or perhaps, you're looking to improve.
You can't do both at the same time.
If it's perfect, you can't make it better. But if you don't make it better, you're getting no closer to what you set out to accomplish.
Oklahoma isn’t known for ‘mountains’ but there are a few areas in the state that are actually quite hilly and – officially – called mountains. The Wichita Mountains are in the Southwest portion of the state near Lawton Oklahoma. Within this range is the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge run by the US Fish & Wildlife Service.
My wife and I took at trip down there recently on a scouting trip. I had been down to the area when I was nine or ten but hadn’t been back since and she’d never been so we played hooky one day and drove down to see what it was all about.
This image is taken at the top of Mount Scott.
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These trees are sitting on top of Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge.
Of course there isn’t one. Ants organize locally. They develop a culture, and that culture gives them the resilience to make them one of the world’s most numerous creatures. Deborah Gordon of Stanford has the fascinating details.
It turns out that culture is the most powerful force available to us. Culture comes from each of us, from the connections between. Culture isn’t created by presidents, Popes or kings.
Hollywood has a culture, not a king. Silicon Valley too. Change the culture (slowly and persistently) and you can change everything.
This week, both Microsoft and Google made moves to woo Hollywood to their cloud computing platforms in the latest act of the unfolding drama over who will win the multi-billion dollar business of the entertainment industry as it moves to the cloud.
Google raised the curtain with a splashy announcement that they’d be setting up their fifth cloud region in the U.S. in Los Angeles. Keeping the focus squarely on tools for artists and designers the company talked up its tools like Zync Render, which Google acquired back in 2014, and Anvato, a video streaming and monetization platform it acquired in 2016.
While Google just launched its LA hub, Microsoft has operated a cloud region in Southern California for a while, and started wooing Hollywood last year at the National Association of Broadcasters conference, according to Tad Brockway, a general manager for Azure’s storage and media business.
Now Microsoft has responded with a play of its own, partnering with the provider of a suite of hosted graphic design and animation software tools called Nimble Collective.
Founded by a former Pixar and DreamWorks animator, Rex Grignon, Nimble launched in 2014 and has raised just under $10 million from investors including the UCLA VC Fund and New Enterprise Associates, according to Crunchbase.
“Microsoft is committed to helping content creators achieve more using the cloud with a partner-focused approach to this industries transformation,” said Tad Brockway, General Manager, Azure Storage, Media and Edge at Microsoft, in a statement. “We’re excited to work with innovators like Nimble Collective to help them transform how animated content is produced, managed and delivered.”
There’s a lot at stake for Microsoft, Google and Amazon as entertainment companies look to migrate to managed computing services. Tech firms like IBM have been pitching the advantages of cloud computing for Hollywood since 2010, but it’s only recently that companies have begun courting the entertainment industry in earnest.
While leaders like Netflix migrated to cloud services in 2012 and 21st Century Fox worked with HP to get its infrastructure on cloud computing, other companies have lagged. Now companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are competing for their business as more companies wake up to the pressures and demands for more flexible technology architectures.
As broadcasters face more demanding consumers, fragmented audiences, and greater time pressures to produce and distribute more content more quickly, cloud architectures for technology infrastructure can provide a solution, tech vendors argue.
Stepping into the breach, cloud computing and technology service providers like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are trying to buy up startups servicing the entertainment market specifically, or lock in vendors like Nimble through exclusive partnerships that they can leverage to win new customers. For instance, Microsoft bought Avere Systems in January, and Google picked up Anvato in 2016 to woo entertainment companies.
The result should be lower cost tools for a broader swath of the market, and promote more cross-pollination across different geographies, according to Grignon, Nimble’s chief executive.
“That worldwide reach is very important,” Grignon said. “In media and entertainment there are lots of isolated studios around the world. We afford this pathway between the studio in LA and the studio in Bangalore. We open these doorways.”
There are other, more obvious advantages as well. Streaming — exemplified by the relationship between Amazon and Netflix is well understood — but the possibility to bring costs down by moving to cloud architectures holds several other distribution advantages as well as simplifying processes across pre- and post-production, insiders said.
Amazon has gotten flack in the past for some of the challenges its crowdsourced “last mile” delivery drivers face, but now it’s offering those with entrepreneurial ambitions the option to do more. Instead of showing up for gig work, drivers can opt for a new program where Amazon helps them to establish their own delivery business.
The program will include access to Amazon’s delivery technology, hands-on training, and discounts on a suite of assets and services, including the vehicle leasing and insurance. the retailer says.
That means drivers won’t have to use their own cars, as in the crowdsourced delivery program known as Amazon Flex. This gives them more space for organizing packages, the ability to use parking spots for delivery vehicles, and the ability to haul extra equipment, like straps and dollies.
