Anthony Levandowski, former Google engineer at center of Waymo-Uber case charged with stealing trade secrets

Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on theft of trade secrets.

The indictment, which is posted below, charges Levandowski with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets while working at Google, where he was an engineer and one of the founding members of the group that worked on Google’s self-driving car project. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges on August 27 at 1:30 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael M. Cousins.

If convicted, Levandowski faces a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, for each violation.

TechCrunch has reached out to Pronto AI, Levandowksi’s new startup, for comment. We will update the story once the company, Levandowksi or his attorneys respond.

The charges stem from Levandowski’s time at Google’s self-driving project, where he led its light detecting and ranging (lidar) engineering team, according to the indictment. The indictment alleges that in the months before his departure, Levandowski downloaded from secure Google repositories numerous engineering, manufacturing, and business files related to Google’s custom lidar and self-driving car technology. Levandowski worked on the project from 2009 until he resigned from Google without notice on January 27, 2016.

Levandowski left Google and started Otto, a self-driving trucking company that was then bought by Uber. Waymo later sued Uber for trade secret theft.

Waymo alleged in the suit, which went to trial, that Levandowski stole trade secrets, which were then used by Uber.  The case went to trial, but was settled in February 2018. Under the settlement, Uber has agreed to not incorporate Waymo’s confidential information into their hardware and software. Uber also agreed to pay a financial settlement which included 0.34% of Uber equity, per its Series G-1 round $72 billion valuation. That calculated at the time to about  $244.8 million in Uber equity.

“We have always believed competition should be fueled by innovation, and we appreciate the work of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI on this case,” a A Waymo spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.

An Uber spokesperson said the company has cooperated with the government throughout their investigation and will continue to do so.

The prosecution is being handled by the Office of the U.S. Attorney, Northern District of California’s new Corporate Fraud Strike Force and is the result of an investigation by the FBI.

“All of us have the right to change jobs,” said U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson, “none of us has the right to fill our pockets on the way out the door.  Theft is not innovation.”

This is a developing story.

Levandowski Indictment by TechCrunch on Scribd

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Hulu redesigns its iOS app for better discovery

At this year’s CES event, Hulu announced plans to trial an updated version of its user interface that would do away with the confusing landing page called “Lineup.” At the time, the company said it was considering both  “Hulu Picks” option or an “Unwatched in My Stuff” screen as a replacement for “Lineup.” Today, Hulu’s new interface is rolling out across iOS devices, the company says.

The Hulu interface launched in 2017 was not always well-liked — something Hulu had acknowledged after a complaint became the most upvoted item on Hulu’s customer feedback forums a couple of years ago. Users felt the interface was too difficult to navigate and the layout was confusing, among other things.

Some of Hulu’s challenges were around the fact that it was trying to merge an on-demand library with a live TV service, while also finding room to promote its original content.

But some of its other design choices were just odd — like its decision to make a single piece of content the main focus for many of its screens, for example. Meanwhile, its landing page “Lineup” never really made sense, either. Its name hinted at some form personalization, but instead, it was more often filled with suggestions of what Hulu was promoting, like “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The updated iOS interface ditches “Lineup,” and replaces it with “Hulu Picks.” This is more clearly a collection of things to watch that’s curated by Hulu staff, rather than algorithmically derived by user viewing behavior.

However, the other landing page Hulu had been considering, “Unwatched in My Stuff,” is still available, just a few swipes over.

While Hulu still gives a single piece of content the focus on its main screens on the iPhone, it’s now easier to see there’s more content available if you swipe down, as the top of the next item’s card is peeking up from the bottom of the screen.

On iPhone, this means you can see two items at a time. On iPad, you can see two rows totaling 6 cards on the app’s main screen when in landscape mode.

This same format applies not only to “Hulu Picks,” but also to neighboring screens like “Live Now,” “Unwatched in My Stuff,” “My Channels,” and the genre-based sections like “Sports,” “News,” “TV,” “Movies,” “Kids,” “Hulu Originals,” and others. Ony the “Keep Watching” screen retains the more traditional thumbnails.

This seems like a small change, but it goes a long way to increase the discoverability of Hulu content, as it reduces how many times you have to swipe to see more suggestions.

Other changes touted at CES like adding expanded metadata next to content (genre, rating, year) or the ability to mark content as “unwatched” haven’t made an appearance. (Plenty of items still lack a rating). The 14-day live TV guide mentioned at CES isn’t available on iOS, either.

Hulu didn’t publicly announce the launch of the iOS redesign, but did confirm it’s rolling out now, only to iOS. They said other devices will get the update “soon.”

