnership could, as I argued before, increase the visibility of both services while also giving Twitter users a reason to interact with the service. The two companies could doubtless find other ways to complement each other.
The New York Times is quick to note that Dorsey’s ascension to Twitter’s CEO isn’t guaranteed. The board hasn’t yet made its decision, and things can change quickly. But it seems like Dorsey’s appointment is more likely than it was a few months ago.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has pledged his support to the “Connect the World” campaign working to make universal Internet access a reality by 2020. This initiative will push countries from around the world, with assistance from the United Nations, to expand Internet connectivity to all of their citizens. But what of the many millions of people current living without a country they can call home?
The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees said in June that there were almost 60 million refugees or “internally displaced persons” around the world in 2014 — the highest number seen since World War II. Some risk their lives to seek asylum in other countries, only to be turned away or even attacked once they’ve arrived at their destinations. Many other refugees never even reach that point.
The camps in which these refugees often find themselves have been described as “hellish.” They are also dangerous: The United Nations warned in 2013 that hundreds of thousands of refugees were at risk as winter storms hounded the Middle East. Even more-established camps, such as the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, are defined by complaints about unreliable access to water and electricity.
Given all that, efforts to offer Internet access to these camps might seem strange. What good is Facebook in a place where electricity is only available in the night, food is farmed around ramshackle buildings, and many people struggle to survive? Well, according to Bill Frelick, the Refugee Rights Program Director at Human Rights Watch, having access to the Internet is more important than one might think.
“I think this is an important and quite worthwhile initiative. I have definitely interviewed many refugees whose main preoccupation is the need (and difficulty) in communicating with separated family members,” he says. “After taking dangerous sea voyages the first thing most refugees and migrants want to do is to tell relatives that they have survived. When communication is cut off, refugees’ anxiety becomes palpable.”
Zuckerberg preemptively responded to one of the key criticisms of this effort: That Facebook is trying to appear selfless, when really this project serves the company’s goal of having as many people as possible use its service. “It’s not all altruism,” the New York Times reported him saying. “We all benefit when we are more connected.” He knows Facebook will come out ahead; Frelick says affected refugees will, too.
Still, there were will be questions about this initiative. Will Internet connectivity be provided through Internet.org, the organization Facebook set up to provide Internet access in remote areas, or some other group? On what devices will refugees be able to access the Internet? Will the access be free, or will it be paid for by refugees or rights organizations? So far, little about the plan has been revealed to the public.
Providing the connections via Internet.org could prove to be a problem. The organization has been criticized in the past for violating the principles of net neutrality by giving preference to some websites and services over others. It was also criticized for not allowing the services it enables to encrypt user data, but it has since enabled encryption in its Android software and its primary Web portal.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which previously criticized Internet.org for the perception that it violates the spirit of net neutrality, declined to comment for this post. I reached out to Facebook and Internet.org to get more information about their plans (and to see if the latter group will be involved in this effort) but haven’t heard back. I will update this post if they respond to my email after publication.
Zuckerberg acknowledged the difficulty of his task in a New York Times op-ed written with his partner, Bono. “It’s one thing to say we should connect the world. The real trick is how,” they wrote. “There’s no simple solution or silicon bullet.” Given the current state of refugee camps around the world, and the problems that have plagued Internet.org since its founding, that might be an understatement.
It’s time to stop what may be the most offensive, yet generally accepted, bias from smartphone analysts: “don’t get caught in a race to the bottom.” It’s a sneering dismissal of the people and companies that are building advanced, feature-packed mini-mobile computers with little to no margin — and of those who might benefit from their use.
Newsflash: The vast majority of the world is “the bottom.” Like me, like you, they also deserve a smartphone. Mocking the companies that are making this happen is misguided, to say the least.
Now for the good news — very low cost smartphones are within reach. Last month, Google announced it was revamping its Android One initiative to help bring the cost of devices to below $100. For this price, the buyer gets Google Play, search, maps, apps, camera, and more. The effort originally launched in India though will now include parts of Africa. Combined, these regions have a population nearing 2 billion.
Unfortunately, even $100 for a smartphone is still too expensive for many. Rajan Anandan, Google’s managing director in India and Southeast Asia, told the Financial Times that the “sweet spot” for Android One is 2,000 – 3,000 rupees. That’s about $30 – $50. Anandan says getting to this price will take “the next few years.” I expect it much sooner.
