14 July 2018

Reminder: Other people’s lives are not fodder for your feeds


#PlaneBae

You should cringe when you read that hashtag. Because it’s a reminder that people are being socially engineered by technology platforms to objectify and spy on each other for voyeuristic pleasure and profit.

The short version of the story attached to the cringeworthy hashtag is this: Earlier this month an individual, called Rosey Blair, spent all the hours of a plane flight using her smartphone and social media feeds to invade the privacy of her seat neighbors — publicly gossiping about the lives of two strangers.

Her speculation was set against a backdrop of rearview creepshots, with a few barely there scribbles added to blot out actual facial features. Even as an entire privacy invading narrative was being spun unknowingly around them.

#PlanePrivacyInvasion would be a more fitting hashtag. Or #MoralVacuumAt35000ft

And yet our youthful surveillance society started with a far loftier idea associated with it: Citizen journalism.

Once we’re all armed with powerful smartphones and ubiquitously fast Internet there will be no limits to the genuinely important reportage that will flow, we were told.

There will be no way for the powerful to withhold the truth from the people.

At least that was the nirvana we were sold.

What did we get? Something that looks much closer to mass manipulation. A tsunami of ad stalking, intentionally fake news and social media-enabled demagogues expertly appropriating these very same tools by gamifying mind-less, ethically nil algorithms.

Meanwhile, masses of ordinary people + ubiquitous smartphones + omnipresent social media feeds seems, for the most part, to be resulting in a kind of mainstream attention deficit disorder.

Yes, there is citizen journalism — such as people recording and broadcasting everyday experiences of aggression, racism and sexism, for example. Experiences that might otherwise go unreported, and which are definitely underreported.

That is certainly important.

But there are also these telling moments of #hashtaggable ethical blackout. As a result of what? Let’s call it the lure of ‘citizen clickbait’ — as people use their devices and feeds to mimic the worst kind of tabloid celebrity gossip ‘journalism’ by turning their attention and high tech tools on strangers, with (apparently) no major motivation beyond the simple fact that they can. Because technology is enabling them.

Social norms and common courtesy should kick in and prevent this. But social media is pushing in an unequal and opposite direction, encouraging users to turn anything — even strangers’ lives — into raw material to be repackaged as ‘content’ and flung out for voyeuristic entertainment.

It’s life reflecting commerce. But a particularly insidious form of commerce that does not accept editorial let alone ethical responsibility, has few (if any) moral standards, and relies, for continued function, upon stripping away society’s collective sense of privacy in order that these self-styled ‘sharing’ (‘taking’ is closer to the mark) platforms can swell in size and profit.

But it’s even worse than that. Social media as a data-mining, ad-targeting enterprise relies upon eroding our belief in privacy. So these platforms worry away at that by trying to disrupt our understanding of what privacy means. Because if you were to consider what another person thinks or feels — even for a millisecond — you might not post whatever piece of ‘content’ you had in mind.

For the platforms it’s far better if you just forget to think.

Facebook’s business is all about applying engineering ingenuity to eradicate the thoughtful friction of personal and societal conscience.

That’s why, for instance, it uses facial recognition technology to automate content identification — meaning there’s almost no opportunity for individual conscience to kick in and pipe up to quietly suggest that publicly tagging others in a piece of content isn’t actually the right thing to do.

Because it’s polite to ask permission first.

But Facebook’s antisocial automation pushes people away from thinking to ask for permission. There’s no button provided for that. The platform encourages us to forget all about the existence of common courtesies.

So we should not be at all surprised that such fundamental abuses of corporate power are themselves trickling down to infect the people who use and are exposed to these platforms’ skewed norms.

Viral episodes like #PlaneBae demonstrate that the same sense of entitlement to private information is being actively passed onto the users these platforms prey on and feed off — and is then getting beamed out, like radiation, to harm the people around them.

The damage is collective when societal norms are undermined.

#PlaneBae

Social media’s ubiquity means almost everyone works in marketing these days. Most people are marketing their own lives — posting photos of their pets, their kids, the latte they had this morning, the hipster gym where they work out — having been nudged to perform this unpaid labor by the platforms that profit from it.

The irony is that most of this work is being done for free. Only the platforms are being paid. Though there are some people making a very modern living; the new breed of ‘life sharers’ who willingly polish, package and post their professional existence as a brand of aspiration lifestyle marketing.

Social media’s gift to the world is that anyone can be a self-styled model now, and every passing moment a fashion shoot for hire — thanks to the largess of highly accessible social media platforms providing almost anyone who wants it with their own self-promoting shopwindow in the world. Plus all the promotional tools they could ever need.

Just step up to the glass and shoot.

And then your vacation beauty spot becomes just another backdrop for the next aspirational selfie. Although those aquamarine waters can’t be allowed to dampen or disrupt photo-coifed tresses, nor sand get in the camera kit. In any case, the makeup took hours to apply and there’s the next selfie to take…

What does the unchronicled life of these professional platform performers look like? A mess of preparation for projecting perfection, presumably, with life’s quotidian business stuffed higgledy piggledy into the margins — where they actually sweat and work to deliver the lie of a lifestyle dream.

Because these are also fakes — beautiful fakes, but fakes nonetheless.

We live in an age of entitled pretence. And while it may be totally fine for an individual to construct a fictional narrative that dresses up the substance of their existence, it’s certainly not okay to pull anyone else into your pantomime. Not without asking permission first.

But the problem is that social media is now so powerfully omnipresent its center of gravity is actively trying to pull everyone in — and its antisocial impacts frequently spill out and over the rest of us. And they rarely if ever ask for consent.

