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Ask most people about how the internet affects corporate productivity and they will probably bring up how social media distracts employees in the workplace. However, even as companies launch 5G networks this year, access to reliable internet still remains a key problem for modern enterprises, impeding overall productivity and ultimately impacting the bottom line.

For those of us who remember how unpredictable dial-up internet connections were in the 90s, access to the internet today may seem like a dream. However, while outages may be rare, they do happen. When they do, they can have catastrophic effects on businesses.

According to new research by Beaming, as many as 75 percent of organizations experienced internet outages during working hours in 2016. In turn, this led to thousands of dollars in lost sales and caused customer service nightmares.

So while the internet may seem like an afterthought for busy business owners in 2017, here are four tips which could help you keep your business online rain or shine.

Rethink relying on your stock wireless router.

Of all the options available, Wi-Fi is known to be the most inconsistent, and fluctuates more than fixed cable ethernet systems.

James Lay from Hummingbird Networks argues that average Wi-Fi speeds generally account for roughly 30 to 60 percent of the speed advertised by internet providers. For example, if someone pays for 10 Mbps, they are most likely to receive an average speed of between three and four Mbps.

With most packages, internet service providers (ISP) rent their customers the same stock wireless router as part of their package. It would be easy to assume that these modems are programmed to offer the highest speeds possible

However, these stock modems broadcast on the same channels, which can cause interference if many people in your area all have the same router. Considering the limited options of ISP available and the amount of people living and working in busy urban areas, chances are they do.

Most routers have the channel set to auto. If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels one, six, and 11 are your best choice. You can find tips as to how to choose between those three channels here.

Have a redundant internet connection for mission-critical applications and systems.

We are living in an age when pretty much every type of business functions at least partly online.

From PR companies to pizza delivery services, businesses can suffer high costs if their internet goes down for any period of time.

According to a recent report by Beaming based on 500 businesses in the UK, 3.9 million enterprises (72 percent of total businesses) suffered as many as eight internet outages or 43 hours of downtime in 2015, which accounted for lost productivity worth an estimated $15 billion.

With so many business functions moving online, internet outages can effectively cripple businesses.

According to the Beaming study, 13 percent of businesses affected said they started losing money immediately during an outage.

Large and medium-sized businesses were found to resolve internet outages the quickest. However, due to their greater reliance on the internet for internal and external business functions, they lose much more revenue than smaller companies for every hour of outage they experience.

The most effective way to avoid outage is to have a redundant, or backup, internet connection with another ISP ready for if disaster strikes. According to Beaming, only 13 percent of businesses surveyed managed an outage by switching to an alternative connection.

The cost of having a redundant connection generally pays for itself with one outage per year, especially for retail businesses. With the Beaming report estimating more than 70 percent of enterprises suffer as many as eight outages per year, a backup connection should be a no brainer for modern businesses.

When evaluating providers, take into account the technology used and upload speeds offered.

According to the 2016 Speedtest Market Report, the typical fixed broadband user in the U.S. saw average download speeds exceed 50 Mbps for the first time ever during the first six months of 2016, which accounts for a 40 percent increase since July 2015.

According to the Speedtest report, the fixed broadband industry has witnessed stark improvements over the last year due to consolidation, speed upgrades, and an increase in companies offering fiber optic deployment.

However, while new players like Google Fiber are joining industry veterans like XFINITY and Verizon in offering fiber optic connections, not every regional provider has the capability yet. Before signing on the dotted line with an ISP, its always worth doing your homework and checking what technology they are using to provide you service.

In general, we suggest you think about these technologies in tiers. From our perspective, a fiber connection is more likely to give you a stable low latency connection than a Tier 2 or 3 technology.

Tier 1: Fiber optic. This is best option, but unfortunately it isnt available in all areas.

Tier 2: Cable internet which is delivered over coaxial wires and is generally backed by a hybrid fiber network.

Tier 3: If you dont have options in tier 1 or two, look for DSL or fixed wireless options. Its not well-known, but if youre in a metropolitan area, fixed wireless providers can offer a great service, especially for a redundant service.

While ISP salesmen will promise you the moon and the stars, it is always best to ask for guarantees about upload and download speeds in your area, different types of connection which can offer the fastest, most reliable connections, and if they offer an SLA on your business connection.

Many ISPs advertise their download speeds, but some only release information about upload speeds on request. If your company works with large files such as video, webinars, and conference calls, a fast upload speed is essential.

Use Powerline Network Adaptors

While wireless internet capabilities have increased dramatically over the last decade, Wi-Fi dead zones do still exist. After all, the architecture and construction of older buildings built before the internet existed were not developed with Wi-Fi routers in mind.

The problem could be that your room in your office or home is too far from your wireless access point or due to the construction of the building: especially if steel and reinforced concrete have been used.

But its not just older buildings that suffer from dead zones. Lisa R. Melsted shared how the developers of the futuristic China Central Television (CCTV) building in Beijing found that the design and structure of the building made wireless access erratic and unusable for many of the 10,000 employees working there.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you find your office or home riddled with dead zones. One option is to buy a wi-fi range extender, which is extremely affordable and can be picked up for around $30 from most leading technology stores. However, for harder-to-reach areas, powerline network adaptors can save the day.

Similar to the way data can travel over phone or cable wires, powerline devices use your house or offices existing electrical wiring to transmit data from one power outlet to another, bypassing walls and frequency interference. While a little more expensive, ranging between $60 and $100 per pair, these devices are a lifesaver for tricky spaces that cant be reached by wireless signals.

Considering how quickly internet speeds and wireless networks are evolving, many businesses assume they will be covered without doing any prior research into ISP options and coverage. However as residents of Sodo in Seattle found out in 2015, businesses can be left in the dark if ISPs drop or relocate networks, as thousands of businesses found themselves without internet when Sprint shuttered its wireless network in the area.

Fast and reliable internet is the lifeblood of the modern enterprise. At the risk of outages costing thousands of dollars in lost trade and productivity, its better to do your homework and take extra steps to make sure you and your company are covered should problems arise.

Nick Reese is the founder and CEO of FindBroadband, a new platform to help enterprises and mom and pop businesses streamline their telecoms costs.

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4 Insider Internet Tips to Keep Your Business Online Rain or Shine - BOSS Magazine

Become a toy robot and enter the future of sitcoms in Felix & Paul Studios Miyubi the industrys first ever live action long-form VR comedy, now available free on the Oculus Store for both Rift and Gear VR. In Miyubi, the viewer is a robot who is gifted to a quirky familys brilliant young son, in 1982.

Not only did I find Miyubi laugh-out-loud funny, but it feels like a masterclass on how to push the limits with story length and genre in cinematic VR. Its proof that comedy has a definite place in VR storytelling, and, at 42 minutes, that long-form content works with the right techniques.

I sat down with visionaries Flix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphal to discover their secrets behind creating their clever long-form comedy in VR, in collaboration with Funny or Die. This is what I learned:

Lajeunesse explained one thing that really made us laugh was when we started to visualize if we put the viewer inside of the mind and body of a two-foot-high plastic robot, how that is going to make you feel, not only about yourself, but about the world itselfthe concept itself is inherently comedic change the viewers relation to the world. Raphal furthered the point that the low angle perspective really gives everything a caricature quality that facilitated a lot of the comedy that was going on.

When building a story for VR, Lajeunesse and Raphals first step is always defining the role of the viewer in the story. In Miyubi, that was the core concept. We wanted the viewer to be this sort of gradually abandoned toy robot in 1982, and to experience love, and to experience obsolescence, and being abandoned, and being loved again.

Miyubi interacts with its world in a limited way, which is not only natural for this toy character, but also a fit with the current limitations of interactivity with 360 content. As an exciting first for Felix & Paul experiences, Miyubi has some subtle interactive components that align with the robot character, so that they enhance, instead of break, the illusion of presence. Raphal explained that making [Miyubi] an obsolete device that cant really do much, was really leaning into the state of VR today. Im not saying that every fictional experience is going to have to be that way, but our process has always been to lean into the strengths and away from the weaknesses of what VR is today.

And I found the interactive elements in the story to be brilliant. Learn more about them below.

