Quixey Makes Sense Now

From the Slope of Hope blog: The main drag here in Palo Alto is University Avenue, which is lined with pricey restaurants and retail. One city to the south of us, Mountain View, has their own main drag, and it"s called Castro Street (not to be confused with the gay mecca in San Francisco, half an hour"s drive north).

I"ve walked Castro many times (again, let"s not confuse the two), and I would often pass a very nice building which was neither a restaurant nor a retail store; on the front was a large sign, QUIXEY, and inside the building were dozens of young engineers, all of whom I"m certain were earning great six-figure salaries, working away at their keyboards. Beneath the "Quixey" name was the tag line: "The Search Engine for Apps"

Now this didn"t make a great deal of sense to me. Why would anyone need a search engine for apps? I mean, if I needed to search for an app, I"d go off and do something crazy like this:

You know......like........do a search. Quixey bragged, "The technology allowed users to search across multiple platforms, eliminating the need for multiple searches using different mobile devices." Ummm, sorry, if I"m an iPhone user, I don"t give a crap about, say, Android apps.

But people with far more money and far more intelligence than me felt otherwise, and thus:

Yes, countless tens of millions poured into the Quixey coffers, valuing the company at way over half a billion dollars for what I"m convinced has to be one of the stupidest and most useless ideas in history. But how are you going to fund free lunches and ping pong for your overpaid twenty-somethings without all this cash, people??

Indeed, although I could only see bits and pieces of Quixey from outside the building, it was apparently a fairly spiffy place for a startup. Its office had themed conference rooms constructed by local set designers, such as Ski Lodge, Picnic, Movie Theater, and Wild West. Hell, they even had Up and Down escalators so the little darlings didn"t have to move their legs to change floors.

So color me surprised when this finally happened:

Strategic options. Got it. Like wondering where your $133 million went.

But this is all too common in the Silicon Valley. VCs, armed with far more billions to throw at ideas than they know what to do with, will just keep hurling the cash until the next Facebook or Google comes along. One home run makes up for a multitude of past sins. And, for those ideas that are too stupid or fraudulent to make it........they just disappear without a trace.

Why Bitcoin-Mining May Be Elon Musk"s Next Big Problem...

If you thought Tesla was burning cash now, wait until this latest scheme goes mainstream...

As EcoMotoringNews.com reports, some creative Tesla owners came up with a way to make a few bucks from their parked EVs: Cryptocurrency mining.

This raises questions that shouldn’t just be aimed at bitcoin mining, or even electric vehicles.

For those unfamiliar, cryptocurrencies only work because there is a network of distributed computing that processes the transactions. To reward those offering the computing power, cryptocurrencies give fractions of new bitcoins to those who did the work of running the network. This is referred to as “mining” bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. This was an expensive and power-hungry task that could wear out computer components much faster than usual.

Initially, many doing this used high-end graphics processing units, but as the money earned per device diminished, miners turned to specialized computer units, called ASICs, to do the task faster with less electricity. But the units are still not free and they still can use kilowatts of electricity for a handful of them. To reduce the overall cost of running mining computers, some miners put the computers throughout their homes to act as small space heaters and reduce their heating bill. Others run their rigs on solar panels to avoid a monthly power cost.

Any source of electricity you don’t have to pay the normal rate for, or that you don’t have to pay for at all, is an opportunity for miners to increase their already thin profits. Teslas and other EVs have free access to power at many charging stations, so it was probably only a matter of time until somebody decided to plug their mining computers in.

One member of the Tesla Owners Worldwide on Facebook suggested the idea, possibly in jest. Then another owner went ahead and did it, posting a photo of his setup (above). Some members suggested that his setup could pull as much as 3 kilowatts of power and would probably require the vehicle’s air conditioning to be on for cooling. Other members raised ethical questions.

Is it stealing to use the power for something other than driving?

On the one hand, this could be a good way to offset the cost of owning an electric vehicle. On the other hand, it lowers the efficiency of the vehicle and increases the environmental impact. But then again, the mining was going to be done somewhere anyway, so does it really? Will many EV owners do this? Will they do it at places they were going to charge anyway, or will there be opportunistic fleets of EVs blocking up charging stations to make a quick buck? How will charging station owners respond?