What about the people who don’t want their lives to be appropriated as digital windowdressing? Who weren’t asking for their identity to be held up for public consumption? Who don’t want to participate in this game at all — neither to personally profit from it, nor to have their privacy trampled by it?

The problem is the push and pull of platforms against privacy has become so aggressive, so virulent, that societal norms that protect and benefit us all — like empathy, like respect — are getting squeezed and sucked in.

The ugliness is especially visible in these ‘viral’ moments when other people’s lives are snatched and consumed voraciously on the hoof — as yet more content for rapacious feeds.

#PlaneBae

Think too of the fitness celebrity who posted a creepshot + commentary about a less slim person working out at their gym.

Or the YouTuber parents who monetize videos of their kids’ distress.

Or the men who post creepshots of women eating in public — and try to claim it’s an online art project rather than what it actually is: A privacy violation and misogynistic attack.

Or, on a public street in London one day, I saw a couple of giggling teenage girls watching a man at a bus stop who was clearly mentally unwell. Pulling out a smartphone, one girl hissed to the other: “We’ve got to put this on YouTube.”

For platforms built by technologists without thought for anything other than growth, everything is a potential spectacle. Everything is a potential post.

So they press on their users to think less. And they profit at society’s expense.

It’s only now, after social media has embedded itself everywhere, that platforms are being called out for their moral vacuum; for building systems that encourage abject mindlessness in users — and serve up content so bleak it represents a form of visual cancer.

#PlaneBae

Human have always told stories. Weaving our own narratives is both how we communicate and how we make sense of personal experience — creating order out of events that are often disorderly, random, even chaotic.

The human condition demands a degree of pattern-spotting for survival’s sake; so we can pick our individual path out of the gloom.

But platforms are exploiting that innate aspect of our character. And we, as individuals, need to get much, much better at spotting what they’re doing to us.

We need to recognize how they are manipulating us; what they are encouraging us to do — with each new feature nudge and dark pattern design choice.

We need to understand their underlying pull. The fact they profit by setting us as spies against each other. We need to wake up, personally and collectively, to social media’s antisocial impacts.

Perspective should not have to come at the expense of other people getting hurt.

This week the women whose privacy was thoughtlessly repackaged as public entertainment when she was branded and broadcast as #PlaneBae — and who has suffered harassment and yet more unwelcome attention as a direct result — gave a statement to Business Insider.

“#PlaneBae is not a romance — it is a digital-age cautionary tale about privacy, identity, ethics and consent,” she writes. “Please continue to respect my privacy, and my desire to remain anonymous.”

And as a strategy to push against the antisocial incursions of social media, remembering to respect people’s privacy is a great place to start.


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iFixit finds dust covers in latest MacBook Pro keyboard


Apple released a refreshed MacBook Pro this week and top among the new features is a tweaked keyboard. Apple says its quieter than the last version and in our tests, we agree. But iFixit found something else: thin, silicone barriers that could improve the keyboard’s reliability.

This is big news. Users have long reported the butterfly switch keyboard found in MacBook Pros were less reliable than past models. There are countless reports of dust and lint and crumbs causing keys to stick or fail. Personally, I have not had any issues, but many at TechCrunch have. To date Apple has yet to issue a recall for the keyboard..

iFixit found a thin layer of rubberized material covering the new butterfly mechanism. The repair outlet also points to an Apple patent for this exact technology that’s designed to “prevent and/or alleviate contaminant ingress.”

According to Apple, which held a big media unveiling for new models, the changes to the keyboard were designed to address the loud clickity-clack and not the keyboard’s tendency to get mucked up by dust. And that makes sense, too. If Apple held an event and said “We fixed the keyboards” it would mean Apple was admitting something was wrong with the keyboards. Instead Apple held an event and said “We made the keyboards quieter” admitting the past keyboards were loud, and not faulty.

We just got our review unit and will report back on the keyboard’s reliability after a day or two at the beach. Because science.


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You Can Now Use Morse Code on Google’s Gboard


Google has incorporated Morse code into Gboard for Android and iOS. This is an attempt to help people with limited mobility communicate using their smartphones. However, Morse code is something everyone should learn in case they ever need to use it.

What Is Morse Code?

Morse code was developed in the 1800s to enable the sending of messages by way of electrical telegraphs. Its simplicity makes Morse code one of the most versatile forms of communication around, and it has been used in countless ways over the years.

The latest use for Morse code is as an assistive technology. Morse code consists of a series of dots and dashes which are then converted into letters. Which makes it perfect for people with disabilities, who can find themselves locked out of modern technology.

Morse Code on Gboard

Google is now offering Morse code as an input method in Gboard, its keyboard app. The company has partnered with Tania Finlayson, an expert in Morse code assistive technology. Finlayson has cerebral palsy, and so knows the value of assistive technology.

Finlayson explained the value of Morse code in a blog post on The Keyword, saying:

“Most technology today is designed for the mass market. Unfortunately, this can mean that people with disabilities can be left behind. Developing communication tools like this is important, because for many people, it simply makes life livable.”

The Morse code keyboard on Gboard means you can now use dots and dashes instead of the QWERTY keyboard to input text. Gboard will then convert these dots and dashes into words and sentences. You can even connect external switches to your Android.

Learn to Type Morse Code

Google has also developed a Morse Typing Training game (available on Android, iOS, and desktop) which the company claims can help you learn Morse code in less than an hour. And that has to be worthwhile, whether or not you have mobility issues.