Raphal explained that more often, comedy is a social thing. People enjoy sharing laughs together. What switches in VR [storytelling] is youre alone and isolated, but the crew of people youre with are actually the people that are in the experience. When a character in the experience makes a joke, youre laughing with them, in a shared space like together at the family dinner, instead of watching that character make a joke on screen. Miyubi is filled with moments that reinforce your presence with its fun family, having you laughing alongside them.

Lajeunesse encourages content producers to throw out what they know about building a comedy, because presence is the most important contributor to humor in VR.

If I am immersed in a sitcom and there is no meaning for being in the sitcom[its] not good enough, he said.

Presence must be used as the main driver for storytelling. Think about who the viewer is and their relation to the other characters, the space, the world and the story, and how all of that resonates.

Then, grow the story from there.

When Lajeunesse and Raphal decided to create a long-form VR story for the first time, they also decided to make their first VR comedy at the same time. Raphal shared that they felt more comfortable making a comedic piece over another genre, since comedy opens up the content to being less scrutinized because youre not recreating an exact replica of reality. Theres this stylizationyou know the characters are a little over the top. This, combined with the fact it allows us to do silly things, like put you in the body of a Japanese toy robot, are ways of not having to all of a sudden create a life-like replica of the world in fiction, in VR, and expect it to work.

Once they landed first on the concept, who the viewer would be, and the overall dimensions to implement in the story, they began collaboration with Funny or Die to write the screenplay. Lajeunesse explains that they avoided adding any camera language in the Miyubi screenplay. Raphal recalls that it was only a week or so before shooting that they actually started to block out character movements, once everyone was in the same space together for rehearsals.

You want to feel that at any given moment, that if you look at something youre not missing out, youre actually gaining, Raphal said.

And watching the characters interact also inspired various re-writes, as new opportunities were realized. In fact, the actors were encouraged to go off-script with their dialogue to create a sense of surprise and destabilization for their fellow cast members, to uncover these opportunities.

Miyubi has a few clever interactive elements that help to enhance the feeling of being present as a toy robot. In fact, theyre so subtle, its up to the viewer to discover them on their own by exploring the story as the scenes unfold, avoiding any interruption to the experience. Lajeunesse explained that the notion of the viewer as this Japanese toy robot also opened up the notion of the interactive features because you have a robotic brain. There are things that get implemented by your creator (played by Jeff Goldblum) before he shipped you out of the toy shop, so as the story evolves with the family, you might, or not depending on how you get through the story, realize some of those features are implemented inside of your brain and you can unlock them.

In the story, youll find two interactive elements triggered by movement. Spoiler Alert: The first is uncovering that as an 80s robot, you can also play an appropriately 8-bit styled game to find all three secret items to unlock the features mentioned by Lajeunesse, that are special scenes. The second interactive element is a reveal of what you look like as Miyubi, where youre able to catch your moving reflection in the TV. As a robot, your reflection moves just as it should without any uncanny valley challenges that a human face currently needs to overcome in VR.

But dont mistake the interactivity with layering in a game to the VR story.

Theres a distinction to be made between games and story, said Raphal. Youre in a very different mindset when youre playing a game with a defined rule setyoure constantly rubbing against the limitations of the game, because thats what the game is its about those limitations.

But he explained that in a story, and in real life, anything can happensocial situations are what impose those limitations, not code or a game designers rules. In VR you dont need to avoid interaction, but to maintain the feeling of an authentic story unfolding, you do need to avoid falling into integrating a game. The timing of when the interactivity happens is based on what makes sense for the story, and Lajeunesse also highlights that its nice to spread the interaction out especially with long-form content. For example, the ability to see yourself as Miyubi was purposely placed mid point in the experience, to have a shocking effect to help reboot viewer engagement with exploring the 360 scenes.

Lajeunesse stressed the importance of reinforcing the viewers character in the experience any chance that we had. The viewers low angle perspective, how other characters interacted with the camera at all times, the ability to see Miyubis reflection, messages seen on screen, and more, all play important roles in building the viewers awareness of who they are. With the viewers character anchoring the comedy of the story, its no surprise that that reinforcement is so important.

Lajeunesse and Raphal created an added layer of comedy outside of the live action content itself. Its a sort of introspective comedic layer because, as Miyubi, you see things that your virtual family may not. For example, there are various reports and alerts that you see on your own status, that also act as natural transitions between scenes.

And, before you even get into the experience, the navigation options playfully look, sound and are named as if the viewer is navigating in the app as an 80s robot. This includes the Memories section that allows viewers to jump to any scene, except the locked ones, in case their preference is to watch the piece in segments instead the full 42 minutes in one sitting.

Tagged with: felix & paul

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How Felix & Paul Are Pushing VR Storytelling Further With Miyubi - UploadVR

In the tech world, its hard to stay on top of upcoming trends when theres a new product announcement every day. Happily, finding the right gadget to keep you entertainment, or keep you productive, doesnt have to be as hard as it seems, with so many compelling new options to pick from. Looking to check out the latest the consumer electronics world has to offer? Following are 10 gadgets to keep on your radar, whether you consider yourself a technology enthusiast, or just want to give your life a slight high-tech upgrade.

Fender Play - Dust off that electric guitar sitting in the corner and brush up your guitar-playing skills from the comfort of home with this engaging online service. You can learn songs you want to play from its database from top guitar instructors who use step-by-step, up-close multi-camera angles to help you figure out how to strike the right chord.

Nintendo Switch - Nintendos Switch can transform from a home console to a portable gaming system in seconds. Its designed with both kids and adults in mind, and small enough to take with you during a commute or on a long road trip. Some titles even allow you to play with your friends, so you can have a seemingly never-ending game from home or on the road.

Google WiFi - The days of internet connectivity issues are winding down thanks to Google WiFi. This device which can help ensure reliable high-speed Internet connectivity is available across an entire home connects to your modem and works with your Internet service provider to offer you faster networking speeds and a more dependable online connection.

Xbox One X - Thanks to the Xbox One X, video games should look great even on lower resolution screens. The new console has 40 percent more power than any other device, and offers a high-end 4K ultra-high-definition play experience for enthusiasts as well. Put simply, the One X will let you load games quicker, and display characters and scenes at strikingly sharp resolutions. Its available in stores November 7.

Micro Pocket Projector - Brookstone has created a sleek projector that can fit into your pocket. The Micro Pocket Projector connects to most smartphones, tablets, computers, game consoles, media streaming devices, and more to let you watch movies or play video games on a 50-inch display when visuals are beamed against any wall.

Prynt Pocket - The Prynt Pocket turns your iPhone into an instant portable camera. You can point, shoot, edit, and then upload to your social media accounts or print pictures directly from your phone. Prynt paper is ink-free as well, so you shouldnt have to deal with issues like smudging, fading, or even ripping.

Zuta Mini Printer - This robotic printer connects to PCs and smartphones and has the ability to print on any size paper. Rechargeable batteries further give you a full hour of printing. Connect to any device via WiFi to watch the magic happen.

Here One - Background noise is a thing of the past once you put on a pair of these wireless earbuds. Here One essentially allows users to tailor the audio around them by manipulating sound systems via the app. Turn down background music to hear your friends talking in a loud space or just boost their voices. You can make crystal-clear phone calls, and talk to Alexa and Siri, via Here One as well.

Moleskine Smart Writing Set - Use the special writing tool to write and sketch whatever notes you want inside an actual notebook, then watch it transform into a notepad on your smartphone. It keeps your original handwriting and drawings intact, and downloads creations to your Google Drive, Evernote and Adobe Creative Cloud account to store or share.

Sharper Image Waterproof Action Camera and Music Player - With this device from Sharper Image, you can access music from your smartphone without taking it with you. When you connect this Music Player to WiFi, you can download songs (up to 4,000) from your phone onto the speaker. Its waterproof and floats, so its great take with you to the beach, pool, and lake, as well as to take action photos from the water.

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Wake up to the day's most important news.

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10 Awesome Gadgets for Work and Play - HuffPost

NICK BARNETT

Last updated08:28, July 28 2017

Squiggle is on top of things - most literally, on top of the clothes airer.

One of life's pleasures is winning. Not the vanquishment/supremacy kind of winning that presidents and generals dream of, but the feeling of being ahead of things, getting a tail wind or a lucky break, sensing that you'rea step ahead of where you were yesterday.