Amazon says the earning potential for successful owners is as much as $300,000 in annual profit operating a fleet of 40 vehicles. The company expects that, over time, hundreds of small business owners will hire tens of thousands of delivery drivers across the U.S., it says.
In other words, Amazon just launched its own UPS competitor of sorts, by offering leased vans, training and resources to those who want to drive for Amazon instead of Uber.
The retailer says people can start up their Amazon delivery businesses with as little as $10,000. Military vets can get that 10K reimbursed, as Amazon is investing a million into a program that funds their startup costs.
The business owners – who don’t need logistics experience, Amazon notes – will be offered discounts on the customized delivery vans, branded uniforms, fuel, comprehensive insurance coverage, and more – deals the retailer pre-negotiated on their behalf.
This also addresses some of the problems the gig work Flex drivers faced – gas prices would often cut far too much into profits; the lack of insurance; and the general challenges associated with trying to delivery packages from an unbranded, small car.
“We have great partners in our traditional carriers and it’s exciting to continue to see the logistics industry grow,” said Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, in a statement about the launch. “Customer demand is higher than ever and we have a need to build more capacity. As we evaluated how to support our growth, we went back to our roots to share the opportunity with small-and-medium-sized businesses. We are going to empower new, small businesses to form in order to take advantage of the growing opportunity in e-commerce package delivery.”
The changes come at a time when there’s been debate about Amazon’s financial impact on the U.S. Postal Service. But with this new program, Amazon could reduce its reliance on outside partners as the program scales.
However, Amazon will continue to work existing partners, including UPS and FedEx, in addition to the USPS and smaller last-mile delivery partners, for some time. As Amazon’s business continues to grow, it will need these partners’ help to get packages to customers for the foreseeable future – a fleet of leased Prime vans can’t pick do it all.
Slowly but surely, Amazon’s been turning its Fire tablets into Echos. It started with push to talk Alexa function. Last year, the company added a hands-free mode for the voice assistant. Now, it’s adding Show Mode, which brings the same title card UI you get on the company’s screen-enabled smart speaker.
Better still, Amazon’s introducing a Show Mode Charging Dock, a stand that effectively transforms the Fire into a makeshift Show. Place the tablet into a dock and it starts charging and automatically flips into Show mode, so you can do all of the standard Echo activities from across the room.
The dock works with both the most recent Fire HD 8 and 10 (if I had to venture a guess, I’d say the 7 will probably be getting the functionality, as well). If you already have one of the devices, the feature will be coming through an over-the-air update starting July 2. Once it’s in place, it will play nicely with other Echos in your home, using Amazon’s ESP (“Echo Spatial Perception”) feature.
I’d have to imagine a new, less bulky version of the Show is in the works. In the meantime, this is a pretty compelling alternative — and a chance for Amazon to be a bit more competitive with the numerous third-party devices Google unveiled back at CES. The tablet+dock package is ultimately a cheaper option than the Show’s $230 price tag (though that device is discounted to $160 at the moment).
The docks themselves run $40 for the eight-inch and $55 for the 10 (both are discounted $5 for the time being). If you don’t already have the tablets on-hand, you can pick up a bundle for $110 and $190, respectively. Picking up this configuration also gives you a lot more flexibility versus just going in on the Show.
As for what the Show brings to the table? Better built-in mics and speakers are the primary answer. Ultimately, however, I suspect Amazon isn’t really concerned about some of its devices cannibalizing others, so long as it gets more Amazon products out in the world.
After the launching of the Fire HD Kids Edition 7, customers asked for a larger version, so Amazon announced the Fire HD Kids Edition 8. Now the company’s back at it again, with the Fire HD Kids Edition 10. Not exactly groundbreaking, but when you’re Amazon, you give the people what they want.
As with its predecessors, the new tablet is essentially a Fire HD outfitted with a bumper, software for kids and parents and a two-year “worry-free guarantee.” Amazon says it’s “built from the ground up for kids,” which isn’t really true — though that’s perfectly fine. The important thing is that you’re getting decent enough specs for a low price.
At $200, it’s a $50 premium over the standard 10-inch Fire. Given all of the stuff the company is bundling in here, however, Amazon says you’re essentially getting a $120 discount, when all is said and done.
The device once again ships with a year of Amazon FreeTime unlimited, bringing 15,000 books/movies/apps/games to the device. Using that, parents can limit and track screen time on the device, assuring that kids are using the device to read an actual book, in addition to various other media consumption.
The newer, larger kids tablet will be available in blue, pink or yellow. It’s up for pre-order today and starts shipping July 11.
We sort people all the time. Society prefers easy, useless ones. Sorts like: Skin color. Gender. Disability status. Nationality. Religious background. Height.
