Apple Music's Original TV Plans Now Include Potential Shows and Videos From J.J. Abrams and R. Kelly4/27/2017 Apple Music's Original TV Plans Now Include Potential Shows and Videos From J.J. Abrams and R. Kelly http://ift.tt/2pCPiF3 Jimmy Iovine, one of the heads of Apple Music, has given multiple interviews and visions for the future of Apple's streaming music service over the past few months, mainly detailing how Apple Music will morph into "an entire pop cultural experience" with the advent of original video content. In an interview with Bloomberg posted online today, Iovine continued that pitch by stating, "I’m trying to help Apple Music be an overall movement in popular culture," detailing plans that include original shows and videos with partners like director J.J. Abrams and rapper R. Kelly. The expansion of Apple Music beyond streaming new songs and music videos by artists began slowly for Apple, with the company releasing a tour documentary in partnership with Taylor Swift in 2015, as well as a 23-minute short film with Drake in 2016. Those modest beginnings have helped Apple learn what works and what doesn't, with Iovine stating, "We’re gonna grow slowly no matter what, I don’t know how to do it fast." Iovine further mentioned that Apple's vast resources provide the Apple Music team with enough room for betting on risky projects, so the service can "make one show, three shows" to see what viewers favor. “A music service needs to be more than a bunch of songs and a few playlists,” says Iovine, 64. “I’m trying to help Apple Music be an overall movement in popular culture, everything from unsigned bands to video. We have a lot of plans.”Those slow-to-build plans apparently include a largely redesigned, "new edition" of the Apple Music app coming to iOS 11 this fall that will "better showcase video." Because of this update, Iovine said that Apple won't make the same mistakes that rival Spotify has made in producing original video content, but subsequently not promoting it enough to get people to watch. "We’re going to market it like it’s a TV show," Iovine mentioned. "You’re going to know this is out." Currently, those shows include Carpool Karaoke: The Series and Planet of the Apps, although the former show was recently delayed indefinitely and the latter has only a vague spring launch date. In the immediate future, Iovine said that Apple Music's video ambitions are still very music-related, including Dr. Dre's Vital Signs, and Iovine even wants to produce a sequel to R. Kelly's rap opera Trapped in the Closet. “For a music streaming service,” Iovine says, “we’re building a very decent slate.”According to Carpool Karaoke producer Ben Winston, who helped sign the agreement to partner with Apple along with star James Corden, the mere fact that Apple is involved with producing these new shows is all it takes to get people excited to work with them. "If I call LeBron James and I name five networks or cable channels or even different online platforms, I’m not convinced he agrees to sit in a car," Winston says. "If you say you’re doing a new show for Apple, people get excited." But the company's plans are far bigger than just original content that has a music slant, with Iovine having met with well-known Hollywood creatives to discuss "possible ideas," including director J.J. Abrams and producer Brian Grazer, although talks with Grazer regarding Imagine Entertainment are said to have "fizzled out" for unknown reasons. Of course, any specific details regarding what a J.J. Abrams-produced series on Apple Music might be were not given. Previous reports of Apple's dealings in Hollywood have been largely critical of the Cupertino company's inability to forge ahead with a consistent, unified vision in the original content space. For Iovine, the almost-two-year-old service still has a ways to go. "Apple Music is nowhere near complete in my head," he said. Achieving his vision for the future of Apple Music has gotten Iovine in hot water with some of his colleagues, as well. Some ideas get Iovine into trouble. He’s taken meetings with artists and made arrangements to release music without telling anyone in advance, frustrating colleagues. He’s persuaded artists to release music exclusively with Apple, frustrating record labels. But no one doubts his knack for bringing people together.Everyone from Apple CEO Tim Cook to Apple Music executive Bozoma Saint John have reinforced Apple's future with original content coming to its music streaming service. Earlier this year during an earnings call, Cook said that Apple is starting off slow -- echoing Iovine's comment -- and has a "toe in the water" testing original content, while Saint John said of Apple Music as a whole: "We're developing something very special and we just want people to pay attention."