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Exploring Weight Agnostic Neural Networks

Posted by Adam Gaier, Student Researcher and David Ha, Staff Research Scientist, Google Research, Tokyo

When training a neural network to accomplish a given task, be it image classification or reinforcement learning, one typically refines a set of weights associated with each connection within the network. Another approach to creating successful neural networks that has shown substantial progress is neural architecture search, which constructs neural network architectures out of hand-engineered components such as convolutional network components or transformer blocks. It has been shown that neural network architectures built with these components, such as deep convolutional networks, have strong inductive biases for image processing tasks, and can even perform them when their weights are randomly initialized. While neural architecture search produces new ways of arranging hand-engineered components with known inductive biases for the task domain at hand, there has been little progress in the automated discovery of new neural network architectures with such inductive biases, for various task domains.

We can look at analogies to these useful components in examples of nature vs. nurture. Just as certain precocial species in biology—who possess anti-predator behaviors from the moment of birth—can perform complex motor and sensory tasks without learning, perhaps we can construct network architectures that can perform well without training. Of course, these natural (and by analogy, artificial) neural networks are further improved through training, but their ability to perform even without learning shows that they contain biases that make them well-suited to their task.

In “Weight Agnostic Neural Networks” (WANN), we present a first step toward searching specifically for networks with these biases: neural net architectures that can already perform various tasks, even when they use a random shared weight. Our motivation in this work is to question to what extent neural network architectures alone, without learning any weight parameters, can encode solutions for a given task. By exploring such neural network architectures, we present agents that can already perform well in their environment without the need to learn weight parameters. Furthermore, in order to spur progress in this field community, we have also open-sourced the code to reproduce our WANN experiments for the broader research community.

Left: A hand-engineered, fully-connected deep neural network with 2760 weight connections. Using a learning algorithm, we can solve for the set of 2760 weight parameters so that this network can perform the BipedalWalker-v2 task. Right: A weight agnostic neural network architecture with 44 connections that can perform the same Bipedal Walker task. Unlike the fully-connected network, this WANN can still perform the task without the need to train the weight parameters of each connection. In fact, to simplify the training, the WANN is designed to perform when the values of each weight connection are identical, or shared, and it will even function if this shared weight parameter is randomly sampled.

Finding WANNs
We start with a population of minimal neural network architecture candidates, each with very few connections only, and use a well-established topology search algorithm (NEAT), to evolve the architectures by adding single connections and single nodes one by one. The key idea behind WANNs is to search for architectures by de-emphasizing weights. Unlike traditional neural architecture search methods, where all of the weight parameters of new architectures need to be trained using a learning algorithm, we take a simpler and more efficient approach. Here, during the search, all candidate architectures are first assigned a single shared weight value at each iteration, and then optimized to perform well over a wide range of shared weight values.

Operators for searching the space of network topologies
Left: A minimal network topology, with input and outputs only partially connected.
Middle: Networks are altered in one of three ways:
(1) Insert Node: a new node is inserted by splitting an existing connection.
(2) Add Connection: a new connection is added by connecting two previously unconnected nodes.
(3) Change Activation: the activation function of a hidden node is reassigned.
Right: Possible activation functions (linear, step, sin, cosine, Gaussian, tanh, sigmoid, inverse, absolute value, ReLU)

In addition to exploring a range of weight agnostic neural networks, it is important to also look for network architectures that are only as complex as they need to be. We accomplish this by optimizing for both the performance of the networks and their complexity simultaneously, using techniques drawn from multi-objective optimization.

Overview of Weight Agnostic Neural Network Search and corresponding operators for searching the space of network topologies.

Training WANN Architectures
Unlike traditional networks, we can easily train the WANN by simply finding the best single shared weight parameter that maximizes its performance. In the example below, we see that our architecture works (to some extent) for a swing-up cartpole task using constant weights:

A WANN performing a Cartpole Swing-up task at various different weight parameters, and also using fine-tuned weight parameters.

As we see in the above figure, while WANNs can perform its task using range of shared weight parameters, the performance is still not comparable to a network that learns weights for each individual connection, as normally done in network training. If we want to further improve its performance, we can use the WANN architecture, and the best shared weight as a starting point to fine-tune the weights of each individual connection using a learning algorithm, like how we would normally train any neural network. Using the weight agnostic property of the network architecture as a starting point, and fine-tuning its performance via learning, may help provide insightful analogies to how animals learn.

Through the use of multi-objective optimization for both performance and network simplicity, our method found a simple WANN for a Car Racing from pixels task that works well without explicitly training for the weights of the network.

The ability for a network architecture to function using only random weights offers other advantages too. For instance, by using copies of the same WANN architecture, but where each copy of the WANN is assigned a different distinct weight value, we can create an ensemble of multiple distinct models for the same task. This ensemble generally achieves better performance than a single model. We illustrate this with an example of an MNIST classifier evolved to work with random weights:

An MNIST classifier evolved to work with random weights.

While a conventional network with random initialization will achieve ~10% accuracy on MNIST, this particular network architecture uses random weights and when applied to MNIST achieves an accuracy much better than chance (> 80%). When an ensemble of WANNs is used, each of which assigned with a different shared weight, the accuracy increases to > 90%.