That feeling which can make you say, not with a shout but with calm satisfaction and intent,"Today, I'm winning."

I hope you can say that to yourself todayand notice how it makes you feel betterto say it. To help you gain a sense of winningness this Friday, I've gathered some photos that capture a pet in that mood of calm satisfaction.

And these pets are winning in another sense - they'll charm you and lift your spirits. So it's definitely win-win.Scroll and enjoy.

READ MORE: *Furry Friday: Look who's looking *Furry Friday: Soaking in winter sun *Furry Friday: The pet-human wavelength

Thanks to all for sharing pictures. Pleaseemail meyour own pet photos, or go to theFour Legs Good Facebook pageand use the Upload Photo button. Help keep Furry Friday free of embarrassing mistakes by remembering to include your pet's name, and its sex if it's not obvious!Follow the daily photos of#connorandphoebeon Instagram.

Take a swim in Barney's eyes. He won't mind.

Acer strides into life the way we all should - with chin up and eyes taking everything in.

Dodo got tired of holding up that heavy toy.

Green, blue, pink and white in their purest form: Moby.

Incey Coe (left) and Anooshka do their hanging-vampire act.

Small faces, huge hearts: Izzy (left) and Douglas.

Tia is thrilled and amazed at having scaled the arm of the couch.

Tuxedo junction: Nessie (left) and Stanley always meet the most formal dress code.

Gorgeous from head to toe: Chloe (left) and Indie.

Daisy's sense of quiet victory is drawn from the fact that she's basking on the kennel roof.

Kisa rests in the lap of luxury, though the luxury does have the tiniest hole in it.

Texas takes time out from grooming to pose you a question: 'Well?'

A sweet sight in the morning, or at any time: Liza.

Ed unfurls a healthy-looking tongue.

Jack and Nicky make a strong case, in stereo.

Nothing shall escape the ears of Reginald (left) and Ville. However, one or two things might elude Ville's gaze.

Pride of the pack: Krystal, Izzy and Neeko.

Colour-coordinated snugglers: Simon, Theodore and Alvin (left) are adopted strays; Molly and Tess are twins.

Feline finery: Lily (left), Amadeus and Milly.

Luca (left) recovers handsomely; Worf looks magnificent, seven years on since his first Furry Friday appearance.

Finally, Max (left) and Pebble might not rate themselves as winners at this moment - one has an empty bowl to lament, the other a bunch of inedibles. Someone rectify this sad state of affairs!

-Stuff

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Furry Friday: Pet faces for the win - Stuff.co.nz

I spend most of my time on Instagram scrolling through the endless supply of crudely made memes on the apps discovery page. Its not exactly what Instagrams founders had in mind when they decided to simplify the process of editing and uploading photos, but start-up founders dont get to decide how people use their services. They evolve organically, like Twitters descent into a digital haven for entry-level white supremacy. So naturally, it was on the discovery page, among Squidward macros and IG baddies slinging FitTea, that I found this work of art:

Did Master P resurrect No Limit Records and put a suburban white teenager from 2001 in charge of their iconic album covers? Nope, this gram is the work of Kyle Mabson AKA @selfies_food_and_pets. Kyle is a musician and DJ who does everything from playing in noise rock bands to being the producing half (along with Fat Tony) of the rap duo Charge It To The Game. Kyle also pops up in the LA comedy scene from time to time as a DJ for Brandon Wardells monthly Teen Party dance party as well as the monthly comedy show by 2 Wet Crew (DJ Douggpound, Jay Weingarten, and Mikey Kampmann).Its these varied interests that translate naturally to his bizarre mash-up Photoshops that arent as random or sarcastic as you might think from first glance.

Spend a few minutes scrolling through Mabsons Instagram and youll eventually spot the repeating themes he touches on: Nu-metal, post-Attitude Era WWE, Disney stars, chain restaurant logos, and stock images ranging from mystical lakes to sterile hotel rooms. Some pieces look like the aforementioned No Limit album covers while others, like this one that includes Sonic the Hedgehog, President Obama, Arbys, Slash, The Indian in the Cupboard, and the Southwestern fertility deity Kokopelli, are something entirely different. Its like you entered an alternate dimension and decided to spend your time looking at the Marriott Seattle web page.

Happy b day

A post shared by Mabson (@selfies_food_and_pets) on Feb 1, 2017 at 2:19pm PST

If Picasso had a Blue Period and a Red Period, then my favorite @selfies_food_and_pets era was the Video Game Period where Mabson birthed a slew of disorientating video games into existence. You ever have a family member get you a supremely wrong video game a la Marge giving Bart a copy of Lee Trevinos Putting Challenge? You ever have a family member give you that gift while you were concussed? His fake video games are kind of like that. Along with the perfect Sega CD, Xbox 360, and 3DO case framing that your Art History major friend will one day explain subtly changes the relationship between you and the piece, I love the smallest details in these Instagrams. The PAL logo in the top right signifying that this nightmare video game wont play on your American TVs? You cant see me, but Im kissing my fingers like an old timey Italian chef.

I talked to Mabson and he told me that he started making these Photoshops, which average out to about one a day, for band fliers until he realized they looked better without any of the concert info. After his first Instagram @dirty_vegas_official was taken down for not actually being the official page of British house band Dirty Vegas, he settled on the ironically named @selfies_food_and_pets. But while his Photoshops occasionally feature living memes like Guy Fieri and DJ Khaled, theres not as much cynically laced randomness as you might think from first glance. Mabson is a metal-loving, classic video game collector whose digital mosaics are built piece-by-piece from obsessions of his life, past and present. And the only non-Photoshops on his Instagram are live videos taken at independent wrestling matches. Ive noticed some copycats lately on Instagram and Facebook who are aping, whether on purpose or subconsciously, Mabsons style but the sincerity is lacking. Its like a member of one of the worlds most famous, fashion-conscious families trading in her heels to rep one of the most famous heel turns in history.

Ling weenie

A post shared by Mabson (@selfies_food_and_pets) on May 11, 2016 at 12:30am PDT

Theres a lot of comedy out there, too much to ever watch or listen to in your lifetime. And yet, our curated timelines with like-minded people make it difficult to feel like the podcast you discovered is really that much of a hidden gem. But Mabsons page reminds me of one of the oldest JPEGS I have on my computer, transferred from one hard drive to another over the last 15 years. Way before iPhones and apps, you had to scour message boards like Ebaums and SomethingAwful for memes before we even used that term. And somewhere along the way, someone posted a D-Generation X yarmulke. This kippah wasnt digitally altered. Someone actually stitched it, then tried to sell it. And you dont enter a house of worship with that covering your head unless youre fully on-board, with no irony in your heart, for HHH and HaShem.

Pablo Goldsteinis a writer from Los Angeles, CA.

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Exploring Kyle Mabson's Masterful Instagram Memes - Splitsider

Its not easy being emoji. Especially if youre a little too emo for the job.

Thats the premise of The Emoji Movie, an animated comedy out July 28 about the limited inner lives of all those cartoon pictograms that live in our phones. Its the main problem for protagonist Gene, voiced by T.J. Miller. He, like all his digital race, is supposed to express one idea in Genes case, its meh in texts, posts and e-mails made by the phones owner, a teenage boy named Alex. But Gene was born without a filter, and when its time to upload his image to the internet, he gets so nervous that an insanely incomprehensible picture of conflicting feelings is sent to a girl Alex likes instead.

Fearing rightly that Genes glitch will cause Alex to wipe his phone (and their world), Textopolis ever-upbeat evil honcho Smiler (Maya Rudolph) essentially tries to have him deleted. This sends Gene on a journey of escape and discovery through the phones apps Candy Crush, Spotify, Just Dance, YouTube, piracy, et cetera in hopes of reaching the legendary Cloud, where he believes he can be fixed.

But will he discover that this might not be the right solution to his brokenness?

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The best animated movies are not just goofy little silly things running around, observes Tony Leondis, an industry veteran since he started as a story artist on the 1998 Prince of Egypt, who wrote and directed The Emoji Movie. They really have a story and thematics, and thats what we knew we wanted to do with this movie. I looked down at my phone and saw these emojis and thought, what a great world that no one has explored yet. And once you extrapolate how emojis are always doing that same darn expression all day, what must that be like?