Consider the Micromax Canvas A1, typical of current Android One devices:
5mp rear-facing and 2mp front-facing camera
4.5″ VGA display
1 GB RAM
4 GB storage (expandable)
1700 mAh lithium-ion battery
Text type by voice
3G
Android 5.1 Lollipop
That’s better than the second iPhone — which cost $600 off-contract in 2008. The A1 costs $92.
A Google spokesperson told me the company is now “working closely with phone and silicon chip makers to share reference designs and select components,” hoping to drive prices even lower. The effort is paying off. For example, the Infinix HOT 2, a new Android One device, has a quad-core MediaTek processor with 1GM memory, dual SIM support, and is assured of running Android Marshmallow, the latest build. It costs just $88. The HOT 2 is available for sale in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco.
And we are being told to mock these efforts? To praise those companies that are focused on “profit share?” Why? The great magic of technology is not just that it aids our life but that it spreads, oftentimes quickly, to the poor, the marginalized, the non-connected.
No doubt, Android One is an attempt by Google to effectively port its search and maps dominance from desktop to mobile to the entire world. So what? That’s business. Too often, we focus on these short-term plays rather than the long-term potential. A $50 smartphone!
The company told me that “really good phones at great prices” will bring the web to more people. “Access to the web changes the way we live for the better — whether it’s connecting with different people, exploring foreign countries, identifying new educational opportunities, or simply watching a movie with your family.”
Google is just one of many making the low-cost smartphone a reality. Xiaomi has teamed with Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone, to assemble smartphones in India. Their first phone, the Redmi2 Prime, costs $110. Perhaps next year it will be less than $90.
Why then are so many analysts and tech bloggers not praising these efforts? Earlier this year, TechCrunch lauded Apple’s capturing of “89% of all smartphone profits,” while noting that “Android handset makers are in something of a race to the bottom.”
In a market saturated with essentially undifferentiated players (and again you can argue this point and you will lose that argument), the main differentiator is price. And that’s never the game a smart hardware maker wants to play but, in the end, it is a game they will be forced to play in the coming year. And it won’t be pretty.
Not pretty? It’s beautiful!
This is exactly how technology is supposed to work. Yet, this “race to the bottom” meme continues, and with it a host of negative connotations. It’s not just the tech press. Last year, the Telegraph decried how “smartphone makers (are) stuck in ‘race to the bottom’ on price.”
As Google notes, only 1 in 4 people own a smartphone. How long do you go without your smartphone? A week? A day? An hour? These devices have transformed our work, our learning, our play, how we connect, and from where. We are on the cusp of a world where it’s possible for most people to have the same amazing tool at their disposal. The $50 smartphone deserves to be celebrated. Embrace the race to the bottom.
I once heard a joke about a zookeeper arranging animals for a portrait. “Smart animals go to the right and the pretty animals go to the left,” the zookeeper told them. The animals made their choices, sorting themselves into groups of either “pretty” or “smart.”
Well, all except one: a monkey running back and forth between the two groups. When the zookeeper inquired why, the monkey innocently answered: “How can I choose when I am both pretty and smart?”
Of course, the point of this little story is that the monkey – a creature usually mocked for its questionable intelligence and beauty – could not make a choice that was so easy for the other animals. While this situation seems absurd, it’s a reality for many women in the tech industry, especially young women.
The current hazing and socialization process for new tech hires similarly demands that, to join the tech industry, women must leave their femininity (see also: “prettiness”) at the door and embrace the geeky, masculine culture instead. All too often women in this industry – whether in technical or non-technical roles – are forced to make the same choice between being pretty and smart as the animals in the zoo. It seems to me, however, that the monkey had a point. Why choose?
Most recently the clash between femininity and the tech industry played out after Isis Wenger, a full-stack engineer, was featured in a OneLogin recruitment ad. Wenger’s OneLogin ad – part of a marketing campaign that featured several OneLogin employees – led to numerous accusations that the ad was “just appealing to dudes” as her “sexy smirk” was analyzed in great detail. Many even questioned if the poster was an honest and realistic representation of female engineers.
