Public transit in New York City is an amazing mess right now. Hurricane Sandy did roughly US$5 billion in damage; five years later, much of it remains unfixed or patched over. In 2019 theyre shutting down the L train for 15 months to fix tunnel damage. Its going to screw an estimated 225,000 commuters, and not just by a little bit. This year alone, three trains have jumped the tracks at Penn Station. And everyone agrees there needs to be a new tunnel under the Hudson River before things can really be called adequate. The current estimated price tag is a fairly staggering US$13 billion.

Naturally there is constant bickering between City Hall and Albany on who should pay and how. To fund the citys contribution, Mayor Bill de Blasio is currently proposing an income tax hike, from 3.9 to 4.4 per cent, on the citys wealthiest residents. Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been cool on approving millionaire taxes in the past and in any event has a Republican-controlled Senate to deal with returned de Blasios serve with some musings about congestion pricing.

This is all very similar to the dynamic between Toronto City Hall and Queens Park, with two fairly major differences: New York actually has a massive transit network to break down in the first place; and while de Blasio needs Albanys approval to hike the income tax, New York City does actually tax income. Indeed, it has all kinds of taxes that Toronto doesnt: on sales (4.5 per cent), on hotel rooms ($3.50 per day plus 14.75 per cent) on parking in Manhattan (8 per cent) and, of course, on driving into the city ($15 via the Holland Tunnel).

You might think thats too much or not enough, but to look at New York City, it surely seems reasonable that it has the tools. Its New York, for Gods sake the greatest city in the world, if you ask me. Why would Albany be pulling any strings in the first place?

Meanwhile, the City of Toronto Act explicitly prohibits a sales tax. Only in this years budget did the province propose allowing a hotel tax. The act allows road tolls subject to provincial approval, which Premier Kathleen Wynne recently provided to Mayor John Tory, and then withdrew when her 905 caucus pitched a fit. The city can implement a parking tax, but staff have claimed its quite complicated.

Not to say that Toronto lacks means to raise money for its giant wish list of capital projects property taxes, notably, are lower than in surrounding municipalities, and the money they bring in is as good as any other money. But there is no obvious reason it should have fewer powers than New York. And its remarkable how little disagreement this situation generates in the provincial legislature especially since it happens to be in Toronto.

There is no obvious reason Toronto should have fewer powers than New York

The Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) held its annual conference in Ottawa this week, where it reiterated its call for a one-per-cent sales-tax hike to fund infrastructure and transit projects in the jurisdictions where its raised. A Nanos Research poll presented at the AMO conference suggests a small majority of Ontarians, 71 per cent in the GTA and 74 per cent in the City of Toronto, might support the idea. But all three parties shot it down, one after the other.

That makes perfect sense for the Tories, who absolutely believe they can never be seen supporting a new tax (and may never again get the chance to implement one). And it makes some sense for the Liberals, who have an existing infrastructure plan to which they can point. But New Democrat leader Andrea Horwath continues to promise to help cities, and Toronto specifically uploading services, restoring the TTCs operating subsidy, more money for child care without specifying where the money is going to come from. She even conceded this week it would cost the provincial treasury quite a lot.

She objects to the HST hike because people out there are struggling. (Struggling people tend to get rebates, but never mind.) She doesnt support road tolls because theyre supposedly inegalitarian. So what, then? A municipal income tax would be quite spectacularly unpopular, the Nanos poll suggests but I wonder if de Blasios millionaire tax might be rather less so. If thats not in the NDPs wheelhouse, I dont know what the NDP is anymore.

Im not saying its a good idea, mind you. But even just proposing to allow cities the option to use more revenue tools would spice up Ontarios policy stew considerably. And it might help turn the upcoming election between a premier hanging on for dear life and a leader of the opposition trying to make as little noise as possible into something more like a legitimate contest of ideas.

National Post

Email: cselley@nationalpost.com | Twitter:

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Chris Selley: NY wants to soak the rich to build transit. Even Ontario's NDP won't support that for Toronto - National Post

I was really stuffed for time, and my big pipe data connection at home seemed like it had all the bandwidth of a straw. What was going on? Ah, the hell with it, I thought. I called my colleague, who was waiting for me to email an important file.

cobain86 / Pixabay

Hey, my connections a little slow. Ill send you the link via Google Docs, and you can upload the file yourself.

Little did I know that I was about to commit an act of potential corporate sabotage.

Its called shadow IT and its a key reason why cybersecurity companies will keep growing for years to come

Using an innocuous cloud service like Google Docs is just one example.

What if you regularly bring your own personal tablet to work to do company business? Or maybe youre plugging in a little thumb drive into your workstations USB port to informally transfer files in and out of your office network?

Or in a large business, someone forgets to tell the IT department about that big, new Wi-Fi printer/scanner that was installed a few months back?

Those are just a few examples of shadow IT. The more people who use a network (and the more devices and systems attached to it), the bigger the vulnerabilities.

For instance, a recent survey found that the average hospital was running more than 900 cloud services alone!

No wonder health care firms seem to fare the worst whenever a new virus or computer attack arises. As just one example among hundreds, the recent ransomware attacks that swept across Europe, Asia and the U.S. back in June disabled the digital dictation service used by hospitals in San Antonio, Texas bringing consultations, referrals and, most importantly, billing to an abrupt halt.

In another example a few years ago, Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of one of the nations largest hospital groups, Community Health Systems, and stole the personal data records for more than 4 million patients.

Its no wonder then that in a recent survey by Beckers Hospital Review, 73% of hospitals said they would increase their spending on cybersecurity.

If we do a little math, an average hospitals yearly revenue is around $160 million. Of that, a hospital will spend roughly 2.5%, or $4 million, on IT. Multiply that figure by the 5,000 or so hospitals in the United States, and it soon adds up to a wave of new spending on cybersecurity products and services.

And bear in mind, thats only one part of the U.S. economy.

Thats why experts believe cybersecurity is on track to be a $1 trillion business by 2021. A major uptick in spending is coming down the line to the tune of 12% to 15% year-over-year growth through 2021, according to analysts.

Its also the reason why Im making cybersecurity one of the cornerstones of my Total Wealth Insider service. Our next stock picks are designed to ride the massive spending wave coming to this critical part of the global economy.

Kind regards,

Jeff L. Yastine

Editor, Total Wealth Insider

Editors Note: Bob Baumans Passport Book contains secrets for keeping your personal information safe such as the one nation that offers the highest level of personal and business privacy in the world. The essential knowledge in this book can save you from incarceration and could even save your life! To order your copy today, click here.

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Cybersecurity Profits Are Hiding in the Shadows - Investorplace.com

In celebration of Madonnas birthday (August 16), weve deemed it Madonna Day on Pitchfork. Weve reviewed four of her classic albumsher 1983 debut, 1989s Like a Prayer, 1994s Bedtime Stories, and 1998s Ray of Lightand now we move onto the ties that bind her career.

If you were to see someone tweet the phrase Madonna is everything, you might attribute it to a very 2017 type of online hyperbole. And yes, Madonna is everything in that sense, but from a pop perspective Madonna also feels like everything because in a career spanning four decades she has attacked, absorbed, and conquered pop music from every possible angle.

When Madonnas referenced as the Queen of Reinvention, it tends to suggest the linear series of career moves, from album to album, sonic era to sonic era, hairstyle to hairstyle. In reality, her layered approach to pop domination has frequently seemed to consist of multiple Madonnas existing at the same time. Here are six of her best, key to understanding her work.

Many of Madonnas supposedly controversial songs (like 80s hit Papa Dont Preach, with its subtext of abortion) are now more clearly identified as feminist statements or expressions of self, but thats not to say Madonna has never deliberately courted outright controversy.

Its easy to mock the quaint 80s reaction to the lyrics of Like A Virgin, but its also fair to say that if a mainstream 2017 pop actAriana Grande, for instancereleased the video Madonna made for Like A Prayer, all hell would still break loose. That video tackled religion, race, and sex, with scenes depicting murder, burning crosses, and Madonna with stigmata-esque wounds. It led to predictable complaints from the American Family Association, a denouncement by the Vatican, and a $5 million Pepsi ad campaign being benched. It would have been disingenuous of Madonna to feign surprise at the reaction. And she didnt. Her response? Art should be controversial, and that's all there is to it.

Madonna upped the ante on her next formal album, 1992s Erotica, and its accompanying artifacts, including the boundary-breaking Justify My Love video and a coffee table book called Sex, whose main shock value these days involves the inclusion of Vanilla Ice. Fast-forward to 2017, after decades of refusing to be silenced: Live on CNN from the Womens March on Washington, Madonna delivered a passionate speech about change, sacrifice, rebellion, the tyranny of Trump, and the power of love. There was more, of course: To our detractors that insist this march will never add up to anything: fuck you. Fuck. You. Not great news for CNNs switchboard but a fair point, well made.

When Madonna descended on New York in 1978, shed just dropped out of a University of Michigan dance scholarship and was hell-bent on making it as a professional dancer. So, spoiler alert, shes not averse to tripping the light fantastic, as her 1983 debut proved out the gate. Her discography is full of floorfillers, and she holds the record for the most No. 1 singles on Billboards Dance/Club Songs Chart, even if some of those chart-topping trackslike the various mixes of the poignant gender-role assessment What It Feels Like For A Girlmake for a somewhat complex shimmy.

Peppered throughout Madonnas career are more direct hints at what it might be like to actuallyimagine this!go dancing with Madonna. She likes to boogie woogie, this much we know from Music. On the 2000 album track Impressive Instant, Madonna reveals that her skills extend to both rhumba and samba (though bear in mind this was also the song where she declared, I like to singy singy singy like a bird on a wingy wingy wingy, so theres that). Most significantly, Madonnas belief in the dance floor as a sacred space is described in Vogue with words some will find as inspiring in 2017 as listeners almost three decades ago did: When all else fails and you long to be something better than you are today, I know a place where you can get awayit's called a dance floor.

Released a few years earlier, True Blue album cut Wheres The Party was ostensibly a song about going out and losing control after a week at work. Madonna wistfully recalls that as a child she couldnt wait to get older, before acknowledging that getting older hasnt been everything shed hoped, then looking ahead to the future: Don't want to grow old too fast, dont want to let the system get me down. Like some of the best pop songs, its about living in the moment, even if the importance of doing so only makes sense in the context of what came before, and what will come in the future. Which leads us to

Madonna looked closer to home on another time-shifting track, This Used to Be My Playground from A League of Their Own, with further songs like Oh Father and Live To Tell also looking back on Madonnas upbringing with themes of defiance, resolve, and closure.

