Games already are social networks

Video games are only getting more popular.

Roughly 2.5 billion people around the world played games last year, double the number of players in 2013. Gaming is a $149 billion industry, growing 7% year over year, with the U.S. as its largest market. In America, the average gamer is 33 years old and 46% of gamers are female, according to the Entertainment Software Association.

Per Quartz reporter Dan Kopf’s summary of U.S. Department of Labor data:

More people now report playing games on a typical day — 11.4% in 2017 compared to 7.8% in 2003 — and, on days they do play games, they spend more time doing so — about 145 minutes in 2017, compared to 125 in 2003.

Young people are the biggest driver of the trend. From 2003 to 2015, 15-24 year olds spent less than 25 minutes playing games on the average day. From 2015 to 2017, those in that age group dedicated almost 40 minutes a day to games.

Mobile games account for a large part of this dramatic growth, but all major game categories are growing. The console gaming market — the oldest segment and most expensive due to hardware cost — expanded more than 7% last year alone.

Read Full Article

A multiverse, not the metaverse

Following web forums, web platforms and mobile apps, we are entering a new stage of social media — the multiverse era — where the virtual worlds of games expand to become mainstream hubs for social interaction and entertainment. In a seven-part Extra Crunch series, we will explore why that is the case and which challenges and opportunities are making it happen.

In 10 years, we will have undergone a paradigm shift in social media and human-computer interaction, moving away from 2D apps centered on posting content toward shared feeds and an era where mixed reality (viewed with lightweight headsets) mixes virtual and physical worlds. But we’re not technologically or culturally ready for that future yet. The “metaverse” of science fiction is not arriving imminently.

Instead, the virtual worlds of multiplayer games — still accessed from phones, tablets, PCs and consoles — are our stepping stones during this next phase.

Understanding this gradual transition helps us reconcile the futuristic visions of many in tech with the reality of how most humans will participate in virtual worlds and how social media impacts society. This transition centers on the merging of gaming and social media and leads to a new model of virtual worlds that are directly connected with our physical world, instead of isolated from it.

Multiverse virtual worlds will come to function almost like new countries in our society, countries that exist in cyberspace rather than physical locations but have complex economic and political systems that interact with the physical world.

Throughout these posts, I make a distinction between the “physical,” “virtual,” and “real” worlds. Our physical world defines tangible existence like in-person interactions and geographic location. The virtual world is that of digital technology and cyberspace: websites, social media, games. The real world is defined by the norms of what we accept as normal and meaningful in society. Laws and finance aren’t physical, but they are universally accepted as concrete aspects of life. I’ll argue here that social media apps are virtual worlds we have accepted as real — unified with normal life rather than separate from it — and that multiverse virtual worlds will make the same crossover.

In fact, because they incentivize small group interactions and accomplishment of collaborative tasks rather than promotion of viral posts, multiverse virtual worlds will bring a healthier era for social media’s societal impact.

The popularity of massive multiplayer online (MMO) gaming is exploding at the same time that the technology to access persistent virtual worlds with high-quality graphics from nearly any device is hitting the market. The rise of Epic Games’ Fortnite since 2017 accelerated interest in MMO games from both consumers who don’t consider themselves gamers and from journalists and investors who hadn’t paid much attention to gaming before.

In the decade ahead, people will come to socialize as much in virtual worlds that evolved from games as they will on platforms like Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Building things with friends within virtual worlds will become common, and major events within the most popular virtual worlds will become pop culture news stories.

Right now, three-quarters of U.S.-based Facebook users interact with the site on a daily basis; Instagram (63%), Snapchat (61%), YouTube (51%) and Twitter (41%) have similarly penetrated the daily lives of Americans. By comparison, the percentage of people who play a game on any given day increased from just 8% in 2003 to 11% in 2016. Within the next few years, that number will multiply as the virtual worlds within games become more fulfilling social, entertainment and commercial platforms.

As I mentioned in my 2020 media predictions article, Facebook is readying itself for this future and VCs are funding numerous startups that are building toward it, like Klang Games, Darewise Entertainment and Singularity 6. Epic Games joins Roblox and Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) as among the best-positioned large gaming companies to seize this opportunity. Startups are already popping up to provide the middleware for virtual economies as they become larger and more complex, and a more intense wave of such startups will arrive over the next few years to provide that infrastructure as a service.

What to expect in digital media in 2020

Over the next few years, there will be a trend: new open-world MMO games that emphasize social functionality that engages users, even if they don’t care much about the mission of the game itself. These new products will target casual gamers wanting to enter the world for merely a few minutes at a time since hardcore gamers are already well-served by game publishers.

Some of these more casual, socializing-oriented MMOs will gain widespread popularity, the economy within and around them will soar and the original gaming scenario that provided a focus on what to do will diminish as content created by users becomes the main attraction.

Let’s explore the forces that underpin this transition. Here are the seven articles in this series:

1. Games already are social networks
2. Social apps already are lightweight virtual worlds
3. What virtual worlds in this transition era look like
4. Why didn’t this already happen?
5. How virtual worlds could save society
6. The rise of virtual economies and their merging with our “real” economy
7. Competitive landscape of the multiverse

Read Full Article

Management lessons from Chinese business and philosophy | Fang Ruan

Management lessons from Chinese business and philosophy | Fang Ruan

Business management in China is changing, says management consultant Fang Ruan. Learn how Chinese entrepreneurs -- long guided by Confucianism's emphasis on authority and regulation -- are now looking to Taoist philosophy for a new, dynamic leadership style that believes things spontaneously transform and naturally achieve perfection when they're supported, not controlled.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

The Fairphone 3 is an Affordable, Ethical, Sustainable Must-Have

Our verdict of the Fairphone 3:
The Fairphone 3 is a great all-round, affordable Android smartphone. Although, it's the company's ethical and environmental credentials that make this phone worth the investment. 810

It’s no secret that smartphone production is not an ethical or sustainable industry. From the workers who mine the materials, all the way through to the factory line staff, modern electronics manufacturing is rife with issues.