But really, these questions shouldn’t just be aimed at bitcoin mining. Computing power is going to be in higher and higher demand going forward. Self-driving cars are already running on graphics processing units like bitcoin miners once all used. Infotainment systems are getting more and more powerful, and that power needs to come from somewhere. Mobile devices used by passengers are going to need more and more power to charge. Even beyond that, there are “V2H” systems that can run a house on an electric vehicle’s battery, and that goes far beyond the tiny bit of power needed to run a few mining computers.

And these questions shouldn’t just be applied to electric vehicles. Many of these power strains will apply to hybrid, regular gas and regular diesel vehicles. Alternators, the parts that charge most car’s 12v batteries, are already a big part of the car’s fuel consumption. Ecomodding hobbyists have gained as much as 15% fuel efficiency by removing them, and that amount is only going to grow as more demand is placed on it. Some companies are suggesting waste heat recovery to generate the electricity needed for the future.

When we look at these wider power issues, it becomes clear that bitcoin mining is just a drop in the bucket. Even if a large number of EV owners did it, it would still be nothing compared to the other computing future cars will eventually be doing. Where that power is going to come from is a good question we shouldn’t just be aiming at the odd bitcoin miner.

To Increase America's Productivity, Ban This...

Aside from short-lived booms in the 1990s and 2000s, US productivity growth has averaged just 1.2% from 1975 up to today after peaking above 3% in 1972.

As we detailed previously, adjusting for the WWII anomaly (which tells us that GDP is not a good measure of a country’s prosperity) US productivity growth peaked in 1972 – incidentally the year after Nixon took the US off gold.

The productivity decline witnessed ever since is unprecedented. Despite the short lived boom of the 1990s US productivity growth only average 1.2 per cent from 1975 up to today.

If we isolate the last 15 years US productivity growth is on par with what an agrarian slave economy was able to achieve 200 years ago.

As we reported last year, users spent 51% of their total internet time on mobile devices, for a total of 5.6 hours per day snapchatting, face-booking, insta-graming and taking selfies.

It"s an everyday sight - people using their phones while sitting on the train, waiting for a bus, or even having a meal with their partner.

What exactly are they doing the whole time though?

When it comes to social networks, Verto Analytics may have the answer. The most time spent in the U.S. on a "mainstream" app is the 899 minutes per month of the average Facebook user.

The social network whose users invest the most time though is a networking app for gay, bi, and curious men - Grindr. WIth a huge 1,040 minutes on average, that"s over 17 hours every month.

In third place, Growlr is also a networking/dating app for homosexual men. The average user here spends 665 minutes per month.

In eighth, Twitter"s struggles are again highlighted, with only 176 minutes in Q3 2017.

Figures refer to usage across all platforms, not just mobile.

You will find more statistics at Statista

So, maybe in their next wide-ranging study, economists could include a test group of workers who leave their phones in a locker at the beginning of the work day, and try to measure how much their “productivity” improves. So, while every effort can be made by Ivory Tower academics to solve the problem of American worker productivity, perhaps it can be summed up simply as "Put The Smart-Phone Down!"

Amazon's Phone-Charging Robot Will Spare You The Indignity Of Talking To Strangers

Amazon is having a rough week.

The e-commerce powerhouse has celebrated a string of victories this year. Its stock price broke above $1,000 for the first time; it is presiding over an unprecedented retrenchment within the retail space as more than 8,000 brick-and-mortar stores are expected to close in the US this year, and the company announced plans to acquire yuppie favorite Whole Foods Market, promising to transform the company’s stores into laboratories for automation and AI where advanced sensors will perform tasks previously reserved for human cashiers. It also revealed that its “Prime Day” sale was the "Biggest Global Shopping Event in Amazon History", surpassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

But the string of good news came to an abrupt halt last week when Reuters reported that the top Democrat on the House antitrust subcommittee, David Civilline, has voiced concerns about Amazon"s $13.7 billion plan to buy Whole Foods Market and requested in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee a hearing to examine the deal"s potential impact on consumers – the first stirrings of what could metastasize into an anti-trust probe.