A more literal timepiece motif emerged during the 2000s, when the lead singles from two successive Madonna albums each began with the sound of a clock ticking. In the first, 2005s Abba-sampling behemoth Hung Up, the ticking clock was inspired by producer Stuart Prices earlier remix of Gwen Stefanis What You Waiting For, and was followed by Madonnas observation that time goes by so slowly for those who wait, those who run seem to have all the fun.

By 2008, it was Timbaland administering the ticks on 4 Minutes, rather improbably Madonnas second most-streamed song on Spotify. That songs lyrics (We only got four minutes to save the world grab a boy, then grab a girl) suggested procreation-based speed dating, but Madonna later explained that they hinged on living on borrowed time essentially, and people are becoming much more aware of the environment and how we're destroying the planet. Madonna may have overestimated the urgency but, well, that clocks still ticking.

The are various words we might use to describe Madonnas film career, one of the more generous being lengthy. Since the 80s, Madonnas screen credits have prompted a series of musical contributions whose quality has frequently, often mercifully, failed to correlate with that of the actual movie.

Were one to assemble those alongside songs contributed to films in which Madonna didnt even appear, youd have one of the modern pop eras most surreal career retrospectives. It would include glossy pop jam Whos That Girl, wistful ballad-banger Ill Remember (from a dreadful Joe Pesci-Brendan Fraser vehicle), the William Orbit-produced, Austin Powers-soundtracking Beautiful Stranger, a peculiar cover of American Pie featuring Rupert Everett, the slightly mind-boggling Hanky Panky" (and the rest of her *Dick Tracy* companion LP), futuristic Bond theme Die Another Day, and (on a technicality) Into the Groove.

By law, that compilation would also need to include Madonnas take on Dont Cry For Me Argentina, but not the version she sang in Evita. Instead wed have the castanet-strewn, 100 percent spectacular, seven-minute remix, for which Madonna recorded brand new vocals and a second chorus entirely in Spanish. Sadly, some may say criminally, this definitive version of Dont Cry For Me Argentina is unavailable on streaming services, but it does live on via YouTube.

Treat with deep suspicion anybody who links lyrical substance to low tempo. That said, while Madonna has definitely explored the extremes of human emotion via dance floor smashes, some of her most profound thoughts have arrived within her most elegant songs. On her wildly underrated American Life album, Nothing Fails boasts a tempo that barely reaches the status of mid, but for a truly downbeat masterpiece, try Ray Of Lights Drowned World/Substitute For Love, a prelude to a reflective and immersive album whose sonic departure made it the riskiest move in a career built on the avoidance of safe decisions. Its there that we found Madonna, whod previously sung plenty about being a daughter, singing for the first time about being a parent (via sparse lullaby Little Star) while also, on mesmerizing album closer Mer Girl, reflecting on the death of her own mother.

Madonna undoubtedly defined the role of sex in modern pop, but just as prominentlyin songs as diverse as Take A Bow, Get Together, and Borderlineare themes of romance, heartbreak, and optimism. The thing is, Madonna told Rolling Stone regarding 2015s Living For Love, lots of people write about being in love and being happy or they write about having a broken heart and being inconsolable. But nobody writes about having a broken heart and being hopeful and triumphant afterwards. I didn't want to share the sentiment of being a victim. This scenario devastated me, but it just made me stronger.

The survival spirit of Living for Love came to life in an unexpected way. One of the songs first performances took place at the 2015 Brit Awards, where, at a key moment, a dancer tugged Madonnas cloak. The garment should have billowed away to reveal Madonnas full performance outfit, but the clasp jammed. Madonna was abruptly yanked off the stage platform but was back on her feet within seconds, singing lines like, Lifted me up, and watched me stumble after the heartache, Im gonna carry on. She finished the song, conjuring a live TV victory where others would have conceded defeat.

The aftermath was Madonna in excelsis: She didnt block the performances upload to the Brits YouTube channel. She didnt hide the imperfection or pretend it had not happened. In fact, within a week, the full performance was on her official VEVO channel, where it remains. Elsewhere on Rebel Heart, Madonna sings, Im only humanwhich is true, of course. Madonna definitely is a human beingshe just happens to be one whose remarkable longevity and multifaceted creativity justify her reputation as the Queen of Pop.

Link:

6 Sides of Madonna That Explain Her Genius - Pitchfork

Immortality has gone secular. Unhooked from the realm of gods and angels, its now the subject of serious investmentboth intellectual and financialby philosophers, scientists, and the Silicon Valley set. Several hundred people have already chosen to be cryopreserved in preference to simply dying, as they wait for science to catch up and give them a second shot at life. But if we treat death as a problem, what are the ethical implications of the highly speculative solutions being mooted?

Of course, we dont currently have the means of achieving human immortality, nor is it clear that we ever will. But two hypothetical options have so far attracted the most interest and attention: rejuvenation technology and mind uploading.

Like a futuristic fountain of youth, rejuvenation promises to remove and reverse the damage of aging at the cellular level. Gerontologists such as Aubrey de Grey argue that growing old is a disease that we can circumvent by having our cells replaced or repaired at regular intervals. Practically speaking, this might mean that every few years, you would visit a rejuvenation clinic. Doctors would not only remove infected, cancerous or otherwise unhealthy cells, but also induce healthy ones to regenerate more effectively and remove accumulated waste products. This deep makeover would turn back the clock on your body, leaving you physiologically younger than your actual age. You would, however, remain just as vulnerable to death from acute traumathat is, from injury and poisoning, whether accidental or notas you were before.

Rejuvenation seems like a fairly low-risk solution, since it essentially extends and improves your bodys inherent ability to take care of itself. But if you truly wanted eternal life in a biological body, it would have to be an extremely secure life indeed. Youd need to avoid any risk of physical harm to have your one shot at eternity, making you among the most anxious people in history.

The other option would be mind uploading, in which your brain is digitally scanned and copied onto a computer. This method presupposes that consciousness is akin to software running on some kind of organic hard-diskthat what makes you you is the sum total of the information stored in the brains operations, and therefore it should be possible to migrate the self onto a different physical substrate or platform. This remains a highly controversial stance. However, lets leave aside for now the question of where you really reside, and play with the idea that it might be possible to replicate the brain in digital form one day.

Unlike rejuvenation, mind uploading could actually offer something tantalizingly close to true immortality. Just as we currently back up files on external drives and cloud storage, your uploaded mind could be copied innumerable times and backed up in secure locations, making it extremely unlikely that any natural or man-made disaster could destroy all of your copies.

Despite this advantage, mind uploading presents some difficult ethical issues. Some philosophers, such as David Chalmers, think there is a possibility that your upload would appear functionally identical to your old self without having any conscious experience of the world. Youd be more of a zombie than a person, let alone you. Others, such as Daniel Dennett, have argued that this would not be a problem. Since you are reducible to the processes and content of your brain, a functionally identical copy of itno matter the substrate on which it runscould not possibly yield anything other than you.

Whats more, we cannot predict what the actual upload would feel like to the mind being transferred. Would you experience some sort of intermediate break after the transfer, or something else altogether? What if the whole process, including your very existence as a digital being, is so qualitatively different from biological existence as to make you utterly terrified or even catatonic? If so, what if you cant communicate to outsiders or switch yourself off? In this case, your immortality would amount to more of a curse than a blessing. Death might not be so bad after all, but unfortunately it might no longer be an option.

Another problem arises with the prospect of copying your uploaded mind and running the copy simultaneously with the original. One popular position in philosophy is that the youness of you depends on remaining a singular personmeaning that a fission of your identity would be equivalent to death. That is to say: if you were to branch into you1 and you2, then youd cease to exist as you, leaving you dead to all intents and purposes. Some thinkers, such as the late Derek Parfit, have argued that while you might not survive fission, as long as each new version of you has an unbroken connection to the original, this is just as good as ordinary survival.

Which option is more ethically fraught? In our view, mere rejuvenation would probably be a less problematic choice. Yes, vanquishing death for the entire human species would greatly exacerbate our existing problems of overpopulation and inequalitybut the problems would at least be reasonably familiar. We can be pretty certain, for instance, that rejuvenation would widen the gap between the rich and poor, and would eventually force us to make decisive calls about resource use, whether to limit the rate of growth of the population, and so forth.

On the other hand, mind uploading would open up a plethora of completely new and unfamiliar ethical quandaries. Uploaded minds might constitute a radically new sphere of moral agency. For example, we often consider cognitive capacities to be relevant to an agents moral status (one reason that we attribute a higher moral status to humans than to mosquitoes). But it would be difficult to grasp the cognitive capacities of minds that can be enhanced by faster computers and communicate with each other at the speed of light, since this would make them incomparably smarter than the smartest biological human. As the economist Robin Hanson argued in The Age of Em (2016), we would therefore need to find fair ways of regulating the interactions between and within the old and new domainsthat is, between humans and brain uploads, and between the uploads themselves. Whats more, the astonishingly rapid development of digital systems means that we might have very little time to decide how to implement even minimal regulations.

What about the personal, practical consequences of your choice of immortality? Assuming you somehow make it to a future in which rejuvenation and brain uploading are available, your decision seems to depend on how much riskand what kinds of risksyoure willing to assume. Rejuvenation seems like the most business-as-usual option, although it threatens to make you even more protective of your fragile physical body. Uploading would make it much more difficult for your mind to be destroyed, at least in practical terms, but its not clear whether you would survive in any meaningful sense if you were copied several times over. This is entirely uncharted territory with risks far worse than what youd face with rejuvenation. Nevertheless, the prospect of being freed from our mortal shackles is undeniably alluringand if its ever an option, one way or another, many people will probably conclude that it outweighs the dangers.

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

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If you upload your mind to a computer, are you immortal or just a bot? - Quartz

(Picture: Dave Anderson/metro.co.uk)

Dream jobs dont come around often.

You know, other than that gig as a whisky ambassador, the position that pays you to travel the world and review fancy homes, and the offer of getting paid to play with Lego all day.

