newsonaut
Turning inner space into outer space
Monday, October 10, 2016
Samsung could find its reputation going up in flames
Many technology-related news sites like to play up rivalries between companies. Microsoft vs. Google. Facebook vs. Snapchat. Apple vs. Samsung.
Check the comments sections on these sites, and you’ll see that readers often get caught up in it — choosing one side or another. They become particularly incensed about comparisons between Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy line.
But in the case of the fire-prone Galaxy Note 7, there are few defenders. After batteries in the original caught fire, Samsung assured us this was a glitch, that the safety of customers was paramount, and that it would issue free replacements.
Now there are reports the replacements are also catching fire.
When The Verge reported that another U.S. phone company had stopped issing Galaxy Note 7 replacements, one reader responded: “Samsung is like the tech industry’s Donald Trump.”
Seems like a low blow, but it’s close to the truth. Samsung rushed a product to market without proper quality control, and now the whole company will suffer.
Ina Fried writes for Recode:
Samsung needs to quickly shift its attention from trying to resuscitate this phone to salvaging its company’s reputation.
Many people hearing about this debacle are going to be left with the idea that Samsung can’t be trusted, and will be hesitant to buy any of its products. Samsung has halted sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 globally, but has said precious little to allay our concerns.
“Consumers with either an original Galaxy Note 7 or replacement Galaxy Note 7 device should power down and stop using the device,” the company said.
Not exactly inspiring.
Fried also points out that, despite what billions of dollars in Samsung marketing might have you believe, that are plenty of other choices if you’re looking for an Android-based phone.
Respected sites such as Ars Techica actually have headlines saying “don’t buy a Galaxy Note 7.” They feel it’s their duty to issue this advice as a way of protecting their readers. They helpfully provide a list of alternatives. Among them is the iPhone from Samsung’s biggest rival, Apple.
In recent years, iPhone fans have sided with Apple in its accusations that Samsung has blatantly copied many of the iPhone’s features. After a Galaxy Note 7 caught fire on a Southwest Airlines plane, some joked that owners of these phones should be reqired to take separate flights. But few, I would hope, see anything funny about people being placed at risk of injury.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, August 20, 2016
The drive toward driverless cars
Uber has been testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh. The goal is simple: You open the Uber app on your phone, summon a car and it takes you where you want to go. Everything is automated.
This got me thinking about the high price of owning a car and the possibility of a future where ownership is more the exception than the rule.
In Pittsburgh, the test trips are free, rather than the standard $1.05 per mile. An article in Bloomberg quotes Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick:
In the long run, Kalanick says, prices will fall so low that the per-mile cost of travel, even for long trips in rural areas, will be cheaper in a driverless Uber than in a private car.
There’s still a long way to go before this happens. For one thing, the testing in Pittsburgh is being done with a pilot and co-pilot in the front seat. The pilot ensures that the car (a Volvo XC90 SUV) is driven safely, and the co-pilot takes notes on everything that happens.
If all goes well, though, passengers will soon be in the cars by themselves.
While getting costs down is important, the biggest concern is safety. The cars work from extremely detailed maps and react to any change out of the ordinary.
Over the past year and a half, the company has been creating extremely detailed maps that include not just roads and lane markings, but also buildings, potholes, parked cars, fire hydrants, traffic lights, trees, and anything else on Pittsburgh’s streets. As the car moves, it collects data, and then using a large, liquid-cooled computer in the trunk, it compares what it sees with the preexisting maps to identify (and avoid) pedestrians, cyclists, stray dogs, and anything else.
But driving isn’t just about avoiding obstacles. There are also moral and ethical quandaries to deal with.
You might be familiar with the trolley dilemma, where you’re given a choice of allowing a trolley to continue along a track and kill five people or pull a switch so that it goes to another track and only kills one person.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created a series of puzzles called the Moral Machine. You can take the test, and they’ll gather the data to help program self-driving cars.
In cases where the choice is between killing humans or killing animals, the answer is easier. But before long you’re asked to pick between people with different backgrounds — for example, a doctor and a homeless person.
So far, self-driving cars actually appear to be safer than human-driven cars. Google has done extensive testing, and only recently has one of its vehicles been the cause of an accident when a Lexus bumped into a bus.