If you’re interested in learning more about accessibility options on modern operating systems, we have previously published guides to Windows 10’s accessibility options, macOS’s accessibility options, and Chrome OS’s accessibility options.

Read the full article: You Can Now Use Morse Code on Google’s Gboard


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Prime Day Is Coming! 10 Amazon Prime Benefits You May Have Overlooked


amazon-prime-benefits

Free shipping and free 2-day deliveries: these two Amazon Prime benefits are the main reasons why over 20 million users have an ongoing subscription. It’s true, Amazon Prime is a fantastic deal!

But those features barely scratch the surface. Amazon has gone above and beyond with Amazon Prime, offering many more benefits that people have forgotten about (or simply never realize existed).

Here’s how to extract the most value from an Amazon Prime membership. If you don’t have a Prime membership yet, perhaps these extra benefits will be enough to justify the annual subscription. Why not grab a 30-day free trial and try it out for yourself?

1. 1-Day and Same-Day Shipping

Did you know that Amazon Prime members in certain cities can get free 1-day shipping and free same-day shipping? To qualify for 1-day or same-day shipping:

  • Your order total must be at least $35.
  • For same-day, all items must be marked same-day eligible. For 1-day, all items must be marked 1-day eligible.
  • You must check out before the cut-off time, usually around noon.
  • The shipping address must be in an eligible zip code. As of this writing, there are over 8,000 participating cities and towns across the continental US.

2. Prime Membership Sharing

Did you know that you can share your Prime membership’s shipping benefits with up to four other people? Yes, that’s right: four others can make use of your shipping benefits without you needing to give them direct access to your account (i.e. giving them your account password, which might breach the Amazon Terms of Service).

The only stipulation is that these people must live at the same address as you. Or, in other words, membership can only be shared with actual members of the same household. To invite somebody, you’ll need to know their name, birthday, and email address. When they accept the invitation, they’ll need to know your birthday.

3. Unlimited Photo Storage (Prime Photos)

All Amazon customers start with 5GB of free data storage with Amazon Drive. This includes anything from photos to videos, documents to music files, and whatever else you might want to store on there.

As an Amazon Prime member, your free cloud storage plan is expanded and allows for unlimited photo files storage as part of the Prime Photos program. All photos—whether previously uploaded or uploaded in the future—do not count against your cloud storage data limit.

Note: Photos must be smaller than 2GB. Supported formats include JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, and RAW formats for Nikon (NEF), Canon (CR2), and Sony (ARW) cameras. Prime Photos is only meant for personal, non-commercial use.

4. Ad-Free Video Streaming (Prime Video)

Prime Video is a top contender to both Netflix and Hulu, packed with excellent TV shows worth watching and all kinds of movies ranging from classics to modern hits.

And while Prime Video has long been seen as inferior to Netflix and Hulu, lately it’s gotten a lot better. Amazon Studios recently reached new heights, winning two Academy Awards—Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay—for the Amazon Original film, Manchester by the Sea. Other notable originals include Sneaky Pete, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Man in the High Castle.

Note that Prime Video can be extended with “add-on channels,” which grant access to specific types of content that you may be interested in: Anime Strike, BritBox, Broadway HD, HBO, Horror TV, PBS KIDS, Showtime, STARZ, and many more.

5. Ad-Free Music Streaming (Prime Music)

While there’s a lot of entertainment value in Prime Video, it’s not the only streaming service offered by Amazon. If you listen to a lot of online music streams, then Prime Music will flip your world upside down.

Amazon maintains a library of over 1 million songs and albums that can be accessed by any Prime member for free. Prime Music includes unlimited skips, no ads, and access to handcrafted Prime Playlists. Don’t like them? Feel free to create your own playlists instead.

Learn more in our in-depth look at Amazon Prime Music, or get started right now with 4 months of Prime Music for $0.99.

6. Free Twitch Subscription (Twitch Prime)

Love playing video games? Then you probably know about Twitch already. For the uninitiated, Twitch is like YouTube except with real-time live-streamed gameplay rather than pre-recorded videos. Twitch started as a platform for watching gaming tournaments and other events, but has since evolved into so much more.

While Twitch itself is completely free, it has bonus features you can unlock with a Twitch Turbo subscription (e.g. no advertisements). What you may not realize is, every Prime membership comes with Twitch Prime, which basically grants the same benefits as Twitch Turbo. But Twitch Prime offers one unique benefit: every month, certain commercial games are made free to acquire and download!

If you already have a Twitch account, you can connect your account to a 30-day free trial of Prime to start reaping the benefits right away.

7. Flat-Fee Grocery Deliveries (Prime Pantry)

Amazon has a program called Prime Pantry that allows you to order special “Prime Pantry” items that aren’t normally available. These items include household essentials and groceries that are too cost-prohibitive to ship individually.

With Prime Pantry, you can two options: either pay $7.99 for each shipment of Prime Pantry items or get a Prime Pantry subscription for $4.99/month for free shipping on any Prime Pantry order of $40 or more. (Orders under $40 are still charged $7.99 even with a Prime Pantry subscription.)

Due to air shipping regulations, Prime Pantry boxes can only be shipped by ground. Most orders arrive within 4 business days.

If you’re interested, you can grab a 30-day free trial of Prime Pantry and experience it for yourself. You may never need to visit your local grocery store ever again.

8. Kindle Ebook Rentals (Lending Library)

Amazon Prime members who own Kindle e-readers or Kindle Fire tablets can rent ebooks for free from the Kindle Owners Lending Library. Rented ebooks have no due dates and can be shared across any devices connected to your Amazon account. The only restriction is that you can only borrow one ebook per calendar month.