So when these opportunities arrive, youve got to grab them with both hands. Then put em in your pants, in this case.

London-based sex toy brand LoveWoo is currently advertising for an official sex toy reviewer.

Yes, thats a job, and yes, it involves vigorously testing out sex toys to make sure theyre as brilliantly orgasm-inducing as they should be.

The responsibilities include testing out all kinds of products thatll be sent to your door by LoveWoo, and creating reviews to establish why the sex toy is good, how it can be improved, and offer personal recommendations.

Theres more to it than just wanking with fancy equipment, mind. Youll also need to upload reviews on to the website and use social media to share them, respond to customer queries, and write features for the site.

The good news? You can work from home two days a week, while the other three days youll be in the office?

The better news? The role pays 28,000 a year, gives you unlimited holiday, and you get to go on a staff retreat for three days each year. Fancy.

Throw in the discounted gym membership, a day off for your birthday, and private healthcare, and youve got a pretty sweet deal if youre good at writing and enjoy a solo sex sesh.

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If you fancy applying, youll need to send in a sample sex toy review, as well as a CV and/or a video application telling LoveWoo all about yourself and why youd be great at being a sex toy reviewer.

There doesnt seem to be a deadline, but wed recommend applying sharpish if youre interested. We reckon a lot of people would be up for getting paid to masturbate.

MORE: Why did FetLife remove a womans public photo of her period blood?

MORE: How bosses can make their workplace more mental health friendly

MORE: What to do if you experience sexism in the workplace

See more here:

There's a job going that'll give you a 28K salary and unlimited holiday to test out sex toys - Metro

Social media has changed a lot over the last five years and truth be told, thats the understatement of the century.

New platforms have come into the mix. Veteran platforms continue to evolve their algorithms, rules and layouts. There are constantly new things to learn about how to use social media to get the highest coveted asset of all in this space attention.

One thing that never seems to change about social media marketing is the need for something eye-catching. Marketers have argued over whether one-liners beat several paragraphs. Weve talked about the importance of hashtags.

But what also doesnt change, despite the constant ebb and flow of social updates, is the need for the content to compel a fan or follower to stop, look and react.

Social media is a noisy place. Your content is shoved between moving objects (videos) and GIFs (the hottest trend in commenting these days). To capture the attention of the person whos often mindlessly scrolling through the newsfeed, you need something just as catchy.

Does that mean your job is to pump out content thats just as loud? Far from it.

To get someone to stop and engage with your business on social media, you need to create compelling content that promises something in exchange for the persons time. Once YOU know the key takeaway (I cant decide that for you), then you can get to work creating images, videos and more that beg to be engaged with.

And when youre ready to do that, I have 10 tools that you can use to put your message together in a beautiful-looking post thatll stop a scroller in his or her tracks. Lets take a peek.

Im kick-starting this list with a tool thats relatively well-known but often not maximized to its full potential.

Canva is the go-to tool for non-designers because its so easy to use. Yes, you can create some fun social media graphics using its templates, but theres more to it. You can also design advertisements, infographics, brochures and more. Those pieces can be shared on Facebook and Twitter, which means you can get more out of every type of marketing collateral you design even whats meant for offline.

LinkedIn owns SlideShare, so its a natural platform to include on this list because it automatically syncs with one of the largest social media networks used today.

On SlideShare, you can upload your presentations, so they dont gather digital dust sitting on your computer after youve given them. Sharing them with your audience is easy. Simply press a button, and you can distribute them to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

You can also embed your SlideShare presentation on your website using IFrame or WordPress shortcodes (depending on what you use to house your website).

Take your presentation uploads a step further and add your voice overlay to them with SlideSnack.

With this presentation-sharing tool, you can upload past presentations, put your voice to them, and then share them on Facebook or YouTube. You can also embed them on most websites, including those that use WordPress, Blogger, Weebly and more.

Video is the holy grail of social media marketing because it incorporates both visual movement and audio interest. If you have a stellar idea for a video, turn your concept into a reality with PowToon.

You dont have to be a video master to use PowToon. This platform offers several templates to choose from that you can customize and brand according to your business. Then, all you do is plug and play your content and share.

With your video in place, you can use it to promote your business on YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and just about any social network.

Magisto is another video editor that makes it easy to put together professional-looking and -sounding videos, regardless of your skill level. Once you have your videos uploaded and a theme selected, you can drag and drop scenes and add your logo, captions, music and narration.

The free version is limited but still quite robust. With the commercial version, you get several more features, including the ability to custom-brand your video and use commercially licensed music.

Whats an easy way to get engagement? Ask a question. But sometimes, just asking a single question isnt enough to get a healthy response from your audience. Thats where Typeform comes into play.

Typeform is an easy-to-use quiz builder that lets you ask your audience questions. Use the drag-and-drop builder to put together a variety of styles of questions, including multiple choice, image-based, yes or no answers, short or long text answers and more.

Once you have your quiz created, share the link on any social network to encourage participation in a unique way.You can also embed Typeforms on your website.

Perhaps you want to have a little fun with your audience. Interactive quizzes with results you can instantly share are hotcakes on social media these days. Your company can create one, too, using Playbuzz.

Playbuzz lets you put together a series of tests or questions for your audience. Once the respondent is done answering them, theyll either get their end result (10 out of 10 correct!) or find out a fun fact about themselves (for example, which character youre most like on a TV show).

Its a simple way to engage your followers and make your brand fun. These are also great types of content because they encourage your followers friends to engage with your brand, too.

Piktochart lets you take survey results, stats and other tidbits of knowledge and turn them into an eye-catching (and scroll-stopping) infographic.

This type of social media content often scares many non-designers because it feels so rich, and thus hard to create. Piktochart simplifies the process by offering you over 600 templates to choose from.

With your template in place, you can add your own text, fonts, colors and logo. When its done, you can share it quickly with built-in social media options. Its fast and easy.

Visme is another tool that lets you put information together in a beautiful way. This platform offers several options for how that information is displayed, including in presentations, infographics, reports, wireframes and more.

Once created, you can share your content on your website, from a URL or on social media.

Podcasting is a huge trend these days, but if youre new to the world of audio content, production can be a roadblock. Podbean changes that by giving you an easy way to create professional podcasts in minutes without high-tech software or equipment.

Once created, you can publish your podcasts to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. Or you can upload and promote your podcasts with a Podbean paid plan.

At one point, a lack of technological knowledge was a good excuse for not offering stellar social media content. These tools change that.

Once you have your content format in mind images, videos, quizzes, infographics or audio choose the tool that best matches your goals and get to work.

What other tools have you used to create compelling social media content your audience cant wait to consume?

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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10 tools for creating compelling content for social media - Marketing Land

The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone By Thomas Winslow Hazlett Yale University Press 401 pages 978-0-300-21050-7 $35

Fred (Alfred E) Kahn kept fretting about the size of his fake nose. It was the 1973 Cornell Savoyards production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe, and he was playing the Lord Chancellor -- the little man who prances around and sings the 'Nightmare Song'. A few years later, he championed airline industry deregulation as part of the Carter administration.

In The Political Spectrum, Thomas Winslow Hazlett -- a professor at Clemson University and a frequent contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason -- reminds us that the job Kahn really wanted was chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). If he'd gotten that job rather than one on the Civil Aeronautics Board, Hazlett says, we'd have cheaper and better wireless service -- but airfares on the "government-protected cartel of carriers" would be really expensive. One could retort: Dr David Dao. However.

This particular 'what-if' is a vignette in Hazlett's history of wireless spectrum regulation, which covers American telecommunications regulation from the Radio Act of 1912 to the present. Hazlett's basic argument is that government-regulated spectrum rights are slowly allocated (over six to 13 years) and endemically and wastefully underused.

The focus is mainly on the US, although Hazlett regards the story as having broader applicability. As he told an audience at the Adam Smith Institute in June: "Every country has its own story, but they tend to have patterns." One of these, and the one that perhaps annoys Hazlett the most, is 'technical reasons' -- the excuse that's always given for not changing how things are done.

Deregulation, Hazlett argues, gave us FM radio, HBO, wi-fi, and the iPhone. Regulation was meant to provide TV services in the public interest -- news, education, and so on. Instead, it gave us a TV landscape that FCC chair Newton N Minow, in a famous 1961 speech to broadcasters in Las Vegas, called a "vast wasteland". Anyone in Britain might say: 'But the BBC!' Hazlett mentions it three times: once as a censor, once as a public utility studied by the economist Ronald Coase, and once (as BBC America) as one of the diverse news and information sources enabled by deregulating cable and ending the "artificial scarcity" of TV channels.

If the book has a hero, it may be Coase. In 1960, he proposed an idea, now known as the Coase theorem, that regulating the airwaves to avoid interference was unnecessary, because as long as property rights in the frequencies were well-defined, the broadcaster to whom the rights were most valuable would pay competitors not to interfere. The market, in other words, would find the most efficient frequency allocation for itself.

Coase, then 50, was much derided for this idea at the time, but lived long enough to receive the Nobel Prize in economics in 1991 and enjoy two decades of vindication before he died in 2013 at the age of 102.

Obviously this is a book that anyone involved with spectrum policy would want as a reference. What's unexpected is that, whether or not you agree with Hazlett's conclusions, it's also reasonably entertaining to read -- no small feat with a subject as esoteric as this.

Risk, film review: Access all Assange areas, to incoherent effectOver six years of filming, Laura Poitras follows the elusive and distant Wikileaks founder from a friend's Norfolk estate to his Ecuadorian Embassy bolt-hole.

Move Fast and Break Things, book review: Where did the internet go wrong?Jonathan Taplin's book examines how a handful of Silicon Valley libertarians came to dominate the internet via giant companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon.

To Be a Machine, book review: Disrupting life itselfMark O'Connell explores the drive to transcend biology using technology, examining ideas like the Singularity, mind uploading, cryonics, whole-brain emulation and cyborgs.

Thinking Machines, book review: AI, past, present and futureAdvances in recent decades have seen artificial intelligence develop apace, and AI now pervades our lives. Yet, as this book explains, true machine intelligence is still a work in progress.

Link:

The Political Spectrum, book review: How wireless deregulation gave us the iPhone - ZDNet

Earlier this summer, a modest little startup in Barcelona, Spain, unveiled its newest product a biodegradable, internet-connected funeral urn that turns the ashes of departed loved ones into an indoor tree. Just mix the cremains with soil and seedlings, and the digital-age urn will automatically water and care for your memorial sapling, sending constant updates to an app on your smartphone.