What would happen if something upset that status quo? Leondis continues. Then I thought, Oh, its an emoji with every expression. And as we know, in the world different is threatening, todays world, more than ever.

On his journey to change or not change, Gene is accompanied by new pal Hi-5 (James Corden) and tech-savvy punkette Jailbreak (Anna Faris), and chased by his meh parents (Jennifer Coolidge and a perfectly voice-cast Steven Wright) and Smilers fearsome delete-bots. Along the way he encounters trolls, always-happy-to-see-you-again Spam and a very elegant-sounding fellow emoji, Poop (Star Trek, X-Men and Shakespeare eminence Sir Patrick Stewart).

We had the idea to not do the expected thing, the films producer, Michelle Raimo Kouyate (Silver Linings Playbook, Chocolat), explains. You know, Poop is a very popular emoji character, but we didnt want to be scatological, and we had this idea that he should be upper crust and not really in on the joke. Patrick Stewart was the name that came to mind immediately were enormous fans and he got it and said yes right away.

And then theres the most iconic emoticon of all. Rudolph says she wasnt intimidated about stepping into the role of the First Emoji.

Smilers fun, says the comic actress and voiceover veteran, who will also reprise her role as Precious the pug in The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature next month. Shes always happy when you look at her, and she gets away with almost murder because shes smiling all the time. And she knows it, which makes her so evil and wonderful.

But not easy.

Every time I recorded, Tony was in the room with me and hed say, Deliver that with a smile, Rudolph reveals. Which is incredibly difficult! Its certainly not a human response to anything it would make you a crazy person and thats why she comes off as so maniacal.

Emoji Movie has been very carefully worked out to impart worthy life lessons to the younger segments of the audience, and to older ones too. Every app Gene and the gang work through was chosen to help a character overcome an issue: Candy Crush for Genes fear of deletion, trash for Hi-5s feeling that hes no longer trending, a 3-D Instagram world in which the meh parents finally open up emotionally, etc.

And there are larger points made regarding the world outside the phone; i.e., ours.

Theres definitely a moment in the movie when it shows every single person on their phone and people literally bumping into each other because theyre on their phones as opposed to talking to each other, Rudolph notes. Its the idea that phones run their lives.

The point is that, yes, phones are something we use and something we can use to bring us together, but we also have to have that human connection, Kouyate explains.

And at least as the movies makers see it, emojis are the bridge between our virtual and actual lives.

Whether we realize it or not, emojis became this universal language and we all use them, Rudolph points out. Even my children, who dont have their own devices, want to get on my phone and use emojis because its fun and theyre pictures. Its a part of the world that we live in and its all happening so rapidly.

What I love about emojis, and why I think people love them so much, is the human heart has found a way to express itself even in a world of technology, Leondis observes. When my mother sends me an emoji, it really means something; it makes me smile, it touches my heart. So I feel like we are in a technological world, and I dont know if thats going to change, but the human heart finds ways to crack through it. Specifically with emojis, thats what its all about.

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'The Emoji Movie' puts face on our emotions - News-Herald.com

We have file-size problems. Our cameras now take fabulous photos and crisp videos. Our computers can tackle monstrous spreadsheets. We can create detailed graphics that look stunning when blown up. But all of that comes with a drawback: honking huge files.

So what do you do when you want to send that slick video or pile of digital photos of your vacation adventure to grandma, but the file is too big to attach to an email? Here are five ways to handle it:

Gmail users have it easy when it to comes to sending files that are over the limit. Google Drive will come to your rescue when you try to attach a file thats over the 25 MB size restriction. Gmail will pop up with a message reading, Large files must be shared with Google Drive. Attachments larger than 25MB will be automatically uploaded to Google Drive. A download link will be included in your emails.

This is a no-sweat way to send those large files. You get a workaround for the attachment limit and the recipient can download the file at her leisure. You can also upload files directly to Google Drive and then share them from there. Keep in mind that these files can count against your Drive storage space. Drive can hold files up to a massive 5 terabytes in size, but you will need an upgraded, paid storage plan to accommodate that much data.

Psst! Did you know Google Drive recently added new features? Click here for details on Team Drives, Google Vault, Drive File Stream and Quick Access.

DropBox is a popular online storage service that lets you keep important files backed up in the cloud. It also makes it easy to share those files with other people, who can download them through a sharing link or add them to their own DropBox accounts.

DropBox offers a free 2 GB of room to anyone. If your cloud storage needs are more demanding than the free account can accommodate, then you can check into paid tiers that offer more space. Services like Box.com and Microsofts OneDrive offer similar features to DropBox. You can always sign up for more than one free storage service if youre getting low on space.

WeTransfersbasic free service lets you share files up to 2 GB in size. WeTransfer isnt for online storage. Its just for sending files. Its very simple to use. Just go to the site, choose the free option, add your file (or files) from your computer and then put in your email, your recipients email, and a message. Hit the Transfer button and wait while WeTransfer uploads the file and sends a notice to the receiver. The files will remain available to download for seven days.

Its easy for Amazons Drive service to get overlooked in the crush of Prime perks, but it offers an easy file storage and sharing option for people who are already hooked on the Amazon ecosystem.

Any Amazon user can get 5 GB of space for free, but Prime members get the extra perk of unlimited photo storage, which is a compelling carrot for shutterbugs. Much like DropBox, you can share those photos and other files by generating a link and emailing it to your recipient.

Note: Amazon Drive is just one of the perks that come with your Prime membership. Click here for a full list of included benefits.

You can make a large file a little smaller by compressing it into a zipped folder. In Windows, right-click the file or folder, go down to send to, and choose Compressed (zipped) folder. This will create a new folder thats smaller than the original. For Mac systems, control-click a file (or tap it with two fingers) to bring up the shortcut menu. Choose Compress to make a daintier zipped version.

Compressing isnt a magic bullet. For example, compressing a 90 MB image file in Windows may only result in a 60 MB zipped file, but it can be useful if you just need to slim a file down a little to get under your email sending limit.

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5 ways to share files that are too big to email - Komando

Though they are technically reversible, vasectomies should be considered permanent birth control for menand thiscan be a daunting prospect.

Shane Geib M.D,the urologist who operated on Lopez and Ferretti at his Obsidian Men's Health clinic just outside of Washington D.C, told The Telegraph that men often view the procedure as a major one.

"One thing thatMark [Richman, co-founder of the clinic]and I realised is that if you get a 35 to 40-year-old guy, this is a big deal to him", he explained."If you brush over it andsay oh, suck it up, youre being a wimp, the guys dont like that,they take real offence.

"Particularly compared with the age equivalent in women, most men arent really used to going to the doctor. Even if they dont come in groups,a lot of guys will send one guy, kind of as a sacrificial lamb,to check out the office. 'Is this a nice place? Do you like the doctors? How are the staff?' Then thatguy can report back."

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A cut above: the rise of the luxury brosectomy - Telegraph.co.uk

Theseus, along with Perseus, Heracles, and several others, is often regarded as one of the greatest heroes in the entire lineage of Greek mythology. When youre given your very own boss fight in the God of War series of video games, that alone is usually enough to mean youre a pretty big deal.

One of the most well-known and repeated stories of Theseus youll find mention of though is his battle with the Minotaur. Typically he fights the beast after navigating a deadly labyrinth. In the appropriately titled new game from Forge Reply, Theseus, that comes to PlayStation VR (PSVR) this week, youre tasked with being the star of this tale.

When I previewed Theseus a couple of months ago the build I tried was on the HTC Vive, but the first commercially available version of the game (which is being reviewed here) is launching on the PSVR. Ever since the game was first revealed back in February its drawn frequent comparisons to God of War for obvious reasons. Its a third-person action game presumably, utilizes direct references to Greek mythology, and has you doing battle with multiple, often large, monsters. But other than those surface level similarities the games couldnt really be much different.

God of War is all about action. You get new weapons, unlock flashy combos, and are constantly fighting hordes of enemies. Theseus is about slow-paced, quiet, sometimes tedious, exploration with a scattering of occasional fights along the way. The majority of puzzles consist of climbing on ledges and hiding from the Minotaur itself. In some ways, its more of a stealth game than an action game.