Amazon also offers Prime Reading, which grants unlimited access to over 1,000 ebooks in Kindle format, both fiction and nonfiction.

There’s also the Kindle First program, which allows Prime members to download one free ebook every month. Titles in the Kindle First program are not-yet-released ebooks that are made available as Kindle First picks one month prior to their official release.

9. Free Months of Prime

Here’s a bit of fine print that you probably overlooked: on any order that qualifies for Guaranteed Accelerated Delivery but arrives after the guaranteed delivery date, you can contact Amazon’s support center and request a free one-month Prime extension.

There are a few conditions that must be met in order for the extension request to be validated, but most orders qualify without issue.

amazon-prime-benefits-free-extension

Also, if you’re currently enrolled in a college or university and you have a valid .edu email address, you can register as part of the Prime Student program, which grants a six-month free trial for Prime. When the trial ends, you can upgrade to a full Amazon Prime membership for 50 percent off.

Note: This free trial “only” includes free shipping, free 2-day delivery, and unlimited photo storage with Prime Photos. Prime Video, Prime Music, Kindle Owners Lending Library, and membership sharing are only available with a full Amazon Prime membership.

10. Lightning Deals and Prime Day

Did you know that Amazon has an awesome deals program called Lightning Deals? In short, a Lightning Deal is a discounted item that’s only available in a certain quantity for a certain amount of time.

The Lightning Deals program isn’t exclusive to Prime, but Prime members have something called Prime Early Access. This lets you get a 30-minute head start on most (but not all) Lightning Deals, which is great because these deals sell out surprisingly fast. Visit the Lightning Deals page to see what’s available at any time.

Prime members are also eligible to participate on Prime Day, which is an annual event where thousands of items across the entire site are marked down. If you’ve been thinking of buying an Amazon device, Prime Day is the best day for it. Check out the best Prime Day deals, or read more about it in our in-depth look at Amazon Prime Day.

What Do You Get With Amazon Prime?

To recap, here are all the notable Prime features that come with Amazon Prime:

  • Free 2-day, 1-day, or same-day shipping
  • Prime Photos (unlimited storage for photos)
  • Prime Music (unlimited ad-free streaming)
  • Prime Video (unlimited ad-free streaming, plus Amazon Channels add-ons)
  • Prime Reading (unlimited access to free ebooks, plus Lending Library and Kindle First)
  • Prime Pantry (flat-rate shipping for groceries and household essentials)
  • Prime Early Access (see Lightning Deals before everyone else does)
  • Prime Wardrobe (try before you buy when shopping for clothes)
  • Twitch Prime (Twitch Turbo benefits, plus free games every month)
  • Exclusive discounts when shopping at Whole Foods Market

At $119/year, that’s the equivalent of $9.92 per month. What other online subscription offers this much goodness for such an affordable price? (Amazon Prime is also available on a month-to-month basis for $13/mo.)

If you don’t have Amazon Prime yet, now is the time to grab a 30-day free trial because Amazon Prime Day is right around the corner and you’ll be eligible for all kinds of deals!

Read the full article: Prime Day Is Coming! 10 Amazon Prime Benefits You May Have Overlooked


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Sony Xperia XZ2 Review: Fantastic Camera, Unique Design

Made by Mozilla: 5 Cool Apps and Tools From the Developers of Firefox


cool-apps-mozilla

Mozilla is synonymous with Firefox, which remains one of the best web browsers in the world. But there’s a lot more happening at Mozilla these days, from cool mobile apps to exploring and protecting the internet. Check it out.

You probably know that Mozilla also makes apps like Thunderbird, and recently bought the read-it-later bookmarking app Pocket. Those are pretty well known though. It’s the smaller Mozilla initiatives that don’t get much limelight, and we’re here to fix that.

As you probably guessed, these apps and tools perform best with Mozilla Firefox, but they also work with Chrome, Safari, Edge, or any other modern browser.

Notes by Firefox (Android, Desktop): Synced Notes Between Mobile and Desktop

Mozilla’s latest experiment is an app for Android devices called Notes. This is a mobile version of the Notes app first released as part of Mozilla’s test pilot program.

Download the app on your Android and sign in using your Firefox account. It’ll quickly sync notes between the desktop browser and the app. Now you have a secure, encrypted notepad to jot down anything you want.

Notes by Firefox is actually quite similar to our favorite note-taking app, Simplenote. You can start unlimited notes, edit them with basic formatting, and read the plain text notes offline too.

Download: Notes by Firefox for Android (Free)

Firefox Lockbox (iOS): Password Manager for iPhones

Firefox has a nifty password manager built into the browser. With the use of Firefox Sync, you can access all those passwords on the desktop and the iOS version of Firefox. But apps like LastPass and 1Password give you those passwords outside of the browser, in other apps. The new Lockbox is here to fix that.

You can now continue to use the built-in Firefox password manager across your desktop and mobile devices, while still getting to sign in to apps with it. Just fire up Lockbox and tap an account. Now you can copy-paste the password into the relevant app, or sometimes, Lockbox will automatically open the app and log you in.

It’s a lot like some of the best password managers for iOS, including features like 256-bit encryption as well as fingerprint and Face ID support. And it’s completely free.

Download: Firefox Lockbox for iOS (Free)

Internet Health Report (Web, Ebook): Mozilla’s State of the Internet

In April 2018, Mozilla launched its first full edition of the Internet Health Report, in what will now be an annual tradition. The full report is free to read online or to download as an ebook.