As a conscientious consumer, you may have been looking for a better option, but found yourself lost in a sea of marketing and unproven claims. However, there is an alternative out there.

Environmentally and ethically-minded manufacturer Fairphone has been making devices since 2013, and recently launched the latest iteration of their flagship smartphone, the Fairphone 3.

Specifications

• Operating System: Android 9.0
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 632
• RAM: 4GB
• Storage: 64GB, expandable
• Battery: 3,000mAh
• Display: 5.65-inch Full HD+ with Gorilla Glass 5
• Camera: 12MP front, 8MP rear
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, NFC, Dual SIM
• Ports: 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C charging port
• Price: €450 (currently available in the EU & UK only)

Design

Most smartphones come in a rectangular package, roughly the size of the palm of your hand. The display dominates the front of the device. In this respect, the Fairphone 3 is no different.

At first glance, the unassuming device looks much like any other mid-range phone. However, look a little closer, and the unique details begin to show.

Front

The front of the Fairphone 3 is covered edge-to-edge by the display, aside from small segments at the top and bottom. The top of the phone houses the speaker and front-facing camera, while the bottom displays the Fairphone logo. The speaker seems unusually prominent, and that’s intentional.

This smartphone is designed to be easily repairable, so many standard components are replaceable with minimal effort, and can even be purchased from Fairphone’s website. This is part of the company’s commitment to environmental concerns. Many people upgrade their phones when they become damaged—like a broken speaker or damaged charging port—as the cost of repairing them isn’t economical.

Fairphone devices are designed to last, and the company eschews annual upgrades and releases. In fact, four years separated the release of the Fairphone 2 and Fairphone 3. Being able to service your device not only increases its lifespan but also keeps costs down, too. In keeping with this ethic, it is possible to pop-off the back of the phone to access the battery compartment and the SIM card and SD card slots.

Rear

The back is the device isn’t colored, with Fairphone opting for a translucent effect, allowing you to see an outline of the electronic components below. The 12MP camera is located on the upper left, while the fingerprint reader is slightly lower in the middle of the phone.

The placement of the fingerprint reader is a little awkward, as it’s too high up the back of the phone for your finger to land on it comfortably. Unlike many of their peers, Fairphone hasn’t removed the 3.5mm headphone jack, which can be found on the top of the phone.

On the underside, there is a single USB-C charging port. You’ll also find all the device’s buttons on the left-hand side, including options for volume up, volume down, and power.

Operating System and Software

The Fairphone 3, like the company’s previous models, runs Google’s Android operating system. While some manufacturers layer their own software atop Google’s platform, Fairphone uses stock Android in their smartphones. The device ships with Android 9.0 Pie pre-installed, which was released in 2018. Google follows an annual upgrade schedule, so in 2020 Android will be again updated to Android 11.

There was a time when OS updates used to be feature-heavy releases, but these days most updates are relatively minor. Android 9 supports many of the same everyday apps and services that you’d expect from your smartphone. But it is worth considering if you feel like this would be an important factor to you, especially if you intend to keep the Fairphone 3 for around four years.

The Fairphone 2 supported two operating systems; Android and Fairphone OS, the company’s open-source Android platform. Android, as most of us know it, is heavily focused on Google services, with this software deeply embedded into the OS. However, Android is actually open-source software, allowing anyone to customize their own variations. Fairphone OS was designed to provide a Google-free Android experience for the Fairphone 2.

Unfortunately, Fairphone OS is not currently available for the Fairphone 3, although it may be an option in the future. That the company is committed to a Google-free Android experience is evidence of their ethical stance. Google, as the world’s largest ad-provider, comes with many ethical and privacy-related problems. Generally speaking, those who care about repairability, ethical consumerism, and environmental impact are likely to embrace ways to minimize Google’s presence in their lives.

Fairphone 3 Performance

While ethics and environmentalism are crucial considerations, so, too, is the performance of the Fairphone 3. After all, you wouldn’t want to be lumbered with a sub-par device for the next few years. Fortunately, that won’t be the case if you opt for this smartphone.

As is to be expected for a phone at this price point, you won’t get flagship-level performance. However, unless you produce professional video or photo content with your smartphone, or hope to play the latest mobile games, the Fairphone 3 will be more than enough for most other uses.

Compared to similarly priced alternatives, the camera is lacking. In theory, the Fairphone 3 has a similar sensor to the Google Pixel 3a. However, it is the power of Google’s software that polishes average snaps into something worthy of your favorite social network. There’s nothing wrong with the Fairphone 3 camera, but it’s not spectacular either. This will become more evident over the phone’s lifetime, too.

If you’re transitioning from a flagship device from the past few years, the Fairphone 3 will feel slow. There is a slight lag when opening or switching between applications. It’s not enough to be annoying, but you’ll notice it all the same.

That said, the point of the Fairphone 3 isn’t necessarily to make the highest-performing device; it’s about rethinking how we approach electronics. Although it would be easy to dismiss the phone when comparing it against other recently-released smartphones, that would be to miss the Fairphone’s difference. This isn’t an excuse, either, but is the reality of choosing an ethical smartphone.

Fairphone 3 Battery Life

Given the specifications of this phone, I wasn’t expecting much when it came to battery life, either. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it lasted about a week in standby—powered on, with apps running in the background, but no regular use—and easily made it through a day’s worth of regular use. The Fairphone 3 doesn’t come with a charger in the box.

As the phone uses the now-common USB-C charging port, it’s likely you already have a suitable charger. If not, they are easily found in most retailers. This decision reduces the amount of e-waste generated by the Fairphone 3. Most of us also carry portable chargers around, too, reducing the need for a wall socket charger. As you can easily access and remove the battery, you could also keep a charged spare with you to swap out as needed.