Adding to the antitrust concerns, Reuters reported Thursday that the FTC is investigating the company for allegedly misleading customers about its pricing discounts, citing a source close to the probe. The news sent Amazon shares lower in afternoon trade:

Amid the negative news, the company’s investors enjoyed a brief moment of levity when career website Ladders reported on a patent that was awarded to the company earlier in the week. The patent, first filed in 2015, revealed the company’s plans to build a robot that, using the company’s massive data-mining apparatus, would be able to track down desperate mobile-device users in crowed public spaces like an airport or concert venue and present them with the greatest gift of all: an opportunity to charge their phones.  

Here’s a quick rundown of how it’ll work, courtesy of Ladders:

“You will make a wireless request (perhaps with your last precious few moments of juice).

The robot will find you in a crowd using sensor data. Through a cloud-based application, the robot can even find you automatically when your power hits below 10%. Nothing, of course is free, so the robot will ask you to watch an ad, complete a survey, or pay some money.

The robot would be designed for public use in airports, hotels, and shopping malls—all locations where losing battery power can be particularly inconvenient. Of course, a device like this would be perfect for business travelers, who have become accustomed to carrying heavy external batteries or even bulky power strips.

Then: the robot provides sweet, precious electricity to your phone or iPad or laptop.”

As Ladders pointed out, the patent description explains why these robots could be useful, especially for professionals who are increasingly dependent on mobile devices.

“It can be quite inconvenient to a user when one of these devices runs out of battery power. This is especially true if the user does not have an available charging adapter for the device,” the patent reads. “Users may find themselves asking friends, or even strangers, to borrow a charging adapter.”

Indeed, as Ladders notes, “there is clearly an unmet market that an army of mobile-charging robots for your personal use can fill.”

Whether Amazon intends to move forward with production of the robot remains to be seen. The company has yet to comment publicly about the patent. But as it continues to test and refine its army of package-delivering drones, it’s unsurprising that Amazon is finding other uses for robotics.

But that’s Amazon: Working tirelessly to build a future where your phone battery never creeps below 10%.

Read the patent below:

2017.07.20amazonpatent by zerohedge on Scribd

More Kids Are Getting Head Lice … Because of Smartphones?

Younger and younger children are being handed smartphones by their parents; and for many children, access to 24/7 technology has resulted in attention and sleep problems and family arguments. Now it appears that smartphones are bringing a fresh misery to parents and children everywhere: head lice. [1]

Researchers recently studied over 200 school-age children and found that those who owned a smartphone or tablet were twice as likely to be infested with lice. This is because the phones encourage children to gather in groups – the perfect opportunity for the bugs to make a beeline from scalp to scalp.

Only 29.5% of children who did not have a mobile device experienced head lice, compared to 62.5% of smartphone- and tablet-owning kids.

Nearly half of the participants had been chomped on by head lice in the previous five years, up to 22 times more than the previous numbers: 2-8%.

Unlike with earlier studies, the researchers didn’t find a specific link between increased cases of head lice and selfies.

Dr. Tess McPherson, of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“Compared to previous estimates of head lice incidence our figures were much higher, showing that almost half of children have had them in the last five years, which may not come as a surprise to parents.

We also noted that children with smartphones or tablets were more likely to get head lice, which is interesting but we can only guess that this is due to the way that young people gather around them, though there could be other reasons.

Selfie culture gets its fair share of negative press so it’s worth noting that despite previous speculation it seems that selfies can’t specifically be blamed for helping the spread of head lice at this stage.” [1]

What’s more, previous estimates of how many children in the U.K. have experienced head lice “may be conservative.”

Those who were most affected by lice were girls with siblings aged 6-9. [2]

The team of scientists also found that 45% of the children in the study had been infested with head lice in the last five years, a longer period than covered by earlier research. [1]

Matthew Gass, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said:

“Head lice are a pain to deal with, both for children and their parents.

