Technology Archives - Page 12 of 73

Verizon’s New Logo

Verizon’s new logo.

Hulu Offers Commercial Free Plan (Finally)

“Consumers are asking for more choice,” Mr. Hopkins said. “One thing that they really wanted us to do is give them some choice around advertising.”

Source: Hulu Starts a Commercial-Free Option to Rival Netflix and Amazon – The New York Times

Big month for Hulu between this and the Epix deal.

I love you, Google but that new colorful logo in the search tab is a little… much.

1 in 7 people on earth used Facebook on Monday

We just passed an important milestone. For the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a single day.

On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.

A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg – We just passed an important milestone. For the…

Of course, that means 6 in 7 people on earth didn’t use Facebook.

That means that there are lots of people who choose not to use Facebook in the developed world.

More critically, that means there are many people in our world that don’t have access to the internet or devices that can access the web (or Facebook if you please).

Companies are working to crack this nut for their own bottom lines but also the improvement of humanity. Access to information and the ability to communicate near instantaneously with someone on the other side of our planet (and eventually beyond) will be an amazing issue to cover in the coming decades.

It’s incumbent upon all of us now to make sure the internet is as welcoming and transformative as it should be for everyone (whether old or new user).

The Future is Messaging and Google Seems Oblivious

“Unlike other AI-based services in the market, M can actually complete tasks on your behalf. It can purchase items, get gifts delivered to your loved ones, book restaurants, travel arrangements, appointments and way more,” Facebook’s VP of messaging products David Marcus said in a Facebook post.

Source: Facebook’s M Is Here, and Google Should Be Worried

Messaging is big in Asia. Services like WeChat in China and Line in Japan / Thailand / Indonesia are how people communicate, buy things, book things, and operate. Sort of like how we (the enlightened) are amazed that people live inside of Facebook and think of it as the internet. There are even WeChat Stars like our YouTube stars. It is strange for us in the US to wrap our heads around (or at least me).

However, it won’t be for long. I remember sitting in a presentation by a Rakuten VP (they are a large Asian marketing firm that acquired messaging app Viber last year) at a conference in 2004… they were demonstrating data associated with the rising use of mobile phones to purchase items in stores or do cross comparisons via SMS in SE Asia while using brick-and-mortar stores as showrooms. I was blown away and thought “there’s no way anyone in the US would ever buy something on a mobile phone…certainly not furniture or computers.”

I was wrong. Best Buy is the best showroom Amazon could ever hope for (at least in my personal experience).

Five years from now, everyone in America will live inside the major messaging app that we settle on. Whether that’s FB’s Messenger, WeChat, Line, Snapchat (doubtful), Viber, Hangouts, WhatsApp or something we haven’t heard of yet, we will decry this newfangled “messaging media” and “messaging marketing” and look fondly on the days when we all just had Facebook newsfeeds or Twitter timelines.

Remember ICQ and AIM? We’re going back.

Messaging apps are what comes after “social media.” Facebook gets it. Even Apple (iMessage) and Blackberry (Messenger) get it. Google seems to be dragging its feet, which is scary to me.

Google’s New Router

Meet OnHub, a new router from Google that’s built for all the ways you Wi-Fi.

Source: OnHub – Google

I run our home and business DNS through Google (along with mail, calendaring, files, pictures, phone, etc) so I may as well use their new router, right?

The specs do look impressive.

Uncle Bill’s Sliver Gripper Tweezers

Amazon.com: 2 Pack Uncle Bill’s Sliver Gripper Keychain Tweezers

Random Saturday testimonial that I had to share… I spent a good deal of time today working on our back yard (field?) to clear out some brush and undergrowth before things get too crazy with the arrival of Baby H in November. As a result, I got a number of splinters and thorns despite wearing gloves.

Luckily, I had a pair of these tweezers that I recently purchased in my beloved pack / man purse / tactical survival bag and got to put the little device to use in a big way. Some splinters were just under the skin but quite a few were embedded deeper. These tweezers really did surprise me in how well they worked.