At first glance, the concept seems gimmicky evidently, we're running out of ideas for smart appliances. But the Bios Incube system can also be seen as the latest example of a gradual transformation in modern culture.

Technology is fundamentally changing how we deal with death and its attendant issues of funerals, memorials and human remains. Much of this change is for the good. Some developments are a little spooky. But one thing is for sure: You can do a lot of cool things with ashes these days.

The Bios Incube system, which went on sale in June after a successful crowdfunding campaign, is the latest iteration of a much older idea in which ashes are essentially used as compost for a memorial tree or plant. But the Incube system adds some high-tech twists. The biodegradable urn is placed within a 5-gallon planter with an elegant, off-white, minimalist design vibe call it the iUrn.

Actually, that's the Incube. Fill it with water and an internal irrigation system kicks in while separate sensors monitor the progress of your plant, taking constant readings on temperature, humidity and soil conditions. This information is wirelessly beamed to the included smartphone app, allowing the bereaved user to better care for and nurture the seedling as it grows into a tree.

Roger Moline, co-founder of Bios Urn, says the company offers two versions of its system. One provides the basic biodegradable urn and planter at $145. The more expensive version if you want all the high-tech bells, whistles, atmosphere sensors and smartphone apps tops out at $695.

"Interestingly enough, we have found so far that most have opted voluntarily for the high-tech option," Moline says.

He has a theory on that.

"Most of us are connected to the digital world, and we have become used to it," he says. "Perhaps by tying together this process with technology, there can be a sense of comfort that comes from using a familiar process with a new experience. We hope that it will push people in a new direction and perhaps make this process easier for those experiencing loss."

The Bios Urn concept is indeed part of a larger transformation in which technology is changing how we think about death and dying, says Candi Cann, author of the book "Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-first Century."

"Their approach implies a different sort of afterlife than the religious one an afterlife that theoretically we can partake in," says Cann, who teaches religion and world culture at Baylor University.

"Recent theories on mourning reveal that having continued bonds with the deceased allow us to navigate everyday life while renegotiating our relationships with loved ones who are no longer present," she says. "So in this way, the Bios Urn might actually foster a healthy type of mourning that allows us to look after the dead in an active, daily way."

Caring for the dead via a smartphone app may seem strange, Cann says, but it makes perfect sense for those of us living in a perpetually connected world: "The generation today has grown up with online spaces and smartphones, so this is their medium."

Cann has done extensive research on modern mourning rituals around the planet, and the various ways that technology is impacting how we deal with death and dying. The Internet has certainly changed the way we do things. Obituaries are posted online, funeral arrangements are sent by email or text, and social media platforms like Facebook now offer a range of memorial pages and legacy contact options.

In general, this is all good healthy progress, Cann says. "Smartphones and social media spaces have forced a decline in the importance of a controlled obituary narrative, as more people can contribute to the communal memory of a person and the meaning of their life," she says.

A recurring theme in Cann's work concerns an odd and abiding reticence in mainstream Western attitudes toward death: In short, we just don't like to talk about it. Our aversion leads to a lot of unhealthy sublimation in the culture. "I would argue that the reason we see so much death in the media and in video games is precisely because we are not having real conversations about death," Cann says.

Technology is helping in that arena, too. Cann points to online communities like Death Cafe, which use internet forums to arrange local meetups for the recently bereaved.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the remains. We humans have been navigating this dilemma since the dawn of civilization, but recent technological advances have opened up some options. You can have ashes incorporated into jewelry, blended into oil paintings, mixed into tattoo ink, submerged into coral reefs or even pressed into vinyl records. And don't forget about the festive fireworks option.

While developing the Bios Urn system, Moline explored how other cultures are processing cremains, like Tokyo's unique Ruriden columbarium, which utilizes LED Buddha statues and digital smart cards.

"I've seen some interesting things in China and Japan," he says. "Both have run of out burial space in larger cities and have created interesting ways of commemorating those who have passed."

Cann says that these new modern rituals, facilitated by various technologies, can help us get a little friendlier with death.

"In Brazil, I went to a public crematorium that cremates a body every 15 minutes, and is an actively used public park and picnic space," he says. "Families were playing and picnicking among the ashes. If we see deathscapes as friendly places, rather than where the dead are banished, we might be able to utilize them in healthier and more creative ways."

Looking to the future, however, Cann addresses more worrisome technologies.

"One of the areas I'm thinking more about is the use of artificial intelligence and digital avatars," Cann said. "These are people intending to upload themselves, via AI, into digital avatars."

Proponents of this idea contend that uploading the mind into a computer is entirely plausible. But science fiction has some cautionary tales in this area any technology that promises to defy death is usually nothing but trouble. Ask Dr. Frankenstein. Even speculating on this sci-fi scenario can get a bit dodgy, Cann says.

"Whenever people focus more on extending life rather than examining its quality, death loses its importance," Cann says. "If we are spending more time trying to deny death or prolong dying, then I think we are not living well."

In this light, the Bios Urn seems like a fairly gentle step forward. Technology can't yet provide us with digital immortality, but it can help us grow a memorial tree in our living room. What's not to like?

See the article here:

Ashes to ashes, dust to ... interactive biodegradable funerary urns? - Minnesota Public Radio News

VMware Photon OS is available in several packages and allows the user to deploy Photon efficiently. Consider, for...

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example, Photon under vSphere: Photon requires vSphere 5.5 or later; an ESXi host with 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of disk space; and the Photon OS package downloaded in ISO format. If you'd prefer a minimal installation, you can use the open virtualization appliance format package instead. Once the Photon package is downloaded to a data store, create a new VM, and stipulate Other 3.x Linux (64-bit) under Guest OS Family.

As a rule, configure the new VM with two virtual CPUs, 1,024 MB of memory and 20 GB of thin provisioned disk space and opt for the latest version of hardware compatibility, such as ESXi 6.0 and later (VM version 11). You can always adjust the resource allocation later. Mount the Photon ISO, and opt to connect at power on. The Photon installation process will start once the VM powers on and will allow the user to launch the remote console to work with the installer. Proceed with the installation.

Select the disk volume created for the VM, and allow the installer to erase the disk and continue. If you opt to use the ISO, you can select from minimal, full, OSTree Host or OSTree Server runtimes. Choose a meaningful hostname and suitable system root password. The installation will continue, and the VM will reboot into the Photon OS. This prepares Photon and allows the user to work with the container runtime environment.

Although Photon runs primarily on vSphere, you can obtain and use suitable packages for VMware Fusion, vCloud Air, Google Compute Engine (GCE) and Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) instances. The overall installation process is similar, but in order to deploy Photon on a public cloud platform, like GCE, you need a valid GCE account, access to the Google Cloud software development kit and a Photon OS image file for GCE downloaded in the corresponding format. Keep in mind that Google charges a fee to store the Photon package in Google cloud storage and deploy Photon in a GCE instance.

Create a bucket in GCE to store the Photon OS image, and then upload the image file to your bucket in the cloud. The uploaded file should appear in the file list for that bucket. Next, use the uploaded image to create a new image, and use a meaningful name to designate the new image; the new image should appear in the Images catalog. Now, select the new image, and opt to create a new instance. Select a meaningful name, and define the zone to use for deployment. Also, be sure to allow HTTP and HTTPS traffic if necessary in the new instance's firewall rules. At this point, you can see the new VM instance and Secure Shell into the Photon environment. You can now start to use Docker Engine and run containers.

If you have any additional questions about specific steps or advice for deploying Photon on platforms like vCloud Air, Amazon Web Services and so on, refer to the official VMware Photon documentation.

How does Photon OS bring container benefits to VMware?

Compare and contrast VMware container platforms

VMware Integrated Containers faces setbacks

Follow this link:

How do you run Photon OS on vSphere or platforms like Google? - TechTarget

It used to be that your bathroom scale told you what you weighed, and you had to wait for your doctor to tell you the details.

Thenew wave of smart scales, though, are able to provide a lot more information about your body. Some even give advice on reaching health and weight goals. Many of the most popular scales calculate BMI, while some also calculate measurements from muscle mass to water weight and bone mass.

Several scales add the ability to upload all that information to a smart phone or computer to track body measurements and even share results with your friends.

If youre in the market for a smart scale, weve gathered some intel on the most important things to know about the types and prices of smart scales.

When you consider whether you want a scale that tells you more than your weight, keep in mind that these scales are either Bluetooth-enabled, or both Bluetooth- and Wi-Fi-enabled,according to Jill Duffy, a contributing editor who ranked smart scales for PC mag.

She noted that Wi-Fi scales tend to cost more but are also more convenient. "To get your daily weigh-ins off of a Bluetooth scale and into the app where they'll be tracked, you need a Bluetooth device by your side," Duffy commented. "If you leave your companion smartphone, fitness tracker, or running watch in the other room, you're out of luck until it's within Bluetooth range."

Duffy also gave Wi-Fi enabled scales a thumbs up because their syncing is more reliable.

Other considerations range from the scale's appearance to price to whether you want to commit to a scale that will make recommendations on your approach to healthy living.Among scales with "smart" options, here are six to consider:

Contributed by Weight Gurus/For the AJC

Withings Body Cardio Ranked first on theMen's Fitness compilationof the Top 5 Smart Scales 2017, this Withings model measures full-body composition, body fat, water percentage, muscle and bone mass. Men's Fitness deemed it perfect for fitness and health fiends, because it is calibrated for athletes and is the only one currently on the market that measures pulse wave velocity. Other pluses included its accuracy and compatibility with the most third-party apps and devices of current smart scales.

Price: $180/withings.com

Withings Smart Body Analyzer Decribed as a "one-stop health tracking scale," the Smart Body Analyzer measures your body's stats and then gives you an idea of how healthy your living environment is. It automatically syncs weight, body fat composition, heart rate and environmental data to a personalized dashboard on the company's free app. It also allows automatic uploads of measurements in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. This is the No. 2 among smart scales onBestOffers.com, with a 97 percent approval rate (second only to the Body Cardio scale, which scored 99).