Now, you might be thinking: “I’m not going to trust my safety to some high-tech company like Google or Uber that doesn’t know anything about cars.”
If that’s the case, you might want to wait for Ford to roll out its autonomous taxi fleet. The company announced this week that it will have the cars — no steering wheel, brakes or gas pedal — operating in at least one city by 2021.
As self-driving cars reach the point where they are safer and cheaper than what we have now, it’s only a matter of time before they become the norm.
More posts in the Technology category
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
The augmentation of our reality
While playing Pokemon Go out in the neighbourhood recently — for research purposes only, of course — I confirmed that this is more that just a game. It’s the gateway drug to augmented reality.
I’ve had experience with AR before, but never in a way that seemed engaging or worth getting into. The defunct Daily News may have been the first to try popularizing this technology in Kamloops when it introduced Layar — an app that allowed you to watch videos or view photo galleries while pointing your phone camera at designated points in the paper.
It didn’t exactly capture the public’s imagination, and is now but a footnote in the history of our dearly departed daily. If Pokemon Go had been around at the time, things might have been different. The game has made AR fashionable to the point where it is becoming second nature for young people.
The thing is, though, augmented reality has been around for the last few years, and you may have been using it without knowing.
A good example of AR hidden in plain sight would be the geofilters that add fun overlays to your Snapchat pictures. The design and content varies with where you are in the world. Other apps have similar features.
Then there is Google Translate. Fire up the app and point your camera at a sign that uses an unfamiliar language, and it will be transformed into one you understand.
You might also have used AR with the Yelp app. If you’re in a strange city, you can point your camera at your surroundings and information will display about nearby restaurants and bars.
There are plenty of AR-based apps that give you information about your environment. If you’re travelling, you can learn about museums, galleries and other points of interest. It’s like having personal guide.
Golfers can use AR to learn about distances and terrain on the course. But it makes me wonder — would other players object to this as an unfair advantage?
Turning to the night sky, you can view an overlay of constellations and their names, or see which satellites are passing by.
Try-before-you-buy apps look particularly useful. You can, for example, place a virtual couch in your living room to see how it would look. IKEA has been doing this for years. Or you could use the Ink Hunter app to project a virtual tattoo on your body before committing to the real thing.
I’m surprised these last uses haven’t caught on more. But with Pokemon Go blazing new trails, it’s just a matter of time before virtual shopping becomes the norm.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Remember snail mail? It might be going on strike
The idea that Canadian postal workers can possibly gain anything from a strike is enough to make you shake your head in disbelief.
Perhaps most telling is the ho-hum reaction from the public. Until recently, many people were unaware that this was even an issue. For most of us a strike would be, at worst, a minor inconvenience.
Long gone are the 1970s, when postal strikes were feared as a major blow to the economy. Back then, a labour disruption was akin to holding the country hostage.
Still, intractable disputes seem to be a habit at Canada Post. The latest was in 2011 when rotating strikes and lockouts ended with back-to-work legislation and major concessions by employees. Sympathy from the public was underwhelming.
What once made the post office so important was its monopoly on letter delivery. But as we all know, email, electronic billing and direct deposit have decimated revenue from that sector.
According to a 2013 report from the Conference Board of Canada, the only bright spot is an increase in revenue from delivery of parcels due to the popularity of online shopping. Even so, it sees this as a blip and predicts an annual operating loss of $1 billion by 2020.
Parcel delivery is not like letter delivery — it is highly competitive. If a strike takes Canada Post out of the picture, businesses will simply turn to alternative services. And once they move away, it will be tough to lure them back.
Cutting costs seems to be the only way out. A change in government has delayed plans to phase out door-to-door delivery, but now Canada Post wants to reduce labour costs by switching to a cheaper pension plan.
The situation at Canada Post is by no means unique. Post offices in many countries are struggling with how to make the transition to new technology. Part of that transition should involve helping long-time workers land in a good spot.
In this case, a strike would make things worse. What really needs to happen is for employees and managers at Canada Post to work together to find a solution that transcends self-interest. They’re up against something that’s bigger than both of them.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Linking into the future — from robots to virtual reality
Welcome to a sprinkling of links — all pointing toward what appears to be our inevitable future.
Geoff Watts, having reached a certain age, writes about life with robot companions. It won’t be long before mobile computers designed to look human are looking after the elderly and infirm.