In her response, the introverted Wenger discussed how the reactions to the ad were symptoms of a larger problem of sexism in the tech industry. She aptly replied in her LinkedIn post: “News flash: this isn’t by any means an attempt to label ‘what female engineers look like.’ This is literally just ME, an example of ONE engineer at OneLogin. The ad is supposed to be authentic. My words, my face, and as far as I am concerned it is.” She seemed genuinely bewildered (as she should be), about why she can’t just be herself.
Wenger also observed, “There is a significant lack of empathy and insight towards recognizing that their [referring to men in tech] ‘playful/harmless’ behavior is responsible for making others inappropriately uncomfortable. This industry’s culture fosters an unconscious lack of sensitivity towards those who do not fit a certain mold.” She then invited the readers to redefine “what an engineer should look like” using the #iLookLikeAnEngineer hashtag, which has since been widely used to highlight diversity in tech.
One way to change the notion that being “pretty” and being “smart” are mutually exclusive is to change the way we talk about tech.
For example, describing tech as geeky is not a way to attract or retain women to tech in the long-run. According to many dictionaries, “geeky” usually has two meanings. First, “a person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.” Second, “a person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.” One does not have to be geeky, in either meaning of the word, to have a successful career in tech. These definitions appear to exclude any feminine qualities, further pushing that being pretty or feminine is impossible as a woman in tech.
The image of a geek is also highly masculinized; the “tech geek” stereotype is predominantly male. Holding this geek stereotype as a standard for the tech industry creates the impression that the typical tech professional is always male and makes being male the norm in tech. Similarly, according to the Wikipedia, the word geek usually connotes “a slang term originally used to describe eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast or a person obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit, with a general pejorative meaning of a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person.” Wikipedia also suggests a more neutral meaning of the word geeky to refer to “someone who is interested in a subject (usually intellectual or complex) for its own sake.” Again, even the more neutral meaning is hardly positive, inclusive, encouraging, or appealing to women, whose qualifications and motives for interests in tech are nearly always questioned.
Changing the way we talk about in tech in general is a keystone change that’s required to start closing the gender gap in tech. A change like this in the public discourse will trickle down, leading to a cascade of actions that will eventually help us make things better not just for women, but for everyone in technology.
After all, tech is no longer an isolated economic sector, and we frankly can’t afford to exclude women. At this time, women are ubiquitous and part of every economic and social sector. If we don’t find a way to include females (and for the that matter all others who don’t fit the arbitrary mold) in tech soon, we will be denying them access to economic opportunities, the chance to be a part of the twenty first century workforce, and the pursuit of happiness. We would also be denying ourselves crucial access to potential innovation and contributions to technology as a whole. And that will benefit us all – so let’s get started already.
Our social feeds are still primarily dominated by photos, despite the fact that our phones shoot killer video, too. But video composition is harder and somehow less mysterious than a lone filtered photo ala Instagram. Video involves sound, editing, and some form of story. At least good videos do.
And that’s exactly the problem: because we’re accustomed to posting under our own handles, we care a lot about the quality (and the contents) of our videos. We try to make videos that represent ourselves or our tastes in a positive light, or we don’t try at all. (Mostly the latter.)
Anonymity might make people more profligate video-makers. Without the tampering of ego, what would people decide to record? That’s the question that has recently preoccupied Jonathan Swerdlin, co-founder and CEO of Ocho, a video startup in New York City. The company released a new anonymous video app this week called Panama.
If Swerdlin’s curiosity is borne out, it will mean a new breed of privacy upsets, memes, and a big net positive: a new avenue for video-based creativity.
“We’re interested in this idea of social impact over personal impact—a network that is content first,” says Swerdlin. “We’re interested in context.”
While of course we’re still going to see people attributing video to themselves, Swerdlin says, we’ll also see people shooting anonymously and uploading their work to networks that categorize videos by something other than auteur. “People are going to consume video based on context, not just based on who the creator is,” says Swerdlin.
This observation has little to do with Ocho. For the past several months, Swerdlin and his engineers have been building the Panama app using the same underlying video framework as their flagship product, but Swerdlin says it doesn’t compete or cannibalize Ocho. Quality and content is mediated by a Reddit-like upvote/downvote system in each location feed, keeping spam at a minimum.
For Panama, the context is location. Videos are authorless, but tied to the place they were shot. Exploring a new place is particularly interesting in landscape mode, where the top videos from a location play in succession, giving the viewer a variegated view of the life and times in that place.