Price: $100/withings.com

Weight Gurus Bluetooth Smart Connected Body Fat Scale

Also top-ranked at Best Offers, this smart scale measures BMI, body fat, muscle mass, water weight and bone mass. Its auto user detect function allows as many as eight separate people to use the functions. Another plus: it has a substantial getting started guide and video for those who find setups challenging. Price:$100/greatergoods.com

QardioBase The No. 2 pick from Men's Fitness, QardioBase measures BMI, water and bone mass, muscle and BMI. It's the model for those who want reminders to weigh themselves, with an alarm and "Smart Feedback" mode. It also notes progress (or not) toward weight-loss and strength goals.

Fitbit Aria Fitbit users will segue right into using this smart scale, which measures BMI, weight and lean mass, and body-fat percentage over time. It also includes a way to set fitness goals and use Calorie Coaching to achieve them.

Wahoo Balance According to Men's Fitness, this is the no-frills smart scale for Apple users and anyone else who's seeking a bargain. It measures BMI and weight and tracks weight trends. It's built for accuracy on its minimal functions and so easy to set up even a weight-conscious caveman could do it.

Read this article:

Want a scale that tells more than your weight? Smart scales are it - Atlanta Journal Constitution

David Soleymani founder, Dermio.

Launched last year,Dermio isnt just for those with sexual health concerns.

The online platform aims to provide on-demand dermatology diagnoses to anyone whos too busy to get into a clinic, or who finds themselves under-insured.

Soleymani was working at Northwestern Universityin Chicago, Illinois, when he decided to diagnose skin ailments remotely, he tells The Memo:

Patients would often comment that since a lot of skin conditions, such as acne, were so easy to diagnose, why couldnt they just send me a photo and save them from having to wait for an appointment, skip work, pay for parking, sit in a waiting room, etc.

With this in mind, he developed the Dermio smartphone app and website: you simply upload a picture of your skin, a brief description, and answer to a few questions to receive a response within 24 hours.

The whole shebang sets you back $40 (around 30).

If Dermio are unable to help, then youre not charged. However if the team doesnt diagnose but still gives helpful advice (eg dont worry, its benign, or this is suspicious and requires a real-life consultation), you are still charged.

Around 98% of cases, however, are easily solved with your smartphone alone, says Soleymani.

Read the original here:

Dermio's photo app knows what's itching down there - The Memo

The Bios Urn mixes cremains with soil and seedlings. It automatically waters and cares for the memorial sapling, sending updates to a smartphone app. Bios Urn hide caption

The Bios Urn mixes cremains with soil and seedlings. It automatically waters and cares for the memorial sapling, sending updates to a smartphone app.

Earlier this summer, a modest little startup in Barcelona, Spain, unveiled its newest product a biodegradable, Internet-connected funeral urn that turns the ashes of departed loved ones into an indoor tree. Just mix the cremains with soil and seedlings, and the digital-age urn will automatically water and care for your memorial sapling, sending constant updates to an app on your smartphone.

At first glance, the concept seems gimmicky evidently, we're running out of ideas for smart appliances. But the Bios Incube system can also be seen as the latest example of a gradual transformation in modern culture.

Technology is fundamentally changing how we deal with death and its attendant issues of funerals, memorials and human remains. Much of this change is for the good. Some developments are a little spooky. But one thing is for sure: You can do a lot of cool things with ashes these days.

The Bios Incube system, which went on sale in June after a successful crowdfunding campaign, is the latest iteration of a much older idea in which ashes are essentially used as compost for a memorial tree or plant. But the Incube system adds some high-tech twists. The biodegradable urn is placed within a 5-gallon planter with an elegant, off-white, minimalist design vibe call it the iUrn.

Actually, that's the Incube. Fill it with water and an internal irrigation system kicks in while separate sensors monitor the progress of your plant, taking constant readings on temperature, humidity and soil conditions. This information is wirelessly beamed to the included smartphone app, allowing the bereaved user to better care for and nurture the seedling as it grows into a tree.

Roger Molin, co-founder of Bios Urn, says the company offers two versions of its system. One provides the basic biodegradable urn and planter at $145. The more expensive version if you want all the high-tech bells, whistles, atmosphere sensors and smartphone apps tops out at $695.

"Interestingly enough, we have found so far that most have opted voluntarily for the high-tech option," Molin says.

He has a theory on that.

"Most of us are connected to the digital world, and we have become used to it," he says. "Perhaps by tying together this process with technology, there can be a sense of comfort that comes from using a familiar process with a new experience. We hope that it will push people in a new direction and perhaps make this process easier for those experiencing loss."

The Bios Urn is part of a high-tech system in which the ashes of a departed loved one are used to help grow a tree. Bios Urn hide caption

The Bios Urn is part of a high-tech system in which the ashes of a departed loved one are used to help grow a tree.

The Bios Urn concept is indeed part of a larger transformation in which technology is changing how we think about death and dying, says Candi Cann, author of the book Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-first Century.

"Their approach implies a different sort of afterlife than the religious one an afterlife that theoretically we can partake in," says Cann, who teaches religion and world culture at Baylor University.

"Recent theories on mourning reveal that having continued bonds with the deceased allow us to navigate everyday life while renegotiating our relationships with loved ones who are no longer present," she says. "So in this way, the Bios Urn might actually foster a healthy type of mourning that allows us to look after the dead in an active, daily way."

Caring for the dead via a smartphone app may seem strange, Cann says, but it makes perfect sense for those of us living in a perpetually connected world: "The generation today has grown up with online spaces and smartphones, so this is their medium."

Cann has done extensive research on modern mourning rituals around the planet, and the various ways that technology is impacting how we deal with death and dying. The Internet has certainly changed the way we do things. Obituaries are posted online, funeral arrangements are sent by email or text, and social media platforms like Facebook now offer a range of memorial pages and legacy contact options.

In general, this is all good healthy progress, Cann says. "Smartphones and social media spaces have forced a decline in the importance of a controlled obituary narrative, as more people can contribute to the communal memory of a person and the meaning of their life," she says.

A recurring theme in Cann's work concerns an odd and abiding reticence in mainstream Western attitudes toward death: In short, we just don't like to talk about it. Our aversion leads to a lot of unhealthy sublimation in the culture. "I would argue that the reason we see so much death in the media and in video games is precisely because we are not having real conversations about death," Cann says.

Technology is helping in that arena, too. Cann points to online communities like Death Cafe, which use Internet forums to arrange local meetups for the recently bereaved.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the remains. We humans have been navigating this dilemma since the dawn of civilization, but recent technological advances have opened up some options. You can have ashes incorporated into jewelry, blended into oil paintings, mixed into tattoo ink, submerged into coral reefs or even pressed into vinyl records. And don't forget about the festive fireworks option.

While developing the Bios Urn system, Molin explored how other cultures are processing cremains, like Tokyo's unique Ruriden columbarium, which utilizes LED Buddha statues and digital smart cards.

The Ruriden columbarium houses futuristic alters with glass Buddha statues that correspond to drawers storing the ashes of the deceased. Chris McGrath/Getty Images hide caption

The Ruriden columbarium houses futuristic alters with glass Buddha statues that correspond to drawers storing the ashes of the deceased.

"I've seen some interesting things in China and Japan," he says. "Both have run of out burial space in larger cities and have created interesting ways of commemorating those who have passed."

Cann says that these new modern rituals, facilitated by various technologies, can help us get a little friendlier with death.

"In Brazil, I went to a public crematorium that cremates a body every 15 minutes, and is an actively used public park and picnic space," he says. "Families were playing and picnicking among the ashes. If we see deathscapes as friendly places, rather than where the dead are banished, we might be able to utilize them in healthier and more creative ways."

Looking to the future, however, Cann addresses more worrisome technologies.

"One of the areas I'm thinking more about is the use of artificial intelligence and digital avatars," Cann said. "These are people intending to upload themselves, via AI, into digital avatars."

Proponents of this idea contend that uploading the mind into a computer is entirely plausible. But science fiction has some cautionary tales in this area any technology that promises to defy death is usually nothing but trouble. Ask Dr. Frankenstein. Even speculating on this sci-fi scenario can get a bit dodgy, Cann says.

"Whenever people focus more on extending life rather than examining its quality, death loses its importance," Cann says. "If we are spending more time trying to deny death or prolong dying, then I think we are not living well."

In this light, the Bios Urn seems like a fairly gentle step forward. Technology can't yet provide us with digital immortality, but it can help us grow a memorial tree in our living room. What's not to like?

Glenn McDonald is a freelance writer, editor and game designer based in Chapel Hill, N.C. You can follow him @glennmcdonald1.

Excerpt from:

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to ... Interactive Biodegradable Funerary Urns? - NPR

With such a competitive market in many industries these days, brands are looking for a way to reinvent themselves; to offer something different to their current client base with the same goal in mind: referrals.

Whats with referrals and how does impact our companys performance? Lets put it this way: Your e-store gets around 15-20 orders a day, and 2 of them happened to experience issues on the users end. You can say: well, its the clients fault for not reading carefully how the product is expected to be used, but also you can look at this from the customers side and help the user to solve the issue experienced, thus getting a thumbs-up in what Customer Service respects.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

The first answer to the scenario we showcased will undoubtedly lead to bad propaganda, as you simply dont care about what your clients do with your products as long as you get enough sales a day. And bad propaganda translates into lower sales, eventually to a business bankruptcy. However, if we choose the second approach, we will not only experience the customers gratitude but also good, free advertisement on how does our company responds to customers complaints. Thats the power of referrals.

Tactics to Improve Customers Experience

There are countless ways in which we can help our clients to feel more comfortable at the moment of acquiring our products or services. Depending on the style of business we have, then we can trace strategies that certainly will help our company to reach a broader audience in no-time.

For e-shops, its all about Customer Service. Since you dont have a physical place in which your clients can claim assistance, or even in some cases you dont count with the services of a phone line for which your clients could get assistance, then the best shot you got is to acquire the services of a Live Chat provider. There are multiple clients for these tools, as we can name TidioChat or Zopim; therefore, weigh pros and cons of each Live Chat client prior making your choice. The essential aspects you need to take into consideration are:

In case you have a physical office to sell your products or services, you need to work essentially on infrastructure and extra services that can sum up for the user satisfaction.