If you do any type of work or maintenance that could result in wood or metal or plastic etc splinters, I highly recommend these over other options (including my old method of gouging out a splinter with a sharp knife… which never works well).

Google’s Affiliate Program for Play Store

Google is working on launching an affiliate program for Google Play similar to the one Apple runs for its own digital content stores, a source briefed on the matter has told 9to5Google. The affiliate program, which is said to still be in its early stages of development and could get called off or change significantly between now and its time of launch, is said to be powered by Performance Horizon Group, the same company which in 2013 began supporting Apple’s affiliate program.

Source: Exclusive: Google planning an affiliate program for Google Play, starting with Movies & Music | 9to5Google

Apple’s affiliate program for iTunes content has had some success for larger publishers I’ve talked to (who deal in media and music categories). However, they weren’t blown away by the results. I wonder how much Apple is seeing from the program?

It will be interesting to see if Google can make a significant push by leveraging the affiliate space. There’s so much competition now with Apple, Amazon, Spotify etc that partnerships via an affiliate program might be the way to go to increase market share.

Google has been doing lots of hiring for their physical products category on the Play Store, so maybe this is in conjunction with that effort as well.

Will Google Buy Twitter?

“Obviously, Google could continue to just pay Twitter for access to its firehose, as other services do. But now that its in-house social network has proven to be mostly useless as a social connector between its various services, it needs some other way to plug social into those services and get access to unlimited real-time data, and Twitter is arguably the best method available.”

Source: Google’s failure with Google+ makes it more likely it will buy Twitter – Fortune

I love Twitter (much more than Facebook). I know using a term such as “love” for what amounts to a social network is hyperbolic, but it’s close to being true. In 2006, I latched on to the service as my social network of choice because I was fascinated by it’s ability to deliver news, info, content, and “streams” in near real time. Plus, Twitter was very open with its API meaning that a whole ecosystem of 3rd party apps and services developed. Twitter, in effect, became a coral reef as Dave Winer described here back in 2007.

I had breakfast with a colleague at a tech conference in 2007, and the topic of Twitter came up as we were both checking our phones (pre iPhone) and comparing how we were accessing the service. We discussed our hopes for the service and the web, and decided that Twitter (or something very much like it) would inevitably become a new protocol similar to IMAP or POP (that we use for email still) and deliver us streams of information based on who we followed or “tracked” (track was a key feature of Twitter early on until the dark times) in whatever app we chose. Twitter was going to be this generation’s love letter to the open web and protocols and standards. We were wrong.

The web continued to evolve and social networks became prime motivators in Twitter’s unfortunate path towards becoming a silo after 2008. The last seven years have seen Twitter grasp for its identity as a cast of rotating leadership ping-ponged it from an open web alert service to a celebrity hashtag outlet to a news delivery system to an advertising network. Twitter never had a chance. That’s not because of a zero sum game with Facebook. The two could exist perfectly well and both have billions of users. They are very different services and have entirely different purposes and possible futures (much like Apple and Google or Microsoft and IBM).

Will Google buy Twitter?

I have a feeling they will. Google understands its best bet for the future is a web that exists with fewer silos and more users. That doesn’t mean simple data mining of social networks, but it also means more users on the web for the advertising of the future (which will not be based on clicks or tracked by cookies but function on very personal levels based on the uniqueness of human experience… see Google Now).

Is Apple Supporting Terrorism?

“Wittes and Bedell argue that Apple’s decision to “move aggressively to implement end-to-end encrypted systems, and indeed to boast about them” after being “publicly and repeatedly warned by law enforcement at the very highest levels that ISIS is recruiting Americans” — in part through the use of encrypted messaging apps — could make the company liable if “an ISIS recruit uses exactly this pattern to kill some Americans.”

Source: Obama Administration War Against Apple and Google Just Got Uglier

The wars of the future will be fought between increasingly archaic nation states and corporate states just as the Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution (and in part the American Revolution) signaled the decline of monarchies in Europe.