The first weapon I found was a torch, which I could use to scare spider-like beasts away when walking around in the dark, but you do eventually get a sword as well. Unfortunately combat never really evolves beyond mashing buttons and trying to dodge enemy attacks. While you could say similar things about games such as Chronos, another third-person action adventure game in VR, that title is much, much longer, with more varied enemies and environments, as well as an actual progression system. Theseus sort of felt like the first act of a larger game that was intended to open up more eventually and never does.

I spent somewhere between three and four hours playing Theseus before it was over. During that time I often found myself stopping to stare at the nice looking backdrop designs in the distance and can confirm that chills very often shot down my spine when the Minotaur was nearby.Speaking of which, the Minotaur itself may be the best part of the whole game. Hes massive and extremely intimidating. The sense of scale is powerful and I honestly felt scared when I sensed his presence.

The sound design was excellent throughout and did a great job of making me feel like I was actually tip-toeing through a creepy labyrinth with a twisted, evil, and relentless Minotaur trying to hunt me down.

The atmosphere and world building is so strong it feels like a missed opportunity that the actual game itself isnt better. Walking around environments that all pretty much look the same as a female wisp spirit guides me along was novel at first, but loses its luster quickly.

Just like Chronos, the entire game is played from third-person with mostly fixed camera angles. This means that each time you turn a corner or enter a new room the camera jumps to a new spot somewhere on the wall. It feels like youre spying on your character and telling him where to go more than it does youre actually controlling your character. Its a style of gameplay Ive never been a fan of with VR titles and vastly prefer an always-following camera in third-person such as in Luckys Tale or Edge of Nowhere.

One major reason is because Theseus doesnt feel like a VR game. Wherein the other mentioned titles feel like they were designed from the ground up with VR mind for the most part, Theseus does not. Several segments have me walking in a straight line, with the camera deciding to suddenly hover behind me, but my characters body is blocking my view while things are happening in front of him. Its a bizarre feeling where I cannot see what my character sees even though he is facing straight ahead and it happened frequently.

Many of the textures and areas of the labyrinth appeared as noticeably blurry and jagged to me. Granted, the PSVR isnt as powerful as the Vive or Rift, but I noticed similar issues on my Vive preview build as well. The art direction is wonderful and looks great in high-resolution screenshots, but those visuals lose their edge and luster when filtered through a VR headset. Its just another way the game feels under cooked.

Theseus is a game that had a lot of promise. The dark and creepy setting comes through with a strong, foreboding atmosphere thats often difficult to capture in VR games. But unfortunately the actual gameplay itself feels like more of a chore than anything else. Its over far too soon and doesnt feel properly designed for VR from the ground up. The Minotaur is terrifying and intimidating, but getting through everything else just to face him isnt going to be worth it for most people.

Theseus releases today on PSVR with PC VR versions (presumably both Rift and Vive) coming soon. Read ourGame Review Guidelinesfor more information on how we arrived at this score.

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Theseus Review: Exploring The Minotaur's Labyrinth In VR - UploadVR

Giphy is launching another GIF-creation tool today, and the big hook is that theres nothing to install. Its latest tool is on the web and designed for mobile, so you can just visit the site and start creating a weird GIF. I uploaded a photo of my cat, and Im sorry to say that Ive turned it into the GIF you see above.

The mobile GIF Maker site offers the same kind of irreverent experience that Giphys other GIF-making tools do. You can take or upload a photo or video and then add text, stickers, and other animations on top of them, so youre basically putting GIFs on top of a GIF. New to the mobile website is a drawing tool that lets you create wiggly lines. Theres also a feature called Dog/Cat Draw, which is where you draw... but your ink is an increasingly long dog / cat.

As stupidly fun as Giphys other GIF-making tools

The site is also supposed to let you make GIFs out of photos and videos youve found elsewhere, like a YouTube video, but I couldnt get that feature to work. I only tried the site on my Android phone, and I got the impression that the site was probably designed more with iOS in mind. For instance, I had to use the Files app (which presents everything on your phone in an endless list) to browse through my photos, rather than being able to look through Google Photos.

Still, the site works once youve picked out or taken your photo, its simple to use, and Giphy pretty much makes it impossible to not make something thats stupidly fun. It offers a somewhat different experience than the Giphy Cam app, too, though the real benefit here is that more people will be able to access it, since its just a matter of visiting a website and not installing a 178MB app first.

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Giphy now lets you create ridiculous GIFs on mobile without an app - The Verge

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Dominican Republic, July 19, 2017 Punta Cana Last Wednesday saw a vibrant and far reaching conversation on Women in ICT, this as the 33rd Annual Conference and Trade Exhibition continued at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana Dominican Republic.

The panel entertained questions from the audience and as such was able to address a wide range of issues. The panel included: Karen Bevans, Director, Belize Tourism Bureau; Janice Sutherland, CEO, Antigua and Barbuda and Montserrat, Digicel; Delleriece Hall, Country Manager, FLOW Turks and Caicos; Anuskha Sonia, CEO, Spang Makandra; and was chaired by the Secretary General of CANTO Teresa Wankin.

Karen Bevans led the panel with a presentation which looked at the relevance and functionality ofICTs to everyday life as they improve business performance productivity, profitability; access to services from any location, allow real-time communication, and provide more opportunities for everyone, especially for girls/women. She noted this against the background that ICT was still very male dominated.

Ms. Bevans used her presentation to highlight practical examples in Belize of the positive effects of ICTs in Belize in creating opportunities for women inclusive of tourism, trade, entrepreneurship and online services. She cautioned that the use of ICT canalso have negative impacts and that young girls should be carefulof what they upload as it can make them vulnerable. In concluding, she stated that: Women in ICT are still battling gender inequality.

Delleriece Hall made the timely and potent statement that Once you put your mind to it, go for it. Sky is the limit! I didnt have a background in engineering despite managing others who did. Were all super stars in the Turks and Caicos. Im the first female CEO of T&C and CWC is 120 years old in T&C.

Anuskha Sonai also offered words of wisdom stating Its not automatic. You have to speak up for the roles you want in the organization. Support of my family was integral in my nontraditional choice.

Questions which engaged the forum included what are the top three qualities that made you right for the CEO role? Do you see women at the fore of Caribbean ICT or a long way still? Women leading with empathy is seen as chaotic. Thoughts? And Female mentorship is lacking. What are you prepared to do about it? To the last question,the Secretary General excitedly responded: This forum speaks for itself. Next year expect to see tangible evidence of what weve seen here.

Minister Catherine Hughes, Minister of Public Telecommunications with responsibility for Tourism, Guyana who was in the audience,delivered a vote of thanks to the panel. She underscored the importance of mentorship: Within CANTO structure, we should create a program to encourage more women to participate in all year round. We are graduating more women in our universities yet women are not being prepared to sit at the table. I compliment all the men that are of great support to their women.

Hall is the first local female Country Manager in the companys 119 years of operation and the first local female in the TCI to speak at this level at the Caribbeans leading ICT Conference.

Hall was supported by her husband, Mr. Lynden Hall, who she highlighted in her presentation as her biggest supporter throughout her career.

Also, in attendance were Kevin Carmichael, Finance Lead, FLOW TC, Audley Gibbs, Network Operations Lead, FLOW TC, Minister of Communications, Hon. Vaden D. Williams, PS of Border Control & Labor, Mrs. Clara Gardiner, and members of the Turks and Caicos Telecommunications Commission.

CANTO is the Caribbeans premier telecommunications event for industry professionals, academics and regional governments. The Conference ran from the 16th -19th July, 2017.

Press Release: Flow

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FLOW TC Country Manager makes history at Caribbean's leading ICT Conference - Magnetic Media (press release)

Microsoft is hard at work on theHoloLens 2, and by the sounds of it, it'll packsome fancy new hardware.

Microsoft justannouncedthat the next generation of its HoloLens headset will featurecustom silicon. More specifically, it'll have an artificial intelligence chip - a coprocessor - designed by Microsoft. With this chip, HoloLens 2 will be able to analyse visual data directly, without having to upload the data to the cloud, which should result in more efficient performance overall.

Keep in mind AI is all the rage right now. That, and technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality. So, it makes sense that Microsoft'smixed reality headset would leverage the power of AI. You see, by getting AI to run directly on the device, Microsoft said you'll not only get aquicker performance, but it also means the device won't require a continuous internet connection.