In some places, you find recurring characters captured by different people in different videos. In others, you see similar scenes but from different vantage points. Over time, you can see the seasons change. Videos I shot with Panama during testing this summer in the Arctic Circle already feel like ancient history since the first snow of the season arrived there this week.
The impact, Swerdlin says, is a more public role for anyone who happens to get in the way of the lens. “As long as it’s not inside the privacy of someone’s home, we all have a recording device—anyone should be able to record what they see, and everyone else should expect to be recorded,” he says. “It’s a right of the internet to contribute content without attribution. That creates a more honest environment, and a more true reflection of what’s happening.”
At its Oculus Connect 2 event this morning, Oculus announced that a slew of popular video apps are coming to VR.
Hulu, Netflix, Vimeo, Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox, Tivo, Twitch and Facebook are all bringing video content to the new Samsung Gear VR headset, which is shipping in November (in time for Black Friday). The move signals just the latest example of how the media industry is building toward a new era for VR content, and follows news of Disney investing $65 million into VR startup Jaunt.
It also seems like there’s one less obstacle to overcome in jumpstarting consumer adoption of VR, as there will be compelling content available. The other big obstacle? Cost. The new Gear VR (which is compatible with a Samsung’s 2015 mobile phone lineup) has been significantly overhauled, weighing 22 percent less than its predecessor and sporting a brand new, aggressively affordable price tag: $99.
Though videos have been available in Gear VR before (thanks to VR Cinema), this announcement is significant because it feels like a big bet on entertainment in VR. Samsung Gear VR isn’t going to revolutionize our living rooms just yet, but making vast amounts of high-quality, desirable video content available in a headset is unprecedented.
With Netflix and Hulu alone, a massive catalog of films and television shows is coming to VR. No longer will users need the video files (as was the case with VR Cinema), but they’ll be able to stream content, on-demand in a VR space. Oculus’s partnership with 20th Century Fox and Lionsgate will allow users to access even more films, like X-Men, Life of Pi, Gone Girl, and the Blair Witch Project. And Vimeo, though it boasts less content than YouTube, is famous for cinema-quality video and extremely well-made content.
To be clear, though, the video content coming from Netflix, Hulu and the others (with the exception of Facebook’s video efforts, which are spherical, 360-degree experiences) will not be immersive in nature. You won’t be able to look around scenes and it probably won’t feel like you’re “in” the movie. Instead, it’ll likely perform much like the current VR Cinema, which displays the video content on a huge movie or home theater-like screen in front of you. So, while it won’t feel like you’re a part of the film, it will create a comfortable theater experience, whether you’re using the headset on a plane, in a hotel, on a train, or in the backseat of a car. There’s also the promise that some of these video streaming experiences will become more social, creating environments where you can sit with and interact with your friends in VR (as avatars, of course).
This move to bring a staggering amounts of video content into the VR space is essentially a vote of confidence in the entertainment experience in VR, which says a lot about how people are using Gear VR already, and very possibly speaks to the comfort level of the new headset. After all, betting on users spending hours inside of the headset watching content would be a fool’s errand if the headset feels like wearing a camcorder on your forehead.
I wanted to review the Zuli smartplug. The device makes a compelling argument for the Internet of Things without requiring consumers to set up a bunch of sensors, connect a central hub to their router, and tinker with an app’s complex settings. But my house was determined to make it nigh impossible for me to really use the thing.
More on that in a moment. First, some more information about Zuli. The company raised a little more than $175,000 for its smartplug on Kickstarter in 2014. Now it’s announcing that the device will debut in Lowe’s stores across the United States on September 28, and that it’s forged a partnership with the Google-owned Nest Labs.
Zuli’s smartplug is pretty simple: Just stick the device into an electric socket, connect to it via Bluetooth, then use the mobile application to gain limited control over dumb (sorry, non-connected) household utilities plugged into its side. It took me about 10 minutes to get a few of the smartplugs up and running in my home.
Taylor Umphreys, the company’s chief executive, tells me that Zuli was designed to bring the Internet of Things to people who can’t hook up other connected devices. I’ve written in the past about the struggle to use “smart” devices while renting — how many renters can rewire the thermostats in their apartments? — and the plugs are supposed to give people living in those situations a taste of the connected life.
