The road ahead for Waymo, AV engineering and mobility, with Waymo CTO Dmitri Dolgov

Earlier this month, TechCrunch held its annual Mobility Sessions event down in San Jose, where leading mobility-focused auto companies, startups, executives and thought leaders joined us to discuss all things autonomous vehicle technology, micromobility and electric vehicles.

Extra Crunch is offering members access to full transcripts key panels and conversations from the event, including a mainstage conversation between Waymo CTO Dmitri Dolgov and TechCrunch mobility axe Kirsten Korosec. Dmitri and Kirsten dove into Waymo’s full product evolution, and dissect the path ahead for the company and the AV industry as a whole.

Dmitri Dolgov: So essentially, what makes this problem interesting in my mind is that it’s not one or two things where you say “there’s only this one challenge that remains and then you solve everything.” It’s really across a whole number of different areas — a whole number of different disciplines from hardware, to more advanced sensors, more powerful sensors, sensors you can manufacture at scale, cheaper sensors, more powerful compute, cheaper compute software.

You mentioned sensor fusion — this is actually where the software plays very nicely with the hardware and that connection is very deep. And our approach at Waymo is interesting in that we build our own software and hardware in house.

So this is where we have access to very powerful sensors, and not just having the increased range and increased resolution, but also having access to the raw sensor data, like the raw measurements that you get from lidars from cameras from radars, and doing sensor fusion at a later stage, where you can really bring to bear modern, deep learning algorithms to have models that learn to pick out the best signal from those different sensing modalities. That’s a very active area of improvement.

Dmitri also goes into more depth on the specific technical areas of improvements for AV technology and the importance of simulation miles when building a polished mobility product. Dmitri and Kirsten also talk through the regulatory road map and the impact it will play on AV rollouts, AV product quality, as well as on cities and society as a whole.

For access to the full transcription below and for the opportunity to read through additional event transcripts and recaps, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free. 

Kirsten Korosec: Thanks, everyone for coming out. And we’re all here to talk to the CTO [Dmitri Dolgov] of Waymo. So I’m going to just let you roll with it. I’m wondering if you showed up in a self-driving car today, How’d you get here?

Dmitri Dolgov: I took a self-driving car to work today. Then I met with some folks there. And we took another car to here.

Korosec: So manually driven car from Mountain View. But My understanding is that you actually use Waymo self-driving cars quite a bit. You’re one of the most prolific users of the vehicle, correct?

Dolgov: Yeah. Nowadays, this is my default mode of transportation around town, I take our cars to work pretty much every day. I take them to get around town to run some errands. And actually, recently, there was a change that happened in California – we got the permit from the CPUC, the California Public Utilities Commission, that allowed us to take passengers in cars that are not employees of Waymo.

So now I can take my family and I have to go to the grocery store and I actually did that recently. I had to go with my son and instead of me doing the silly old thing of me driving around in my own car, we hopped into a Waymo. And that was cool.

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Learning Better Simulation Methods for Partial Differential Equations

Posted by Stephan Hoyer, Software Engineer, Google Research

The world’s fastest supercomputers were designed for modeling physical phenomena, yet they still are not fast enough to robustly predict the impacts of climate change, to design controls for airplanes based on airflow or to accurately simulate a fusion reactor. All of these phenomena are modeled by partial differential equations (PDEs), the class of equations that describe everything smooth and continuous in the physical world, and the most common class of simulation problems in science and engineering. To solve these equations, we need faster simulations, but in recent years, Moore’s law has been slowing. At the same time, we’ve seen huge breakthroughs in machine learning (ML) along with faster hardware optimized for it. What does this new paradigm offer for scientific computing?

In “Learning Data Driven Discretizations for Partial Differential Equations”, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we explore a potential path for how ML can offer continued improvements in high-performance computing, both for solving PDEs and, more broadly, for solving hard computational problems in every area of science.

For most real-world problems, closed-form solutions to PDEs don’t exist. Instead, one must find discrete equations (“discretizations”) that a computer can solve to approximate the continuous PDE. Typical approaches to solve PDEs represent equations on a grid, e.g., using finite differences. To achieve convergence, the mesh spacing of the grid needs to be smaller than the smallest feature size of the solutions. This often isn’t feasible because of an unfortunate scaling law: achieving 10x higher resolution requires 10,000x more compute, because the grid must be scaled in four dimensions—three spatial dimensions and time. Instead, in our paper we show that ML can be used to learn better representations for PDEs on coarser grids.

Satellite photo of a hurricane, at both full resolution and simulated resolution in a state of the art weather model. Cumulus clouds (e.g., in the red circle) are responsible for heavy rainfall, but in the weather model the details are entirely blurred out. Instead, models rely on crude approximations for sub-grid physics, a key source of uncertainty in climate models. Image credit: NOAA

The challenge is to retain the accuracy of high-resolution simulations while still using the coarsest grid possible. In our work we’re able to improve upon existing schemes by replacing heuristics based on deep human insight (e.g., “solutions to a PDE should always be smooth away from discontinuities”) with optimized rules based on machine learning. The rules our ML models recover are complex, and we don’t entirely understand them, but they incorporate sophisticated physical principles like the idea of “upwinding”—to accurately model what’s coming towards you in a fluid flow, you should look upstream in the direction the wind is coming from. An example of our results on a simple model of fluid dynamics are shown below:

Simulations of Burgers’ equation, a model for shock waves in fluids, solved with either a standard finite volume method (left) or our neural network based method (right). The orange squares represent simulations with each method on low resolution grids. These points are fed back into the model at each time step, which then predicts how they should change. Blue lines show the exact simulations used for training. The neural network solution is much better, even on a 4x coarser grid, as indicated by the orange squares smoothly tracing the blue line.