The next HoloLens should therefore offer a trulymobile, powerful experience, along with processing that is more secure, because your data will stay on thedevice. Now, remember, Apple is thought to be building its own customAI processor for the iPhone, so Microsoft is basically doing the same thing for its HoloLens. Clearly, there's some sort of AI race going on in Silicon Valley.

Microsoft'sAI coprocessor will be built into the headset's Holographic Processing Unit, or HPU, a central vision-processing chip that handles data from all the on-board sensors, likehead-tracking unit and infrared cameras. But theres still no release date yet for the HoloLens 2. Rumour has it we can expect it to arrive sometime in 2019.

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Microsoft is working on a HoloLens 2 headset with a custom AI chip - Pocket-lint.com

A new report from Reuters outlines the push from Roombo vacuum maker iRobot to expand further into smart home territory. According to the report, iRobot is looking to start collecting mapping information and sell it to tech companies such as Apple to help improve their smart home information.

In an interview, iRobot CEO Colin Angle explained that with the expansion of smart home accessories, the mapping data collected from a Roomba could be used for accessory makers to have a better idea on how homes are designed and laid out:

Theres an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared, said Angle.

Reuters adds that Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet are all fans of the technology. iRobot hopes to ink a deal with one of the tree major tech companies in the next couple of years. Such a deal would see iRobot sell its maps data to improve the design of future smart phone products and accessories.

One analyst also thinks Apple could use the mapping data to help surround sound systems match home acoustics, or to help air conditioners schedule airflow by room. Smart lightning could be adjusted based on window placement and time of day.

The obvious issue that jumps to mind with this strategy is privacy. Angle says, however, that iRobot wont sell any data without customer permission, but he doesnt think it will be hard to gain permission from customers in exchange for such smart home features:

One potential downside is that selling data about users homes raises clear privacy issues, said Ben Rose, an analyst who covers iRobot for Battle Road Research. Customers could find it sort of a scary thing, he said.

Angle said iRobot would not sell data without its customers permission, but he expressed confidence most would give their consent in order to access the smart home functions.

What do you think of iRobots plans? Would you allow it to sell data from your Roomba in exchange for more advanced smart home features? Let us know what you think down in the comments.

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iRobot, the company behind Roomba, wants to collect home mapping data & sell it to companies like Apple - 9to5Mac

Sonam Kapoor is one of the fearless celebrities of the industry. The Bollywood actress neither fears to speak her mind or doing what her heart pleases. Sonam recently posted a gorgeous picture on Instagram from her LOreal Paris campaign photoshoot, and it is everything graceful and hot. Known for her eccentric fashion sense, Sonam flaunted sexy cleavage-baring nude strapless bra wearing a gorgeous dotted dress. This picture comes just a few days after Sonam Kapoor was slut-shamed for posting a selfie with Anushka Sharma dressed in a floral outfit that put her ample bust on display. The Neerja actress is not the one to be meddled with has amicably shut the trolls down by uploading yet another sexy snap.Sonam Kapoors Cleavage Revealing Dress in Selfie With Anushka Sharma Receives Major Backlash from Online Trolls! See Hot Picture.

The actress who is currently vacationing in New York with her rumoured boyfriend, Anand Ahuja stunned her fans by posting a resplendent image on her official Instagram account. She captioned the image, Had an amazing time shooting for LOreal Paris Pure Clay Masks! Checkout my BTS images from LOreal only in my App! #InstaDetox @lorealmakeup @lorealindia. She wears a chic nude dotted with strapless outfit, highlighting her curves to the fullest. With a picturesque locale serving as the perfect background, this photograph will go down as yet another dreamy affair of Sonam Kapoor.Sonam Kapoor looks drop dead RAVISHING in this new photoshoot! View Pics and Video!

Sonam Kapoor is quite a busy bee these days courtesy her modelling assignments. After flooring the world with her silvery bridal avatar while walking the ramp for Ralph & Russos 2017 fall/winter Haute Couture collection at the Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, she recently became the showstopper for Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla for their new Couture and bridal collection. Sonam nailed both the events with her flawless and impactful walk that reflects the actress grace and poised personality.

Had an amazing time shooting for LOreal Paris Pure Clay Masks! Checkout my BTS images from LOreal only in my App! #InstaDetox @lorealmakeup @lorealindia

A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on Jul 24, 2017 at 3:55am PDT

The actress who will next be seen in Veere Di Wedding and Untitled Sanjay Dutt Biopic is presently taken some time off and spending quality time with her alleged beau, Anand Ahuja. The happy pair has taken over the New York streets, as they share new clicks on their Instagram accounts. There have been a lot of murmur about their impending marriage plans in the media, which was aptly shut down by Sonam in a detailed tweet addressed to gossip columnists. Well, this girl does not mince her words when giving a piece of her mind!

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Sonam Kapoor Flaunts Ample Cleavage in Sexy Nude Strapless Bra Because She Can! See Picture - India.com

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Submitted by: Vianca Antonette Catibog

Are you looking for a fun and exciting game application to try? You might want to download this app and get to know how this cartoon genie can guess whos on your mind.

Akinator is a mobile application and an internet game developed by French programmers and was released in 2007 is an app that can read your mind by asking series of questions to determine a real or fictional character you are thinking about.

Want to play the game? Know the basics first. In order to begin, the player must think of a popular character, may it be an actor, fictional film or TV character, politician, athlete, musician or any public figure. Then a cartoon genie will start asking series of question but the player need to answer Yes, No, Probably, Probably not and Dont know for the genie to guess whos on the players mind. It also lets the player add questions or even upload the pictures of the characters they are thinking if Akinator did not guess the character after the player finished the game.

If you want to have an online time-killer, you need to try this app and be amazed on how the cartoon genie will be able to nearly guess the exact person or character you have in mind. This sounds super interesting, right? Check and try the app now.

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Akinator is a mind-reader game application that you need to try! - Inquirer.net

NEW DELHI: While the focus of opposition parties shifts to the 2019 polls, the government is drawing up projects and schemes that need to be completed by 2022 when India celebrates 75 years of independence. The cabinet secretary has asked all department heads to prepare details of works and timelines for their completion keeping in mind the 2022 target, sources said. Every ministry and department will upload their plans and tentative schedule for progress on the government's eSamiksha portal. "There will also be a meeting on this in the cabinet secretariat," said an official. 'eSamiksha' is a real time, online system for monitoring follow-up action on the decisions taken during presentations made by different ministries and departments to the PM. Every department has to update it as and when the status changes or at least once every month. PM Modi had set a five-year deadline for completing all pending projects (by 2022). One of the flagship schemes of the government, PM Awas Yojna, which aims to provide a roof to every household, has a 2022 deadline. "The government wants completion of all schemes in the next five years, the timeframe which the PM has talked about for a New India," a government source said.

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Govt departments to upload project schedules on online portal - Times of India

It was pretty, pretty, pretty exciting to learn last week that one of cables favorite curmudgeons will return to television this fall. After six years off the air, Larry Davidthe Seinfeld co-creator known more recently for his Bernie Sanders impression on Saturday Night Livewill bring his hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm back for a ninth season on October 1. But if that release date seems too far off for those avid fans counting the days, theres another comedy that could fill the void until then.

Cazzie David, the 23-year-old daughter of the Curb creator, has teamed up with a friend from college, Elisa Kalani, to make a web series called Eighty-Sixed. Though just six episodes have been released on YouTube this year, Eighty-Sixed already fits well into a new generation of shows channeling the mockingly self-centered humor that defines Curb. When it premiered in 2000, Curb Your Enthusiasm was unlike anything on television, though some of Seinfelds comedic sensibility came through. Shot in a cinema-verit style and largely improvised, Curb followed a fictionalized version of Larry David as he managed to alienate just about everyone he ran into. With his obnoxious nitpicking and disregard for basic etiquette, Davids character was comfortable being self-righteous and offensive at the same time.

All Hail the Return of Curb Your Enthusiasm

Eighty-Sixed, which came out with its first four episodes in April and another two earlier this month, clearly comes from the Curb school of dry, cynical humor. The still under-the-radar series wryly comments on narcissistic, social-media-obsessed millennial life by following Cazzie Davids character, Remi, as she recovers from a break-up (hence the title). Remi lives in her own bubble in L.A., a world where work or interests outside her small circle of two friends, Owen and Lily, seemingly dont exist. The episodes, which are well-produced and mostly shorter than 10 minutes, so far feature Remi lounging about at home in pajamas, taking hikes, eating out, and going to parties. But at the center of this rather mundane existence is her fixation on portraying a deceptively carefree image of herself on social media in order to convince her ex shes over him. As Remi explains to a friend in the first episode: I care because Im kind of trying to curate an image of me not caring.