For starters, make your goal to build a cozy office: designers furniture, coffee machines available for clients without paying any extra fees and a television streaming music videos or news broadcast (for those cases in which clients need to wait a long time). Its also important to acknowledge potential issues that your office space may have, as is the case with low-signal coverage, as tends to happen in certain buildings or city areas far too crowded with antennas and overlapping Wi-Fi signals. Further information on this behalf can be studied in this infographic courtesy of ForRent.com

Our endgame in getting referrals is to boost sales, the prime goal of any company. However, to fully understand the impact that clients input can do for our business, it would be best to explain, in clear numbers, how good referrals can be a game changer.

Thanks to a study hosted by the communications marketing firm Edelman in 2014, we can assume that 68% of customers trust the reviews posted online, being 84% of those customers potential buyers due to the recommendations made at credible sources of information (i.e.: Amazon, PCMag, CNet, etc.). Therefore, how does a proper referral system works?

Start by building a name out of your brand: you can do this by getting review blog posts of the products you are offering to your clients at authority websites (or respected websites if you cannot reach an authority websites editor as your brand hasnt grown enough yet). That way, you are making a buzz about what your company provides, but that isnt enough to bring clients on its own.

Invest time and resources in hosting a place at your website where clients can upload their thoughts about your products/services as customer reviews. Visual aids also help, and many plugins on the market can offer these services without much hassle. Be sure also to give something back to encourage those reviews, like an exclusive product that cannot be acquired by any other mean, or a discount code for an upcoming order.

By putting these strategies into practice, you are not only growing your brands name but also giving something back to the community. Be creative, make a name out of yourself.

Good luck!

VikasAgrawal

Infobrandz

Vikas Agrawal is a start-up Investor and co-founder of the Infographic design agency Infobrandz.com, He is a highly influential research analyst and strategic marketing consultant. Vikas advises and plans the visual marketing campaigns of Medium to Large companies. Vikas has worked globally across multiple industries including retail, financial services, logistics, manufacturing, telecoms and pharmaceuticals deploying effective strategic marketing plans and methodologies. A renowned blogger on the subject of Technology, Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

Current Author Rank: 41

Read the rest here:

How to Improve Your Customer's Experience at Your Workplace - Customer Think

Trisha Paytas has wasted no time in revealing what she really thought of her Celebrity Big Brother housemates, posting a tell-all video on her YouTube page less than 12 hours after quitting the show.

And while fans will have to wait until Saturday (12 August) nights show to see Trishas exit, shes already told her side of the story online:

In the first of two videos, Trisha explains to fans that she actually regrets leaving, but it doesnt take long for her to change her mind.

In the second - expletive-filled - upload, she explains: I was just editing my [Why I Regret Leaving] video and putting it up for you guys but fuck that shit.

I just watched Paul [Danan] body-shaming me, basically saying I have my ass hanging out and walk around with my legs showing. Fuck Paul, fake motherfucker.

She also slams the star for only having 3000 followers on Instagram, before turning on Sarah fucking Harding.

Fuck you Sarah Harding, who the fuck are you? she says, after making the bold claim that: Perez [Hilton] even said they save the good names for the January season because no-one watches the summer one.

As if that wasnt enough, Trisha has also taken to Twitter to vent:

While her exit will be screened on Saturday, bosses have shared a clip of the housemates finding out about Trishas decision to walk. Watch it below

Katie Price - 'I'm A Celebrity' (2009)

She lasted right till the end first time around, but at her second crack of the 'I'm A Celeb' whip, the Bushtucker Trials proved too much for Katie, who had returned to the jungle to get "closure" after splitting from Peter Andre.

Read the rest here:

'Celebrity Big Brother': Trisha Paytas Slams Paul Danan And Sarah Harding After Quitting Series - HuffPost UK

My first trip up The Tower took 45 minutes that Im not likely to forget anytime soon.

At a time which Im finding myself increasingly rooted to the spot when playing in VR, this short little adventure from Headroom.one reminded me of the joys of the physicality of the medium, much in the same way Superhot VR did when it launched last year.

In The Tower, available now on the Oculus Rift, you stand on a conveyor belt that ascends a sprawling complex of ancient buildings with traps littered along the path. Your goal is simple; avoid the many perils on your way to the top, and try and get there as quickly as possible with as few deaths as possible. Its a little like the active brilliance of Triangular Pixels Unseen Diplomacy, but it manages to circumnavigate that games claustrophobic confines for something that gives you a better sense of progression.

Though comparatively small in scale to other VR games, theres a budding sense of adventure and journey to The Tower. You start by emerging from a cave at the base of the buildings. From here you can see the gauntlet laid down right in front of you; the course winds and weaves its way up through the buildings, reaching further than you can see. Its truly an epic sight, and even then I didnt fully comprehend the trials and tribulations that lay ahead.

Avoiding obstacles in The Tower is a little complex. Simply ducking is easy enough, but youll need to be careful when dodging from side-to-side, as leaning too far one way or the other will send you falling off the conveyor belt. If you die youll start back at the nearest checkpoint, and a blood splatter will appear where you previously met your end.

Youll probably also need to stretch. In my 45 minute ascent I was regularly throwing myself to the ground, quickly hopping one way to the other, and leaning in awkward positions. Clearing your room space is essential, because youll need the peace of mind to take full confidence in the steps and movements you make.I cant tell you how many times I crawled into a table leg Rift-first.

If youve got the space, though, The Tower offers some of the most exciting VR gameplay Ive seen of late. At one point I found myself laying flat on the floor, praying I was low enough to avoid a saw blade before quickly picking myself up to dance around darts that were being shot at me. The game requires guts; at times youll need to force yourself to take a step forward to avoid a swinging axe, or lightly tread backward as you wait for a spike to disappear into the wall. These movements can be hard to make when your brain thinks youre a few hundred meters up in the air and overlooking certain death.

The game does a wonderful job of playing on that split second in VR in which you forget this isnt all real. At one point a deafening canon unloaded its ammunition on me, and I jumped out of my skin with each passing shot. Just when the base concept starts to grow stale, it throws new concepts in, like keys youll have to hold onto to unlock doors later down the line, or swords youll grab to cut down tethers and fend off incoming fire.

I couldnt stop my heart from racing in moments like this, even when the fun turns further toward frustration as things get more difficult in the final section. Its a little too hard to juggle dodging traps and not falling off the side at times, which feels especially unfair when your feet havent moved from the spot. The Tower could really benefit from Vives full body tracking with the new Trackers, though that obviously limits its appeal even more so in an already niche market.

That said, Im really glad that The Tower is in Early Access because Id love to see a lot more content on offer. In fact, my brain is bursting with new ideas beyond extra levels and traps. Id love to see procedural generation to add endless replay value, for example, or courses with multiple paths that could make each players experience different. Thinking beyond that, I could see an awesome co-op mode where two players might have to work together to overcome obstacles in their path. I may have reached the top of The Tower but I felt like the game is only just getting started with potential ideas.

But dont let the room for growth keep you waiting; at $4.99 Id class The Tower as a trip essential trip for any Rift owner with the room for it.

The Tower is available now on Oculus Home for $4.99.

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The Tower Is An Awesome VR Obstacle Course Built For Room-Scale Rift - UploadVR

Enlarge / This data could potentially contain malware.

With everyone from academics to Microsoft looking at the prospect of storing data using DNA, it was probably inevitable that someone would start looking at the security implications. Apparently, they're worse than most people might have expected. It turns out it's possible to encode computer malware in DNAand use it to attack vulnerabilities on the computer that analyzes the sequence of that DNA.

The researchers didn't find an actual vulnerability in DNA analysis softwareinstead, they specifically made a version of some software with an exploitable vulnerability to show that the risk is more than hypothetical. Still, an audit of some open source DNA analysis software shows that the academics who have been writing it haven't been paying much attention to security best practices.

DNA sequencing involves determining the precise order of the bases that make up a DNA strand. While the process that generates the sequence is generally some combination of biology and/or chemistry, once it's read, the sequence is typically stored as an ASCII string of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs. If handled improperly, that chunk of data could exploit vulnerable software to get it to execute arbitrary code. And DNA sequences tend to see a lot of software, which find overlapping sequences, align it to known genomes, look for key differences, and more.

To see whether this threat was more than hypothetical, the researchers started with a really simple exploit: store more data than a chunk of memory was intended to hold, and redirect program execution to the excess. In this case, said excess contained an exploit that would use a feature of the bash shell to connect into a remote server that the researchers controlled. If it worked, the server would then have full shell access to the machine running the DNA analysis software.

Actually implementing that in DNA, however, turned out to be challenging. DNA with Gs and Cs forms a stronger double-helix. Too many of them, and the strand won't open up easily for sequencing. Too few, and it'll pop open when you don't want it to. Repetitive DNA can form complex structures that get in the way of all the enzymes we normally use to manipulate DNA. The computer code they wanted to use, however, had lots of long runs of the same character, which made for a repetitive sequence that was very low in Gs and Cs. The company they were ordering DNA from couldn't even synthesize it.

In the end, they had to completely redesign their malware so that its translation into nucleic acids produced a DNA strand that could be synthesized and sequenced. The latter created another hurdle. The most common method of sequencing is currently limited to reading a few hundred bases at a time. Since each base has two bits of information, that means the malware has to be incredibly compact. That limits what can be done, and it explains why all this particular payload did was open up a remote connection.

Then, there was the matter of getting the malware executed. Since this was a proof of concept, the researchers made it easy on themselves: the modified an existing tool to create an exploitable vulnerability. They also made some changes to the system's configuration to make the execution of random memory locations easier (made the stack executable and turned off memory address randomization). While that makes the test environment less realistic, the goal was simply to demonstrate that DNA-delivered malware was possible.

With everything in place, they ordered some DNA online then sent it off to a facility for sequencing. When their sequences came back, they sent them through a software pipeline that included their vulnerable utility. Almost immediately, the computer running the software connected into their host, providing them with access to the machine. The malware worked.

Given how easy the authors made thingsa known vulnerability and a number of safeguards turned offdoes this really pose a threat? There's good news and bad news here.

On the good side, there's the complications of translating computer instructions into DNA that can be synthesized and sequenced. Plus there's the issue that most sequencing machines are limited in how long a sequence they can read. The machine used in this work maxes out at 300 bases, which is the equivalent of 600 bits, and most facilities keep things shorter than that. Longer read machines are available, but they're also error prone, and any errors will typically disable the malware.