Our research also illustrates a broader lesson about how to effectively combine machine learning and physics. Rather than attempting to learn physics from scratch, we combined neural networks with components from traditional simulation methods, including the known form of the equations we’re solving and finite volume methods. This means that laws such as conservation of momentum are exactly satisfied, by construction, and allows our machine learning models to focus on what they do best, learning optimal rules for interpolation in complex, high-dimensional spaces.

Next Steps
We are focused on scaling up the techniques outlined in our paper to solve larger scale simulation problems with real-world impacts, such as weather and climate prediction. We’re excited about the broad potential of blending machine learning into the complex algorithms of scientific computing.

Acknowledgments
Thanks to co-authors Yohai Bar-Sinari, Jason Hickey and Michael Brenner; and Google collaborators Peyman Milanfar, Pascal Getreur, Ignacio Garcia Dorado, Dmitrii Kochkov, Jiawei Zhuang and Anton Geraschenko.

Facebook fails to keep Messenger Kids’ safety promise

Facebook’s messaging app for under 13s, Messenger Kids — which launched two years ago pledging a “private” chat space for kids to talk with contacts specifically approved by their parents — has run into an embarrassing safety issue.

The Verge obtained messages sent by Facebook to an unknown number of parents of users of the app informing them the company had found what it couches as “a technical error,” which allowed a friend of a child to create a group chat with them in the app which invited one or more of the second child’s parent-approved friends — i.e. without those secondary contacts having been approved by the parent of the first child.

Facebook did not make a public disclosure of the safety issue. We’ve reached out to the company with questions.

It earlier confirmed the bug to the Verge, telling it: “We recently notified some parents of Messenger Kids account users about a technical error that we detected affecting a small number of group chats. We turned off the affected chats and provided parents with additional resources on Messenger Kids and online safety.”

The issue appears to have arisen as a result of how Messenger Kids’ permissions are applied in group chat scenarios — where the multi-user chats apparently override the system of required parental approval for contacts with whom kids are chatting one on one.

But given the app’s support for group messaging, it’s pretty incredible that Facebook engineers failed to robustly enforce an additional layer of checks for friends of friends to avoid unapproved users (who could include adults) from being able to connect and chat with children.

The Verge reports that “thousands” of children were left in chats with unauthorized users as a result of the flaw.

Despite its long history of playing fast and loose with user privacy, at the launch of Messenger Kids in 2017 the then head of Facebook Messenger, David Marcus, was quick to throw shade at other apps kids might use to chat — saying: “In other apps, they can contact anyone they want or be contacted by anyone.”

Turns out Facebook’s Messenger Kids has also allowed unapproved users into chat rooms it claimed as safe spaces for kids, saying too that it had developed the app in “lockstep” with the FTC.

We’ve reached out to the FTC to ask if it will be investigating the safety breach.

Friends’ data has been something of a recurring privacy black hole for Facebook — enabling, for example, the misuse of millions of users’ personal information without their knowledge or consent as a result of the expansive permissions Facebook wrapped around it, when the now defunct political data company, Cambridge Analytica, paid a developer to harvest Facebook data to build psychographic profiles of U.S. voters.

The company is reportedly on the verge of being issued with a $5 billion penalty by the FTC related to an investigation of whether it breached earlier privacy commitments made to the regulator.

Various data protection laws govern apps that process children’s data, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the U.S. and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe. But while there are potential privacy issues here with the Messenger Kids flaw, given children’s data may have been shared with unauthorized third parties as a result of the “error,” the main issue of concern for parents is likely the safety risk of their children being exposed in an unsupervised video chat environment to people they have not authorized.

On that issue, current laws have less of a support framework to offer.

Although — in Europe — rising concern about a range of risks and harms kids can face when going online has led the U.K. government to seek to regulate the area.

A recently published white paper sets out its plan to regulate a broad range of online harms, including proposing a mandatory duty of care on platforms to take reasonable steps to protect users from a range of harms, such as child sexual exploitation.

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Huawei cuts 600 jobs from its US research wing after being blacklisted

Huawei this week cut 600 positions from its Futurewei Technologies U.S. research arm, which operates out of Silicon Valley, Chicago, Washington State and Dallas. The move, which represents 70 percent of the division’s 850 roles, follows the hardware giant’s blacklisting by the U.S. government.

Reuters initially reported the news via a source from the company who noted that work has been more or less nonexistent for the branch for more than two months. “On the 17th of May, Huawei asked everyone at Futurewei to upload everything to the Huawei cloud, right before the ban took effect,” the source told the agency. “After that basically Futurewei has stopped doing any work — almost stopped everything.”

Huawei has since acknowledged the move, writing, “Futurewei Technologies announces a reduction in force, directly impacting over 600 US positions.”

The research wing has played a keyl role in filing thousands of patents for Huawei, including ones relating to 5G. That network technology has been at the center of recent concerns in the U.S., as red flags have been raised around Huawei’s networking equipment and potential ties to the Chinese government.

Huawei’s addition to the U.S. Commerce Department’s “entity list” has already had wide ranging impacts on the company that could ultimately prove hugely detrimental, banning access to essential technologies from American companies like Google and international component makers like ARM.

Earlier this week, another report surface tying Huawei to North Korea’s 3G network, a move that could potentially be in violation of U.S. sanctions against the country.

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The Best Way to Clean Windows 10: A Step-by-Step Guide

Over time, every Windows installation builds up junk that takes up space and wastes resources. We all forget to perform regular maintenance, so often the problem comes from old files and programs.

If you don’t clean your computer, though, before long you’ll encounter low disk space warnings and notice it slowing down. We’ll walk you through how to clean Windows 10 using a variety of tools for different situations.