Would we be able to get used to that? The answer may lie in research into our relations with animals. Our pets are not human, but we sure treat them as if they were.
Who hasn’t shouted at a failing machine? The first vehicle I owned was a decrepit van that struggled even on modest inclines. More than once when driving the wreck I found myself putting an arm out through the window and using the flat of my hand to beat the door panel – like a rider on a horse’s flank. “Come on, come on,” I shouted at the dashboard. Only later did I contemplate the absurdity of this action.
Speaking of people over 65, they’re more adaptable to technology than you might think. A survey in the United States shows that since 2011, people in this age group using social media has tripled from 11 per cent to 35 per cent. At this rate, it won’t be long before seniors have caught up with young adults (18-29), who are at 90 per cent.
One of the old-timers among social media, Twitter, has moved to a different category in Apple’s App Store. It’s gone from Social Networking to News. So what’s up with that?
Despite becoming a household name, Twitter is struggling to find a way of staying afloat — or at least make enough money to satisfy shareholders. Skeptics say the move is a way of highlighting the Twitter app as the top download in the News category.
But there might be more to it. Twitter is much loved by journalists and news junkies because it is a reverse time line. They’ve been fiddling with this formula lately, but basically you can count on the top item being the newest.
Regardless of whether the top tweet is from a friend or a major network, you can always count on getting the latest. For many of us, that’s the definition of news — so it makes sense to be in the News category.
Meanwhile, other social media are doing just fine. Among the 10 most valuable private companies in the world — as listed by the World Economic Forum — are Snapchat and Pinterest.
Number one, by the way, is Uber, the ride-sharing service that’s disrupting the taxi industry. Condolences from the news industry.
These start-ups get a lot of attention, but it’s good to see mainstream media investing in technology that keeps them relevant. A good example is the Globe and Mail’s virtual reality experiment called Surviving Solitary.
Using a virtual reality headset, you can experience what’s it’s like to be imprisoned in solitary confinement. The New York Times and the Guardian have similar projects.
I foresee a future where virtual reality enables us to experience the news first-hand — not just an artist’s rendering. We might, for example, be able to explore the aftermath of an earthquake half-way around the world.
Of course, by the time that becomes commonplace, I’ll need a robot companion to fetch my headset for me.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, April 9, 2016
O Brave new world that has no ads in't!
The controversy over ad blocking flared up when Apple made it possible for iPhone users to download apps that delete advertising from websites. There was a surge in interest, but it levelled off and publishers breathed a sigh of relief.
But now along comes Brendan Eich with a plan to not only block ads but replace them. He claims this will help publishers, but they aren’t buying it.
Eich was previously best known as the inventor of JavaScript, a programming language that brings interactive elements to websites. He was also the co-founder of Mozilla, a non-profit group that develops the Firefox browser as an open source project.
His latest project is a new web browser called Brave. He would like to convince you to use Brave instead of Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari or even Firefox. And why would you do this? The promise is super-fast browsing because all ads and trackers are blocked be default.
Of course, there are already extensions and plug-ins that do this, but the plan is for Brave to go a step further and replace those ads with ads of its own. Somehow these will be better ads — less intrusive and less of a drag on page loads.
Publishers are upset. The way they see it, advertisers paid for that spot on their site, and they don’t want it taken over by someone else. The Newspaper Association of America, which includes some papers in Canada, has declared it “blatantly illegal.”
Our sites and mobile applications provide news reporting, photojournalism, video content and feature writing that is researched, reported, edited and produced an extraordinary cost. Our industry spends more than $5 billion per year on reporting in the United States alone. We distribute that reporting online for free or at highly subsidized rates, in no small part due to revenue from online ads.
I agree with the blatant part, but I’m not so sure about illegal. Replacing someone else’s ads with your own is an audacious move. Still, Eich has an answer.
His first assertion is to point out that not all ads are replaced: “We do not tamper with any first-party publisher content, including native ads that do not use third-party tracking.”
In sum, and contrary to the misstatements of the NAA letter, Brave is the solution, not the problem, for users and publishers. We provide speed, privacy, protection from malware, and a new, anonymous payment model that helps the whole industry and publishers in particular, compared to the status quo.