In the report, Mozilla tackles questions that are on the mind of anyone who uses the internet, covering topics like privacy, security, openness, digital inclusion, web literacy, and decentralization. Each section tells you why it’s an issue you should understand, what people across the world are doing to tackle it, and how it affects the internet today.

The report’s basic idea is to put a human angle to the state of the internet since humans are its biggest stakeholders. Anyone is free to download the abridged version as a PDF or explore the full version online, where you can also download it as an ePub. For more, read Mozilla’s short explanation.

IRL (Podcast): Mozilla’s Podcast About Online Life

IRL is Mozilla’s official podcast about the things that affect all of our real and digital lives because of the internet. Host Veronica Belmont specializes in highlighting issues that you aren’t probably aware of. Of course, she also talks about trending topics, usually with experts who guest star on the show.

IRL usually tackles the social or human side of online problems. For example, the latest episode talks about what you are giving up when you click that “Accept” button to give a bot or a human access to your private data. It’s a smart look at the cost of privacy and its real outcomes.

Belmont has just started the third season of IRL, so there are 14 episodes already waiting for you to binge. I’d especially recommend checking out the fourth episode of season two, titled Cloak of Invisibility. For anyone who likes to know about the internet and its many issues, IRL is one of the best podcasts you can listen to.

Hubs By Mozilla (Web, VR): Virtual No-Signup Chatrooms for Anyone

Animated GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Mozilla is focussed on bringing a better experience to the fast-approaching world of virtual reality with the Firefox Reality browser. But more than that, Mozilla wants to remove barriers between closed platforms.

Hubs is a new initiative where anyone can create a virtual chatroom, and invite anyone to be a part of it by sharing a simple link. You’ll need to choose an avatar, and then use your microphone to talk with anyone in the room. It’s audio only, no text.

You don’t need a Firefox account; heck, you don’t even need Firefox and can actually use this on Google Chrome too. Anyone is free to create, share, or join a virtual room, from any device. Of course, the experience is best with a virtual reality headset.

Don’t Forget These…

Apart from these five new projects, Mozilla has some other cool things that we’ve already talked about. You should check out Firefox Send if you want to transfer large files securely. And there is the privacy-protecting Firefox extension that stops Facebook from tracking you.

Read the full article: Made by Mozilla: 5 Cool Apps and Tools From the Developers of Firefox


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Instagram Adds a Questions Sticker to Stories


Instagram has added a new Questions sticker designed to make your Stories much more engaging. As its name suggests the Questions sticker enables you to put out the call for friends to ask you questions, and you can reply directly to any that interest you.

In October 2017, Instagram introduced a Poll sticker allowing you to survey your friends. And in June 2018, Instagram introduced the option to add music to your Stories. Now, Instagram has introduced a Questions sticker likely to increase engagement levels.

You Can Now Ask Me Anything on Instagram

Instagram’s new Questions sticker allows you to either ask questions or ask your friends to ask you questions. You could type “Ask me anything!” and wait for the questions to roll in. Or you could, for example, ask friends what they think of your new haircut.

The idea is to get a conversation going, changing Stories from content to consume to content to interact with. As Instagram puts it, the Questions sticker is “a fun new way to start conversations with your friends so you can get to know each other better.”

How to Use the Instagram Questions Sticker

To add a Questions Sticker to a story take a photo or video as you would normally. Then select the Questions sticker from the sticker tray. Type out your message, and then place it wherever you want to in the aforementioned photo or video.

Friends can tap the sticker to reply directly to your question. Their reply will appear in your viewers’ list, and tapping on it will create a new story containing their question. While you’ll be able to see who has asked what, your friends will not be identified in Stories.

Update Instagram to the Latest Version

The Questions sticker is available on Android and iOS as part of Instagram 52. So if you aren’t yet seeing the option to add a Questions sticker to your Stories be sure to update the Instagram app on your smartphone to the latest version.

Instagram Stories continue to go from strength to strength, with more and more people using them every month. If you’re not yet on board, here are all the basics you need to know. And if you need extra help why not try these tips to make your Stories stand out.

Read the full article: Instagram Adds a Questions Sticker to Stories


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Windows 10 Won’t Boot? Try These 12 Fixes to Get Your PC Running Again


windows-10-wont-boot

Few computer issues are quite as frustrating as a PC that refuses to boot up. When your system can’t even initialize, it’s difficult to make any headway in locating the source of the problem.

Of course, there’s no reason to despair. Even if things look bleak for your PC, you can try plenty of fixes before it’s truly beyond repair. Windows 10 offers several methods of sorting out the boot process, and there are a few easy techniques you can carry out for yourself.

With any luck, this guide should help find the culprit behind your computer’s unwillingness to boot.

1. Try Windows Safe Mode

The most bizarre fix for Windows 10 boot problems is Safe Mode. It is an alternative boot scheme that starts your computer with a minimum of software. The modified boot process can bypass driver and software problems. The weird thing is, sometimes starting the computer in Safe Mode can fix boot problems. It’s not clear to me what processes run in Safe Mode, but experience has taught me it’s an effective and easy fix.

If your computer won’t boot, however, you might have problems entering Safe Mode. There are two relatively easy ways to get into it.

Method 1: Enter Safe Mode From the Windows Recovery

Most unbootable computers “hang” (or not progress beyond) the Windows splash screen. (For other Windows issues, please consult our guide to Windows troubleshooting.)