Ethical Considerations

Apple, generally regarded as the most principled of all the large tech companies, uses a company called Foxconn to manufacture their iPhones. Since 2010, there have been ongoing worker welfare issues in these factories, and in some cases, becoming a contributing factor in several suicides.

Apple is certainly not alone, of course: Doro, Google, HMD Global (Nokia), HTC, Samsung, Sony, TCL, and ZTE have all received Ethical Consumer’s worst rating for supply chain management. In the same rankings, Fairphone was the only company to be awarded the best rating.

It’s a similar story for toxic chemical management. However, in this category, Fairphone received the worst rating as they failed to provide relevant information to Ethical Consumer. Their last known award, in 2016, was a middle rating. The fact that Fairphone, a company striving to produce the most ethical and environmentally-friendly devices, achieved merely a middle rating, shows how complex this area is.

In the EU alone, there are over 211 million new smartphones sold each year. In a 2019 Coolproducts study, it was estimated that Europe’s phones had an annual climate impact of 14.12 million tonnes of CO2, with 72 percent of that attributable to production and disposal. That tremendous impact is fueled by the tech industry, who market the slightest improvements as revolutionary, must-have new features.

The Fairphone 3’s Ethical Credentials

The Fairphone is a reaction against that industry. It is an alternative for those who don’t want to give up smartphones, but take issue with the way manufacturers run roughshod over the planet. The phone is easily repairable—there’s even a screwdriver included in the box—and if the past two Fairphones are an indication, it will be supported for years to come. That’s not to say that this is a 100 percent ethical and environmental phone.

Given the complexity of modern manufacturing, it would be unrealistic to expect this phone to achieve all of those goals. However, the past seven years have seen the company steadily improve their credentials and make significant inroads towards a better future. It’s also important to remember this isn’t a zero-sum game; some progress is better than none at all.

For example, the company found they weren’t able to identify the source of the gold used by many components manufacturers. Instead of abandoning their position, they now buy “fairtrade” gold and sell it on exchanges to compensate for the lack of traceability, acting almost like a carbon offset, but for gold.

Should You Buy the Fairphone 3?

Ultimately, the Fairphone 3 is a decent phone. But it’s the company’s ethical and environmental credentials which are its key selling points. It’s not an easy phone to compare against the competition, either. It lacks some of the specifications of the latest phones and even runs an older variant of Android.

However, it is easily the most repairable phone around, with iFixit rating it a perfect 10 out of 10. Fairphone’s commitment towards fairer worker rights, improved supply chain management, reduction of electronic waste, product longevity, and carbon impact are a significant part of the reason you’d buy the Fairphone 3. It may not be the fanciest phone around, but it doesn’t need to be.

This is a phone you’ll be able to keep for years, and can even repair yourself. As awareness grows of the impact humans have on the planet, the best choice you can make is obvious; the Fairphone 3.

Read the full article: The Fairphone 3 is an Affordable, Ethical, Sustainable Must-Have

Read Full Article

This Photography Course Bundle Will Help You Start a Creative Side Hustle in 2020

For creative souls, being paid to take photos sounds like the perfect job. Becoming a full-time professional isn’t for everyone, but you can make good money from photography as a side hustle. Want to make it happen this year? The Side Photography Business Bundle provides the blueprint, with 10 courses covering everything you need to know. You can pick up the training now for $29 at MakeUseOf Deals.

Building a Creative Business

From selling fine art prints to shooting weddings, there are countless ways to earn money from photography. No matter where your ambitions lie, this bundle can help you get started.

The training covers both creative and business skills through concise video lessons. You start by learning how to get the most out of your DSLR, with courses on basic technique, long exposures, and travel photography.

This bundle also helps you master the editing process. Through hands-on tutorials, you discover how to process shots with Lightroom, retouch portraits, and convert your images to black and white.

Just as importantly, the bundle contains advice on starting your photography side hustle. You learn how to build a portfolio, attract clients through social media, and register your business.

10 Courses for $29

The training in this bundle is worth $1,164, but you can grab all 10 courses now for just $29.

Read the full article: This Photography Course Bundle Will Help You Start a Creative Side Hustle in 2020

Read Full Article

5 Best Free Apps to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint and Offset Emissions

Mankind’s behavior has taken a heavy toll on our earth, leading to several ecological problems. Carbon dioxide emissions are one of the leading causes. Here’s how you can calculate your own carbon footprint and offset these emissions.

Your carbon footprint is the total of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, that you release in the air. It’s not what you breathe out, it’s the direct and indirect emission of your every activity. From using a car for travel to eating meat and dairy, each choice and activity in the modern world carries its own carbon emissions.

Once you calculate your personal carbon footprint, you’ll be able to figure out how much of an impact these choices have on the environment. And through small steps, you can reduce your footprint.

1. UN Carbon Footprint Calculator (Web): Your Everyday Life’s Carbon Footprint

Many of the online carbon footprint calculators use American standards and averages to measure your emissions. The United Nations has its own calculator that adjusts for accuracy based on the country you live in.

The calculator breaks down your carbon footprint into three broad categories: household, transport, and lifestyle. You can get these data from your last bill or monthly budget should answer them. There will be times when you have to estimate the amounts, like guessing how many hours a week each member of your household uses different modes of transport. Answer the questions in each category as honestly and accurately as possible.

At the end of it, the app will calculate your carbon footprint and explain the numbers. The lower the number, the more environmentally friendly you are.

The UN’s website also packs methods to reduce your carbon footprint by supporting ecological projects around the world. Yes, you can actually spend money to help the right causes and thus bring your personal footprint down.