Basically, he’s saying that browsers and other software have long been able to take bits and pieces of web content and rearrange them the way we like. A good example is RSS feed readers. They pull in content from all over the web, allowing you to read content without even visiting the website it comes from.
It’s hard to decide which side to take in this battle. Brave is promising publishers 55 per cent of the revenue from ad replacement. Given their strong opposition, publishers obviously don’t see that as a good deal for them.
This whole thing would have worked out much better if Brave had negotiated an agreement with publishers before going public. If publishers were on-side, they would actually be encouraging people to use Brave.
As it stands, this could turn out to be a tempest in a teapot if few people actually download Brave and use it. Google successfully used Chrome to push aside Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to become the most widely used browser. Safari is popular on mobile, thanks to being the default on iPhones. And Firefox still has many fans with its emphasis on privacy.
It’s hard to imagine Brave making much a dent in that kind of competition without the support of those it claims to help.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, March 12, 2016
One simple step to a more secure computer: uninstall Flash
Many of us are blissfully unaware of the existence of the Adobe Flash Player as we browse the web — until we’re hit with a notice telling us need to download and install it.
There are still videos, games and even entire websites that won’t work unless you have Flash installed. Just try playing Farmville on Facebook without Flash. This is the message I got: “If your game does not load within 10 seconds, you may need to upgrade your version of Flash. Please do so by clicking here.”
I did not click here, nor will I ever. Flash has been uninstalled from all my computers, and it’s not coming back.
Flash is riddled with security holes that require constant downloads and updates if you are to have any hope of avoiding an exploit. For me, it’s just not worth the hassle.
Last week, yet another vulnerability was exposed, and already bad people are taking advantage of it. What are they doing? I don’t know and I don’t want to find out the hard way. Typically, security breaches involve theft of bank account numbers, credit card information or passwords.
Anyway, if you really need to play Farmville on Facebook, there is a way to do it securely. Google Chrome has its own version of Flash baked into the browser. As far as I know, it’s safe from attacks.
Eventually, Flash will be phased out as newer, more secure, technologies take over. But it’s a slow process, especially for companies that have a lot invested in doing things the old way.
The good news is that you seldom need Flash for videos any more. Major sites like YouTube have converted all their content to modern standards.
So why not take the Flash-free challenge? Type “Flash uninstaller” into your favourite search engine and follow the top link. The instructions on Adobe’s website are easy to follow.
Once you’re done, your computer will be safer and chances are you’ll never miss it.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, August 1, 2015
All we really want is a ride
The great thing about cars is that they allow you to go wherever you want whenever you want. That’s freedom.
But what if you could go wherever you want whenever you want without a car? And without paying for insurance and gas?
In cities where Uber has launched, this dream is becoming a reality. You fire up the app on your smartphone, look at a map to see if any cars are nearby, and request a ride.
Anyone with a car and some spare time can sign up as an Uber driver. Anyone willing to hand over payment details can sign up as a passenger.
In cities with dense populations, and a lot of cars to choose from, you might never need to own a car.
Uber even works with other apps. For example, StubHub — a service where people can buy and sell event tickets from each other — will remind you get schedule a ride so you arrive on time.
The vehicles of today are fast turning into little more than computers with wheels and a place for humans to sit. Proof of this came when hackers took control of a Jeep and crashed it. It won’t be long before cars get viruses.
The driverless cars pioneered by Google use a lot of technology to sense their environment, but they’re basically using computers to do the driving. Looked at this way, it makes sense that a computer company like Apple would be looking into making its own cars. It would give a whole new meaning to mobile.
The day could come when these cars are so reliable that they are able to navigate their way through downtown traffic. When that happens, the next step will be an Uber-like app that allows us to call a driverless car for a ride.
We already have driverless rapid transit in some cities — Vancouver’s SkyTrain, for example. Why not create a system like this for the roads?
While we’re at it, driverless mini-buses could be programmed to work like car pools. The mini-bus would show up at your house every day to take you and a group of employees to work. An app would give you minute-by-minute updates on when it would arrive.
But what about car-sharing? This concept is not quite so futuristic. People sign up with a co-operative to drive cars parked in their neighbourhood. They’re meant for round trips, so you have to bring them back in a reasonable amount of time.
