Twitter: Toxic or Tonic?
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| Twitter: Toxic or Tonic? | |
| Number | 3230 |
| Broadcast Date | MARCH 1, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 30:53 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
| Guests | Justin Robert Young |
Has the mobile phone market reached full saturation? A dedicated Ghanian teacher’s efforts to teach how computers work without using a computer has won global applause, and America’s mobile wireless companies join forces to create a new multi-factor authentication standard.
Guest
Quick Hits
- Software engineer Loretta Lee is suing Google for sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination. Lee worked at Google for seven years. James Damore sued Google last month for firing him, alleging that the company routinely discriminated against conservative white men. Tim Chevalier sued Google this month for discrimination, harassment, and wrongful termination after he was fired for what he says was calling out racism and sexism on internal message boards.
- The Wall Street Journal reports that the next phase of the Nintendo Switch will not focus on an updated hardware model, but instead will focus on peripherals that use the Switch’s USB-C port. Specifically, Nintendo will focus on peripherals to keep sales high in its second year, such as the upcoming Nintendo Labo.
- Plenty of you are going to say I told you so about this BUT trying it is how you find out things for sure. And Facebook has found out for sure that-- no, people don't want their news posts in a separate feed called Explore. Facebook has now ended the experiment in the six countries where it had been testing the separation.
Top Stories
- The Wall Street Journal reports BayStreet Research estimates the upgrade cycle for phones has climbed from 23 months in 2014 to 31 months now and is likely to stretch to 33 months by next year. Counterpoint Technology Market Research says refurbished phones is the fastest growing sector of the market, accounting for about one in 10 devices sold. Many people seem to be buying top end flagship phones used a couple years after release, rather than buying them new.
- Microsoft launched Soundscape, an iOS app that helps blind and visually impaired users. Canes and dogs help with obstacle avoidance. Soundscape helps with knowing things beyond obstacles, like what street you're on or where a store or restaurant is. The app has three modes: ‘locate’ tells you where you are, ‘around me’ calls out four points of interest near you and ‘ahead of me’ gives the names of five landmarks in front of you. Users can also set beacons that help them locate particular places.
- Uber launched Uber Health to offer a ride-hailing platform to healthcare providers. So clinics, hospitals, rehab centers and the like can assign rides to patients - even if the patient doesn’t have the Uber app, or even a smartphone. It’s not unlike UberCENTRAL, which focuses on business customers who want to provide rides for their clients. Uber Health General Manager Chris Weber says that around 3.6 million Americans miss medical appointments due to lack of transportation.
- Richard Appiah Akoto is an ICT teacher at a rural school in central Ghana. ICT is one of the subjects on a national exam that 14 and 15-year-old students must pass. While students in the capital, Accra, have computers they can study on, Akoto's class room does not, so he draws concepts on the blackboard. He posted a photo of him sketching out the features of a Word Processing window under his nickname, Owura Kwadwo Hottish. Comedian Teacher Kwadwo reposted the picture to his 140,000 Facebook fans and it took off from there. Microsoft Africa said it will give Akoto "a device from one of our partners, and access to our MCE program & free professional development resources on http://education.microsoft.com."
- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon have formed the Mobile Authentication Taskforce. The group is focused on creating a new mobile authentication standard that might be ready by the end of the year. The new standard could replace two-factor authentication for mobile apps with a system based on cryptographically verified data, network verified information, IP address along with some machine learning and analytics to understand user habits.
Discussion
- Twitter said in a statement it’s looking for outside experts to measure the “health” of the company, and is seeking proposals to determine exactly how the company is fostering “healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking” versus “abuse, spam, and manipulation.” CEO Jack Dorsey said in a series of tweets, “We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough.”
Mailbag
- Hi all
Don’t know if you will want to talk about this on the show but I blew my mind when I saw this today and wanted to share it with you
First off go to the App Store and download ‘living wine label’ app
Run the app and point it at the pic of a wine bottle I’ve sent along
This has worked for me
It’s a crazy fun use of a QR code
On the app you should see the guy on the bottle pic will start talking like a hologram
I suppose you’d call it AR
Crazy exciting world we live in
Love the show - Sent by Alan
- Hi all
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "Minority Report in New Orleans" |
Twitter: Toxic or Tonic? |
Followed by: "Diet Phone" |