But it's also common for the software used to analyze DNA to look for places where two short sequences overlap and use that to build up longer sequences. This has the potential to expand the size of the malware considerably, although less of the analysis software pipeline will be exposed to these longer, assembled sequences.

Similar issues exist with how the malware is encoded. While the authors used each base to encode two bits, DNA analysis software handles DNA in various ways internally. For example, if sequencing doesn't provide a clear indication of what a base is, other characters may be used (for example, N for any base, or R for G or A). Any software that handles these ambiguous bases has to have a more complex encoding scheme; many simply use ASCII characters.

As a result, different pieces of software will be vulnerable to different malware encodings. While that means some software will be immune, the size of the DNA analysis pipelines typically means that a dozen or more pieces of software will be run in succession. Chances are good that at least one of them will use the same encoding as the malware.

The research community's habits are also a major point of vulnerability. The analysis software was generally not written with security in mind. Using the Clang compiler's analysis tools and HP's Fortify compiler, the authors searched a collection of open source DNA analysis software for potential vulnerabilities. They found widespread use of functions that are prone to buffer overflows (strcat, strcpy, sprintf, vsprintf, gets, and scanf)about two instances for every 1,000 lines of code. "Our research suggests that DNA sequencing and analysis have not to date received significantif anyadversarial pressure," they conclude.

The second issue is how easy it is to infiltrate malicious code onto other machines via DNA. The sequencing machines have such a high capacity, work from several different labs is run on a single machine at the same time. As a result, some of the sequences returned from the machine will end up mixed into an unrelated sample. When the researchers checked with another group that had their sequencing performed at the same time, they found that the other group's results contained 27 instances of the malware.

Separately, lots of services simply allow you to send in any DNA for sequencing, putting their software at risk. And many public repositories allow people to upload their sequence for analysis by others. So, you wouldn't even have to synthesize any DNA to have your exploit analyzedyou can simply upload the text of the sequence you've designed to someone else's data repository.

None of this means that a DNA-based exploit is around the corner. But it's a healthy warning that the research community and commercial DNA companies should look to improve their practices before this does become a problem.

Originally posted here:

Researchers encode malware in DNA, compromise DNA sequencing software - Ars Technica

At one point there were five AT&T trucks and technicians at my house installing fiber-optic broadband. It's been smooth sailing since then.

I just upgraded to gigabit broadband at home. But being able to download a 2GB episode of "Game of Thrones" in 16 seconds isn't what gets me excited.

It's the ability to upload data at 1 gigabit per second -- not just download it -- that helped me decide to cancel Comcast and sign up for AT&T Fiber. Downstream data rates are important, but fast upstream speed is what's going to power the next transformation of home broadband.

If you're shopping for broadband, the odds are good that internet service providers will rank their speed tiers by download speed. To make abstractions like 100 Mbps per second real, they'll tell you how long it'll take to download a movie in full HD resolution (hence my above example). What they won't tell you is how long it'll take to upload your video to YouTube or how good your Skype call with grandma will look.

It's no surprise they don't highlight these upload speeds, because they're not very flattering. Network operators have a finite amount of bits they can shuttle around every second, and downloading generally is more important and data-intensive than uploading. So they allocate more of their capacity to downstream data transfer to your home, not upstream data transfer from your home to the internet.

But upload speeds matter. Being able to send data fast is important to videoconferencing, uploading photos, online gaming, collaborating with coworkers and more. Eventually, it could transform the internet again, perhaps the same way it changed when high-speed download speeds helped YouTube trigger the video streaming revolution.

For an example of how fast upload speeds change broadband, look at online backup service Backblaze, which charges $5 per month to keep a copy of your PC's data. On Thursday, it announced a new version of its backup software that should triple or quadruple most customer's backup speeds. If you have a fast upstream connection, that means you can send files up to its servers at 100 Mbps. Backblaze's own chief technology officer has maxed out at 200 Mbps, though he's an exceptional case.

AT&T promises 940 megabits per second with its gigabit fiber-optic service. For the most part it delivers -- though Wi-Fi is slower than a cable connection.

I've been a Backblaze customer for years, and this kind of performance changes the game. For $60 a year they offer unlimited storage, but when I got started, with a slow upstream connection, it took months for all of my data to trickle its way to Backblaze. No way was I going to ditch the backup hard drive in my office.

But at 100 Mbps, you can pump 50 gigabytes per hour into the cloud. That means my current 2-terabyte backup would be finished in less than a day. It's much faster to update an existing backup, of course, because only new or changed data must be sent, but it's common for me to come back from a day trip with 10GB or 20GB of photos and video.

No, I'm not going to dump my physical backup drive, because I like to protect my data with multiple methods. But fast upstream data rates make online backup more feasible for people who otherwise wouldn't bother. Online backup is a lifesaver if you're the victim of flood, fire or burglary, plus the ability to access files if you're away from your home computer.

With AT&T Fiber, Backblaze backup speeds increased dramatically to 101 Mbps -- and that was before release of a new version of the software tuned better for high-speed links.

Lots of other services today benefit from good upstream speeds:

None of these are impossible with today's broadband, but all of them work better with gigabit speeds. Before moving to AT&T Fiber, I paid for a premium tier on Comcast's Xfinity service not because I needed the 200 Mbps download rates, but because I wanted the commensurate 20 Mbps upload rate.

I ponied up for AT&T's top-tier gigabit rate (actually 940 Mbps when you read the fine print), which costs $70 a month and goes to $80 after the first year. For 100 Mbps, it's $50, increasing to $70, but I wanted to see what the top-of-the-line speed would get me.

In my speed testing, AT&T delivers the goods. But it's not magic. Lots of things go faster, like YouTube uploads that take only a few seconds. The internet has abundant bottlenecks, though, so I still wait for data more often than I'd like. On top of that, Wi-Fi cuts down the maximum speed by two thirds, and websites require more and more time to execute complex programming instructions. Overall, though, I'm satisfied, and I expect things will improve as more online services adapt to ultra-high-speed connections.

I'm lucky to have gigabit speeds at home, but it's becoming more common. AT&T can reach 5.5 million homes and small businesses today with its fiber-optic service, but plans to expand to at least 12.5 million by mid-2019.

The bigger question is what changes will come in the long run as upload speeds improve. There is an unpredictable "build it and they will come" factor.

Google had the presence of mind to acquire YouTube in 2006 and stands to profit likewise from tomorrow's services. So it makes sense that the company would try to kick things into gear with its Google Fiber service, which promises gigabit upload and download speeds.

But the company is pretty vague about what it thinks will emerge when our upload speeds surge.

AT&T Fiber can boast of high upload speeds, but in this promotional mailing, it only mentions download speeds.

"We believe technology paves the way for innovation," Google said of its Google Fiber project, which arguably kicked off this gigabit broadband push. "We've seen businesses in many industries -- from architecture to medicine to film and music -- take advantage of faster upload speeds to work collaboratively and expand their reach. And of course, it's also great for less serious endeavors like gaming or keeping your YouTube channel up to date."

For me, it was the supposedly slow-moving incumbent, not the Silicon Valley disruptor, that delivered my gigabit speeds.

AT&T expects changes with better upstream speeds. "We are seeing people producing more content than ever and pushing that content to the cloud, over social networks, engaging in video conferencing, online gaming, and more," the company said in a statement.

It's possible more radical changes will come. Faster upload speeds make telecommuting more feasible. It's easier to access company data and chat with teleconferencing technology, so maybe more people will skip rush-hour commutes or cross-country flights.

The bigger difference will be that our digital selves will move to the cloud. Take a photo of your dog, and nearly instantly it'll be stored on Facebook, Google, Dropbox, iCloud or some other online service. Your phone becomes an extension of the internet.

Security and privacy concerns mean it's not always wise to send data over networks and store it in central servers. But the benefits of cloud computing are immense when it comes to protecting against theft, granting fast access to a massive video and music library, and synchronizing our phones, TVs, laptops, smart speakers, smartwatches and tablets.

It's the future, so you better get used to it.

Tech Culture: From film and television to social media and games, here's your place for the lighter side of tech.

Batteries Not Included: The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool.

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Gigabit broadband upload speeds revolutionizes the internet - CNET - CNET

When Seth Messer and Ajayci Cotton entered the Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins off the Ky. 192 Bypass Tuesday afternoon, they had one thing in mind: Steal a cake and upload it to social media.

They didnt think about the consequences of their actions.

Messer, 19, of London and Cotton, 18, of Manchester, were arrested by Detective Jason Back of the Laurel County Sheriffs Office shortly after they pulled off their prank that eventually landed them in jail.

The incident occurred around 3:30 p.m. when the two entered the establishment and Messer stole the cake while Cotton filmed the incident to upload to a social media site. As employees confronted the pair, Messer reportedly said something to the effect of this is my cake now and used profanity, according to Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, public affairs deputy for the sheriffs office.

The two left the restaurant and employees were able to write down their license plate number. The car was later spotted and the two were arrested by Back at approximately 4:51 p.m. Acciardo said that Messer asked if were really going to jail for this? when he was arrested.

Yes, Acciardo said. You stole something that did not belong to you. Stealing is stealing. He added that the two said they did it as a prank.

The cake was valued at $25 to $30 and that could result in a misdemeanor theft charge. However, officers chose to charge the two with felony third-degree burglary because of the circumstances, including that the two went into a business and left despite being confronted by employees. The charge could be reduced during the court process.

The two were lodged in the Laurel County Detention Center. Assisting on the arrest were Lieut. Greg Poynter, Sgt. Robbie Grimes, Detective Kyle Gray and Detective Chris Edwards.

Original post:

That takes the cake: Duo arrested after stealing ice cream cake and uploading crime to social media - The Sentinel-Echo

Fantastic Contraptions developers are part of an exclusive group of VR creators who have successfully generated in excess of $1 million.

The creative puzzler is made by Canada-based game-making couple Sarah and Colin Northway teaming with Radial Games Andy Moore, Kimberly Voll and Lindsay Jorgensen with sound by Gord McGladdery.

It released with the launch of the HTC Vive in early 2016 and Facebooks Oculus Touch controllers for Rift late in the year. This summer, it launched on Sonys PlayStation VR. The game was bundled with Vive headsets for a period when it launched but generally sells individually for $30 on Rift and Vive and $20 on PSVR. According to the team, between the bundling deal and individual sales (of which platform owners like Sony, Facebook and Valve usually take nearly a third) the title has generated more than $1 million.