Tags: Jimmy Iovine, Apple Music
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Laurene Powell Jobs to detail philanthropic efforts at Code conference http://ift.tt/2qa42Iq Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, will be making an appearance at May's Code conference to discuss her trust's philanthropic efforts. Gadget News via AppleInsider - Frontpage News http://appleinsider.com April 27, 2017 at 01:16AM
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Atlus has change of heart over 'Persona 5' streaming restrictions http://ift.tt/2oPrhq8 Since launching last month, Persona 5 has already comfortably earned its place among the JRPG greats. Yet for streamers, this highly acclaimed title has become more of an archaic headache than a gaming highlight. Upon launch, developer Atlus forbade fans from streaming any content past a certain point in the game, threatening to hit 'offending' fans with copyright claims or even to ban their account. Now, after community outrage, the developer has decided to relax its punitive stance.. slightly. For the uninitiated, Persona 5 runs on an in-game calendar, letting players choose how best to spend their time. Previously, players were forbidden from showing any content that took place past mid-July in the game world. Now, Atlus has apologized, instead asking streamers not to show anything that happens beyond November 19th in Persona 5. While it's Atlus' right to protect its intellectual property, attempting to prevent spoilers in such an aggressive manner feels counter intuitive in 2017. With the game launching in Japan months before it arrived in the west, players could easily find out Persona 5's ending long before it was streamed. It begs the question whether preventing spoilers was really Atlus' true motivation here. Streamers and YouTubers can both command huge audiences, and many publishers have embraced this, seeing people showcasing their games as free marketing. With Persona 5 presumably clocking up a hefty development budget during its lengthy creation time, it's difficult not to wonder whether the move was simply a bid to forcibly drive more sales. Either way, it's good to see Atlus loosening its archaic restrictions and apologizing for the heavy-handed threats. Whether Persona fans will forgive them, however, is another matter entirely. Source: Atlus Gadget News via Engadget http://www.engadget.com April 27, 2017 at 01:09AM
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Dreaming of persistent, ambient authentication... for iPhone 11 http://ift.tt/2qiNTQl People don't want Touch ID on the front of iPhone — they want ambient, persistent authentication everywhere. Now that it seems likely that Apple will ship an iPhone with an "edge-to-edge" display — as I predicted back in January of 2015 — we're already seeing preemptive controversy over what that means for Touch ID, Apple's fingerprint authentication system. The hope is to have it on the front, where it's always been, albeit slipped elegantly beneath the display. The reality, though, might mean moving it to the back, where it can keep its current, hyper-reliable, implementation. The arguments are over the relative convenience of hitting the sensor as your phone lies flat on a table or in a charger vs. hitting it as you slide your phone from your pocket or bag. But is either really an argument for Touch ID convenience or an argument that we need even more convenient authentication than Touch ID? Touch ID, especially with Apple's second-generation sensor and the changes made with iOS 10, has become so fast and so reliable that I barely, if ever, think about it anymore. I simply pick up my iPhone 7 Plus, press the Home button with my finger, it unlocks, and I'm in. There are a few times, though, where my finger is wet, I'm carrying something and the easier finger to use isn't one that's registered with the system, or I'm wearing gloves, and I'm reminded that Touch ID is still an active process. I still have to do something and, no matter how fast it feels these days, I still have to wait for it to respond.
Imagine a future iPhone where authentication is ambient and perpetual, not requiring a specific fingerprint or biometric challenge/response but continuously grabbing snippets of biometric and other data. And imagine it would use that data to maintain a state of "trust" where your iPhone is simply unlocked for as long as it can be reasonably (or strictly, depending on settings) certain it's in your possession, challenging only when that state becomes uncertain. There are already rumors of Apple incorporating Touch ID into the capacitive display, rather than a discrete capacitive home button, in this year's iPhone. There are also patents for microLCD technology that further enhances screen-as-fingerprint reading. Is the idea that parts, areas, or even the entire iPhone display being able to read at least partial fingerprint data really that far off? iPhone cameras are already doing face and object detection for photographic effects and tagging. Microsoft is using them for facial recognition-based authentication. We look at our screens often and it's more than possible they could not only start looking but constantly authenticating back. The same is true for infrared-based iris scanning. Samsung has recently introduced both facial recognition and iris scanning into its Galaxy phones. Unfortunately, you can't use them at the same time, with the system intelligently switching between facial recognition in daylight