Even without ensemble methods, collapsing the number of weight values in a network to one allows the network to be rapidly tuned. The ability to quickly fine-tune weights might be useful in continual lifelong learning, where agents acquire, adapt, and transfer skills throughout their lifespan. This makes WANNs particularly well positioned to exploit the Baldwin effect, the evolutionary pressure that rewards individuals predisposed to learn useful behaviors, without being trapped in the computationally expensive trap of ‘learning to learn’.

Conclusion
We hope that this work can serve as a stepping stone to help discover novel fundamental neural network components such as the convolutional network, whose discovery and application have been instrumental to the incredible progress made in deep learning. The computational resources available to the research community have grown significantly since the time convolutional neural networks were discovered. If we are devoting such resources to automated discovery and hope to achieve more than incremental improvements in network architectures, we believe it is also worth searching for with new building blocks, not just their arrangements.

If you are interested to learn more about this work, we invite readers to read our interactive article (or pdf version of the paper for offline reading). In addition to open sourcing these experiments to the research community, we have also released a general Python implementation of NEAT called PrettyNEAT to help interested readers to explore the exciting area of neural network evolution from first principles.

Emojivision app turns your iPhone’s camera into a real-time emoji painting machine

Your iPhone is capable of some impressive feats of computational photography, and a new app created by developer Gabriel O’Flaherty-Chan shows one way all that power can be put to creative use. Emojivision lets you see the world as if it were made up entirely of emojis.

The free app (which induces an in-app purchase for $2.79 that unlocks more emoji packs) works by breaking down your iPhone’s camera sensor input to its color palette fundamentals, finding its nearest neighbor from a subset of emojis (organized thematically within the app) and then rebuilding the image with a filter that overlays the image, and that can run at 60fps so you’d be hard-pressed to spot any lag between it and a real-time feed.

You can use the app to take selfies, interpret photos from your phone’s photo gallery, or just mess around with resolution to see how finely detailed, or how abstractly and yet obviously emoji-based you can get. This isn’t the app to go to if you’re looking for a hyper-realistic or clear visual interpretation of your face, but it is a fun thing to show your friends – and an impressive bit of software engineering, too.

O’Flaherty-Chan has create some noteworthy mobile software projects in the past – including when he managed to hack a fully playable version of Pokémon Yellow onto an Apple Watch. He’s currently working on building a gigantic real-time strategy game set within a procedurally-generated universe – like a ‘No Man’s Sky’ but with a focus on the RTS elements that should make for a very compelling and evolving approach to gathering resources and expanding your empire.

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Google Maps adds biking and ridesharing options to transit directions for multi-mode commutes

Google is introducing combo navigation directions that pair ridesharing and biking options with transit guidance. Starting today, when you search from directions using Google Maps and select the ‘transit’ tap, you’ll see ridesharing options included when the nearest station is a bit further than most people might expect to go on foot. Similarly, you’ll also see routes with bike suggestions for certain legs, all listed alongside routes that stick to just transit alone for a full range of options.

The new hybrid navigation options will include useful info life the cost of rideshare segments, as well as wait times and traffic conditions. You’ll be able to specify your preferred rideshare provider from this available through Google Maps in your area, and also pick which rideshare method you prefer (ie., pool or economy).

[gallery ids="1874327,1874326"]

Bikers will get route directions specific to the best paths and roads for bikes to takes, and in both cases, all of the available info will be fed into providing an overall ETA, so you can make an informed decision about which route and method of transportation to take depending on when you need to be where you’re going.

Google says that the combined transit/ridesharing navigation will start rolling out today on both Android and iOS, and that iOS users will start seeing the biking options today, with Android to follow in the coming weeks.

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Experian makes strategic investment in location data company PlaceIQ

PlaceIQ is announcing a strategic investment from credit reporting company Experian.

CEO Duncan McCall said the investment is part of a growth round that PlaceIQ raised after divesting itself of its advertising business (which is being taken over by Zeta Global). He declined to disclose the size of the round, or of the Experian investment.

“It’s a multi-year, strategic partnership, where we will work together to license data [to Experian], and they also proactively become an investor in the company,” McCall said, adding that this “coincided nicely with us divesting of our media business and raising a modest growth round.”

Experian’s venture arm has backed a number of financial technology startups. Under this partnership, the company will also incorporate PlaceIQ’s LandMark location data product into its broader suite of data and measurement tools.

Alibaba backs PlaceIQ, a provider of location tools and data

Asked about the direction of PlaceIQ’s business going forward, McCall explained that the company started with a focus on selling location data, and now, it’s gone back to “being a data-only company again.”

“Of course, we would have preferred to have focused on just one business model all these years, but life’s not that simple,” he said.