I appreciate the team sharing this information exclusively with me. Though they declined to be more specific, the figure paired with the size of the team establishes the title as one of VR developments success stories. It isnt possible with the available information to establish just how big a success it is, but the creators are comfortable saying theyve made enough to fund further efforts and continue exploring a new medium. Other teams in this group include Survios (which is funded by investors to the tune of $50 million) and Owlchemy Labs (acquired by Google). In the case of Fantastic Contraption, not only does the game itself push forward interaction design and mixed reality capture, its creators have bootstrapped their creativity enough to keep going into future projectsas independent creators.

I met with Moore and the Northways for a conversation recently in Colin Northways still-under-construction virtual art gallery. Sarah Northway is working on her own VR game shes not ready to talk about yet. Moores studio developed a series of VR experiments, one of which he hopes can get funded by a publisher into a full game. Colin Northways art gallery is still very early too, but hes already using cutting edge tools like Valves Steam Audio to bring life to the space for people gathering to check out creations from a wide range of artists. The sound technology combined with the movements of our hands and heads made our conversation, even between avatars represented as the simplest of shapes floating in space, feel remarkably like the real thing.

During a transitional time for the mixed reality industry when startups like Envelop, AltspaceVR, CastAR and Vrideo close down, I talked to them for more than an hour in VR trying to break down how they succeeded with Fantastic Contraption. Here is what I came away with from our talk:

Classic Flash-based Fantastic Contraption.

Many VR creators have a very clear memory of the time they became convinced the technology was ready for mass market appeal. Rifts first development kit wasnt compelling enough to Fantastic Contraptions creators.

The creators hail from the Vancouver area, just a three or four hour drive across the border from Seattle-based Valve, and when they took a trip down to Valves offices in the summer of 2015 they got a look at an early HTC Vive with controllers that brought hands into VR. They recall demos of Owlchemys Job Simulator, Googles Tilt Brush and Valves early robot demo, each of which made excellent use of those hand controls.

It was a moment that changed their lives. Colin Northway sat on a couch after his demo, his mind exploding with the creative possibilities ahead.

For me it was like Im not that into VR and then I was like alright this is my life now, he said.

It didnt take them long to decide their legacy project, a 2D puzzle game called Fantastic Contraption that relied on creative thinking to build machines, could be adapted to VR.

Isnt this the best medium for Contraption? Moore recalls thinking.

While inspired, the creators of Fantastic Contraption werent recipients of the very first developer kits Valve sent out secretly to a handful of developers like Owlchemy. But the creators were so inspired after their demo they started building Fantastic Contraption without any VR headset at all.

We decided it would work and it would be amazing, Moore recalls.

Some weeks later they held a game jam (an event where teams rapidly create games) and partnered with Valve which brought some early Vive kits for groups to test their projects. They showed the demo to someone at Valve and, after the event was over, were told they could keep the headsets.

There was some good stuff going on there, Moore said of the event. But we were using it as a sneaky way to show off the game to Valve.

We spent the jam on VR integration basically, Colin Northway said.

During this process of development the Northways learned Unity, a game creation toolset that alongside competitor Unreal Engine has been early to support VR. In 2007, the original Fantastic Contraption was built for traditional screens with Adobes Flash tools. Thats about the time Flash started its decline partially because Apples Steve Jobs refused to allow the technology on iPhone and iPad.

So while the Northways became experts in Flash to the extent that the original Fantastic Contraption made Colin Northway enough money that he could quit his day job Now I just have a hobby that pays better than my jobs ever did that toolset wasnt built for VR and they had to learn something new.

I had a lot of trouble transitioning to Unity and VR, and 3D art Id avoided for ages, Sarah Northway said. Its scary trying new stuff but you really need to in this industry, because things keep changing and moving forward so fast.

Theres so much to learn in VR, added Colin Northway. If youre working in VR you cant help but be pushing boundaries all the time and learning a huge amount.

The team went into the project with a four month plan to deliver the VR game by the end of 2015, which is when HTC originally said it would start shipping headsets in volume. At the start, Sarah Northway said, they became comfortable with the idea the project could make no money and it could be a total failure. They had enough coming in from previous projects to make a four-month timeline work.

Well spend four months on it, well finish it, even if nothing happens of it well knowsomething about VR, well be set up to do our next thing, itll be fun, shesaid. So we didnt come into it thinking were going to put all our eggs in this basket.

The scope of the project grew as several things happened. The Vives consumer launch was set in stone later than expected, for April 2016. In addition, people reacted positively to early versions of their project and they secured a bundle deal ensuring some income from the game.

The bundle deal paid for development, Colin Northway said.

As soon as we had the bundle deal we knew everything was gonna be just fine, Sarah Northway said. Being agile in your business plan was pretty key.

The story would have gone very differently if we never got the bundle deal or there werent so many sales at launch, Moore said. We took a risk the whole team was comfortable with which was four month dev and before that four months was up we secured larger deals.

The extra development time allowed the team to explore a more fully realized version of the game including the ability to push VR design ideas much further. For example, Fantastic Contraption includes a helmet which sits on the ground. When you pick up and place the helmet on your head it transports you to another world with tables to save your creation or access those made by other people. It is the VR equivalent of the kind of flat screen menu to save your work that youd access in a traditional game. Their extra runway freed them to explore these ideas.

They also developed a miniaturized version of the game that made it easy for people to play it in a seated or forward-facing position. This in turn allowed the game to more easily make the jump to additional platforms like Rift and PlayStation VR that were tuned better for those setups.

So with all these different pieces falling into place just right to expand both the scope and reach of the game, was it luck or smart decision-making that allowed Fantastic Contraption to find success?

It is definitely both, Colin Northway said. A big lesson to learn from indie development is that you have this one advantage and that is that you can do super weird stuff. Big companies cant do weird stuff because they are going to be risk averse.

On the other hand, independent developers might be gambling their own future rather than a companys. Moore and the Northways warned against people mortgaging their house or running up credit cards in order pursue an idea in VR. They all had previous projects that gave them the runway to start the VR version of Fantastic Contraption in a game jam. And before that they made the transition to indie developer by working on ideas on weekends and evenings. Thats why they were comfortable with the concept of failing.

For the Northways and Radial Games, however, moving into 2018 they are poised for even greater success when headsets ship in larger numbers.

I personally kind of feel like were in a time where you should be doing a lot of building of your own skills, a lot of your own experimenting so that in the bright commercial future, when it comes, youre set up to take advantage of it, Colin Northway said.

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Exclusive: Here's How Fantastic Contraption VR Devs Generated More Than $1 Million - UploadVR

Instead of neglecting our workout (and the mood-boosting benefits that come from it), we schedule ourselves a little one-on-one workout time with YouTube. The workouts are time-flexible, accessible and expert-led. In other words, its basically a treasure trove of fitness.

A quick search unearths everything from yoga to Pilates to HIIT training routines; whatever type of sweat session you prefer, YouTube likely has it. Thats why we decided to put together a list of our favorite online fitness channels just to help you narrow your search a little bit.

YOGA WITH ADRIENE.Adriene Mishler is the light-hearted yogi behind this YouTube channel. Her yoga videos range from targeted practices for anxiety, depression, sleep and pain (like this one for neck and shoulder relief) to power flows for strengthening and lengthening. Her goofy yet calming presence is enough to make you change into comfortable clothes, drink a cup of tea and relax into a yoga routine.

CASSEY HO OF BLOGILATES.Cassey Ho has been a mainstay on the YouTube fitness scene since she started uploading Pilates videos in 2009. Her website, Blogilates, provides fitness and nutrition advice, along with body-positive inspiration and sporty merchandise.

She specializes in workouts that build and tone muscle using nothing else but your own body weight. The workouts are hard but fun. Her bubbly and outgoing personality almost makes you forget your arms are screaming in the middle of a 15-minute workout (almost). Stay dedicated to her videos, try your best, and youll see real change.

TARA STILES.Although she does have videos fit for beginners, chances are that youll love Tara Stiless yoga videos if youre an intermediate or advanced yoga devotee. Her no-frills approach is quieting, calming and strengthening for both the body and mind. (If youre not super into yoga, check her videos out anyway, because they might majorly inspire you; shes the most graceful human being weve ever seen).

JEANETTE JENKINS.Jeanette Jenkins is a celebrity personal trainer (responsible for training A-listers such as Kelly Rowland) who posts a variety of different workouts designed to increase strength. Many of her videos are extremely short think no longer than 30 seconds just so she can show a few reps of effective moves. Then, depending on how much time you have, you can make it an extended workout, or just do a few circuits. Take this Zumba video, for instance. Its solely concentrated on planks and high knees for an intense cardio sweat.

THE TONE IT UP GIRLS.Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott started their Tone It Up empire to share workout, nutrition, and even lifestyle advice. Many of their workouts take place in front of a beautiful backdrop of the Pacific ocean, so you can kind of feel like youre working out while on a SoCal vacation (better than working out at home, right?).

Theyre also regular Byrdie contributors. Check out all of their stories. (Personally, we love this piece on the 5 exercises you should do if you sit all day).

XHIT DAILY.XHIT Daily is a YouTube channel that regularly posts workout videos ranging from Crossfit to Pilates. The three hosts are incredibly knowledgeable, reminding their viewers how to correct their form and get the most from their workouts throughout.

THE RUN EXPERIENCE.Weve covered yoga, Pilates, and strength training workouts, but this one is for any runners out there. The Run Experience has almost 70,000 YouTube subscribers, to which it shares motivating running tips, tricks, and advice. They have videos on everything from hydration and nutrition to race-day prep. Regardless if youre a runner or not, they share super-effective targeted workouts that are great for doing on the go.

WHITNEY SIMMONS.Simmons posts regularly on YouTube, so youll never be without a new workout to try. The best part? You dont need a ton of equipment. Many of her videos use your body weight, and maybe a dumbbell or two to target specific muscle groups. Plus, she produces videos on healthy meal prep, to keep you going throughout a busy week.

Get the latest celebrity beauty news, runway trends, health and fitness tips, as well as product suggestions from the experts at Byrdie.com.

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Fitness gurus to work out with for free on YouTube - Chicago Tribune