Step 1: Erase Temporary Junk

The OS includes a pair of similar tools for clearing out old temporary files from your disk, meaning you don’t need a dedicated Windows cleaner app. They’re a great first stop on your Windows 10 cleanup journey.

Disk Cleanup

If you don’t mind an old-school interface, the classic Disk Cleanup tool gets the cleaning job done. Access it by typing Disk Cleanup into the Start Menu and selecting the disk you want to clean.

After a moment, you’ll see a list of unnecessary files that Windows can clean up. Assuming you’re an administrator, click the Clean up system files button to scan again for additional types of data.

Feel free to delete pretty much every category of data available here, with a few exceptions. Watch out for Downloads, which will delete everything in that folder. You may also want to avoid cleaning the Recycle Bin until you’re sure that you don’t need to restore anything from it.

If you’ve recently updated to a new major version of Windows 10, you’ll see a Previous Windows installation(s) entry. Deleting this will remove the old files Windows keeps for 10 days that allows you to easily go back to an earlier version. You should also avoid removing the Windows ESD installation files option, as this is used for resetting your PC via Settings.

Storage Sense

Windows 10 includes much of this same functionality at Settings > System > Storage. You can use Storage Sense, found at the top, to automatically clean up files when your disk space is low, or every so often.

In the list of what’s using space on your PC, click Temporary files and you can delete the same types of data as in Disk Cleanup.

Step 2: Eliminate Large Files

You’ve removed unnecessary files; the next step to clean up Windows 10 is to find old data taking up a lot of space on your computer. To help with this, download TreeSize Free, which will scan your storage and show you where the biggest files are.

Once installed, search for TreeSize on the Start Menu and launch it using the (Administrator) link so you can scan everywhere. To start, choose Select Directory in the top-left and select your main storage disk.

After a few moments, you’ll see a visual breakdown of your PC’s storage with the largest files at the top. Click the dropdown arrow on any folder to move down one level.

The largest folders will probably be Users, Windows, and Program Files (or Program Files (x86)) . There’s not much you can do in the Windows directory without causing issues, so let’s look at the others.

Uninstall Big Programs

Under Program Files (and/or Program Files (x86) on 64-bit Windows), you’ll find files for most of the apps you have installed. If you don’t use some of these anymore, head to Settings > Apps > Apps & features to uninstall them.

Eliminate Large Items From Your User Folder

The majority of space-hogging files will likely be in your account folder under Users. This contains your documents, pictures, videos, and similar.

You’ll probably see a lot of space taken in the AppData folder, which is where many apps store information and preferences. For instance, Chrome and Spotify’s caches can take up several gigabytes here.

Have a look at these files and see if anything is low-hanging fruit. You can delete files you no longer use or move some data to an external hard drive. If you have lots of files in Dropbox or other cloud storage, use their preference panels to de-sync files you don’t need. You can always access them through the web interface.

You might see some other large files in TreeSize, such as WinSxS. But these aren’t all safe to remove—make sure you know what Windows folders not to touch.

Step 3: Clean Windows 10 Bloatware

Most store-bought computers come loaded with worthless manufacturer bloatware that wastes space and duplicates functionality already in Windows. In addition, Windows 10 itself includes some junk apps you probably never use.

If you haven’t taken the time to remove bloatware from your system, you should. It’s an important part of Windows 10 cleanup. See our guide to removing bloatware from Windows 10 for instructions.

Step 4: Tidy Your Desktop

Even after you’ve cleaned up your computer, a messy desktop can still confuse you and make it harder to work efficiently. Most people use their desktop as a temporary storage space, leading to all sorts of files getting scattered across it.

You should try resetting your desktop to make it neater. Start by moving all the files from your desktop to another location. Next, you can create shortcuts to files you need all the time on your desktop.

If you have so many files that you don’t think this will work, the Fences app is definitely worth a look. It includes powerful tools that let you automatically combine similar desktop icons, hide or show all icons with a few clicks, and much more.

After you’ve cleaned up Windows 10 and your desktop, you’ll feel like you have a whole new machine. We have a deeper guide on cleaning up your Windows desktop if you’re interested.

If Necessary: Refresh Windows 10

Maybe you feel that your PC is such a mess that you don’t want to spend the effort to clean up Windows 10. In that case, you can use a built-in option to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows.

You might know about the Reset this PC option available in the Recovery settings. However, using this will restore your PC to how it was out of the box, including the preinstalled manufacturer bloatware. To avoid this, you can use another option.

Head to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery and click Learn how to start fresh… at the bottom of the page. This will launch the Windows Security app and provide you with the Fresh start option. Using this reinstalls Windows 10 and updates it to the latest version, as well as removing all installed apps. Only your personal files and “some Windows settings” are kept.

Even though Windows promises to keep them safe, make sure you back up your files before doing this, in case something goes wrong. You should also make a note of any license keys you’ll need to reactivate software after the refresh.

Having to reinstall all your programs by hand will take some time. But if your computer is a mess, it might still be worth it to get a clean system.

Avoid Fake Cleaning Apps

While we’re discussing Windows 10 cleanup, it bears mentioning that you should be careful what software you download. While the above tools are all legitimate ways to clean your PC, you’ll find hundreds of scammy “PC cleaners” online that are totally worthless (such as the one in the above video).

These tools provide a “free scan” that finds thousands of “issues”, which absurdly count every cookie on your computer as a “privacy risk”. Then they demand you pay a good amount of money to actually clean anything up.

Don’t bother with this nonsense. The above tools should be plenty to clean up unnecessary files. Speaking of which, you might have noticed that we didn’t mention CCleaner in this guide. As it turns out, we recommend you stay away from CCleaner now.

Now Windows 10 Is Cleaner Than Ever

We’ve shown you how to clean up Windows 10 in several ways. These methods should be sufficient to clean up a good chunk of space on your computer and make it feel newer. Keep up with them every so often, and you shouldn’t have to worry about disk space warnings any longer.