Like Curb, Eighty-Sixed delights in uncovering and ridiculing the subtle hypocrisies of social conventions. While the series may take a little while to grow on its audience, its clever, with plenty of entertaining and cringe-worthy observational moments. Some of the funniest bits cover the informal rules that dictate the digital habits of Remis age group: recreating certain moments to capture them perfectly for Instagram (its okay to re-light birthday candles if its for a Boomerang), taking the necessary steps when someone else accidentally posts something thats too revealing (driving over to demand access to their Facebook isnt overkill), and determining how many people per table can be on their phones at a restaurant. In one scene, Remi begs her friend to get off his phone, so that she can go on hers: Were literally a table of three millennials on their phones. Its, like, a really embarrassing stereotype Im not trying to perpetuate.

In a Vanity Fair article from last fall, Cazzie David detailed the similar balancing act that goes into maintaining her very popular personal Instagram. Photo captions, for example, should show how little thought went into posting the photo, even though a ton of thought went into it because you are following these rules, she wrote, offering a glimpse into her peers preoccupation with the illusion of social media and a preview of Eighty-Sixeds premise.

In the third episode, when David and Kalanis writing really starts to hit its stride, Eighty-Sixed parodies the delicate dance of who can upload what photo from what party on what platform (and what message that action sends). Not wanting to seem desperate by posting a party photo too soon after her breakup, and after her friends refuse to ruin their carefully arranged Facebook and Instagram profiles with such a posed, basic photo, Remi ends up asking a total stranger to upload and tag her in the photo. By taking it to ridiculous, but familiar, Curb-level extremes, Remis character is both critiquing the shallowness of a screen-centered existence and fully admitting to her own complicity in it.

Indeed, some scenes play like Curb redux: In one, the germaphobic Remi refuses to share her water with a thirsty hiking buddy: I just dont know why I should be punished because you forgot to bring water. In another, Remi scolds her friends Owen and Lily for not getting solidarity [ice cream] cones in sympathy as she grieves her breakup. Minutes later, as her friends console a friend whos just learned that her mom has a tumor, Remi stares straight-ahead, nonchalantly licking her ice cream cone.

This scene calls to mind a similar and classic Curb scene from Season 6: Larry David licks his own ice cream cone, while pausing to guilt a friend in mourning for not returning a condolence call, and to complain trivially about his ice cream melting. When the friend tries to pay back Larry some money he owes, Larry refuses to take itnot because of the nominal amount or because his friend is grievingbut because hes disgusted that the friend pulls the bill out of his sweaty running shoe. The younger David and Kalanis writing often seems inspired by a formula the Curb creator laid out for his show: I like to take the small things and make them big. And I like to take the big things, like disease and death, and make them small.

Remi, too, likes to flip social norms. While she obsesses over the filters she puts on her online persona, she lacks any in real life, often delivering lines in a dyspeptic monotone. Shes hyper-aware of how shes perceived online, but rarely notices how her actions affect others. Like Curbs Larry, Remi is blunt and pushy, with little consideration of boundaries. Larry David has said his character is how hed act if there were no social constraints, and that the caricature is a mouthpiece for all the things that we think about that we cant say.

A much younger misanthrope, Remi navigates a shifting, contentious relationship with those closest to her and doesnt hesitate to call others out for behavior shes also guilty of. When a friend pulls out of plans, she scoffs at his excuse: Oh you dont feel 100? Who ever feels 100? Ive never felt above 72 in my life. To leave a party early when her friends wont oblige, she tries to sabotage the mood by switching the music from Migos to classical. And Owens suggestion to call a Lyft offends Remi: Honestly, I cant believe you would just like throw me in a car with a pink mustache on it when Im this vulnerable.

Though Eighty-Sixed shares comedic DNA with Curb (as do a ton of other shows), its very much in line with the current comedy landscape. The genre has been particularly kind to web series by young female creators like David lately: Issa Raes Awkward Black Girl was developed by HBO into Insecure, whose second season returned Sunday. Curbs home network also picked up the web series Brown Girls, which is debuting its first season this fall. Next month will bring the fourth-season premiere of Comedy Centrals Broad City, formerly a popular web series by Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson; that shows self-absorbed millennial characters call to mind Eighty-Sixeds Remi, but also the leads of acclaimed shows like Girls and Youre the Worst.

While fans wait for Curbs returnand for two new episodes of Eighty-Sixed arriving in Septemberits fun to watch the two series together as a sort of generational box set. As David Sr. mines the humorous tension between propriety and brutal honesty, the entertaining tension in Remis character comes from her caring what people think of her online but not caring what they think of her in real life when, perhapsas Larry repeatedly finds outthat might be a good idea.

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A Curb Your Enthusiasm for Millennials - The Atlantic

NEW HAVEN >> When Yale University professor Shelly Kagans course on the philosophy of death was posted as one of Open Yales free online offerings, he couldnt anticipate what would happen next.

The course, followed by the 2012 publication of the book Death by Yale University Press, brought Kagan celebrity status in South Korea, and he has become popular in China as well.

Kagan was brought to Seoul to appear on South Korean radio and television 10,000 people requested tickets for a 3,000-seat studio and gave a series of lectures for which people would be lined up around the block, waiting for the chance to get in to hear me.

This summer, Kagan went to China to give an intensive weekend class at the Yale Center Beijing, which was streamed live by 25,000 people.

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Kagan has sold 13,000 copies of the English edition of Death, according to Yale University Press, but more than 230,000 copies in foreign editions, including translations in both mainland Chinese and Taiwanese characters, Korean and Japanese.

It was a level of fame that I never, ever anticipated, Kagan said the fact that people around the world know me and think about me and write me emails about the class, on a subject that Americans try to avoid thinking about much of the time, based on a course hes given about 10 times in his 22 years at Yale. The course is available at http://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-176.

Its been just extraordinarily gratifying and humbling, to be honest, said Kagan, 63, who lives in Hamden. I talk about a wide variety of subjects in this class and some of them are emotionally fraught.

Kagan has several theories about why the subject of mortality and what, if anything, happens after we die has become so popular in South Korea and China.

A part of the answer I think is both of these countries have reached a certain stage in their development where moral questions, questions about life, have come to the fore, Kagan said. You had a couple of generations who were devoted to rebuilding the economy.

Now, those in their 20s and early 30s, who are a large part of his fan base, are wondering, Whats it all about? Whats worth going after? he said. What makes one life more valuable than another? These questions became really important, but theyre not part of Korean education.

Kagan said that in both cultures, the educational system does not emphasize philosophical questions to the extent that the emphasis tends to be on classical Asian figures like Confucius. Here Im inviting people to think about philosophical questions on their own.

Also, Yale is the foremost university, I believe, from the point of view of the educated Chinese.

Finally, he speculates that his presentation may be appealing. Starting out by sitting cross-legged on his desk, I get excited and I jump off the desk and start bouncing around the room, he said.

In his course and book, Kagan asks, What conclusions might you reach about the nature of death? What can we know about death just from thinking about it, based on the available evidence? What conclusion would you come to if you were just using your basic reasoning capacity, religion aside.

He addresses the idea of the soul, or whats the possibility of surviving life without my body? Its the idea of dualism, that there are these two kinds of things, bodies and minds and that they are separate. In that case, the mind could continue to exist if the body gets destroyed.

Or perhaps the mind is just a function of the body. Using the analogy of a smile, which is a thing that your lips, your teeth and tongue can do, Kagan said, If were just bodies that can do these fancy tricks, then the mind must die with the body. In order to know if death is really the end, we need to think about what pieces are we made of, he said.

Another question Kagan raises is, Can you survive the death of your body? He suggests imagining that weve learned how to grow synthetic bodies and that weve also learned how to program the body so we could first upload your memories, your beliefs into a computer and download them into the newly created body.

The question we need to ask is, is that [you] that woke up? If you think that the key to personal identity is personality, then of course its [you].