2. Map My Emissions (Web): Calculate Any Commute’s Carbon Footprint

How much difference would you make if your daily commute changed from a car to public transport? What is the total carbon footprint of any road-based travel plan you’re making? Find out at Map My Emissions.

The web app uses Google Maps at the back-end, so type the starting point and destination as you would in any mapping application. Then, choose whether you’re driving, walking, cycling, or using public transit. If you chose driving, pick if it’s a car, van, motorcycle, or taxi, as well as the fuel capacity of that vehicle.

Map My Emissions will calculate the carbon emissions of the trip, along with the social cost of your decision. A handy traffic signal icon shows whether you’re in the red, yellow, or green zone of carbon emissions.

Similarly, there are several other travel calculators to figure out the carbon footprint. A large number of them focus on carbon footprints of flights because that’s considered the most harmful form. But the good news is that you can now carbon-offset your flights if you know how to.

3. Food Emissions Calculator (Web): Environmental Cost of What You Eat

The food on your plate is a part of nature, and so it was bound to have some environmental cost. But you probably never guessed how high that cost it. The Food Emissions Calculator tells you how the carbon footprint of any food whether it is vegetarian, meat-based, or processed.

First, select the type of food from options such as beans, dairy, fruits, meat and poultry, seafood, oils, vegetables, processed, etc. Then select the food commodity, which will have options about how it was sourced. Based on your selections, you’ll have to add how many miles the food was transported from, the quantity you bought, and how much you wasted.

The app breaks down carbon emissions into three values: product, transport, and water emissions. It’s important to note that the calculator often doesn’t include variables for packaging, which has its own major carbon footprint.

4. Plastic Footprint Calculator (Web): How Much Plastic Waste Do You Generate?

Plastic is ubiquitous in the modern world as almost everything in our lives uses it in some way. Currently, only about 5-10% of plastic in the world is recycled, while the rest ends up in landfills or in the ocean. Without knowing it, you might be contributing to this planetary problem.

The big minds at Omni Calculator developed a Plastic Footprint Calculator to determine how much plastic you consume or waste every year. In a series of questions, you need to note your food and kitchen needs, bathroom and laundry products, disposable containers and packaging uses, and other miscellaneous items.

The calculator works in real time, updating how many kilograms of plastic you consume in a year, and how much that adds up to over your lifetime. Once you compare that to how long it takes for plastic products to decompose (shown in diagrams on the page), you’ll be shocked into wanting to make a change. Don’t worry, the calculator also suggests simple ways by which you can reduce your own plastic usage.

Omni Calculator also has other ecological calculators, including a meat footprint and a flight carbon footprint calculator. Check them out.

5. Secondary Carbon Footprint (Web): Environmental Toll of What You Buy

Every product and service that you buy has its own impact through manufacture, delivery, and disposal. How do you calculate the carbon emissions from this indirect act? CarbonFootprint.com developed the Secondary Carbon Footprint Calculator to estimate this.

This calculator focuses on money. In each category, you need to say how much money you spend on that per week, month, or year (which you can customize). Categories include food and drink products, pharmaceuticals, paper based products, clothes and shoes, education, banking, insurance, computers and IT, etc.

It seems like an arbitrary assortment at first, but there’s a method behind the madness. There is UK-based data on the estimated total upstream emissions for any product or service and in turn its industry. The Secondary Carbon Footprint Calculator uses that, and adjusts for inflation, to come up with your personal number. Use it as a guideline.

Global Warming and Climate Change

Carbon emissions are the leading cause of global warming and climate change. If you want to help the environment, reducing your carbon footprint is one of the best ways. Arm yourself with the best climate change tools to fight global warming and make a difference in the world.

Read the full article: 5 Best Free Apps to Calculate Your Carbon Footprint and Offset Emissions

Read Full Article

You Can Now See What’s Popular on Netflix

Netflix has launched a new feature which will enable you to see what’s popular on Netflix. And we don’t just mean a vague list of shows and movies. Instead, Netflix will now list the Top 10 movies and shows on Netflix in your country.

Netflix Rarely Reveals Viewer Numbers

Netflix has always been cagey about viewer numbers. The streaming service will occasionally shout about the number of households who have watched one of its original productions, but, generally speaking, it keeps numbers close to its chest.

However, in May 2019, Netflix revealed the Top 10 shows and movies streamed in the UK. After several months of testing, Netflix is now expanding its Top 10 feature to other territories. Which means you’ll be able to see exactly what’s popular on Netflix.

Netflix Lists the Top 10 Shows and Movies

Until now, Netflix has only displayed unordered lists of what’s Trending Now and Popular on Netflix. However, as detailed in a post on the Netflix Media Center, the company is now rolling out a Top 10 feature which lists content in order of popularity.

Overall top ten most-watched in the UK in April:

1. Our Planet
2. The Perfect Date
3. The Highwaymen
4. The Silence
5. Black Summer
6. After Life
7. The Spy Who Dumped Me
8. Riverdale
9. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
10. You vs. Wild

— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) May 9, 2019

You’ll now see rows showing the overall Top 10, as well as the Top 10 most popular shows and Top 10 most popular films. These lists will be specific to your country, and updated every day. Giving you an instant overview of what’s popular on Netflix.

The movies and shows which make the lists will also get a special Top 10 badge applied to their icons wherever they appear across Netflix. This means you’ll be able to see, at a glance, whether something is popular, when browsing your own list or by genre.

How to Watch What’s Popular on Netflix

Netflix’s Top 10 feature is rolling out now, so you should see it on the homepage sooner rather than later. Then, if you’re the sort of person who likes to watch what other people are watching, you’ll have a quick and easy way to do just that.

One thing we recommend are the Studio Ghibli films. These magnificent slices of anime tell deep stories with a level of style and wit Hollywood struggles to accomplish. The Studio Ghibli films may not make the Top 10 lists, but we recommend them regardless.