Need to free up even more? Check out Windows files and folders you can safely remove.

Read the full article: The Best Way to Clean Windows 10: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Is Minecraft Safe for Kids? Minecraft Age Rating Explained for Parents

Minecraft is one of the most popular games for children. But is it safe to play? You’ve heard about problems with other games, security and privacy concerns, child safeguarding issues… but what about Minecraft?

Is Minecraft safe for kids? What should parents know about Minecraft and its suggested age rating? Read on to find the answers.

Does Minecraft Have an Age Rating?

It doesn’t matter what game you child is playing, you should know about the age rating. When it comes to Minecraft, it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security. After all, it’s just a sandbox game featuring mineable building blocks. So, do age ratings really matter?

Well, yes they do.

In North America, the rating is agreed on by the ESRB, while in Europe, PEGI determines the rating. Ratings are decided upon based on the suitability of a game for an audience. They’re the video game equivalent of movie ratings.

The ESRB has declared Minecraft’s age rating should be 10+. Meanwhile, in the PEGI area of Europe (including the European Union, United Kingdom, and non-EU countries to the east), Minecraft is rated 7.

Is Minecraft Safe for Kids? What You Need to Know

These judgments are clearly based on the mechanics of the game as well as the content. While it is important to follow ESRB and PEGI guidelines, the decision is ultimately yours.

If you feel your child can handle Minecraft, then it should be suitable for them to play. And you can always play along with them if you want to (more on that below).

So, Minecraft is aimed at kids and is suitable for children aged around 10 years old. But is Minecraft safe for kids?

Minecraft has several game modes. These let you switch between the single player mode, local multiplayer, and remote multiplayer. It is the final option that can cause child safeguarding problems.

What Parents Need to Know About Minecraft Online

Two play options are available in Minecraft (in addition to Survival, Creative, and Adventure modes). The default is single player, in which a world is generated on the device you’re playing on. This can then be explored, mined, and items built and crafted.

However, two multiplayer modes are also available. These can either be hosted on your child’s device, or a remote public server. Local multiplayer is usually hosted on a single device, with other users running Minecraft able to connect. This is relatively safe, as everyone playing is on the same network, and probably in the same building.

Playing Minecraft on a public server, however, is a different matter. This is where things can become challenging from a safety point of view.

Cyberbullies and people who pose a risk to children can use game time on a public server to target children. There should, therefore, be a serious conversation between parents as to whether a remote public server is a safe gaming environment. If Minecraft can be as much fun with local gameplay, then accessing a public server is pointless.

Minecraft Risks: Bullying, Grooming, and Malware

It might offer a great gaming environment, but things can be unpleasant in Minecraft. It only takes you (or your child) a moment to select the wrong server, and suddenly, a world of bullying, malware, and worse can appear.

Bullying in Minecraft

As with any online gaming environment, Minecraft has a bullying issue. If you’re letting your kids play Minecraft online, take the time to check out a server beforehand. Some are great environments for play, while others tend to be dominated by cliques. The result of this can be targeted bullying and unsociable behavior, with some kids lured and manipulated into death scenarios.

Meanwhile, some Minecraft YouTube videos concern bullying and other unsuitable and unfair Minecraft behavior, so these should be avoided too.

Grooming and Inappropriate Contact in Minecraft

Several cases have been highlighted over the years of children being targeted by adults while playing Minecraft online. This typically uses the messaging service provided by Microsoft which can be managed and disabled using Xbox Live’s parental settings.

If you’re prepared to let your children play online on Minecraft, at least take the time to disable messaging. Do this in the app via Settings > Profile > Manage who can send you invites. This will take you to the Xbox Live privacy and online safety screen. Find the Others can communicate with voice, text or invites option and set to Block. You might consider Friends an acceptable option.

For the best results here, you should set up a child account.

Malware in Minecraft

Kids love skinning Minecraft, but this can be an avenue for malware to spread onto your computer. Malware can be disguised as skins, maps, and mods on third party websites, resulting in a data security nightmare.

This typically affects Windows users, although there is a strong chance that Android devices might also be infected.

The answer is to ensure that only official skin mods and other add-ons and enhancements are downloaded for Minecraft.

Minecraft Offline Gaming Is Safer for Kids

In its basic single player mode, playing the game locally is safe, no more taxing than using Lego. There is no risk, mentally, or physically, from playing Minecraft in this way.

Really, this should be the default option for children, at least until they have got to grips with the controls. There is no need to be concerned over the presence of others in your child’s world in single player mode. It exists purely on the tablet, phone, console, or computer, with no option for online multiplayer.

Note that local multiplayer is available on consoles. Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have two player mode options for Minecraft, allowing your child and one other to play in split screen mode. This multiplayer option is far safer than online multiplayer modes.

Playing Minecraft With Your Kids

Although Minecraft is aimed at children, it is a fun experience for all ages. As such, you might consider spending some time playing it when your kids are at school. This will give you the chance to get to grips with the game. What next? Well, why not play along with your kids?

Better still, you can set up local multiplayer on difference devices. Rather than the split screen multiplayer of a console, use a mobile device to host a game. You can even set up your own Minecraft server on a Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive hobbyist computer.

However you do it, hosting your own Minecraft server lets you set the rules, control who accesses the game, and generally stay in control

Make Minecraft Safe for Your Kids

Undoubtedly there needs to be better controls over how Minecraft servers are managed. But you’ll find the game has enough controls to help you manage any issues. But it’s not worth banning Minecraft. The game has huge potential for education, not least with the Minecraft Hour of Code.

For a safe Minecraft experience, take advantage of single player and local multiplayer gaming and eschew remotely hosted games.