and iris scanning in low light, but that can't be far off either. Siri began doing the basics of voice printing a couple years ago. Now, when you use setup buddy on a new iPhone, it has you say a few simple phrases so it can distinguish your voice — and your voice queries and commands — from those of others. I don't believe it's robust enough for authentication yet, but companies like Nuance have been offering just those kinds of "my voice is my passport, authorize me" services for a while. It's not tough to see Apple using the multiple, beam-forming mics on iPhones and AirPods to constantly check for your voice either. It's the co-processor in iPhone that allows for low-power "Hey, Siri", the same co-processor that serves as the sensor fusion hub for accelerometer, manometer, barometer, and other data. Right now that's used for things like health and fitness apps and games. Taken further, though, could gait-analysis be used to record and check your walking and motion patterns, so as you move around your iPhone can know it's you that's doing the moving? Biometric data could also be supplemented by other factors, like trusted objects. Previously, trusted objects were dumb — grab someone's dongle and you got into their phone. With Apple Watch, though, trusted objects got smarter. Auto Unlock on macOS, which uses the proximity of your Apple Watch to authenticate you for your Mac, feels downright magical. You authenticate on the watch via passcode or Touch ID on iPhone, then that authentication is further projected from Watch to Mac. So could environmental data. For example, if you're in a certain place at a certain time that fits your existing patterns, that could add to the trust weighting. Taken separately, each of these authentication methods either requires user action or doesn't provide enough security to be useful. Taken together though, every touch of the display provides a partial print, every glance at the camera provides a partial face or iris scan, every word a partial voice print, every step a partial gait analysis, and if a paired Apple Watch is proximate and you're in a place, at a time, that fits your pattern, enough factors pass authentication and the moment your iPhone senses any engagement, it's already unlocked and ready to be of service.
Conversely, any time enough factors fail authentication, your phone goes into lockdown and challenges for a proper fingerprint, iris scan, or passcode/password to make sure you're really you. And it could escalate for situations that warrant it. That's what happens today, for example, after a reboot, timeouts, software updates, etc. For secure enterprise or government use, it could do so more often and require multiple factors to resume a trusted state. To me, arguing about whether or not Touch ID would be good or bad on the front, back, or sides of iPhone 8 is too much in the now. Touch ID isn't there for Touch ID's sake. It was a way to solve a problem and, in the future, there will either be better, faster, and easier ways to solve the same problem or things that make the problem disappear so it no longer needs solving. Historically, that seems like the approach Apple takes. Gadget News via iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog http://www.imore.com/ April 27, 2017 at 01:07AM
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Master & Dynamic is teaming up with Leica to make some great-looking headphones http://ift.tt/2oPpBgd Master & Dynamic is known for its high-end headphones. Leica is known for its high-end cameras. Now, the two are coming together to collaborate on some limited-edition Master & Dynamic headphones with Leica-themed designs. The new “Master & Dynamic for 0.95” collection, as it’s known, takes Leica’s Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH camera lens as inspiration and applies the all-black color scheme and famed Leica red dot to Master & Dynamic’s MW60, MH40, and ME05 headphones, along with a matching black steel MP1000 headphone stand. Additionally, the inside of the ear pads on the MW60 and MH40 over-ear headphones will be similarly shaded in Leica red. And along with the black-and-red color scheme, the 0.95 collection also features ridges on the ear cups that are intended to echo the ridges on Leica’s lenses. The changes to the headphones are purely cosmetic here — there’s no talk of retuning the acoustics for Leica’s specific specifications or design that you sometimes see on branded headphones like this. That said, much like Leica’s cameras, the black-and-red colorway remains an incredibly good-looking combination that suites Master & Dynamic’s headphones quite nicely. Master & Dynamic and Leica are also pricing the 0.95 variants exactly the same as the company’s standard color options: $549 for the over-ear, noise-canceling MW60s; $399 for the MH40s; $199 for the in-ear ME05s; and $59 for the MP1000 stand. Again, there’s little reason to upgrade if you already have a pair of Master & Dynamic’s headphones, unless you really like the Leica aesthetic. But if you’re looking to pick up a new pair, the Leica-themed variant won’t cost you extra. Gadget News via The Verge http://ift.tt/oZfQdV April 27, 2017 at 01:03AM Mars-like soil can be pressed into strong bricks which could make building easier on the Red Planet4/27/2017