While these are easy to do and the result of long, long traditions, they’re useless.
The alternatives? Kindness. Expertise. Attitude. Skill. Emotional intelligence. Honesty. Generous persistence. Willingness to take risks. Loyalty. Perceptivity. Attention span. Care. Self awareness…
It’s a daily battle, an uphill climb to intentionally ignore the bad sorts we were likely taught as kids. This might be the most important work we do today, and every day. The people we care about deserve it..
Microsoft today launched two new Azure regions in China. These new regions, China North 2 in Beijing and China East 2 in Shanghai, are now generally available and will complement the existing two regions Microsoft already operates in the country (with the help of its local partner 21Vianet).
As the first international cloud provider in China when it launched its first region there in 2014, Microsoft has seen rapid growth in the region and there is clearly demand for its services there. unsurprisingly, many of Microsoft’s customers in China are other multinationals who are already betting on Azure for their cloud strategy. These include the likes of Adobe, Coke, Costco, Daimler, Ford, Nuance, P&G, Toyota and BMW.
In addition to the new China regions, Microsoft also today launched a new availability zone for its region in the Netherlands. While availability zones have long been standard among the big cloud providers, Azure only launched this feature — which divides a region into multiple independent zones — into general availability earlier this year. The regions in the Netherlands, Paris and Iowa now offer this additional safeguard against downtime, with others to follow soon.
In other Azure news, Microsoft also today announced that Azure IoT Edge is now generally available. In addition, Microsoft announced the second generation of its Azure Data Lake Storage service, which is now in preview, and some updates to the Azure Data Factory, which now includes a web-based user interface for building and managing data pipelines.
Sonos has always gone its own way. The speaker manufacturer dedicated itself to network-connected speakers before there were home networks and they sold a tablet-like remote control before there were tablets. Their surround sound systems install quickly and run seamlessly. You can buy a few speakers, tap a few buttons, and have 5.1 sound in less time than it takes to pull a traditional home audio system out of its shipping box.
This latest model is an addition to the Sonos line and is sold alongside the Playbase – a lumpen soundbar designed to sit directly underneath TVs not attached to the wall – and the Playbar, a traditionally-styled soundbar that preceded the Beam. Both products had all of the Sonos highlights – great sound, amazing interfaces, and easy setup – but the Base had too much surface area for more elegant installations and the Bar was too long while still sporting an aesthetic that harkened back to 2008 Crutchfield catalogs.
The $399 Beam is Sonos’ answer to that and it is more than just a pretty box. The speaker includes Alexa – and promised Google Assistant support – and it improves your TV sound immensely. Designed as an add-on to your current TV, it can stand alone or connect with the Sonos subwoofer and a few satellite surround speakers for a true surround sound experience. It truly shines alone, however, thanks to its small size and more than acceptable audio range.
To use the Beam you bring up an iOS or Android app to display your Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and Pandora accounts (this is a small sampling. Sonos supports more.) You select a song or playlist and start listening. Then, when you want to watch TV, the speaker automatically flips to TV mode – including speech enhancement features that actually work – when the TV is turned on. An included tuning system turns your phone into a scanner that improves the room audio automatically.
The range is limited by the Beam’s size and shape and there is very little natural bass coming out of this thing. However, in terms of range the Beam is just fine. It can play an action movie with a bit of thump and then go on to play some light jazz or pop. I’ve had some surprisingly revelatory sessions with the Beam when listening to classic rock and more modern fare and it’s very usable as a home audio center.
The Beam is two feet long and 3 inches tall. It comes in black or white and is very unobtrusive in aly home theatre setup. Interestingly, the product supports HDMI-ARC aka HDMI Audio Return Channel. This standard, introduced in TVs made in the past five years, allows the TV to automatically output audio and manage volume controls via a single HDMI cable. What this means, however, is you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t have HDMI-ARC.
Sonos includes an adapter that can also accept optical audio output but setup requires you to turn off your TV speakers and route all the sound to the optical out. This is a bit of a mess and if you don’t have either of those outputs – HDMI-ARC or optical – then you’re probably in need of a new TV. That said, HDMI-ARC is a bit jarring for first timers but Sonos is sure that enough TVs support it that they can use it instead of optical-only.
The Beam doesn’t compete directly with other “smart” speakers like the HomePod. It is very specifically a consumer electronics device, even though it supports AirPlay 2 and Alexa. Sonos makes speakers and good ones at that and that goal has always been front and center. While other speakers may offer a more fully-featured sound in a much smaller package, the Beam offers both great TV audio and great music playback for less than any other higher end soundbar. Whole room audio does get expensive – about $1,200 for a Sub and two satellites – but you can simply add on pieces as you go. One thing, however, is clear: Sonos has always been the best wireless speaker for the money and the Beam is another win for the scrappy and innovative speaker company.