Want to know more about your kids are playing? Check what every parent should know about videogames.

Read the full article: Is Minecraft Safe for Kids? Minecraft Age Rating Explained for Parents

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The Best Web Apps Built Around Popular Productivity Methods

Do you swear by time blocking, the Eisenhower matrix, or the Kanban technique to get your work done? Want to go digital with these analog productivity techniques? That’s easy to do if you find the right app.

To help you there, we’ve rounded up the best apps designed around popular productivity methods. We’ve selected only web apps to ensure maximum portability, but you’re sure to find suitable desktop alternatives with a quick web search if you prefer those instead.

1. Taskade: For the Bullet Journal Method

The Bullet Journal method is quite popular for its versatility as a note-taker, to-do list, journal, calendar, and more. It involves rapid logging of ideas, events, and so on in the form of bulleted lists. To get familiar with this method, read the official introduction to Bullet Journaling.

While you can use apps such as Evernote as a Bullet Journal, you’ll have to put in less effort setting up your journal if you go with Taskade. That’s true even if you skip Taskade’s Bullet Journal template and start off with a blank slate instead. Checklists, notes, attachments, sections, comments—Taskade has support for all of these. You can display your journal entries as a list, board, or even as a mindmap.

Taskade is one of those apps that make bullet journaling effortless. A quick tour of Taskade’s demo version should convince you of that.

The Bullet Journal method has a couple of official apps, but those are available only for mobile devices. Taskade is a better option if you want a bullet journal app that works on every popular platform.

Visit: Taskade (Free, premium subscription available)

2. Chains.cc: For the Don’t Break the Chain Method

Want to come up with 10 ideas around a given topic or write a thousand words every single day? Chains.cc motivates you to do such tasks by tracking your success streak for each activity.

When you see a chain of wins created by meeting your targets every day, would you want to “break the chain” by missing a day? Most likely not. The Don’t Break the Chain method and Chains.cc both count on this psychological dilemma to push you to keep your success streak going. The app lets you create a new chain for every habit you want to build or activity whose progress you want to track.

For each task you complete, mark it as done by clicking on its circle in the chain for the corresponding day. If you want Chains.cc to give you a break on the weekend or any other day, you can configure each chain to ignore specific days.

Visit: Chains.cc (Free)

3. Tomato Timers: For the Pomodoro Technique

If you struggle with single-tasking, the Pomodoro technique can make it easier for you. It’s so simple that you can implement it with just about any analog or digital, online or offline timer device. (Many task and project management apps include a Pomodoro timer these days.)

To sum up this method: you work in 25-minute intervals (called Pomodoros) with 5-minute breaks in between. After every four Pomodoros, you take a 20-or 30-minute break.

See how easy it is to work with the Pomodoro technique? We recommend Tomato Timers to time and track your work with this method. You can use the app without signing up! All you have to do is list your tasks, hit the timer button, and focus on completing the tasks one by one.

If you want to complete four Pomodoros in a row without having to start the timer manually after every Pomodoro, hit the Loop button in the app.

Tomato Timers makes a great app for working with the Ivy Lee method too. If you follow this method, you have exactly six tasks on your to-do list in decreasing order of their importance and work through them one by one. You can tweak the timer to set custom intervals for work and breaks.

Visit: Tomato Timers (Free)

4. Trello: For the Kanban Technique

Trello is one of the best digital implementations of Kanban, the Japanese technique for task management.

A Trello board gives you an overview of your project, while cards break down the project into action steps or tasks. The lists on the board further divide up the tasks based on their progress. To learn more about using Trello for project management, read our guide on the subject:

The app has made the technique so popular that in the online world Trello is Kanban and Kanban is Trello. So if you swear by Kanban offline, using the Trello app online is a no-brainer.

Visit: Trello (Free, premium subscription available)

5. Eisenhower Matrix: For the Eisenhower Matrix Method

The Eisenhower Matrix helps you prioritize your tasks by forcing your to place them in one of four categories:

1. Important and urgent: Tasks to do first
2. Important, but not urgent: Tasks to schedule
3. Urgent, but not important: Tasks to delegate
4. Not urgent and not important: Tasks to skip

These categories form a 2X2 matrix and, as you might’ve guessed, the tasks in the first two categories are the ones that really need your attention.

The Eisenhower Matrix app gives you a web-based editable matrix into which you can feed your tasks. If you like working with a timer to stay focused on the task at hand, enable the Focus Mode within the app.

Visit: Eisenhower Matrix (Free)

6. Plan: For the Time Blocking Method

Time blocking is an effective way to stay focused. In this method, you schedule your tasks in your calendar, assigning them to specific blocks of time. One web app that makes it easy to do this is Plan.

Plan integrates a to-do list with your Google or Outlook calendar. You’ll not only see the events and meetings you have lined up, but can also schedule new tasks side by side. The Timeline view in the app is a nice touch. It helps you visualize your workload over the entire month.

The app doesn’t look simple, but it looks easy to navigate and it has plenty of features for people who like to plan their day in detail.

If you want a project management app that not only includes your calendar but also a Pomodoro timer, try Toggl, TickTick, or SkedPal. Trello also makes a great alternative to these apps when you enable the Calendar Power-Up.

Visit: Plan (Free, premium subscription available)

The Secret to Productivity Is…

There’s no secret to productivity. You need either a hefty dose of will power or a combination of the right tools and techniques to make will power irrelevant. If you prefer the latter, pick the app that goes with your favorite productivity method and start working through that to-do list of yours!

Want a head start on your tasks? Have a weekly plan ready to go in under 30 minutes!

Read the full article: The Best Web Apps Built Around Popular Productivity Methods

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The 7 Best Windows Music Players for Hi-Res Audio

While many Mac users just opt to use iTunes, things are different on Windows. While Microsoft’s operating system has always offered built-in options like Windows Media Player or Groove Music, Windows users are more likely to search for their own preferred music player.