Read the full article: You Can Now See What’s Popular on Netflix

Read Full Article

Forensic Architecture redeploys surveillance-state tech to combat state-sponsored violence

The specter of constant surveillance hangs over all of us in ways we don’t even fully understand, but it is also possible to turn the tools of the watchers against them. Forensic Architecture is exhibiting several long-term projects at the Museum of Art and Design in Miami that use the omnipresence of technology as a way to expose crimes and violence by oppressive states.

Over seven years Eyal Weizman and his team have performed dozens of investigations into instances of state-sponsored violence, from drone strikes to police brutality. Often these events are minimized at all levels by the state actors involved, denied or no-commented until the media cycle moves on. But sometimes technology provides ways to prove a crime was committed and occasionally even cause the perpetrator to admit it — hoisted by their own electronic petard.

Sometimes this is actual state-deployed kit, like body cameras or public records, but it also uses private information co-opted by state authorities to track individuals, like digital metadata from messages and location services.

For instance, when Chicago police shot and killed Harith Augustus in 2018, the department released some footage of the incident, saying that it “speaks for itself.” But Forensic Architecture’s close inspection of the body cam footage and cross reference with other materials makes it obvious that the police violated numerous rules (including in the operation of the body cams) in their interaction with him, escalating the situation and ultimately killing a man who by all indications — except the official account — was attempting to comply. It also helped additional footage see the light which was either mistakenly or deliberately left out of a FOIA release.

In another situation, a trio of Turkish migrants seeking asylum in Greece were shown, by analysis of their WhatsApp messages, images and location and time stamps, to have entered Greece and been detained by Greek authorities before being “pushed back” by unidentified masked escorts, having been afforded no legal recourse to asylum processes or the like. This is one example of several recently that appear to be private actors working in concert with the state to deprive people of their rights.

Situated testimony for survivors

I spoke with Weizman before the opening of this exhibition in Miami, where some of the latest investigations are being shown off. (Shortly after our interview he would be denied entry to the U.S. to attend the opening, with a border agent explaining that this denial was algorithmically determined; we’ll come back to this.)

The original motive for creating Forensic Architecture, he explained, was to elicit testimony from those who had experienced state violence.

“We started using this technique when in 2013 we met a drone survivor, a German woman who had survived a drone strike in Pakistan that killed several relatives of hers,” Weizman explained. “She has wanted to deliver testimony in a trial regarding the drone strike, but like many survivors her memory was affected by the trauma she has experienced. The memory of the event was scattered, it had lacunae and repetitions, as you often have with trauma. And her condition is like many who have to speak out in human rights work: The closer you get to the core of the testimony, the description of the event itself, the more it escapes you.”

The approach they took to help this woman, and later many others, jog her own memory, was something called “situated testimony.” Essentially it amounts to exposing the person to media from the experience, allowing them to “situate” themselves in that moment. This is not without its own risks.

“Of course you must have the appropriate trauma professionals present,” Weizman said. “We only bring people who are willing to participate and perform the experience of being again at the scene as it happened. Sometimes details that would not occur to someone to be important come out.”

A digital reconstruction of a drone strike’s explosion was recreated physically for another exhibition.

But it’s surprising how effective it can be, he explained. One case exposed American involvement hitherto undisclosed.

“We were researching a Cameroon special forces detention center, torture and death in custody occurred, for Amnesty International,” he explained. “We asked detainees to describe to us simply what was outside the window. How many trees, or what else they could see.” Such testimony could help place their exact location and orientation in the building and lead to more evidence, such as cameras across the street facing that room.

“And sitting in a room based on a satellite image of the area, one told us: ‘yes, there were two trees, and one was over by the fence where the American soldiers were jogging.’ We said, ‘wait, what, can you repeat that?’ They had been interviewed many times and never mentioned American soldiers,” Weizman recalled. “When we heard there were American personnel, we found Facebook posts from service personnel who were there, and were able to force the transfer of prisoners there to another prison.”

Weizman noted that the organization only goes where help is requested, and does not pursue what might be called private injustices, as opposed to public.

“We require an invitation, to be invited into this by communities that invite state violence. We’re not a forensic agency, we’re a counter-forensic agency. We only investigate crimes by state authorities.”

Using virtual reality: “Unparalleled. It’s almost tactile.”

In the latest of these investigations, being exhibited for the first time at MOAD, the team used virtual reality for the first time in their situated testimony work. While VR has proven to be somewhat less compelling than most would like on the entertainment front, it turns out to work quite well in this context.

“We worked with an Israeli whistleblower soldier regarding testimony of violence he committed against Palestinians,” Weizman said. “It has been denied by the Israeli prime minister and others, but we have been able to find Palestinian witnesses to that case, and put them in VR so we could cross reference them. We had victim and perpetrator testifying to the same crime in the same space, and their testimonies can be overlaid on each other.”

Dean Issacharoff — the soldier accused by Israel of giving false testimony — describes the moment he illegally beat a Palestinian civilian. (Caption and image courtesy of Forensic Architecture)

One thing about VR is that the sense of space is very real; if the environment is built accurately, things like sight-lines and positional audio can be extremely true to life. If someone says they saw the event occur here, but the state says it was here, and a camera this far away saw it at this angle… these incomplete accounts can be added together to form something more factual, and assembled into a virtual environment.

“That project is the first use of VR interviews we have done — it’s still in a very experimental stage. But it didn’t involve fatalities, so the level of trauma was a bit more controlled,” Weizman explained. “We have learned that the level and precision we can arrive at in reconstructing an incident is unparalleled. It’s almost tactile; you can walk through the space, you can see every object: guns, cars, civilians. And you can populate it until the witness is satisfied that this is what they experienced. I think this is a first, definitely in forensic terms, as far as uses of VR.”