There is no market. There are markets.
And markets have segments. There are people who enjoy buying expensive wine. There are people who will save up their money to have a big wedding. There are people who pay to have a personal trainer…
And within segments, there are careful consumers, traditional consumers, consumers who seek out the cutting edge. There are bargain hunters, luxury snobs and people who measure the way Consumer Reports does.
Often overlooked, though, is the fact that in many markets, particularly involving personal finance, small business and relationships, there are people who are obsessed with the shortcut.
They want something that’s too good to be true.
They respond to big promises that offer magical, nearly instant results.
They want a squeeze page, a tripwire offer, a hard sell.
They respond to these messages because they’re a signal that a shortcut is on offer.
My grandmother, who never exercised a day in her life, bought an exercise machine from a late night TV commercial. When it sat gathering dust, she explained that she thought it would do the exercise for her, and was disappointed that it didn’t magically make her fit for $99.
Or consider the victims of ‘plastic surgeons to the stars’ who pay for radical surgery only to discover that it doesn’t change their social life.
Or the hardworking people who fork over money for a get rich internet ICO, based on technology that they (and the promoter) don’t understand.
There are complicated reasons for wanting this sort of engagement. It might be that the the promise and the pressure of these pitches create endorphins that are pleasing. And it might be that deep down, this market segment knows that things that are too good to be true can’t possibly work, and that’s fine with them, because they don’t actually want to change–they simply want to be able to tell themselves that they tried. That the organization they paid their money to failed, of course it wasn’t their failure.
Once you see that this short-cut market segment exists, you can choose to serve them or to ignore them. And you can be among them or refuse to buy in. But you do have to choose.
Ecommerce giants Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and Rakuten have agreed to speed up the removal of dangerous goods being sold on their online marketplaces within the European Union.
The EU’s executive body, the Commission, said the four companies have committed to responding to notifications on dangerous products from Member State authorities within 2 working days, and to take action on notices from customers within 5 working days.
Although the pledge is not legally binding. But the Commission is clearly hoping that companies can be persuaded to self-regulate in the first instance, given the ever-present possibility of laws being drafted to more tightly legally rule their activities.
In a statement welcoming the move, the EU commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, Vĕra Jourová, called on other other marketplace to join the initiative, saying: “More and more people in the EU are shopping online. E-commerce has opened up new possibilities for consumers, offering them more choice at lower prices. Consumers should be just as safe when they buy online, as when they buy in a shop.”
The Commission says online sales in the EU represented a fifth of the total sales in 2016 — a percentage that’s expected to increase in the coming years.
The Product Safety Pledge covers non-food consumer products being sold by third parties on online marketplaces, and includes a commitment to provide a clear way for customers to report dangerous product listings and also have an internal mechanism for take-down procedures.
“The ultimate goal is to improve the detection of unsafe products marketed in the EU before they are sold to consumers or as soon thereafter as possible, and to improve consumer protection,” it writes. “These commitments will go beyond what is already established in the EU legislation, including those on product safety.”
Other components of the pledge state the companies will:
So there are potentially some startup opportunities around enhancing detection systems.
While the Commission making efforts to limit access to dangerous goods online is unlikely to be too controversial, it has generally been pushing for proactive or radically rapid removals of various types of problem content, and wading into controversy as a result.
Its approach to copyrighted content has attracted the most controversy, with critics arguing it’s regressive and wildly disproportionate.
Yet despite vocal opposition from multiple corners of the digital ecosystem, earlier this month EU lawmakers moved a step closer to requiring all user generated content be copyright pre-filtered prior to being uploaded — apparently comfortable with the idea that meme-makers might have to go through an appeals process just to get their remixed snark unblocked.
However support for the Commission’s approach to regulating online content generally seems widespread among EU member states.
And on the terrorist propaganda content front, the UK government has been pushing even harder, for proactive removals — unveiling an AI tool in February that it said could be used to automatically detect ISIS propaganda. (Though it has not forced any companies to use it.)
The Commission hasn’t gone so far where terrorist content is concerned — but it’s one-hour rule-of-thumb for terrorist takedowns is getting pretty close. On hate speech content generally it continues to apply pressure on platforms to respond more quickly, with the omnipresent threat that if they don’t keep up it could step in and legislate — as Germany already has.
Make some up.
There’s no shame in that. In fact, it’s a brilliant hack.
Set up a method of reward or punishment with a third party. Money in escrow that goes to a cause you abhor. Public congratulations. Whatever the method, the point is the same: You’ve been trained since childhood to respond to external deadlines. For many people, that’s the only way to feel the magic of accomplishment.
If you need the last minute to be your best self, first go manufacture some last minutes.