In his telling, PlaceIQ had to expand into the ad sales business because the infrastructure didn’t exist at the time to incorporate that data into the ad-buying process. Now that the infrastructure is there, PlaceIQ can focus once more on selling location data, which can then be used for targeting on a broad range of ad-buying platforms.

According to Crunchbase, PlaceIQ previously raised a total of $52 million in funding.

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You Can Now Pre-Order Mario Kart Tour on Mobile

Mario Kart Tour is finally ready for release. After an extended delay, Nintendo has announced that Mario Kart Tour will be available on Android and iOS in September 2019. Which is a full 18 months after Nintendo originally announced its latest mobile game.

Nintendo Ventures Into Mobile Gaming

In 2015, Nintendo announced that it was investing in mobile gaming. And not mobile gaming on the 3DS but mobile gaming on smartphones and tablets. At the time we asked whether Nintendo going mobile would be good or bad for gaming. And the jury is still out.

Nintendo started its foray into mobile gaming with Super Mario Run, which was free-to-try but with a hefty fee to unlock the whole game. We have since enjoyed Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, a host of Pokemon titles, and, most recently, Dr. Mario World.

When Is Mario Kart Tour Being Released?

The next game on Nintendo’s release schedule is Mario Kart Tour, which will be available on Android and iOS from September 25, 2019. You can pre-order Mario Kart Tour on iOS and pre-register your interest on Android right now.

Pre-registration for Mario Kart Tour is now available! For more details, please click here: https://t.co/loB3wf6eOv#MarioKartTour will be available on 9/25. We hope you're looking forward to getting behind the wheel of this new game! pic.twitter.com/afPFp94iNi

— Mario Kart Tour (@mariokarttourEN) August 27, 2019

Mario Kart Tour will be free-to-play, with extra courses, characters, and other elements available to those willing to pay for the privilege. The game looks visually impressive, and if the gameplay matches the visuals then Mario Kart Tour could be a winner.

Mario Kart Tour should immediately feel familiar to anyone who has previously played a Mario Kart title. You choose a character, and then hopefully drive them to victory on a range of different courses against a range of different characters.

As you would expect, the controls have been simplified for mobile. You can turn your character’s kart either by tilting the device or dragging your finger across the screen. And drifting can either set to be automatic or controlled manually.

Download: Mario Kart Tour on Android | iOS

The Best Local Multiplayer Games on Mobile

We’ll only know how good Mario Kart Tour plays when it’s released on September 25, 2019. And we suspect the free-to-play mechanic will make or break this title. In the meantime, here are the best local multiplayer games on Android and iOS.

Read the full article: You Can Now Pre-Order Mario Kart Tour on Mobile

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4 Ways to Run Any Program as an Administrator in Windows

When you open most programs in Windows, they don’t run as an administrator, even if you’re signed into an admin account. This is due to a feature called User Account Control (UAC), which lets you only run apps with admin privileges when necessary.

It might seem annoying, but this protects your PC. By not granting your account unneeded privileges, you avoid potentially compromising its security.

However, oftentimes you need to run a program as an administrator to make changes or troubleshoot. Here’s how to run any Windows program as an administrator, and how to fix admin-related problems when they arise.

1. The Standard Method to Run Programs as Admin

Whether you want to launch a program from your desktop, Start Menu, or File Explorer, right-clicking on it will show a Run as administrator option. Once you click this, you’ll see the UAC prompt to run the program with admin rights.

This is reliable but does take a few extra clicks. You can even do it with icons on your Taskbar—right-click them once to bring up a menu, then right-click the name of the app in that menu to show the Run as administrator option.

2. Use the Keyboard to Open as Admin Faster

As with many operations, you can use keyboard shortcuts to more quickly launch programs as an administrator. To do so using only the keyboard, press the Windows key to open the search bar, then you can immediately start typing the name of the program you want to open.

Once it’s highlighted, hold Ctrl + Shift and press Enter. This will launch the UAC prompt, and you can press the Left arrow key followed by Enter to accept it without touching the mouse.

In some places, you can hold Ctrl + Shift when clicking a program icon to launch it as an admin. However, this was inconsistent in our testing.

3. Try a Geeky Method to Run as Admin

For something a bit different, you can launch programs as an admin through the Task Manager. Use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc shortcut to open it, and expand it with More details if needed.

Click File > Run new task and enter the name of the executable you want to run. Use the Browse button to locate it on your PC if needed. Make sure to check Create this task with administrative privileges, and click OK to run it.

4. Always Run Programs as Administrator

Maybe there’s a certain program you want to run as an admin every time. In that case, you can set it to do so instead of using one of the above methods each time you launch it.

Start by searching for the app you want to modify. Right-click its entry in the search results and choose Open file location to show its main executable. On this, right-click again and select Properties.

In the resulting window, switch to the Compatibility tab. Near the bottom, check the box labeled Run this program as an administrator, then hit OK when you’re done. Once you’ve done this, the app will prompt you to launch with admin permissions each time you open it.