However, if you’re an audiophile, the search gets trickier. Try searching for a music player that supports hi-res audio in FLAC, MQA, or DSD format, and your options are slim. Which is why we’ve rounded up the best hi-res music player apps for Windows.

1. Hysolid

If you have your PC hooked up to a quality Hi-Fi system, Hysolid could be exactly what you’re looking for. This isn’t traditional media player software. Instead, it transforms your PC into a music player that you control with your iOS or Android device. Just kick back on the couch, pick the music you want to hear, and your PC plays it over your Hi-Fi system.

Hysolid will play most hi-res formats you throw at it. The app is compatible with PCM audio, including WAV and FLAC up to 384 kHz as well as DSD from 2.8 MHz to 11.2 MHz in DSF format. Hysolid can also display the operating mode of the USB DAC you’re using as well as whether playback is bit perfect.

Download: Hysolid (Free)

2. Amarra Luxe

If Amarra Luxe seems familiar, it’s because it also earned a place on our list of the best hi-res music player apps for macOS. This is a premium music player, and as such it isn’t cheap, but it is packed with features. It also supports key hi-res formats, including FLAC, MQA, and DSD. Unfortunately, MQA is currently only supported on macOS.

This is also a handy app if you like to stream hi-res audio as well. In addition to playing back your music collection, Amarra Luxe can stream from Tidal and Qobuz. If you want to control all your music with one app, no matter where that music is, this may be what you’re looking for.

Download: Amarra Luxe ($99)

3. Audirvana

Another app that was featured on our macOS list, Audirvana focuses on giving you control over your audio streaming from source to output. If you have a powerful computer you want to put to work processing great-sounding audio, this is an option worth considering. For example, Audirvana supports running higher-performance algorithms to take the load off your DAC and avoid oversampling.

This app also supports VST3 plugins. Whether you want to add a touch of EQ or you want to view your favorite songs through a spectrum analyzer, this can be handy for audiophiles. Audirvana is another option that isn’t cheap, but the sheer power of the app may make it a price worth paying.

Download: Audirvana ($75, with 30-day free trial)

4. Foobar2000

One of the most popular music players for Windows, Foobar2000 is practically a household name. That may not be a great name, and the interface is a little dated, but this app is fast, configurable, and perhaps most importantly, free. While it’s not the only free player on this list, it is the only one that resembles a “traditional” media player.

Foobar supports FLAC out of the box, but not DSD. In order to get support for this, you’ll need to add the DSDIFF add-on, which you can download from the Foobar2000 website. Once the component is installed, this becomes an even more powerful audio player. This information is especially handy if you already know and love Foobar200.

Download: Foobar2000 (Free)

5. Jriver

Jriver is software that tries to do a lot of things for a lot of people. Fortunately, it seems to do a good job at mostly everything it aims to do. This supports bit perfect audio in both lossless PCM and DSD formats. When it comes to the audio subsystem, it can use either ASIO or WASAPI, meaning it will transmit audio perfectly to your DAC.

There are several features here that seem obvious but are lacking in other players. One example is the optional audiophile-grade crossfeed. The developers say this makes listening on headphones sound more natural and less fatiguing, since it’s more like what you’d hear from speakers in a room.

Download: Jriver ($59.98 for Windows-only license, $79.98 for Master license)

6. Roon

While most examples of hi-res music player software focus on sound quality alone, Roon focuses on something else. The developers say that something has been lost in the transition to digital music. To bring back the feeling of engagement you’d get from poring over liner notes, Roon aims to present a searchable “magazine” of your music.

Roon doesn’t just apply this technique to music stored on your computer. It can do this to music played from a local NAS or even streamed from Tidal as well. If music isn’t a background activity to you but something you want to engage in, Roon may be worth trying.

Download: Roon ($199/year or $499/lifetime, with a free trial available)

7. JPLAY FEMTO

If you proudly declare yourself an audiophile to anyone who will listen, this may be the perfect software for you. Developed by self-described “fanatical audiophiles,” this software aims to optimize everything to deliver the audio signal from the source to your DAC in the highest quality possible. This features support for PCM audio, DSD, and even claims to improve the sound quality of Tidal and Qobuz.

Like Hysolid, this isn’t a player. Instead, it’s a server. Once it’s up and running, you can use it with any UPnP-compatible app or hardware. The developers recommend Bubble UPnP for Android, but Kinsky for Windows, macOS, and iOS has been tested as well.

Among other features, JPLAY FEMTO includes a Hibernate mode. This aims to reduce background noise created by your PC. It does this by eliminating jitter-producing processes and threads. This means you might not want to use your computer for much else during playback, but it will sound fantastic.

Download: JPLAY FEMTO ($167.79)

Are You Looking to Start Your Hi-Res Audio Journey?

Finding the right hi-res music player app is great, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t have hi-res music to listen to. These apps will play your MP3 collection as well, but if you’ve got a great audio setup, you’ll get more out of it by buying high-quality audio.

When it comes to buying music, there are a several online stores to choose from. Then there are streaming services, which are beginning to offer hi-res audio as well. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at our list of the music sites all audiophiles need in their lives.

Read the full article: The 7 Best Windows Music Players for Hi-Res Audio

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Launch Your Six-Figure Career in IT With This Essential CompTIA Security Training

For any aspiring IT professional, certificates open doors. Some are even regarded as essential by many recruiters. For instance, many tech companies will only employ people with CompTIA credentials. If you want to build your own technical career, the CompTIA Security Infrastructure Expert (CSIE) Bundle will put you on the right path. This bundle offers 91 hours of content, working towards four crucial exams. You can get it now for just $49 at MakeUseOf Deals.