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Mars-like soil can be pressed into strong bricks — which could make building easier on the Red Planet http://ift.tt/2p7DGbB Simulated Mars soil can be packed together into a solid brick-like material — without needing any added ingredients to hold it together. That potentially means real Martian soil could be easily used as a tool for building structures like habitats on the Red Planet’s surface, which could make human missions to Mars less complicated to pull off. A group of engineers figured this out by using a high-pressure hammer to mash together material known as Mars soil simulant. It’s a collection of rocks from Earth that have the same chemical makeup as the dirt found on Mars, as well as grains that are of a similar shape and size as Martian grains. After working with the material for a while, the engineers found that just adding the right amount of pressure was enough to form the soil into tiny, stiff blocks — stronger than steel-reinforced concrete. That’s not how we Earthlings make most of our construction materials. Typically, particles have to be mixed with a special type of adhesive, or binder, in order to stay rigid. The binder acts a bit like glue, holding the materials together and keeping them in a fixed shape. But the simulated Martian soil contains a special chemical ingredient that acts like its own innate binder. “It gives the soil strength when it’s compacted,” Yu Qiao, a structural engineer at University of California, San Diego, and the lead researcher on a NASA-funded study about this technique, tells The Verge. Of course, simulated Mars soil is just that — simulated, and so its properties may not necessarily translate to real Martian dirt. But if they do, it’s good news for anyone dreaming of seeing people on Mars someday, since many experts agree that future Martian astronauts will have to use resources already on the Red Planet. People are going to need a lot of equipment to live on Mars and launching everything from Earth can get expensive and complicated. The more astronauts can “life off the land,” the less people have to rely on shipped materials. And these latest findings, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest some buildings and structures could be made with Martian soil instead of Earth materials — and not much effort may be required. “It’s really easy to swing a hammer on Mars,” Jon Rask, a life sciences expert at NASA who was not involved with the study, tells The Verge. “You can imagine a Mars explorer swinging a hammer to make strong building blocks.” Before doing this study, Qiao and his team had actually been looking at ways to turn simulated lunar soil into building material — back when NASA was planning a return to the Moon. Unlike Mars dirt, lunar soil needs a binder to stick together, but the team wanted to come up with a way to use as little as possible. (The more binder you need, the more that has to be shipped up from Earth.) Typically, construction materials are made up of about 15 percent binder, according to Qiao. But through different compression techniques, the team was able to get the binder content down to 3 percent, while still making a strong lunar-based material. Then in 2010, NASA shifted its focus from the Moon to Mars — so the team shifted its focus as well. “Our initial thought was: let’s borrow the success of lunar soil and see if it works on Martian soil,” says Qiao. And at first, that same compression process worked perfectly for the Mars soil simulant. Qiao and his team tried packing the dirt together with 6 percent binder, and immediately it worked great. So they decided to test the boundaries of what the soil could do and continued to pack the dirt together using less and less of the binder. “Then one day, I told my research assistant, let’s just compact the soil simulant itself,” Qiao says. “And it still worked.” That made the researchers think there is some ingredient already in the Martian soil that helps it to stick together. They ultimately landed on iron oxide — a chemical compound that gives Martian soil its signature red color. When iron oxide is crushed, it can crack easily, forming fractures with very clean and flat surfaces, according to Qiao. And when these surfaces are firmly pressed together, they form super strong bonds. Ultimately, Qiao envisions using Mars soil to build habitats or landing pads for vehicles that descend to the planet’s surface. He thinks the best way to make these structures is to do a form of additive manufacturing — where the soil is slowly layered. It’s the same way 3D printing works, and it could make it easier to build fairly large structures on the Red Planet. But these bricks aren’t a complete solution to construction on Mars — at least not yet. The team only made miniature bricks, so it’s possible that larger Martian bricks won’t hold up so well. And it’s not clear how durable they are either, which is important for a few reasons. Obviously, you don’t want your structure to collapse. But less obviously, dust from the soil could break off into the air that astronauts are breathing, and inhaling large enough particles could cause health problems. The dust may also contain a type of salt known as perchlorate, which has been found throughout the Martian surface. Perchlorates can be toxic to human thyroid glands. So more research needs to be done to better understand these risks. Still, many experts have been trying to figure out the best way to make Martian bricks for a while now. And before this study, many thought it would be an intensive process. There was talk of bringing some kind of heating device to bake the soil into bricks or even bringing microbes to Mars that could feed on human waste and create a binder material. But Qiao and his team have shown that you may not need all that much. “What they’re doing is demonstrating proof of concept,” says Rask. “This is a good step for moving forward.” Gadget News via The Verge http://ift.tt/oZfQdV April 27, 2017 at 01:03AM Hope For the Best Prepare For the Worst With This Fully Stocked First Aid Kit On Sale Today Only4/27/2017