From here, you can force the computer to enter Safe Mode by interrupting the boot process three times in a row, which automatically triggers the Windows Recovery. From the Choose an option recovery window, choose Troubleshoot, then Advanced options, and then Startup Settings.

From Startup Settings, you can reboot the computer into Safe mode, either with the internet enabled or disabled. Either option should work.

Method 2: Safe Mode with a Windows 10 Recovery Drive

If you cannot enter Safe mode, you need to create a Windows 10 USB recovery drive. The recovery drive contains the Windows 10 recovery environment—which used to be accessible by tapping F8 on boot. Unfortunately, Microsoft decided to eliminate this feature.

Creating a recovery drive requires that you have another Windows 10 computer and a USB drive with at least 512MB of storage. If you want to create a system backup (you’ll see an option to back up system files to the recovery drive), you’ll need 16GB of storage.

Launch Control Panel > Create a recovery drive.

Then follow the guided instructions.

After creating the recovery drive, you can boot your computer from it only if you’ve turned on USB drives as bootable from the POST environment, also known as UEFI or BIOS. After enabling USB drives as bootable, insert the drive into your computer and restart (this may require hitting the reset button or holding the power button down for a few seconds).

2. Unplug All Your USB Devices

A serious issue with Windows 10 updates is that sometimes your computer won’t boot because of a conflict with a USB device. You can solve this problem by unplugging all USB devices (and any other unneeded peripherals) and restarting the computer.

If your computer stays on the same loading screen, removing all USB devices automatically solves the problem. Other times, you may need to restart the computer.

3. Turn Off Fast Boot

There’s a setting inside of your BIOS or UEFI called Fast Boot that allows Windows 8 and newer operating systems to boot very rapidly by preloading drivers. Unfortunately, Windows updates can break Fast Boot compatibility. Fortunately, Fast Boot can be toggled on and off through your BIOS.

The method to enter the BIOS/UEFI screen differs between computers. For instructions on how to find the correct way for your computer, please consult our guide to finding a computer’s UEFI/BIOS. For most people, tapping the Delete key while booting should trigger the POST environment. Two other common keys that might work are F2 and Escape.

After entering the BIOS or UEFI, the Fast Boot option normally is part of the Advanced options, although it can be anywhere.

If you don’t see any Fast Boot entry, your computer was made before 2013 as they did not include a Fast Boot option.

4. Try a Malware Scan

Malware is a major cause of an unbootable computer. The common method of dealing with malware that causes boot problems is an anti-malware program that can boot from a USB or DVD drive. Some companies provide this software for free, such as BitDefender’s rescue CD. One of my favorites is AVG Rescue CD (it can be installed onto a USB drive, despite the name).

After imaging the CD onto a USB drive, you can then boot the afflicted computer up with the drive inserted. If you’ve set the computer to boot from the rescue drive, it will start in the AVG rescue environment. Then perform the malware scan.

Download: AVG Rescue CD (Free)

5. Check Your Battery

If you’re using a laptop, battery issues could well be the source of your system’s inability to boot properly. It’s worth testing an alternate charger cable to see if it solves the problem. Confirm that the cable is working by trying it out on another laptop. Next, remove your system’s battery and plug the device into a power source.

Removing the battery will help you discover if a hardware problem is to blame. The key here is to ensure that you’re only testing one element at any given time. If power issues interfere with the startup, it’s crucial that you know whether the battery, the charging cable, or another component requires replacement.

6. Boot to the Command Prompt Interface

When your computer can’t boot properly, it really can’t do much at all. However, it might still be possible to boot directly to the Command Prompt to expand its range of abilities. Using this interface, you can perform more troubleshooting procedures, and perhaps even fix your problem. You’ll need to have Windows 10 on a bootable disk or USB drive to carry out the procedure, so use another computer to set that up before you get started.

To boot to the Command prompt, start up your system. While it’s initializing, watch out for details of a combination of keys that will allow you to enter the BIOS. This information is typically delivered alongside the vendor logo.

Navigate to the Boot tab and make either the USB or DVD drive the first bootable device. Your choice here will depend on where your copy of Windows 10 is located. Again, the specifics of this process may vary from one system to another, so consult the on-screen instructions.

Next, insert the disk or drive containing Windows 10 into your system, save your configuration, and restart your PC.

windows 10 mac installer bios boot

When prompted, use your keyboard to specify that you want to boot using the disk or drive. Enter the requested language, currency, and input preferences, then select Repair your computer on the next screen. Next, select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt, you should then see a window to enter commands.

7. Use System Restore or Startup Repair

If you’re already booting Windows 10 from a disk or drive, it’s well worth utilizing a couple of utilities that are available as part of the process. Once you’ve booted from the drive as detailed above, you’ll get access to options that can get your PC back on track. Look out for links to System Restore and Startup Repair on the Advanced Options screen.

System Restore is a utility that allows you to return to a previous Restore Point when your computer was working normally. It can remedy boot problems that were caused by a change you made, rather than a hardware failure.

system restore

Startup Repair is a general-purpose troubleshooter for issues that prevent Windows from starting up. If you’re struggling to find the source of your boot issues, it’s a good idea to run the utility in case it can find a solution.

8. Reassign Your Drive Letter

A system with more than one drive installed can cause boot issues for Windows 10 users if their operating system (OS) volume has its drive letter unintentionally unassigned. However, you can fix this problem with a minimum of fuss by booting to the command prompt interface.