Speaking from experience, they are intractable misery bugs that take far more time and effort to remove than is reasonable.

Not to mention the obligatory quarantine period that they necessitate. That’s why a better understanding of how these pests are transmitted is useful.

Prevention is always better than a cure, particularly if the cure means wrenching your poor daughter’s hair with a fine-toothed nit comb, or relying on over-the-counter remedies that head lice are increasingly resistant to.

We’re not saying that smartphones are causing children to get head lice, but that there is a link, so if there’s an outbreak at home or at school, consider how electronic devices might cause children to congregate, allowing head lice to spread.” [1]

Contrary to popular belief, head lice don’t care about the cleanliness or length of hair. They’re not usually spread via combs, hats or pillows, and lice cannot be caught from animals. Head lice can’t swim, jump or fly, and people typically become infested with them when the insects crawl directly from one person’s hair onto another’s. [2]

Read: Natural Solutions for Head Lice

Another factor in the growing spread of lice not mentioned in the study: resistance to the pesticides most commonly used to eradicate them.

The findings of the study were presented at the British Association of Dermatologists annual conference in Liverpool.

Sources:

[1] The Telegraph

[2] The Sun

New Device Allows Cops To Download All Of Your Smartphone Activity In Seconds

Via TheAntiMedia.org,

“Any person who operates a motor vehicle in the state shall be deemed to have given consent to field testing of his or her mobile telephone and/or personal electronic device for the purpose of determining the use thereof while operating a motor vehicle, provided that such testing is conducted by or at the direction of a police officer.”

That’s language from the text of a bill currently working its way through the New York state legislature. The legislation would allow cops to search through drivers’ cell phones following traffic incidents — even minor fender-benders — to determine if the person was using their phone while behind the wheel.

Most states have laws banning the use of mobile devices while driving, though such laws are rarely enforced. This is largely because it’s nearly impossible to catch someone in the act. What person would admit to an officer that they broke the law, the argument goes, particularly when it’s after the fact? After all, cops don’t show up until after the accident occurs.

Now, technology exists that would give police the power to plug drivers’ phones into tablet-like devices — being called “textalyzers” in the media — that tell officers exactly what they were doing on their phone and exactly when they were doing it. And if the readout shows a driver was texting while driving, for instance, the legal system will have an additional way to fine them.

“Recording your every click, tap or swipe, it would even know what apps you were using. Police officers could download the data, right on the spot,” Jeff Rossen of NBC News said in a video report on the technology.

Proponents of the legislation point to the rise in traffic fatalities associated with using mobile devices while driving. But rights activists, such as Rashida Richardson of the New York Civil Liberties Union, says it’s a societal issue and no excuse to violate an individual’s privacy:

“This is a concern because our phones have some of our most personal and private information — so we’re certain that if this law is enforced as it is proposed, it will not only violate people’s privacy rights, but also civil liberties.”

New York state isn’t alone. Currently, similar legislation is being considered in Tennessee and New Jersey.

Visualizing How The Big 5 Tech Giants Make Their Billions

Hitting record high after record high, tech companies have displaced traditional blue chip companies like Exxon Mobil and Walmart as the most valuable companies in the world.

Here are the latest market valuations for those same five companies:

Together, they are worth $2.9 trillion in market capitalization – and they combined in FY2016 for revenues of $555 billion with a $94 billion bottom line.

BRINGING HOME THE BACON?

Despite all being at the top of the stock market food chain, Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins points out that the companies are at very different stages.

In 2016, Apple experienced its first annual revenue decline since 2001, but the company brought home a profit equal to that of all other four companies combined.

On the other hand, Amazon is becoming a revenue machine with very little margin, while Facebook generates 5x more profit despite far smaller top line numbers.

HOW THEY MAKE THEIR BILLIONS

Each of these companies is pretty unique in how they generate revenue, though there is some overlap:

• Facebook and Alphabet each make the vast majority of their revenues from advertising (97% and 88%, respectively)


• Apple makes 63% of their revenue from the iPhone, and another 21% coming from the iPad and Mac lines


• Amazon makes 90% from its “Product” and “Media” categories, and 9% from AWS


• Microsoft is diverse: Office (28%), servers (22%), Xbox (11%), Windows (9%), ads (7%), Surface (5%), and other (18%)

What does that look like?