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Hope For the Best, Prepare For the Worst With This Fully Stocked First Aid Kit, On Sale Today Only http://ift.tt/2p7diys I’m not saying civil society is going to break down in the relatively near future, necessitating survival preparedness. But I’m not not saying it. This 326 piece first aid kit is OSHA and ANSI certified for 100 people, so it should (hopefully) last you and your family for quite some time, no matter the situation. Inside, you’ll find bandages, alcohol wipes, medicines, gauze, splints, a cold pack, scissors, tape, and a lot more. Today only, get it for $26, or about $9 less than usual, because it’s better to be safe than sorry. Gadget News via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com April 27, 2017 at 12:50AM
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How to Teach Your Kids About Money When You Are a Financial Disaster Yourself http://ift.tt/2pl8zaT In general, we want our kids to be better people than we are. We insist they eat their vegetables and then break out the Cap’n Crunch after they go to bed. We teach them to floss as we run a tongue over our many fillings. We counsel “forgive and forget,” even as we ruminate on the splotchy-faced woman who wouldn’t let us into traffic as we were pulling out of an auto dealership in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1997. Advertisement Yes, in short, we hope our kids are better, more generous, more on-the-ball people than we are, and especially that they won’t be fuck-ups in the ways we are, and in this case I’m talking specifically about people who have just never...gotten it together financially. People like me. I grew up in West Virginia in a financially chaotic household. My mother was an artist, so resources were feast or famine, and while we weren’t (usually) poor, I developed the typical poor-person habit of immediately spending whatever money I had on something comforting, because no matter what, that cash would soon be gone. If money always evaporates tomorrow, you might as well enjoy the drinks/cigarettes/new dress/vacation today. Now obviously this is a self-fulfilling prophecy that has developed into a vicious cycle, a cycle that has made me feel like a failure and a loser pretty much every day of my adult life. Then I moved from West Virginia to New York City, a move that induced cultural whiplash and made me question what’s financially “normal.” My grandmother bringing her own Scotch in a jelly jar to restaurants to keep the tab down? Turns out, not normal. Advertisement But having kids makes you not want to be a failure and a loser anymore and, like a lot of people who’ve grown up in eccentric circumstances (I once lived with my parents in a post office, but that’s a story for another day) I think every day about creating the normalest possible environment for my kids. We eat dinner at the same time every night. I set limits with screen time. I put on shoes to pick them up at school. But I haven’t been able to crack the finance problem. Our credit card bills are like a monthly punch in the stomach, and the thought of our retirement and college savings makes my heart race. Even the most minor of money discussions (whether to replace a ratty rug, for example) brings a wave of shame and recrimination that makes rational decision-making impossible, and to comfort myself...I buy things. Our financial problems came to a head last year when our child-care costs unexpectedly went up, and I enrolled in graduate school. Our monthly expenses caused me heart palpitations. I have seen friends, upon having kids, clean up their acts—get steady jobs, deal with eating disorders and drinking problems, in general press play on “adulting”—and I wanted to join them. But every time I tried to get my act together—to make a budget and stick to it, or to research where we needed to be in our retirement savings (another blow: our IRAs are apparently right on track for for a nine-year-old who wants to retire in 120 years) I was so baffled that I gave up. And bought something. Advertisement Sponsored A couple of years ago, when my older son was four, Ron Lieber, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote a book called The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money. I knew I should start giving my son an allowance, and I wanted to start instilling good money sense. But it was a classic case of the blind leading the blind, except one of the blind also had a habit of overspending, weeping, and flying into fits of rage. And it wasn’t the kid. Lieber offers bold suggestions for teaching kids about money, beginning with three “allowance jars”—one for spending, one for saving, and one for giving. By the time the child is in middle school, he advocates turning the entire yearly clothing budget over him or her, to allocate as he or she sees fit. Now this may or may not work for you, but it was beside the point for me: I didn’t even know what we spent annually on kids’ clothes. Lieber’s suggestions are predicated on the idea that parents