Boot to a command prompt window as explained above, then enter the following to run the disk partition utility:

diskpart

Once this is done, input list volume to print details of all the volumes currently hooked up to your system.

volume list

From here, you can use the select and assign letter commands to reassign the correct letter to an unassigned volume. For instance, if I wanted to assign the letter E to the Audio CD volume in the above image, I would first input “select volume 0” and then input “assign letter=E” to complete the process.

assign letter e

As ever, be very careful when making changes in the command prompt. Making mistakes here can quickly cause further problems from your PC.

9. Dodge the Windows 10 Bootloader

If you run into problems while trying to make a fresh installation of Windows 10, you may encounter the new version of the bootloader utility. This can sometimes interfere with attempts to reach an existing OS installation that’s present on another drive.

Fortunately, there’s a relatively straightforward way to remedy this situation. Boot to the command prompt interface and enter the following:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

Restart your computer, and you should find that the legacy bootloader interface has replaced the Windows 10 iteration. You should have no further problems entering Windows 10 Safe Mode or accessing your existing OS installation.

10. Try a Third-Party Utility

Figuring out what exactly is the cause of the problem is the most challenging part of remedying boot issues. When your system can’t even boot, it’s difficult to diagnose the problem. However, a third-party utility called Boot Repair Disk might have more success.

Boot Repair Disk is an open-source rescue disk that you can use to automatically find and fix issues preventing your PC from booting up. It’s very easy to use—you only have to select whether you’re using a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. The test and any fixes are carried out automatically, although there are options that allow for more close control.

It makes no guarantees to fix your PC, but it may well be able to pinpoint hidden problems.

11. Factory Reset

We’re getting into the more difficult and destructive repair options at this point. Aside from a factory reset, the more difficult options include restoring and refreshing your computer. Each has its own advantages and weaknesses. If you’ve tried all the other options, you’re probably frustrated.

Go for a factory reset. You’ll lose some apps and other data, but you can opt to keep some of your files. A Windows 10 factory reset (Microsoft refers to this process as just “reset”) restores the computer to its default operating state.

12. Repair Update (“In-Place Upgrade”)

The repair installation is similar to a factory reset, except in one big way: it completely reinstalls your computer. Unfortunately, it requires downloading the entire Windows operating system and you’ll need a functional Windows computer with an internet connection.

This method requires that you have a functional computer, a DVD or USB drive, and an internet connection. More or less, you must download and run the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool and use it to create a bootable installer.

This method is fairly complex, but I can recommend a video:

Windows 10 Boot Problems: Fixed!

Solving Windows 10 boot problems is worse than in Windows 7, thanks to the removal of an easy-to-access Safe Mode. (Yes, you read me right, Microsoft removed the F8 option for booting in Safe Mode to give us 2-second faster booting.) That’s why it’s extra important that you use a 16GB flash drive to create a system recovery drive.

Your boot problems might not end there. Next, it could be the turn to solve slow boot issues in Windows 10.

Read the full article: Windows 10 Won’t Boot? Try These 12 Fixes to Get Your PC Running Again


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ACLU calls for a moratorium on government use of facial recognition technologies


Technology executives are pleading with the government to give them guidance on how to use facial recognition technologies, and now the American Civil Liberties Union is weighing in.

On the heels of a Microsoft statement asking for the federal government to weigh in on the technology, the ACLU has called for a moratorium on the use of the technology by government agencies.

“Congress should take immediate action to put the brakes on this technology with a moratorium on its use, given that it has not been fully debated and its use has never been explicitly authorized,” said Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU legislative counsel, in a statement. “And companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and others should be heeding the calls from the public, employees, and shareholders to stop selling face surveillance technology to governments.”

In May the ACLU released a report on Amazon’s sale of facial recognition technology to different law enforcement agencies. And in June the civil liberties group pressed the company to stop selling the technology. One contract, with the Orlando Police Department, was suspended and then renewed after the uproar.

Meanwhile, Google employees revolted over their company’s work with the government on facial recognition tech… and Microsoft had problems of its own after reports surfaced of the work that the company was doing with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service.

Some organizations are already working to regulate how facial recognition technologies are used. At MIT, Joy Buolamwini has created the Algorithmic Justice League, which is pushing a pledge that companies working with the technology can agree to as they work on the tech.

That pledge includes commitments to value human life and dignity, including the refusal to help develop lethal autonomous vehicles or equipping law enforcement with facial analysis products.


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Yes, open office plans are the worst


If you’re endlessly distracted by your co-workers in the gaping open office space you all share, you’re not alone. Compared to traditional office spaces, face-to-face interaction in open office spaces is down 70 percent with resulting slips in productivity, according to Harvard researchers in a new study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B this month.

In the study, researchers followed two anonymous Fortune 500 companies during their transitions between a traditional office space to an open plan environment and used a sensor called a “sociometric badge” (think company ID on a lanyard) to record detailed information about the kind of interactions employees had in both spaces. The study collected information in two stages; first for several weeks before the renovation and the second for several weeks after.

While the concept behind open office spaces is to drive informal interaction and collaboration among employees, the study found that for both groups of employees monitored (52 for one company and 100 for the other company) face-to-face interactions dropped, the number of emails sent increased between 20 and 50 percent and company executives reported a qualitative drop in productivity.

“[Organizations] transform their office architectures into open spaces with the intention of creating more [face-to-face] interaction and thus a more vibrant work environment,” study’s authors, Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban, wrote. “[But] what they often get—as captured by a steady stream of news articles professing the death of the open office is an open expanse of proximal employees choosing to isolate themselves as best they can (e.g. by wearing large headphones) while appearing to be as busy as possible (since everyone can see them).”