A photogrammetry-based reconstruction of the area of Hebron where the incident took place.

In video of the situated testimony, you can see witnesses describing locations more exactly than they likely or even possibly could have without the virtual reconstruction. “I stood with the men at exactly that point,” says one, gesturing toward an object he recognized, then pointing upwards: “There were soldiers on the roof of this building, where the writing is.”

Of course it is not the digital recreation itself that forces the hand of those involved, but the incontrovertible facts it exposes. No one would ever have known that the U.S. had a presence at that detainment facility, and the country had no reason to say it did. The testimony wouldn’t even have been enough, except that it put the investigators onto a line of inquiry that produced data. And in the case of the Israeli whistleblower, the situated testimony defies official accounts that the organization he represented had lied about the incident.

Avoiding “product placement” and tech incursion

Sophie Landres, MOAD’s curator of Public Programs and Education, was eager to add that the museum is not hosting this exhibit as a way to highlight how wonderful technology is. It’s important to put the technology and its uses in context rather than try to dazzle people with its capabilities. You may find yourself playing into someone else’s agenda that way.

“For museum audiences, this might be one of their first encounters with VR deployed in this way. The companies that manufacture these technologies know that people will have their first experiences with this tech in a cultural or entertainment contrast, and they’re looking for us to put a friendly face on these technologies that have been created to enable war and surveillance capitalism,” she told me. “But we’re not interested in having our museum be a showcase for product placement without having a serious conversation about it. It’s a place where artists embrace new technologies, but also where they can turn it towards existing power structures.”

Boots on backs mean this not an advertisement for VR headsets or 3D modeling tools.

She cited a tongue-in-cheek definition of “mixed reality” referring to both digital crossover into the real world and the deliberate obfuscation of the truth at a greater scale.

“On the one hand you have mixing the digital world and the real, and on the other you have the mixed reality of the media environment, where there’s no agreement on reality and all these misinformation campaigns. What’s important about Forensic Architecture is they’re not just presenting evidence of the facts, but also the process used to arrive at these truth claims, and that’s extremely important.”

In openly presenting the means as well as the ends, Weizman and his team avoid succumbing to what he calls the “dark epistemology” of the present post-truth era.

“The arbitrary logic of the border”

As mentioned earlier, Weizman was denied entry to the U.S. for reasons unknown, but possibly related to the network of politically active people with whom he has associated for the sake of his work. Disturbingly, his wife and children were also stopped while entering the states a day before him and separated at the airport for questioning.

In a statement issued publicly afterwards, Weizman dissected the event.

In my interview the officer informed me that my authorization to travel had been revoked because the “algorithm” had identified a security threat. He said he did not know what had triggered the algorithm but suggested that it could be something I was involved in, people I am or was in contact with, places to which I had traveled… I was asked to supply the Embassy with additional information, including fifteen years of travel history, in particular where I had gone and who had paid for it. The officer said that Homeland Security’s investigators could assess my case more promptly if I supplied the names of anyone in my network whom I believed might have triggered the algorithm. I declined to provide this information.

This much we know: we are being electronically monitored for a set of connections – the network of associations, people, places, calls, and transactions – that make up our lives. Such network analysis poses many problems, some of which are well known. Working in human rights means being in contact with vulnerable communities, activists and experts, and being entrusted with sensitive information. These networks are the lifeline of any investigative work. I am alarmed that relations among our colleagues, stakeholders, and staff are being targeted by the US government as security threats.

This incident exemplifies – albeit in a far less intense manner and at a much less drastic scale – critical aspects of the “arbitrary logic of the border” that our exhibition seeks to expose. The racialized violations of the rights of migrants at the US southern border are of course much more serious and brutal than the procedural difficulties a UK national may experience, and these migrants have very limited avenues for accountability when contesting the violence of the US border.

The works being exhibited, he said, “seek to demonstrate that we can invert the forensic gaze and turn it against the actors — police, militaries, secret services, border agencies — that usually seek to monopolize information. But in employing the counter-forensic gaze one is also exposed to higher-level monitoring by the very state agencies investigated.”

Forensic Architecture’s investigations are ongoing; you can keep up with them at the organization’s website. And if you’re in Miami, drop by MOAD to see some of the work firsthand.

Read Full Article

Forensic Architecture redeploys surveillance-state tech to combat state-sponsored violence

The specter of constant surveillance hangs over all of us in ways we don’t even fully understand, but it is also possible to turn the tools of the watchers against them. Forensic Architecture is exhibiting several long-term projects at the Museum of Art and Design in Miami that use the omnipresence of technology as a way to expose crimes and violence by oppressive states.

Over seven years Eyal Weizman and his team have performed dozens of investigations into instances of state-sponsored violence, from drone strikes to police brutality. Often these events are minimized at all levels by the state actors involved, denied or no-commented until the media cycle moves on. But sometimes technology provides ways to prove a crime was committed and occasionally even cause the perpetrator to admit it — hoisted by their own electronic petard.

Sometimes this is actual state-deployed kit, like body cameras or public records, but it also uses private information co-opted by state authorities to track individuals, like digital metadata from messages and location services.

For instance, when Chicago police shot and killed Harith Augustus in 2018, the department released some footage of the incident, saying that it “speaks for itself.” But Forensic Architecture’s close inspection of the body cam footage and cross reference with other materials makes it obvious that the police violated numerous rules (including in the operation of the body cams) in their interaction with him, escalating the situation and ultimately killing a man who by all indications — except the official account — was attempting to comply. It also helped additional footage see the light which was either mistakenly or deliberately left out of a FOIA release.

In another situation, a trio of Turkish migrants seeking asylum in Greece were shown, by analysis of their WhatsApp messages, images, and location and time stamps, to have entered Greece and been detained by Greek authorities before being “pushed back” by unidentified masked escorts, having been afforded no legal recourse to asylum processes or the like. This is one example of several recently that appear to be private actors working in concert with the state to deprive people of their rights.