We recommend using this with caution. You shouldn’t give an app admin permissions unless you actively need to; running apps as an admin every time makes it easier for malware to gain control.

If you’d like, a slightly safer solution is to create a shortcut for the app and set that to run as an admin all the time. First, right-click the executable and choose Send to > Desktop (create shortcut) to place a shortcut on your desktop.

Next, right-click that shortcut and choose Properties. In the resulting dialog box, switch to the Shortcut tab and click the Advanced button at the bottom. Here, check the Run as administrator box.

After doing this, only that shortcut, not the main executable file, will run with admin rights.

Run as Administrator Not Working?

Sometimes, you’ll find that none of the above methods to run a program as admin will work. If this happens, you can attempt a few different fixes.

Review UAC Settings

As mentioned earlier, User Account Control in Windows lets you control how programs run with admin rights. If you’re logged into an administrator account, you’ll have to provide confirmation when a program wants to run as an admin. Those logged into standard accounts have to provide administrator credentials to do this.

To check your current setting, type uac into the Start menu and open the Change User Account Control settings option. Here you’ll see four levels of UAC to choose from.

From top to bottom, these are:

• Always notify when you make changes to Windows settings or apps make changes. This is equivalent to Windows Vista’s original UAC implementation.
• Notify only when apps try to make changes. This is the default setting and the one most people should use.
• Notify only when apps try to make changes, but don’t dim the desktop. This is the same as above, except the UAC window does not darken the desktop.
• Never notify. This disables UAC prompts altogether. We don’t recommend this setting, because when using an admin account, it automatically approves all requests to run as administrator without your permission. And if you’re using a Standard account, it automatically denies all admin requests.

Thus, if you have UAC disabled, you won’t be able to use the Run as admin command properly. Make sure you have it turned on, then try again.

Make Sure You Have Access to an Admin Account

To use UAC properly, you need to have access to an administrator account. If you don’t have an administrator’s password or you’re typing the credentials for an account that’s not an admin, it won’t work. Thus, you should make sure you have your user accounts straight.

The easiest way to check this is to enter netplwiz into the Start menu to open the User Accounts panel. Here you’ll see a list of all users on your PC and what group they’re in. Double-click one and switch to the Group Membership tab to change an account’s permission level.

Of course, you’ll need to be logged in to an admin account to change this. If you’ve forgotten the password to all admin accounts, you’ll need to reset your lost Windows password. Should you continue to have issues after this, try making a fresh account and see if that makes a difference.

Run an SFC Scan

An SFC, or System File Checker scan will check for corrupted Windows system files and try to repair them. It’s worth a try if you’ve gotten this far without a solution, though you’ll need to have admin permissions to do so.

To use it, press Win + X and select Command Prompt (Admin) or Windows PowerShell (Admin) in the resulting menu. Then enter the following command:

sfc /scannow

Once it’s done, you’ll see a message if it performed any fixes.

Try Safe Mode

If you’ve double-checked everything above and find that you still can’t run programs as an admin properly, you should next try booting in Safe Mode. This will disable all but the essential services from running, allowing you to see if any third-party services are interfering with the run as admin function.

Run Windows Programs as Admin Wisely

You know several different ways to run Windows programs as an administrator, and how to solve issues with this function when they arise. Remember to always think twice when you use admin privileges. Doing so grants a program full control over your computer, so you should only authorize apps you trust.

To make sure the user accounts on your computer are secure, see our guide to locking down Windows accounts.

Read the full article: 4 Ways to Run Any Program as an Administrator in Windows

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Twitch vs. Mixer vs. YouTube Live: Which Streaming Platform Is Best?

There are various live-streaming platforms available these days. The big three being Twitch, Mixer, and YouTube Live. But which is best if you want to start streaming today?

In this article we’ll briefly introduce you to all three of the big live-streaming platforms, and help you decide which is best for your needs. This is Twitch vs. Mixer vs. YouTube Live.

Twitch

Twitch is currently the undisputed king of online streaming platforms. The Amazon-owned site, which started out as Justin.tv, now has more than 15 million active daily users.

While most Twitch streams feature popular games, the platform also caters to art and music channels, along with talk shows and live vloggers (also known as IRL channels).

Twitch streamers can earn money through advertisements on their streams, or through tiered viewer subscriptions starting from $4.99/month. Amazon Prime users get one free subscription per month.

Right now, if you are serious about becoming a streamer, Twitch is still the best option. You’ll have a hard time getting started, but the rewards for building a popular stream are bigger.

Pros:

• Huge potential audience which is continuing to grow.
• Stream on every platform or device (OBS or similar required for computer)
• Powerful community and chat tools
• Amazon Prime users get a free channel subscription

Cons:

• Huge userbase can make it hard to stand out.