While this study is far from the first to point fingers at open office space designs, the researchers claim this is the first study of its kind to collect qualitative data on this shift in working environment instead of relying primarily on employee surveys.

From their results, the researchers provide three cautionary tales:

  1. Open office spaces don’t actually promote interaction. Instead, they cause employees to seek privacy wherever they can find it.
  2. These open spaces might spell bad news for collective company intelligence or, in other words, an overstimulating office space creates a decrease in organizational productivity.
  3. Not all channels of interaction will be effected equally in an open layout change. While the number of emails sent in the study did increase, the study found that the richness of this interaction was not equal to that lost in face-to-face interactions.

Seems like it might be time to (first, find a quiet room) and go back to the drawing board with the open office design.


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Moment Pro Camera app brings big camera controls to your phone


The company that brought you the best glass for your mobile device now gives you DSLR-like controls with their Pro Camera app. Features include full manual adjustment over ISO, shutter speed, white balance, image format and more.

It should be noted that if you don’t have a shiny new device you won’t be able to use the app to its full potential since some of its key features include 3D touch, dual lens control, RAW image format, 120 and 240 fps, and 4k resolution.

Moment says the app is for “anyone looking for pro, manual controls on their phone.” Being one of TechCrunch’s resident image makers, I figured I should take the app out for a spin and pit it against the stock camera app. I enlisted my photogenic friend, Jackie, to be my muse.

Scrolling through the manual settings was very easy and the UI never felt fumbly. The histogram is nice to have and utilizes that iPhone notch well. The app doesn’t have portrait mode, however, which Jackie and I would have loved because who doesn’t love that buttery (fake) bokeh – amirite? Manipulating the exposure in video mode was equally as easy. The app didn’t have an audio meter or level settings, so folks recording dialog or VO need to plan accordingly. Luckily, our shoot didn’t need it since we were shooting slow-mo.

For a couple extra bucks you can get the same manual controls, audio levels, + RAW with ProCam 5. But if you’re already invested in the Moment Lens ecosystem and primarily shoot photography then the upgrade could be a worthwhile addition.

You can save photos in HEIF, JPG, RAW and TIFF format. For video, you have the option to shoot in 24, 30, 60, 120, and 240 fps in either 720p, 1080p or 4k resolution. Free to try. $2.99 iOS and $1.99 Android to upgrade.


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Accelerated Training and Inference with the Tensorflow Object Detection API




Last year we announced the TensorFlow Object Detection API, and since then we’ve released a number of new features, such as models learned via Neural Architecture Search, instance segmentation support and models trained on new datasets such as Open Images. We have been amazed at how it is being used – from finding scofflaws on the streets of NYC to diagnosing diseases on cassava plants in Tanzania.
Today, as part of Google’s commitment to democratizing computer vision, and using feedback from the research community on how to make this codebase even more useful, we’re excited to announce a number of additions to our API. Highlights of this release include:
  • Support for accelerated training of object detection models via Cloud TPUs
  • Improving the mobile deployment process by accelerating inference and making it easy to export a model to mobile with the TensorFlow Lite format
  • Several new model architecture definitions including:
Additionally, we are releasing pre-trained weights for each of the above models based on the COCO dataset.

Accelerated Training via Cloud TPUs
Users spend a great deal of time on optimizing hyperparameters and retraining object detection models, therefore having fast turnaround times on experiments is critical. The models released today belong to the single shot detector (SSD) class of architectures that are optimized for training on Cloud TPUs. For example, we can now train a ResNet-50 based RetinaNet model to achieve 35% mean Average Precision (mAP) on the COCO dataset in < 3.5 hrs.
Accelerated Inference via Quantization and TensorFlow Lite 
To better support low-latency requirements on mobile and embedded devices, the models we are providing are now natively compatible with TensorFlow Lite, which enables on-device machine learning inference with low latency and a small binary size. As part of this, we have implemented: (1) model quantization and (2) detection-specific operations natively in TensorFlow Lite. Our model quantization follows the strategy outlined in Jacob et al. (2018) and the whitepaper by Krishnamoorthi (2018) which applies quantization to both model weights and activations at training and inference time, yielding smaller models that run faster.
Quantized detection models are faster and smaller (e.g., a quantized 75% depth-reduced SSD Mobilenet model runs at >15 fps on a Pixel 2 CPU with a 4.2 Mb footprint) with minimal loss in detection accuracy compared to the full floating point model.
Try it Yourself with a New Tutorial!
To get started training your own model on Cloud TPUs, check out our new tutorial! This walkthrough will take you through the process of training a quantized pet face detector on Cloud TPU then exporting it to an Android phone for inference via TensorFlow Lite conversion.

We hope that these new additions will help make high-quality computer vision models accessible to anyone wishing to solve an object detection problem, and provide a more seamless user experience, from training a model with quantization to exporting to a TensorFlow Lite model ready for on-device deployment. We would like to thank everyone in the community who have contributed features and bug fixes. As always, contributions to the codebase are welcome, and please stay tuned for more updates!

Acknowledgements
This post reflects the work of the following group of core contributors: Derek Chow, Aakanksha Chowdhery, Jonathan Huang, Pengchong Jin, Zhichao Lu, Vivek Rathod, Ronny Votel, Xiangxin Zhu. We would also like to thank the following colleagues: Vasu Agrawal, Sourabh Bajaj, Wenzhe Li, Tsung-Yi Lin, Hernan Moraldo, Kevin Murphy, Sara Robinson, Andrew Selle, Shashi Shekhar, Yash Sonthalia, Zak Stone, Pete Warden, Menglong Zhu.

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