Why You Should Fear the Future and Think about Your Business Now

“This is for the same reason we just discussed—the Law of Accelerating Returns. The average rate of advancement between 1985 and 2015 was higher than the rate between 1955 and 1985—because the former was a more advanced world—so much more change happened in the most recent 30 years than in the prior 30.

So—advances are getting bigger and bigger and happening more and more quickly. This suggests some pretty intense things about our future, right?

Kurzweil suggests that the progress of the entire 20th century would have been achieved in only 20 years at the rate of advancement in the year 2000—in other words, by 2000, the rate of progress was five times faster than the average rate of progress during the 20th century. He believes another 20th century’s worth of progress happened between 2000 and 2014 and that another 20th century’s worth of progress will happen by 2021, in only seven years. A couple decades later, he believes a 20th century’s worth of progress will happen multiple times in the same year, and even later, in less than one month. All in all, because of the Law of Accelerating Returns, Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century.”

Source: The AI Revolution: Road to Superintelligence – Wait But Why

“Things are changing so quickly these days compared to when I grew up.” – Every person older than 30 that I know

That sentiment is true.

“Change” (in this case technological advancement) happens on exponential curves. We, as humans, are geared to view change linearly or on a straight course based on our previous experiences. We love to share anecdotes about the past and think about the future in terms of small incremental bits. After all, I was born in 1978 and things aren’t all that different now than they were then? Yes, they are.

Business wise, it’s time to think about how you or your company or your church or your nonprofit is going to position itself now for the increasing climb of the Law of Accelerating Returns. 2040 will look dramatically different than 2020 in terms of human advancement.

This will impact everything from how we consume and produce products (already happening) to how we drive (already happening) to how we use, spend, and save currency (already happening) to how we worship or view faith (happening at a shocking pace now) to how we do business (if you think “the internet” is important for business, just wait) to how we monitor and adjust and improve our own biological, mental, and emotional health. Not to mention external variables that will affect our future such as climate change, growth in human population, war, strife, and the coming economic calamity because of the gap between rich and poor.

If we don’t nuke ourselves or die from spoiling our resources, the next 100 years will see an incredible change in what it means to be(ing) human.

So, if you think 2015 is weird and annoying with mobile phones, email, and Facebook and you cannot wait until we all just go back to paper and “how things used to be”… just wait for 2025. You should fear the future.

However, this will be an amazing and monumental time for our species. I’m hopeful that technological advancement will bring human progress in a number of areas.

Either way, prepare your business now by thinking about what’s coming.

Polynomial Codes Over Certain Finite Fields, or Why Things You Don’t Think Matter Actually Matter

“Whatever new technologies are on the horizon, history has taught us that Reed-Solomon-based coding will probably still be there, behind the scenes, safeguarding our data against errors. Like the genes within an organism, the codes have been passed down to subsequent generations, slightly adjusted and optimized for their new environment. They have a proven track record that starts on Earth and extends ever further into the Milky Way. “There cannot be a code that can correct more errors than Reed-Solomon codes…It’s mathematical proof,” Bossert says. “It’s beautiful.”

Source: The Math That Connects Pluto to DNA — NOVA Next | PBS

From storing information via DNA to communicating with spacecraft near Pluto to enabling your cell phone and beyond…

Don’t let people tell you that your work doesn’t matter. Small minds are the enemy of progress.

Oh, Microsoft

First thing you see when you begin the upgrade to Windows 10… binding arbitration clause. Thanks, lawyers.

Google Domains Web Hosting Partners

This morning I’ve been working on a site domain issue for a new client who we’re building a website for, along with social media and email newsletter campaigns. The issue I’m working on is rather obscure, and I had a quick thought to check out how other domain services handle it to compare with the service we are using (Namecheap) for this account.

I reviewed the regulars such as Hover, GoDaddy, eNom, Network Solutions etc then remembered that Google had recently opened up its own domain service to everyone after a while in beta. We had a beta account early on and I moved over one domain there to see how things worked. It’s a nice, clean, simple, and straightforward approach somewhat synonymous with Hover’s.