Mixer

Mixer is Microsoft’s answer to Twitch. Originally called Beam, it was bought and rebranded in 2016. Mixer initially struggled to gain traction, but things have changed recently.

In August 2019, Ninja, one of the most popular streamers in the world, switched from Twitch to Mixer. The news made waves, and has helped Mixer gain a significant foothold since.

Much like Twitch, Mixer is focused on gaming and gamers. You won’t find much other than gaming streams, although there are growing IRL and Talk Show scenes on the site.

One of the great benefits of Mixer is just how easy it is to use from Windows and Xbox One. To see just how quickly you can start streaming on PC or mobile. Here’s how to start streaming on Mixer for more details.

Mixer streams currently have no adverts, so streamers rely on subscribers. The subscription cost on Mixer is slightly higher at $7.99/month. Mixer’s high level of interaction (with some games even supporting chat controlled integration) may make up for this difference. While still small, the platform has already attracted some loyal audiences.

Pros:

• Currently gaining users fast due to Ninja’s move.
• Smaller userbase makes it easier to find an audience.
• Easy to use for Windows and Xbox One users, no need for OBS or Xsplit.
• High level of viewer interaction with MixPlay.
• Streaming from mobile devices from day one.

Cons:

• No native PS4 support.
• Smaller userbase may mean a longer road to any financial gain.
• Not many opportunities for non-gaming streams.

YouTube Live

While YouTube is still by far the most popular video hosting service, it’s catching up in terms of streaming too. The Google-owned company recently scrapped its YouTube Gaming platform, consolidating all video and streaming into the main YouTube site.

This means that anyone with a following has an audience already waiting for them when they choose to stream. Much like Twitch, users can stream from a computer using OBS, or a mobile device. However, mobile users will need over 1,000 subscribers to start live streaming.

Confusingly, following someone for free on YouTube is called a subscription. To get paid membership benefits from channels on YouTube, you must “join” them. Other than the name difference, the $4.99/mo cost and viewer benefits are much the same.

YouTube frequently comes under fire for blocking ad revenue from its users. Out of the three here, it certainly seems to be the hardest place to pursue a streaming career. Which is something worth bearing in mind if you are setting your sights high.

Pros:

• Streams can be rewound, and are saved automatically after they end.
• Great if you already have a YouTube following.

Cons:

• YouTube is very strict in terms of offensive content and copyright violation.
• No Xbox One support.
• Streaming from mobile devices possible, though requires at least 1000 channel subscribers.

Twitch vs. Mixer vs. YouTube Live: Which Is Best?

All three of these services provide something subtly different to audiences and streamers alike. If you are already active on YouTube, then that’s probably the place for you.

If you are a completely new streamer looking to get experience and recognition quickly, Mixer might be for you. It’s undoubtedly the strongest in terms of ways viewers can interact with your stream.

In truth, though, Twitch is still the top dog in streaming. There’s no bigger potential audience pool, and almost all the biggest streaming celebrities and esports players use it. If you are willing to put the time in to stand out from the crowd, Twitch is the place to do it.

Why Choose a Live-Streaming Platform?

Choosing a service is one of the first things you’ll need to do as a streamer. Or is it? There is another option called Multistreaming.

Platforms like Restream allow you to broadcast to multiple platforms simultaneously. Why choose between Twitch, Mixer, and YouTube when you can stream to all three at the same time?

If you aim to reach as many potential viewers as possible, this is the option for you. There is, however, a catch. Twitch affiliates are not allowed to stream on multiple platforms simultaneously. Part of the affiliate agreement states that Twitch owns the broadcast during, and up to 24 hours after.

Given Twitch’s domination of live-streaming currently, that might be enough to put off potential multi-streamers.

How to Build a Live-Streaming Audience

If you are serious about streaming, you can turn it into a career regardless of which platform you choose to use. No matter which of the three you choose, here’s how to build an audience for your live streaming channel.

As it stands, however, Twitch is still king, and our Twitch tips to help you build a bigger viewership could help kickstart your streaming career.

Read the full article: Twitch vs. Mixer vs. YouTube Live: Which Streaming Platform Is Best?

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Should You Upgrade to NVMe? 6 Reasons to Stick With SATA SSDs

5 Easy-to-Use Project Management Tools for Mac

Projects come in all shapes and sizes, as do the tools that project managers use to handle them. You can search for project management software to purchase, but often these types of applications can be costly, and you may not even know if you’ll like it before you buy it.

If you’re a Mac user looking for a project management tool, this list is for you. These project management apps for Mac are easy to use, have the features you need, and are either free to use or offer a free trial, so you can at least try before you buy.

1. Trello

If the Kanban method of project management is your preferred style, then Trello is a terrific choice. One of the best parts about using Trello is that it’s available across many platforms, including the web, so you can access your projects from anywhere, at any time. See the Trello Apps page for downloads.