CompTIA Training

Around the world, CompTIA is the universally accepted standard of excellence in IT. To unlock the best jobs, you really need to have a few of these certificates on your résumé.

The CSIE bundle helps you tackle four of the most important CompTIA exams: Security+, CySA+, CASP, and PenTest+. The focus is on cybersecurity, which is important if you plan to work with big data and sensitive information.

Through four in-depth courses, you learn how to secure any corporate environment and use pentesting to find weaknesses. The video tutorials also look at countermeasures, including the latest security tools.

Each course provides full prep for the relevant exams, and you can learn at your own pace. In addition, you get a certificate just for completing each course.

91 Hours of Training for $49 

This training is worth $897 in total, but you can order now for $49 to get lifetime access to the full bundle.

Read the full article: Launch Your Six-Figure Career in IT With This Essential CompTIA Security Training

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Google updates its speech tech for contact centers

Last July, Google announced its Contact Center AI product for helping businesses get more value out of their contact centers. Contact Center AI uses a mix of Google’s machine learning-powered tools to help build virtual agents and help human agents as they do their job. Today, the company is launching several updates to this product that will, among other things, bring improved speech recognition features to the product.

As Google notes, its automated speech recognition service gets to very high accuracy rates, even on the kind of noisy phone lines that many customers use to complain about their latest unplanned online purchase. To improve these numbers, Google is now launching a feature called ‘Auto Speech Adaptation in Dialogflow,” (with Dialogflow being Google tool for building conversational experiences). With this, the speech recognition tools are able to take the context of the conversation into account and hence improve their accuracy by about 40 percent, according to Google.

In addition, Google is also launching a new model phone model for understanding short utterances, which is now about 15 percent more accurate for U.S. English, as well as a number of other updates that improve transcription accuracy, make the training process easier and allow for endless audio streaming to the Cloud Speech-to-Text API, which previously had a 5-minute limit.

If you want to, you can also now natively download MP3s of the audio (and then burn them to CDs, I guess).

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TwelveSouth’s StayGo is the last USB-C dock you’ll ever need

The TwelveSouth StayGo is a new USB-C dock from a company that makes a ton of great and unique Mac and iOS device accessories. True to the company’s track record, it offers a slightly different take on a popular accessory category – and ends up excelling as a result.

The StayGo’s unique twist is an short USB-C to USB-C cable that slots right into a dedicated compartment on the dock, offering portable connectivity without any awkward stubby permanently attached cord. It also avoid the problem that direct USB-C dock connectors have, where they stick out and can potentially get damaged in your bag or scratch other stuff. There’s a second, 3-foot long cable included in the box, too, which you can conveniently just plug into your Mac at home if you switch between a desktop and a MacBook, or a Mac and an iPad.

It seems like a pretty simple thing, but having these two cables instead of just one, and the stowable short cable, make this far more convenient for anyone who travels or who does any out-of-home work at all. I’ve used a ton of these things, and StayGo is my clear favorite after having used it on a couple of trips over a month or so of testing.

I haven’t even talked about the ports yet – TwelveSouth nailed the right mix there, too, with three high-speed USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port, a USB-C connector (with pass-through charging at up to 85W), a 4K 30Hz HDMI port and both SD and microSD slots (which support UHS-I transfer speeds, and which can both operate simultaneously). That’s just about everything a traveler or working photographer today needs, and nothing they don’t – all in a space-saving design that never makes you choose between it and other gear when you’re packing even the smallest bag.

[gallery ids="1858916,1858915,1858914,1858913,1858912,1858911,1858910"]

In terms of performance, so far it’s been rock solid. There’s nothing worse than random unmounting of memory cards when you’re trying to transfer photos from a shoot, and the StayGo is definitely able to deliver solid, uninterrupted performance there. If I had any complaints, it’s that video output isn’t 60Hz, but that’s not really a necessary requirement for something that I’ll be using primarily to supplement my external monitor needs when I’m on the road instead of a dedicated video connection for a video editing setup, for instance.

The StayGo can get a bit warm when operating, but it’s never been actually hot, and the aluminum case construction helps ensure it can shed excess temp quickly.

At $79.99, it may be a bit more expensive than some of the hubs you can pick up on Amazon, but in terms of reliability, specs, port load out and its interesting approach to blending portability and at-home convenience, TwelveSouth is more than justified in setting that price point for the StayGo.

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LG says smart TVs will gain AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support next week

In addition to Samsung and Vizio, LG announced earlier this year that it would be adding support for Apple’s ecosystem to its TV operating system. According to a tweet from LG’s Australian account, the webOS update that adds support for HomeKit and AirPlay 2 will be released next week.

Homekit is releasing in 1 week. Users require iOS 12.4 update to do Airplay2.
LGA

— LG Australia (@LG_Australia) July 23, 2019

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac, you’ll be able to send video content to your TV using the AirPlay icon in your favorite video app. Unfortunately, some apps restrict AirPlay usage. So you’ll be able to beam YouTube or Amazon Prime Video content, but not Netflix shows for instance.

AirPlay is also useful if you want to show some photos on the big screen. And you can mirror your screen to a TV in case you want to use an LG TV for your PowerPoint presentation in your office.

LG TVs should also support AirPlay audio, which means that you can send audio to multiple AirPlay 2 devices at once (including your LG TV) and manage your multi-speaker setup from your iOS device.

When it comes to HomeKit support, you’ll be able to add your TV to the Home app and turn it on and off from there. Of course, it means that you can create automation in order to turn off the TV when you leave your home, or turn on the TV when you open the Hulu app on your iPad.

Thanks to HomeKit support, you can also create custom actions. For instance, you could say “Hey Siri, turn on the TV” and have Siri turn on the TV and dim your Philips Hue lights. You can also control the HDMI input from your Apple devices.