“Lots of renters move around a lot, and they don’t have the ability to install appliances,” Umphreys says. FiveThirtyEight supports that claim with a report indicating that many Americans will move 11 times throughout their lives. It’s hard to imagine them bringing connected devices with them during each move.
Zuli is supposed to tackle another issue: Plug-in appliances that can’t be controlled unless their owner is right next to them. People who own their own homes can install wall-mounted switches for their lights or purchase some ceiling fans. Renters are stuck with lamps controlled with an itty-bitty switch and standalone fans.
The smartplug is supposed to make those products easier to use from afar. They can also be scheduled to turn on or off at specific times, and the plug can control the amount of electricity passed onto an object, basically acting as dimmer switches for lamps that previously would have been “on” or “off” with nothing in between.
But the main draw is a feature called “Presence,” which tailors a plug’s settings based on its owner’s proximity. If you’re in your living room, that light might turn on. Leave for the kitchen, and that one will turn on while the other lamp switches off. It could very well represent the epitome of smartphone-enabled laziness.
That potential is better realized for owners of the Nest smart thermostat. Zuli has partnered with the device’s maker to offer control directly from its own app, giving smartplug owners a way to control both devices without having to switch apps. Nest can also be controlled with Presence, making it easy to fiddle with a room’s heating.
Presence does have some limitations. It requires three smartplugs to function, which is why Lowe’s will sell the device in single and multipacks, which will cost $60 and $160, respectively. The mobile app also supports just one person at a time, which means multiple people can’t tailor Presence to their own preferences until Zuli ships an update that Umphreys tells me will be available in the near future.
Now, about my problems with Zuli. I’ll preface this by saying that this probably won’t affect everyone, but I suspect that more than a few people will encounter this issue: I didn’t have enough outlets, or enough appliances I wanted to control with Zuli’s mobile application, to use the three smartplugs I was supposed to review.
I rent an older home. Instead of the three-pronged outlets that help prevent people from being electrocuted, I have the old two-prong outlets. This means I can’t use Zuli for many things. And where I was able to find three-pronged outlets, I didn’t see any device nearby that I thought would really benefit from using the device.
So I set up one device to automatically turn on the fan in my dog’s room at a certain time, and turn it off early in the morning. This wasn’t a critical function, and I’ve never forgotten to turn on the fan without a smartplug’s assistance, but I figured it would be a small thing I could use to test the plug’s capabilities. And it worked! For a few days I heard the fan turn on from the other room with nary a finger lifted.
But that was about the only use I got out of the product. All of the other fans are controlled with a wall switch or plugged into two-prong outlets. My lights are the same way. I couldn’t think of anything else to use the smartplugs on, so I pulled the units from my walls and stuffed them back into their package to be mailed back.
Umphreys was sympathetic to my problems. When I spoke to him about them, however, he pointed out that many people are unlikely to have the same issue. I think it will be more of a problem than he might expect, but I’m willing to concede that most consumers interested in the Internet of Things will have better luck.
He also pointed out another use for the smartplugs: Giving control over appliances to people who can’t, or simply don’t want to, get up and turn them on manually. See, when we spoke last week, Umphreys had just broken his arm over the weekend. He told me that he used the smartplugs set up in his home to control his lights, fans, and other appliances when the painkillers made it hard for him to do so himself.
That’s an interesting fringe case. Might people who struggle with daily activities be able to benefit from something like this? Then again, couldn’t they get similar use out of a clapper that illuminates their homes whenever they slap their hands? I’m not sure, but I could see how both options might come in handy for some people.
All of which leaves me with this pseudo-review of the Zuli smartplug. Should people buy it? If they have an idea of what they would use some of them for, and are willing to spend $160 for its most interesting feature, I think it could be worth a shot. It will be interesting to see if the company can partner up with other connected device makers, too, and give consumers more control from a single mobile application.
Zuli’s smartplug is well-designed and easy to use, and I understand the thinking behind it. In the end, though, the device tries so hard to appeal to people renting modern apartments that it proved all-but-useless to me in my older home. For me it’s not any more useful than other “smart” products. I won’t miss it when it’s gone.
A data-sharing agreement between the European Union and the United States should be invalidated after the revelation of mass surveillance programs uncovered thanks to the efforts of Edward Snowden in 2013, according to Advocate General for EU Court of Justice Yves Bot.