Trello lets you create multiple boards, use various lists, and add cards for every task or piece of your project. You can use backgrounds and colors to customize the app, sync your calendar to stay up to date, and view all activities with a click.

Trello’s standout features:

• Check out helpful Power-Ups to connect services like Slack, Google Drive, Miro, GitHub, and more.
• Include team members, due dates, labels, documents, checklists, and photos on the cards in your lists.
• Use the Trello email address you get with each board to turn email messages into cards (tasks) for your boards.

With Trello, you can collaborate easily by creating teams to view projects and assigning cards to members. Receive notifications, group boards into categories, and adjust settings for boards within groups for team visibility and members.

You can use Trello for free or take a look at Trello’s subscription plans that give you features like unlimited team boards, custom automation with Butler, advanced administrator permissions, simple data export, and more.

Download: Trello (Free, subscription available)

2. MeisterTask

MeisterTask is another project management app based on the Kanban method. And like Trello, you’ll find multiple supported platforms, including the web, on MeisterTask’s download page. Create your project, add sections (lists), and include cards for tasks that you can assign to others.

You can quickly view activities for your projects with a click of the sidebar button. Plus, you can see a badge for how many notifications you have, search tasks easily by keyword, and customize tags for keeping like items together.

MeisterTask’s standout features:

• Use Power-Ups for services like Zapier, GitHub, Slack, Office 365, and others.
• Send invites to your team members and easily see in the sidebar how many tasks are assigned to members.
• Include due dates, tags, files, lists, and notes on the cards in your lists.

The MeisterTask app on Mac is very similar to Trello, but with a few extra features and Power-Ups that you might like. And since it’s accessible from almost anywhere, you can view and manage your projects on your computer or on-the-go.

Download and use the app for free, or take a look at MeisterTask’s subscriptions with additional features like unlimited integrations, automation, recurring tasks, multiple team members, and more.

Download: MeisterTask (Free, subscription available)

3. Ora

Ora is another project management app for Mac that uses Kanban. However, it also offers scrum, agile Kanban, and other types of board templates. Starting with a project board template makes the setup a bit easier, but you can also create one from scratch if you prefer.

The app has four major sections in its Mac app, including Projects, Agenda, Timeline, and Reports with a simple left-hand navigation.

For each project you add, you can adjust the settings for visibility, permissions, customization, export, and what’s called Danger Zone. The Danger Zone allows you to move, archive, and delete projects.

Ora’s standout features:

• Enable add-ons for sprints, a pipeline workflow, time tracking, team chat, invoicing, and many more.
• Connect Ora to services like Slack, GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, Trello, Zendesk, and Google Calendar to keep your projects on track.
• Include due dates, labels, documents, lists, and photos on the cards in your lists.

With Ora, you can add team members for collaboration, receive notifications so you’re in-the-know, import projects from other apps, and create your own board templates for easy management of multiple projects.

Ora is free on the Mac App Store with limited features. You can check out Ora’s subscription plan pricing for additional users, list actions, unlimited members, file encryption, and other features. Visit the the Ora app page to download it for other platforms.

Download: Ora (Free, subscription available)

4. Merlin Project Express

If you’re looking for a critical path method project management app that offers a Gantt chart and work breakdown structure, then check out Merlin Project Express. It powerful full-size view lets you manage your complex or lengthy projects easily.

Add your tasks and subtasks, reference numbers, start and end dates, resources, and predecessors in the work breakdown section. You can expand and collapse tasks and subtasks as well as sort columns different ways, both for easier viewing.

You can move tasks or task dependencies on the timeline quickly with a simple drag-and-drop action. By expanding the inspector on the right, you can easily jump to other project sections like notes, calendar, or lists. There is also a handy attachment viewer that you can open on the bottom.

Merlin Project Express’s standout features:

• Create multiple new projects with built-in templates for a solid start.
• Add resource details including type, contact information, costs, and rates.
• Toggle the critical path visibility with a click.

The Merlin Project Express app is intended for home and semi-professional project management. If you need a little extra, you can check out Merlin Project: Gantt & Kanban for project professionals.

Give it a try with a free 14-day trial. After that, you can take a look at the Merlin Project Express subscription plans as well as those for the full Merlin Project.

Download: Merlin Project Express (Free trial, subscription required)

5. OmniPlan 3

OmniPlan 3 is a robust project management app for Mac that gives you a Gantt chart, work breakdown structure, network view, resource section, reporting, analysis tools, and much more. This app comes to you from The Omni Group: the same company that offers OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, and OmniOutliner.

For the complete package, you can manage your projects from the planning phase to closeout with an intuitive interface and valuable features that go beyond similar apps.

OmniPlan 3’s standout features:

• Add normal working days and hours, as well as extra hours and time off for managing resources.
• Set up target completion dates for tasks, along with a partial completion option.
• View reports for earned value, resources, a resource timeline, and overview.