Unfortunately, LG said that AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support would only be added to 2019 smart TVs. Let’s see if that limit still stands when the company rolls out its software update.

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TwelveSouth’s StayGo is the last USB-C dock you’ll ever need

The TwelveSouth StayGo is a new USB-C dock from a company that makes a ton of great and unique Mac and iOS device accessories. True to the company’s track record, it offers a slightly different take on a popular accessory category – and ends up excelling as a result.

The StayGo’s unique twist is an short USB-C to USB-C cable that slots right into a dedicated compartment on the dock, offering portable connectivity without any awkward stubby permanently attached cord. It also avoid the problem that direct USB-C dock connectors have, where they stick out and can potentially get damaged in your bag or scratch other stuff. There’s a second, 3-foot long cable included in the box, too, which you can conveniently just plug into your Mac at home if you switch between a desktop and a MacBook, or a Mac and an iPad.

It seems like a pretty simple thing, but having these two cables instead of just one, and the stowable short cable, make this far more convenient for anyone who travels or who does any out-of-home work at all. I’ve used a ton of these things, and StayGo is my clear favorite after having used it on a couple of trips over a month or so of testing.

I haven’t even talked about the ports yet – TwelveSouth nailed the right mix there, too, with three high-speed USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port, a USB-C connector (with pass-through charging at up to 85W), a 4K 30Hz HDMI port and both SD and microSD slots (which support UHS-I transfer speeds, and which can both operate simultaneously). That’s just about everything a traveler or working photographer today needs, and nothing they don’t – all in a space-saving design that never makes you choose between it and other gear when you’re packing even the smallest bag.

[gallery ids="1858916,1858915,1858914,1858913,1858912,1858911,1858910"]

In terms of performance, so far it’s been rock solid. There’s nothing worse than random unmounting of memory cards when you’re trying to transfer photos from a shoot, and the StayGo is definitely able to deliver solid, uninterrupted performance there. If I had any complaints, it’s that video output isn’t 60Hz, but that’s not really a necessary requirement for something that I’ll be using primarily to supplement my external monitor needs when I’m on the road instead of a dedicated video connection for a video editing setup, for instance.

The StayGo can get a bit warm when operating, but it’s never been actually hot, and the aluminum case construction helps ensure it can shed excess temp quickly.

At $79.99, it may be a bit more expensive than some of the hubs you can pick up on Amazon, but in terms of reliability, specs, port load out and its interesting approach to blending portability and at-home convenience, TwelveSouth is more than justified in setting that price point for the StayGo.

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Mixhalo raises $10.7M to bring better sound quality to live events

Mixhalo — the startup co-founded by Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger and his wife, violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger — has raised $10.7 million in Series A funding.

The company’s initial goal was to bring better sound quality to concerts. Instead of hearing music blasted out of speakers, users can connect their smartphone to a network (the startup creates its own wireless channel that doesn’t rely on the venue’s potentially overloaded WiFi or cell networks). Then, through their earbuds, they’ll hear the same sound mix that the musicians receive through their in-ear monitors.

Mixhalo launched two years ago at our Disrupt NY conference, where Incubus and investor Pharrell Williams took the stage to play a couple songs. The sound arrived loud and clear through my iPhone earbuds, and the experience didn’t feel too different form a normal concert.

Since then, Mixhalo has also been used at Y Combinator Demo Day and deployed on tours by Charlie Puth, Incubus and Metallica, as well as Aerosmith’s current Las Vegas residency.

And at the beginning of this year, Marc Ruxin joined as CEO. Ruxin formerly led the music discovery startup TastemakerX (which was acquired by Rdio), so this is clearly an area that interests him, but he told me that he actually wasn’t eager to return into the music business. However, he was wowed by Mixhalo’s sound quality, and as he talked to Einziger (who serves as the startup’s chief creative officer), he became convinced that the technology could be used at a wide range of events and venues — conferences, sports, museums, megachurches and more.

Plus, unlike other music startups, Ruxin said the business model here seemed appealingly straightforward: “We sell enterprise software to event organizers.”

When I’ve described the idea to friends, there’s usually some skepticism about whether concertgoers really care that much about sound, and concern about whether putting headphones on diminishes the social experience at these events.

However, Ruxin said Mixhalo offers a number of benefits beyond sound quality — there’s the ability for each listener to control their own volume, and an opportunity to create unique experiences, like offering multiple mixes for a single concert, or watching one band at a festival (or one presenter at Demo Day) while listening to another via Mixhalo.

He also argued that people don’t realize how bad most concert audio is, until Mixhalo gives the chance to experience something better.

“We’re definitely solving a problem in music that people don’t realize they have,” he said, comparing it to watching an old TV and thinking it was fine, until you had the chance to watch in HD: “Now, sports that’s not in HD looks crappy.”

As for the effect on the social experience, Ruxin said the idea isn’t to turn the whole event into a silent disco. Instead, Mixhalo aims to to allow the audience members to choose the experience they want. And that can change from song to song — he recalled seeing some fans listen to Mixhalo for most of a concert, then take their headphones off to sing along with the hits. Others did the opposite, wanting to get the best sound quality on their favorite songs.

Ruxin said he’s primarily focused on music and sports for now, but he’s also open to working with partners outside those areas, because the technology can be installed in, say, a Broadway musical with “no technical tweaks.”

The funding was led by Foundry Group, with participation from Sapphire Sport, Founders Fund, Defy Partners, Cowboy Ventures, Red Light Management, Another Planet Entertainment, Rick Farman and Rich Goodstone of Superfly and Charlie Walker of C3. Mixhalo has now raised a total of $15 million.

With MIXhalo, Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger aims to deliver studio-quality sound at live events

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