Situated testimony for survivors

I spoke with Weizman before the opening of this exhibition in Miami, where some of the latest investigations are being shown off. (Shortly after our interview he would be denied entry to the U.S. to attend the opening, with a border agent explaining that this denial was algorithmically determined; We’ll come back to this.)

The original motive for creating Forensic Architecture, he explained, was to elicit testimony from those who had experienced state violence.

“We started using this technique when in 2013 we met a drone survivor, a German woman who had survived a drone strike in Pakistan that killed several relatives of hers,” Weizman explained. “She has wanted to deliver testimony in a trial regarding the drone strike, but like many survivors her memory was affected by the trauma she has experienced. The memory of the event was scattered, it had lacunae and repetitions, as you often have with trauma. And her condition is like many who have to speak out in human rights work: The closer you get to the core of the testimony, the description of the event itself, the more it escapes you.”

The approach they took to help this woman, and later many others, jog her own memory, was something called “situated testimony.” Essentially it amounts to exposing the person to media from the experience, allowing them to “situate” themselves in that moment. This is not without its own risks.

“Of course you must have the appropriate trauma professionals present,” Weizman said. “We only bring people who are willing to participate and perform the experience of being again at the scene as it happened. Sometimes details that would not occur to someone to be important come out.”

A digital reconstruction of a drone strike’s explosion was recreated physically for another exhibition.

But it’s surprising how effective it can be, he explained. One case exposed American involvement hitherto undisclosed.

“We were researching a Cameroon special forces detention center, torture and death in custody occurred, for Amnesty International,” he explained. “We asked detainees to describe to us simply what was outside the window. How many trees, or what else they could see.” Such testimony could help place their exact location and orientation in the building and lead to more evidence, such as cameras across the street facing that room.

“And sitting in a room based on a satellite image of the area, one told us: ‘yes, there were two trees, and one was over by the fence where the American soldiers were jogging.’ We said, ‘wait, what, can you repeat that?’ They had been interviewed many times and never mentioned American soldiers,” Weizman recalled. “When we heard there were American personnel, we found Facebook posts from service personnel who were there, and were able to force the transfer of prisoners there to another prison.”

Weizman noted that the organization only goes where help is requested, and does not pursue what might be called private injustices, as opposed to public.

“We require an invitation, to be invited into this by communities that invite state violence. We’re not a forensic agency, we’re a counter-forensic agency. We only investigate crimes by state authorities.”

Using virtual reality: “Unparalleled. It’s almost tactile.”

In the latest of these investigations, being exhibited for the first time at MOAD, the team used virtual reality for the first time in their situated testimony work. While VR has proven to be somewhat less compelling than most would like on the entertainment front, it turns out to work quite well in this context.

“We worked with an Israeli whistleblower soldier regarding testimony of violence he committed against Palestinians,” Weizman said. “It has been denied by the Israeli prime minister and others, but we have been able to find Palestinian witnesses to that case, and put them in VR so we could cross reference them. we had victim and perpetrator testifying to the same crime in the same space, and their testimonies can be overlaid on each other.”

Dean Issacharoff – the soldier accused by Israel of giving false testimony – describes the moment he illegally beat a Palestinian civilian. (Caption and image courtesy of Forensic Architecture)

One thing about VR is that the sense of space is very real; If the environment is built accurately, things like sight-lines and positional audio can be extremely true to life. If someone says they saw the event occur here, but the state says it was here, and a camera this far away saw it at this angle… these incomplete accounts can be added together to form something more factual, and assembled into a virtual environment.

“That project is the first use of VR interviews we have done — it’s still in a very experimental stage. But it didn’t involve fatalities, so the level of trauma was a bit more controlled,” Weizman explained. “We have learned that the level and precision we can arrive at in reconstructing and incident is unparalleled. It’s almost tactile; You can walk through the space, you can see every object: guns, cars, civilians. And you can populate it until the witness is satisfied that this is what they experienced. I think this is a first, definitely in forensic terms, as far as uses of VR.”

A photogrammetry-based reconstruction of the area of Hebron where the incident took place.

In video of the situated testimony, you can see witnesses describing locations more exactly than they likely or even possibly could have without the virtual reconstruction. “I stood with the men at exactly that point,” says one, gesturing towards an object he recognized, then pointing upwards: “There were soldiers on the roof of this building, where the writing is.”

Of course it is not the digital recreation itself that forces the hand of those involved, but the incontrovertible facts it exposes. No one would ever have know that the U.S. had a presence at that detainment facility, and the country had no reason to say it did. The testimony wouldn’t even have been enough, except that it put the investigators onto a line of inquiry that produced data. And in the case of the Israeli whistleblower, the situated testimony defies official accounts that the organization he represented had lied about the incident.

Avoiding “product placement” and tech incursion

Sophie Landres, MOAD’s Curator of Public Programs and Education, was eager to add that the museum is not hosting this exhibit as a way to highlight how wonderful technology is. It’s important to put the technology and its uses in context rather than try to dazzle people with its capabilities. You may find yourself playing into someone else’s agenda that way.

“For museum audiences, this might be one of their first encounters with VR deployed in this way. The companies that manufacture these technologies know that people will have their first experiences with this tech in a cultural or entertainment contrast, and they’re looking for us to put a friendly face on these technologies that have been created to enable war and surveillance capitalism,” she told me. “But we’re not interested in having our museum be a showcase for product placement without having a serious conversation about it. It’s a place where artists embrace new technologies, but also where they can turn it towards existing power structures.”

Boots on backs mean this not an advertisement for VR headsets or 3D modeling tools.

She cited a tongue-in-cheek definition of “mixed reality” referring to both digital crossover into the real world and the deliberate obfuscation of the truth at a greater scale.