For professional project managers that use a Mac, OmniPlan 3 is the project management tool you want. It packs plenty of additional features that you’ll certainly appreciate. Set your baseline, use the inspector to zero in on milestones, tasks, and custom data, and sync or share easily.

Of all project management apps on this list, purchasing OmniPlan 3 is the biggest expense. You do, however, get to use a free two-week trial before you buy, which is much appreciated for a powerful app like this.

Download: OmniPlan 3 (Free trial, subscription required)

A Project Management Mac App for Any Project

Each of these project management apps for Mac offers something a little different than the rest. Whether you choose by project size, project management style, or even by price, you’ll find one on this list that fits you.

For more help managing projects, you might also check out these Outlook add-ins for project management or take a look at online project management tools for small teams.

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Google’s Nest doorbell camera plan gets a package-detection feature

Nest’s transition into the broader Google brand portfolio could honestly be going a bit better. For its part, Google has promised that it will keep adding compelling software features into the ecosystem, and this morning’s announcement is a pretty good start.

The company just announced the addition of a package-detecting feature for Nest Hello users with an active Nest Aware subscription. The feature, which starts rolling out to users today, will use the doorbell camera to track package pickups and deliveries.

Among the more interesting bits here is the ability to draw “Activity Zones” in order to distinguished those places on one’s doorstep or porch where packages are usually delivered. This leverages an existing Nest Aware feature that works as follows:

Activity Zones can have your camera send alerts and mark your video history timeline when there’s important motion in the zone. You can set up your own custom zones, and in some cases, Nest will even do the work for you by automatically creating a zone over a spot we think you’d find interesting so alerts become more specific and meaningful.

When packages are delivered and picked up, Next Aware will send a notification. The app will note when the feature is live, and users can opt to turn it on or off. Per Google:

To get the most out of the feature we suggest users check that packages can be seen in Hello’s video stream and ensure the spot is well-lit. If not, you may need to install a wedge to change Hello’s angle (a complementary wedge comes with the device), or remove the object that blocks the package from Hello’s view.

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How climate change affects your mental health | Britt Wray

How climate change affects your mental health | Britt Wray

"For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming world," says science writer Britt Wray. In this quick talk, she explores how climate change is threatening our well-being -- mental, social and spiritual -- and offers a starting point for what we can do about it.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Yelp will let users personalize their homepage and search results

Yelp announced this morning that it will start allowing users to tailor their search results and homepage based on their personal preferences.

In other words, if you’re vegetarian, or if you’re parent who’s usually looking for kid-friendly restaurants, you won’t have to reenter that information every time you do a search. Instead, you can enter it once and Yelp will prioritize those results moving forward.

“In the history of Yelp, this is the first time two people searching for the same thing from the same context are going to see different, personalized results,” said Head of Consumer Product Akhil Ramesh.

To do this, users select the “Personalize your experience” option, then choose options around dietary restrictions (whether they’re vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and so on), their lifestyle (whether they’re parents, car owners or pet owners), their accessibility needs (wheelchair access, gender neutral bathrooms), the types of food they prefer and other interests (like bookstores or date nights).

Once you’ve made your selections, those preferences will start affecting the search results you see. The personalization should be obvious because the results will be identified as having “many vegetarian options” or “because you like Chinese food.” The homepage will also start highlighting locations that it thinks you would like.

In some ways, this feels like a long overdue move, particularly when so many other popular apps and websites are already heavily personalized. Shy is Yelp finally adopting this approach now?

For one thing, Ramesh pointed to a growing interest in different diets. For another, he said, “We have years and years of unstructured, expressive, quality content, and this content is representative of a real experience with a business. Over the last few years our machine learning and AI capabilities have grown immensely, and what that’s allowed us to do is build really useful features on top of the high quality content that we have.”

Ramesh emphasized that Yelp will focus on using your explicitly shared preferences to shape your results, as opposed to feeding all your behavior into an algorithm. After all, he said, “any machine learning algorithm is going to have tons of biases.”

He described this approach as “the human way”: If you were having a conversation with a person, “You wouldn’t try to assume what the person did over the weekend. You would just ask the person and have an open conversation.”

At the same time, he said there are times when using your general behavior in the app to influence the results could be helpful, so Ramesh said, “We’re trying to figure out how to balance those aspects.”

He also noted that your preferences could change depending on timing and context: You might abandon a certain diet, or you might go out for a meal without your kids. So you can adjust your preferences at any time — or conversely, dive more deeply into one of them by selecting a list from the homepage.

Asked how this affects Yelp’s ad business, Ramesh said it won’t influence the ads you see initially, but the ads will come with similar “Because you liked X” messages tied to your preferences..

“I wouldn’t be surprised if which advertiser we show will be you based on your preferences [eventually], but there’s no ETA
 on that,” he added.

Yelp adds portfolios and highlights to its business profiles

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