In Vancouver, there are thousands of car-share vehicles. Obviously, the system works but you’re still paying for maintenance of the cars through membership fees.
Real freedom comes when a car is nothing more than a ride.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Technology promises relief for families worried about elderly relatives
During the four-hour drive to Vancouver, all kinds of scenarios played through my mind. None of them were good.
My 90-year-old mother had fallen and suffered a big gash on her forehead. She was found blood all over her and taken to the hospital for emergency treatment.
She survived all that and was apparently ready to go home, when my sisters realized she was talking gibberish — random words with no meaning.
Something else was going on. Hospital staff soon determined that she was having a stroke. Worse, there was nothing they could do about it because of the risks involved from the injury to her forehead.
All they could do was monitor her. She might pull through, she might not. And if she did survive, she might never again be able to communicate intelligibly.
As I walked into the hospital room, many family members were already gathered, and I was expecting the worst. Final goodbyes, maybe?
But no, there seemed to be a normal conversation going on.
Mom didn’t know I was coming, so it took her a few seconds realize it was me.
“You didn’t come all the way down here just for this,” she said.
It was hardly the joyous reception a son might have hoped for, but it was classic Mom and I knew the miraculous had taken place. She was OK.
There was massive relief, but of course the story doesn’t end there. How can we prevent this from happening again? Ultimately, she will die as we all must, but as with most families we feel compelled to ensure there is as little suffering as possible.
In a society where people are expected to move to where the jobs are, families have become fragmented by distance — making it difficult to care for elderly relatives who need someone to keep an eye on them.
Even when you’re in the same city it can be tricky if you have a full-time job and children to worry about as well. People in these circumstances are known as the sandwich generation.
The human touch can never be replaced, but technology has come a long way toward filling the gap. A wearable medic alert system, for example, has a button on it that can be pressed in case of emergency. It sets off automatically in the case of a hard fall.
That’s fine for emergencies, but what about the everyday stuff that can lead up to an emergency? An encouraging sign came with the recent announcement of a partnership between Apple, IBM and Japan Post to provide iPads to Japanese seniors loaded with apps that connect them to health services and their families.
The purpose of some of the other apps is bit vague, likely because they’re still under development, but they appear to be oriented toward monitoring and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Knowing that many seniors might be resistant to using iPads, the aim is to make the apps easy for them to use. This in itself could be a big hurdle, since some elderly people simply have no interest in learning how to use anything computer related.
When iPads were first introduced, part of the Internet went berserk with people decrying how it dumbed down computers. At the time I wrote a defence of simplified computing, and received a screed via email foretelling how iPads presaged the doom of human kind.
They have indeed brought about many changes — some good and not so good. But if this experiment in Japan works out, we’ll see that putting useful technology in the hands of people who otherwise have shunned it will improve the lives of two, sometimes three, generations of families.
More posts in the Technology category
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Video is everywhere, and that might be a good thing
With the increasing presence of surveillance cameras around us, there is concern that we’re headed for the type of society where authorities can keep a constant eye on us.
But with smartphones in just about every pocket and purse, the tables may be turned. Citizens can watch the watchers.
That’s what happened last week when a passerby in South Carolina rushed to the scene of an incident involving a police officer and a man pulled over for a broken tail light. The man wound up dead and the official story, at first, was that it was the unfortunate result of scuffle between the two.
The video told a different story. We now know that an unarmed man was shot in the back eight times as he ran away. The officer was fired and charged with murder.
The person who made the video sensed that a situation was unfolding and ran toward it with the idea of getting it on the record. There are those who suggest this was an act of journalism, and I tend to agree. Most people would have run away or at least laid low.
There is now talk of making police wear video cameras that record their every action. In a lot of cases this might protect them from false accusations, but it would also have the sad side effect of showing they — the good guys — can’t always be trusted.
There are now hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras installed around the world. An estimated one billion smartphones — all of them with cameras — have been sold worldwide since 2007.
A question raised by the South Carolina video is whether it was a one-off. Did someone with a video camera just happen to come by and record the one and only time a white police officer has ever deliberately shot and killed an unarmed black man. It seems unlikely, and that makes it all the more disturbing.
If ubiquitous video puts everyone — good guys and bad guys — on their best behaviour then the sacrifice of our privacy might be worth it.
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