know what they’re spending, and the idea that I should know—and didn’t—seemed like a major parenting dereliction of duty. Cue more shame, and I avoided the subject for another full year, until the child-care/grad-school problem forced my hand. Advertisement For me, the major shift in my thinking came with something pretty simple: I re-phrased my annual New Year’s resolution. Every January I make the same resolution: I will sort out the budget. And every year, faced with overspending or accounts that won’t reconcile, I give up by February. But this year, I changed my resolution to “For an hour a week, I will live with the feelings of shame and recrimination that come with learning about budgeting.” I chose the online budget program You Need a Budget, or YNAB, because it seemed like the most intuitive: Unlike other budget programs, in which you hazard a guess at what you spend each month, in advance, and then find out a month later that you were comically wrong, YNAB allows you to budget only money you have right now, in your checking account. (It’s an electronic version of the pre-digital-age “envelope” system in which you put your money in envelopes marked “rent,” “groceries,” etc., and when it was gone, it was gone.) You can move money from category to category (or envelope to envelope) to cover overspending, so if your medical expenses are over-budget one month, you take some money from the “entertainment” category, and move it to “medical,” and skip the Dave Matthews tickets. (Or whatever.) Advertisement Advertisement Now this was not an immediate, perfect solution. YNAB is pretty intuitive but not totally intuitive, and one has to be able to tolerate a learning curve—and that’s where my weekly hour of pain comes in. The site offers video tutorials and live webinars, help documents, and support via email. There’s a YNAB subreddit that’s very helpful for crowd-sourced answers. For those of us who have emotional blocks around money, learning to tolerate the learning stage is the most challenging part—to not throw in the towel as soon as I couldn’t grasp how to handle accounting for cash or couldn’t make an account reconcile properly. In fact, every time something didn’t work, tears would come to my eyes again because I felt so stupid and helpless. But slowly, things are changing. I sit at my desk for an hour a week and refuse to click away from the site for 60 minutes (I set a timer). I watch a video or ask the help desk for support. I took on some extra work to cover January’s binge-spending on disaster preparedness. I’m four months in, and I’ve heard that it takes six months for the program to become an easy two-minutes-a-day, do-it-with-your-eyes-closed system. (Naturally, you need to allow more time for discussions about prioritizing and setting goals with your partner, if you have one. The program is agnostic about how you spend your money: It won’t tell you to quit it with the takeout and beer; there is no pop-up that says “that’s a lot of money for a synthetic blend,” or “are the Braves really worth that MLB.com subscription?” Like a good teacher, it presents the information and lets you draw your own conclusions.) Advertisement My husband and I did have to cut some luxuries, but we comfort ourselves that we can add them back when we’re past this crippling child-care/ grad-school stage. I’ve learned how to make the accounts (usually) reconcile, and when they don’t, I can now hunt for the mistake clear-eyed rather than through a blur of tears. We are setting savings goals for big-ticket items we want, rather than our old “system” of just putting something on a credit card and then, rather than enjoying the new amplifier or baseball tickets, feeling a prickle of anxiety every time we thought of it. “Budgeting” has kind of a depressing ring to it, a sense of deprivation. But nothing is as depressing as feeling out of control and ashamed, and like, as my husband said, a giant boulder is bearing down upon you. Everyone lives with limits, even very wealthy people. (In fact, as I started talking to people, some quite affluent, about their budgeting systems, a lot of weird shit came out: credit-card debt kept secret from spouses, compulsive overspending or lunatic frugality, a husband who will blow the bank on restaurant meals but last purchased underwear before there was an Internet. A lot of people will die on the hill of sponge versus paper towel for countertops. Everyone is weird about money. A lot of people are ashamed. The Opposite of Spoiled has three entries in the index for “shame.”) Of course I wish we had more—everyone wishes they had more. And I live in New York City, a place that reminds me daily of all the real estate I didn’t buy 20 years ago. I’ve become rather evangelical about YNAB. I’ve changed my grocery-shopping habits since beginning the program, but I still have to walk past my local fancy food store every day, and I’m always tempted by their artisanal Ho-Hos and cleaning products that make dryer lint smell like the dewy neck of a baby du Pont. I was peering in the window when I spotted a friend, also originally from Appalachia, lining up to buy something like a single potato chip in a mason jar wrapped in dune grass. Advertisement Advertisement “So pretty,” he said helplessly, about to drop $8 on eight calories, so I slapped it out of his hands and told him to eat mayonnaise sandwiches until he regained his financial composure. “You need a budget,” I said. My husband, reading a New Yorker story about