The agreement to which Bot refers is the Safe Harbor decision from 2000. It allows US companies to self-certify that they comply with EU rules governing the transfer of data related to European citizens to other countries, like the US.
“The access enjoyed by the United States intelligence services to the transferred data constitutes an interference with the right to respect for private life and the right to protection of personal data,” Bot stated in an opinion published this morning. This means Safe Harbor is “no longer adequate” and “the decision adopted in 2000 was no longer adapted to the reality of the situation.”
The opinion was published in response to a complaint brought against Facebook by privacy advocate Max Schrems, who says the personal data of European citizens has been made available to U.S. intelligence agencies via the social network.
Schrems has welcomed Bot’s recommendation, saying in response that “This finding, if confirmed by the court, would be a major step in limiting the legal options for US authorities to conduct mass surveillance on data held by EU companies, including EU subsidiaries of US companies,.” He also argues that invalidating Safe Harbor is a leveling of the playing field:
Self-certification under safe harbor gives US companies an extremely unfair advantage over all other players on the European market that have to stick to much stricter EU law. Removing ‘safe harbor’ would mainly mean that US companies have to play by rules that are equal to those their competitors already play by and that they cannot aid US mass surveillance.
It’s important to note that Bot’s opinion is non-binding, though the court is said to often side with the advocate general. Facebook wouldn’t be the only company affected by the invalidation of Safe Harbor, either; it would affect all companies that transfer data about European citizens to servers located in the US. The BBC reports that a decision like this could affect an estimated 4,000 companies.
In response to a request for comment, a Facebook spokesperson said the company “operates in compliance with EU Data Protection law. Like the thousands of other companies who operate data transfers across the [A]tlantic we await the full judgement.” And, in response to complaints that data is transfers is given to US intelligence agencies through surveillance programs:
We have repeatedly said that we do not provide ‘backdoor’ access to Facebook servers and data to intelligence agencies or governments. As Mark said in June 2013, we had never heard of PRISM before it was reported by the press and we have never participated in any such scheme.
The court’s judges are expected to make their own ruling later this year.
Facebook has a plan to make its $2 billion acquisition of the Oculus virtual reality company make sense: introducing 360-degree videos to its service.
The company has partnered with Vice, GoPro, and other companies to bring a wide variety of videos, from movie trailers to documentaries, to the format. People can watch them on the Facebook website or via their Android devices “over the coming days,” while iPhone owners have to wait for a few months.
Facebook’s engineers partnered with their counterparts in the Oculus division to create this update, according the company. This is, according to a report from the Verge, the first time the two divisions have worked together to introduce a new feature for the Facebook website.
The videos aren’t that fun to interact with on a laptop. They often paused when I meant to drag them around to change the view, and they were quite stutter-y. (I am prepared to blame this on the sluggishness of my rural Internet connection, but that doesn’t change how annoying it was to keep seeing that loading wheel.)
Still, there’s some obvious potential here — especially when you think about how these videos must play on a device like the Oculus, which is designed to support immersive content, instead of with a desktop browser and trackpad. Facebook is taking a baby step toward convincing people to give Oculus a try.
Oculus was conceived as a gaming device. Many of its competitors in the virtual reality space are focused on the same category. Coding a virtual reality game is one thing; buying the equipment necessary to create 360-degree videos, and dealing with all the hassles that introduces to the filming process, is another.
Supporting those videos could give Facebook the content it needs to convince non-gamers that virtual reality will matter to them in the short-term. (Insert the obligatory reference to the holodeck, or Louis CK’s bit about Verizon, here.) Games aren’t for everyone, but interactive videos set in the Star Wars universe or offering access to war zones are likely to appeal to a much wider audience.
Not that this type of video is exclusive to Facebook: YouTube introduced 360-degree videos to its service in March. But given Facebook’s efforts to convince media organizations to post directly to its service, whether it’s through Instant Articles or other means, it’s not hard to imagine publications favoring its site.
Then again, Google’s public efforts to enter the virtual reality market center on a few pieces of cardboard onto which people can mount their smartphones. Facebook is, at least in public, making a much bigger bet on the format. I suspect we’ll see more announcements like this one as Oculus establishes itself.