What surprised me this morning (I’m sure it’s been there for a while and I’ve just missed it since I don’t use Google Domains on a regular basis) are the promoted website building partners that Google is prompting here along with its own (terrible) Blogger service. Domain services such as Namecheap or GoDaddy offer an in-house style page builder that is an additional cost / upsale for domain purchasers. I wonder what the deal is between Google and these services?

All of these are relatively easy-to-use services and have their own unique monthly or yearly costs. We use Squarespace and Shopify occasionally for clients as a caveat. I wonder what the conversion rates for these are? Do people (not website devs or agencies like ours) sign up for these services through links such as this?

I wondered if other domain services had similar promoted partner offerings, and it looks like Hover has recently rolled out a similar thing…

Obviously, Google isn’t going to promote Tumblr after it was acquired by Yahoo last year, but Squarespace and Shopify also show up in Hover. Format is an interesting addition as I’ve always thought of them as a more static / portfolio type host.

As an aside, I wonder if other smaller site builders such as Ghost or Barley (in reboot mode now) will find audiences through these types of promotions?

Regardless, I encourage everyone to have a blog for their own person and to have a site for their business / group / school / club / nonprofit / church / organization etc. You simply cannot base your online identity (personal or professional) on Facebook or Facebook Pages for many reasons. These types of promotions will hopefully lower the bar and help more people on the web realize that.

Now that you can easily create and design website on your phone, it feels as if the act of setting up a site has moved from something like “specialized knowledge” into common understanding. That’s a good thing and will make the web stronger (even if it gets a little uglier).

And when you get ready to take your site to the next level, get in touch and we’ll build you something unique and capable of what you need after you get your feet wet.

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

“I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.”

Source: DNA/How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

Still a good read from Douglas Adams (16 years later).

The Reddit Revolt and Social Silos

The sudden revolt has thrown one of the world’s most popular sites into chaos. It wasn’t immediately clear why Taylor, who joined the company in 2013, was fired. But the response by moderators was as swift as it was ruthless. Within hours, the moderators of /r/IAmA took the subreddit private, effectively shutting it down. That started a cascade of moderators shuttering dozens of subreddits—/r/askreddit, /r/todayilearned, and /r/pics among them—that is still growing, crippling a site with some 160 million users. Many more subreddits, including /r/science, have expressed solidarity with Taylor but remained open.

Source: Reddit Is Revolting | WIRED

Reddit is in a state of turmoil from the firing of a popular staffer as well as a continual breakdown of communication from company officers and subreddit moderators. Reddit itself functions primarily due to the hard work of popular and niche subreddit moderators who laboriously spend time curating and improving the experience of the “internet’s front page.”

What’s interesting to note here is that moderators from hundreds of subreddits are using this as an opportunity to voice their frustration with how the company supports and enables them to do what they do. There’s also ongoing questions and antagonism between community leaders and the company’s new CEO due to her attempts to limit harassing and defamatory posts by users.

Reddit’s distributed model lends itself to such rebellion. Similar things happened to Digg when it began its decline, which gave Reddit a boost of audience. There are cautionary tales of dozens of forums undergoing similar events and eventual departure of key users and members as well.

What does this mean for other social silos such as Facebook or the post-open Twitter or Google+? In my mind, one of the key benefits to the path that Facebook has taken with making key features into standalone services or apps (Messenger, Pages, Instagram, Whatsapp etc) or Twitter with Vine is that these social networks are now more insulated from being left behind due to a mass exit based on inner turmoil.

Much like NASCAR fans decrying the sports’ and associated tracks’ latest announcement asking for Confederate flags to be left at home and, passionate people who feel entitled due to a conception of buy-in can feel betrayed and threaten to leave. Social spaces on the web are built to fail, and companies have to both diversify and continue to attract a membership that is comfortable with evolution.