“On the one hand you have mixing the digital world and the real, and on the other you have the mixed reality of the media environment, where there’s no agreement on reality and all these misinformation campaigns. What’s important about Forensic Architecture is they’re not just presenting evidence of the facts, but also the process used to arrive at these truth claims, and that’s extremely important.”

In openly presenting the means as well as the ends, Weizman and his team avoid succumbing to what he calls the “dark epistemology” of the present post-truth era.

“The arbitrary logic of the border”

As mentioned earlier, Weizman was denied entry to the U.S. for reasons unknown, but possibly related to the network of politically active people with whom he has associated for the sake of his work. Disturbingly, his wife and children were also stopped while entering the states a day before him and separated at the airport for questioning.

In a statement issued publicly afterwards, Weizman dissected the event.

In my interview the officer informed me that my authorization to travel had been revoked because the “algorithm” had identified a security threat. He said he did not know what had triggered the algorithm but suggested that it could be something I was involved in, people I am or was in contact with, places to which I had traveled… I was asked to supply the Embassy with additional information, including fifteen years of travel history, in particular where I had gone and who had paid for it. The officer said that Homeland Security’s investigators could assess my case more promptly if I supplied the names of anyone in my network whom I believed might have triggered the algorithm. I declined to provide this information.

This much we know: we are being electronically monitored for a set of connections – the network of associations, people, places, calls, and transactions – that make up our lives. Such network analysis poses many problems, some of which are well known. Working in human rights means being in contact with vulnerable communities, activists and experts, and being entrusted with sensitive information. These networks are the lifeline of any investigative work. I am alarmed that relations among our colleagues, stakeholders, and staff are being targeted by the US government as security threats.

This incident exemplifies – albeit in a far less intense manner and at a much less drastic scale – critical aspects of the “arbitrary logic of the border” that our exhibition seeks to expose. The racialized violations of the rights of migrants at the US southern border are of course much more serious and brutal than the procedural difficulties a UK national may experience, and these migrants have very limited avenues for accountability when contesting the violence of the US border.

The works being exhibited, he said, “seek to demonstrate that we can invert the forensic gaze and turn it against the actors—police, militaries, secret services, border agencies—that usually seek to monopolize information. But in employing the counter-forensic gaze one is also exposed to higher level monitoring by the very state agencies investigated.”

Forensic Architecture’s investigations are ongoing; you can keep up with them at the organization’s website. And if you’re in Miami, drop by MOAD to see some of the work firsthand.

Read Full Article

Venmo prototypes a debit card for teenagers

Allowance is going digital. Venmo has been spotted prototyping a new feature that would allow adult users to create a debit card connected to their account for their teenage children. That could potentially let parents set spending notifications and limits while giving kids more flexibility in urgent situations than a few dollars stuffed in a pocket.

Delving into children’s banking could establish a new reason for adults to sign up for Venmo, get them saving more in Venmo debit accounts where the company can earn interest on the cash, and drive purchase frequency that racks up interchange fees for Venmo’s owner PayPal.

But Venmo is arriving late to the teen debit card market. Startups like Greenlight and Step let parents manage teen spending on dedicated debit cards. More companies like Kard and neo banking giant Revolut have announced plans to launch their own versions. And Venmo’s prototype uses very similar terminology to that of Current, a frontrunner in the children’s banking space with over 500,000 accounts that raised a $20 million Series B late last year.

The first signs of Venmo’s debit card were spotted by reverse engineering specialist Jane Manchun Wong who’s provided slews of accurate tips to TechCrunch in the past. Hidden in Venmo’s Android app is code revealing a “delegate card” feature, designed to let users create a debit card that’s connected to their account but has limited privileges.

A screenshot generated from hidden code in Venmo’s app, via Jane Manchun Wong

A set up screen Wong was able to generate from the code shows the option to “Enter your teen’s info”, because “We’ll use this to set up the debit card”. It asks parents to enter their child’s name, birthdate, and “What does your teen call you?” That’s almost identical to the “What does [your child’s name] call you?” set up screen for Current’s teen debit card.

When TechCrunch asked about the teen debit feature and when it might launch, a Venmo spokesperson gave a cagey response that implies it’s indeed internally testing the option, writing “Venmo is constantly working to identify ways to refine and enhance the user experience. We frequently test product offerings to understand the value it could have for our users, and I don’t have anything further to share right now.”

Typically, the tech company product development flow see them come up with ideas, mock them up, prototype them in their real apps as internal-only features, test them externally with small percentages of real users, and then launch them officially if feedback and data is positive throughout. It’s unclear when Venmo might launch teen debit cards, though the product could always be scrapped. It’d need to move fast to beat Revolut and Kard to market.

Current’s teen debit card

The launch would build upon the June 2018 launch of Venmo’s branded MasterCard debit card that’s monetized through interchange fees and interest on savings. It offers payment receipts with options to split charges with friends within Venmo, free withdrawls at MoneyPass ATMs, rewards, and in-app features for reseting your PIN or disabling a stolen card. Venmo also plans to launch a credit card issued by Synchrony this year.

Venmo might look to equip its teen debit card with popular features from competitors, like automatic weekly allowance deposits, notifications of all purchases, or the ability to block spending at certain merchants. It’s unclear if it will charge a fee like the $36 per year subscription for Current.

Current offers these features for parents who set up a teen debit card

Tech startups are increasingly pushing to offer a broad range of financial services where margins are high. It’s an easy way to earn cheap money at a time when unit economics are coming under scrutiny in the wake of the WeWork implosion. Investors are pinning their hopes on efficient financial services too, pouring $34 billion into fintech startups during 2019.

Venmo’s already become a popular way for younger people to split the bill for Uber rides or dinner. Bringing social banking to a teen demographic probably should have been its plan all along.

Read Full Article