Lastly, for fun, what if we added all these companies’ revenues together, and categorized them by source?

Note: this isn’t perfect. As an example, Amazon’s fast-growing advertising business gets lumped into their “Other” category.

Hardware, e-commerce, and and advertising make up 76% of all revenues.

Meanwhile, software isn’t the cash cow it used to be, but it does help serve as a means to an end for some companies. For example, Android doesn’t generate any revenue directly, but it does allow more users to buy apps in the Play Store and to search Google via their mobile devices. Likewise, Apple bundles in operating systems with each hardware purchase.

Study: Mobile Devices are Causing, Stress, Anxiety at Home

Smartphones and tablets are replacing face-to-face interactions, and families are suffering because of it, a new study says.

According to lead study author Dr. Jenny Radesky, assistant professor of developmental behavioral pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School, incoming communications from work, friends, and the world at large is “contaminating” family mealtime, bedtime, and playtime. Whether you agree with the term ‘contamination’ or not, I think we can all agree these times are changing due to these technological devices. [1]

Radesky says:

“This tension, this stress, of trying to balance newly emerging technologies with the established patterns and rituals of our lives is extremely common, and was expressed by almost all of our participants. We have to toggle between what might be stress-inducing or highly cognitively demanding mobile content and responding to our kids’ behavior.”

As a result, there is more tension between parents and their children, with increased stress in the home.

The findings are based on interviews with 35 parents and caregivers of young children in the Boston area. The study included 22 mothers, 9 fathers, and 4 grandmothers.

Participants were between the ages of 23 and 55, with an average age of 36, and cared for toddlers or children up to age 8. Roughly 1/3 were single parents, and nearly six in 10 were white.

Joseph Bayer, an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Ohio State University, found the results unsurprising. It all makes perfect sense to Bayer, who says:

“Given past research on texting while driving and mentally demanding tasks, I can see how ‘texting while parenting’ would lead to some cognitive and emotional conflict.” [2]

Some Positive Takeaways

There were some positive associations with using mobile devices at home, too.

Here are a few interesting findings from the study:

• While many parents said devices made it easier for them to work from home, this sometimes created more anxiety.

• Some participants said smartphones gave them a break from the boredom and stress of raising young children.

• Many parents admitted that using a mobile device could affect their mood, thereby affecting their interactions with their child.

• Children sometimes acted out to get attention if their parent or caregiver spent too much time on their device. As a result, caregivers sometimes reacted angrily.

• Parents who used mobile devices during meals interacted less with their children, and became stressed when their children tried to divert their attention away from the device.

Larry Rosen, professor emeritus at California State University, Dominguez Hills, who wasn’t involved in the study, says:

“Younger generations believe that they can multitask with anything and that is simply not true.

What they rapidly discover is that they cannot do two tasks together as well as each separately, and, in fact, it adds another layer of stress to their already stressed lives raising children.”

Radesky holds the same views, saying:

“So much of their lives are contained in these devices – work, friendships, world news, loads of information – so they elicit much more in-depth cognitive and emotional responses from us, and this can be even harder to balance with attention to each other.”

Read: 5 Ways to Recharge, Enjoy Life Without Technology

Setting Some Boundaries

Radesky has some advice for parents and caregivers who are struggling to keep all of the balls in the air while still holding onto their electronic gadgets:

• Set boundaries that include device-free periods and device-free areas of the home.

• Keep track of your mobile use and cut back if you find that you’re spending too much time staring at a device. There are downloadable apps that can help you do that. [1] [2]

• Parents should pay attention to which activities are the most stressful, and try to avoid those tasks when it’s family time. [2]

Here’s something else for parents to consider. A study published this past spring shows that 1/2 of U.S. kids are addicted to technology, so there is no doubt that this problem is pervasive, and growing.

Sources:

[1] HealthDay

[2] Reuters

Featured image source: NPR

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.