a rock star’s profligate spending, threw the magazine down in disgust and said, with the zeal of the converted, “Jack White needs a budget.” I think (I think! It’s been only four months) I have a better handle on how to manage my kids’ financial education. My son gets $6 every Sunday, which he divides into a spend jar, save jar, and give jar. So far he grasps the deal pretty well, doesn’t spend his spend jar the minute he gets it, and shows no signs of shame or recrimination. Curiously, though, he does exhibit regret—he saved five weeks for a $10 Batman flashlight, played with it for an hour, and then confided that he wished he’d gotten something else. I confided I wished I had bought Netflix shares in 2002. But regret is productive for learning; spiraling, free-floating shame is not. This winter I will turn over his entire Christmas gift budget to him and let him allocate it as he sees fit. (Stay tuned for an enraged post about how Hero Daddy got a new Martin D-18 guitar and Lunch Lady Mommy got a leftover handprint turkey.) My son and I set a savings goal for an overnight stay at the American Museum of Natural History for next spring; he has to contribute $10 and I will save the rest. This year, for the first time in my life, I think I can do it. Gadget News via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com April 27, 2017 at 12:50AM
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FIFA plans to use video replays for the 2018 World Cup in Russia http://ift.tt/2q9OmVB A big change could be coming to the world of international soccer. The head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, says he wants to introduce video replays at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. According to a report from Sky News, the decision has to be confirmed by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) which governs the rules of the game, but Infantino is keen to see the technology brought on board. "In 2017, when everyone in the stadium or at home can see within seconds if the referee made a mistake, we can't have a situation where the only one who can't see it is the referee,” said Infantino in Chile. He added that he has had “nothing but positive feedback” about instant replay technology, which was used by FIFA for the first time at the Club World Cup last December. (Unlike the World Cup, which sees national teams compete, the Club World Cup involves country’s club teams.) Soccer’s governing institutions — and some fans — have long been hostile to the use of video replay. The criticisms are that it slows up games, and will impinge upon the authority of the referee. Another possible objection (expressed less frequently) is that video replays will take away from the drama of soccer, which often stems from controversial calls about goals, red cards, and penalties. On the other hand, there have been a number of notable World Cup incidents where incorrect, game-changing calls were by human referees. In the 2010 competition, for example, a “goal” by England’s Frank Lampard was disallowed in a game against Germany. The ball clearly crossed the goal-line, as fans in the stadium saw, but the linesman admitted he missed it because of the speed of the shot. Video replays have long been used in American football, coming to professional stadiums in 2007 and college games in 2010. The technology is also being tested at the league level by FIFA in number of countries, including by Major League Soccer in the US and the Bundesliga in Germany. It’s yet to become standard in international games, though. A successful outing at 2018’s World Cup would certainly speed up the process. Gadget News via The Verge http://ift.tt/oZfQdV April 27, 2017 at 12:34AM
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Gboard on Android makes it easier to type and tweak your text http://ift.tt/2oORx48 Google has made a few seemingly minor tweaks that could make Gboard on Android much easier to use. The keyboard now comes with a new text editing mode with arrow keys that you can use to quickly go to the part of your text that you want to edit or delete. You'll also find huge select, cut, copy and paste buttons right next to those keys, so you won't have to long press on the text box and to drag the text pointer around. You can access all these by pressing the G button and tapping the new text edit icon that looks like a "I" in between two pointers. If selecting, cutting and copying text have never been an issue for you, you may find Gboard's other new feature more useful. You'll now be able to resize and reposition the keyboard for when you're typing with one hand on a big phone or for any other scenario when it's needed. Simply press G and then tap the triple-dot icon to see the option to choose one-handed mode. That's where you can customize your keyboard. In addition to these two changes, Google has added support for 22 Indic languages. The Gboard team even worked with native speakers across India to get enough samples for the more obscure languages of the lot to train its machine learning models. As a result, you can not only type in any of those languages in their native script, but also in the English alphabet. The keyboard has transliteration support for all of them that can convert what you type on the QWERTY keyboard to their native script. [Image credit: Mariella Moon/Engadget] Source: Google Gadget News via Engadget http://www.engadget.com April 27, 2017 at 12:33AM |
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