Another part of the course asks, Does it make sense to be afraid of death?, Kagan said. I lay out some of the conditions that I believe fear has to meet if fear is going to be justified and then I try to persuade them that one of those conditions, or maybe more than one, isnt met when you talk about fear of death.

His conditions include that the thing youre afraid of needs to be dangerous or bad. Second, theres got to be a nontrivial chance that the bad thing will happen.

While it could be argued that death meets those conditions, Kagan said, The third condition is more controversial. Its a cousin of the second condition. Its that the bad thing cannot be certain. If its certain, then fear doesnt make sense. Fear of the fact that you will be dead at some point doesnt make sense because its certain that you will be dead at some point.

Finally, Kagan discusses suicide. He believes that there are cases in which suicide makes sense.

We all think that some lives are better or worse than others, he said. Wed all rather be healthy than sick. Could there be a life that is so bad that youd be better off not existing at all? Such people might be those who are in the late stages of a terminal illness or who are sinking into dementia and who see that the time will come where whats left of my mind or whats left of me will cease to exist.

He does add a caveat that even if suicide would make sense from a self-interested point of view, it might not be morally legitimate.

Of the thousands of messages hes received, Kagan said some of the emails that have moved me the most have been from people who have lost family members to suicide. They have often stumbled on my discussions and are thanking me for discussing it calmly.

One came from the family of a former soldier who had sought help, had therapy but ultimately committed suicide. As they were going through the brothers effects they came upon a journal where he was thinking about the pros and cons of killing himself.

The family discovered that the man had used Kagans book to weigh whether or not to take his own life. While Kagan feared the family would be angry at him, much to my surprise and gratitude the woman ended up by saying their brother had made his decision rationally He had thought it through carefully and they were grateful for that. She wasnt saying whether he had made the right decision or not.

Kagan provided tools to think about the question in a calm fashion If people of one kind or another have found the discussion helpful, I found that very humbling, he said.

Call Ed Stannard at 203-680-9382.

Link:

Asian interest breathes new life into Yale professor's course about death - New Haven Register

The Rocketbook Color Notebook is on Kickstarter from now until September 2017. Image via Rocketbook.

In the bio below this article, Ive described my eight-year-old daughter as an art geek, but Im not sure it gives the right impression. An art geek implies someone who is interested in art as a concept, with their mind. My daughter is better described as a compulsive artist. From the moment she first held a crayon and realized, Hey, if I move this on something else, it makes a mark! she has been making her mark on every available surface: paper surfaces, sure, but also walls, floors, furniture, herself, and any other living creature that will stand still long enough. A few years back, as a mere reader of GeekMom, I won a giveaway of some awesome Stomp-N-Go cleaning pads by describing the intricate occult circles shed left on our carpet. Just a few weeks ago, as I headed off to Saturday work, my husband stopped me and said, You need to change your pants. Apparently, somebody wrote on your butt.

This past Christmas she got a roll of chalkboard wallpaper for her door, in the hope of curbing her graffiti-artist tendencies. Reusable surfaces of this sort are handy for channeling the energy, but they come with their own drawbacks: when she brought the kids back from their grandparents earlier this week, my mother sort of sighed as she said, She spent the whole time drawing on a dry-erase board, but then she erased it so I cant hang any of it on my refrigerator. I should have offered her a pick from the large pile of drawings on the floor behind my desk here, because theyre just going to get trampled on for a couple of weeks before theyre thrown away.

Two days later a Kickstarter launched that has the needs of someone exactly like my daughter in mind.

The Rocketbook Color Notebook comes from the creators of Rocketbook, and addresses this two-fold problem: how do we give compulsive young artists a surface to draw on that wont waste paper or build up as garbage around the house, while still allowing the results to be archived, displayed, and shared?

Part One is the Color Notebook itself. Each book has 12 pages of water-resistant, tear-resistant material that writes like paper but erases like white-board. Its formulated to work with any Crayola washable or dry-erase coloring supplies, whether crayon, marker, or colored pencil, so that the drawing wont smudge but will wipe off in seconds if you intentionally take a cloth to it (dry for dry erase, just a bit of water for washable), so as to be endlessly reused.

My daughter has destroyed enough white boards in her time to raise my skeptical-mom sensors at that word endlessly. I asked for clarification and heres what the creators had to say:

How endless is the endless reusability compared to, say, a typical dry-erase board?

Weve tested extensively with Crayola Washable and Crayola Dry Erase products, which we recommend to use with the Rocketbook Color. When using these markers, crayons, and pencils, the Color notebook can be used thousands of times. While the Rocketbook Color is subject to normal wear and tear, it is extremely durable and waterproof.

Do marks get harder to erase the longer they stay on the page? How much build-up over time?

In our tests, the notebook remains easy to erase even after Crayola Washable and Crayola Dry Erase writing has been on the page for several weeks. Given the breadth of products on the market, we can not guarantee that all washable and dry-erase products wipe clean and do not stain. Some formulations contain harsh solvents that could damage the Rocketbook Color, or that might be difficult to erase if left on for too long. More importantly, many non-Crayola products arent kid safe. While other dry erase products will work with the Rocketbook Color, our recommendation is to stick with the Crayola line. Finally, users wishing to test erasability may test new products on the inside front or rear cover, which feature the same coating as inside pages.

Yes, I definitely know someone who could put such a surface to good use. When I went to ask her what she thought of this product, I only got as far as Its like a dry-erase coloring pad that before her eyes went big and she shouted, I WANT THAT! But I didnt even get to describe Part Two of the project, the part that earns it its subtitle of The Internet of Crayons.

Part Two is the Rocketbook App. The Rocketbook was originally designed as a way for grownups to take paper notes and easily upload them to the internet. Sure, you can just take a picture of your page and upload it that way. But the Rocketbook app automatically crops the page, adjusts and enhances the color balance, and sends it immediately to whichever online destination(s) you indicate by marking a code of symbols at the bottom of the page. You can set one symbol for cloud storage, one symbol for a more social destination, and several symbols for specific email addresses or phone numberssay, for grandparents.

The Rocketbook Color Notebook combines the online functionality of the grown-up Rocketbook products with a child-friendly reusable notebook, and thats an innovation that cant come soon enough for someone whos been painstakingly scanning pictures to send to loved ones and/or popular YouTubers (my daughter draws a lot of fan art).

Oh, and heres another fun trick: you can bundle a series of pictures and have them delivered as one animated gif, instead.

The Kickstarter for the Rocketbook Color Notebook is accepting pledges until September 8, 2017, with expected delivery of the notebooks in November. A pledge of $20 or up gets you one Color Notebook (the final retail cost of the notebook will be $27); bigger pledges get you more notebooks at a discount (you can even pledge $850 and get a classroom supply of 50). Throw in an additional $5 and get a pack of six Crayola dry-erase markers, too.

Amy M. Weir is a public youth services librarian in SW Pennsylvania, and theres nothing she geeks out about more. Outside of work she obsesses over music (especially rock especially psychedelic pop especially The Beatles), sews clothes, gardens when the weathers nice, avoids housework, and generally is the poster-child for Enneatype 9, which she attempts to counteract with yoga when she remembers. She has an RPG-and-firearms-geek husband who asked her out by playing a Paladin-in-Shining-Armor devoted to serving her character in D&D; a LEGO-and-Minecraft-geek 10yo named after a hobbit; a My Little Pony-and-art-geek 8yo named after a SFF writer; and an Imaginary Husband named Martin Freeman, who isnt actually aware of this relationship.

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Kickstarter for the Rocketbook Color Notebook: The Internet of Crayons - GeekDad (blog)

The question is not so far-fetched. Robots are currently being developed to work inside nuclear reactors, fight wars and care for the elderly. As AIs grow more sophisticated, they are projected to take over many human jobs within the next few decades. So we must ponder the question: Could AIs develop conscious experience?

This issue is pressing for several reasons. First, ethicists worry that it would be wrong to force AIs to serve us if they can suffer and feel a range of emotions. Second, consciousness could make AIs volatile or unpredictable, raising safety concerns (or conversely, it could increase an AIs empathy; based on its own subjective experiences, it might recognize consciousness in us and treat us with compassion).

Third, machine consciousness could impact the viability of brain-implant technologies, like those to be developed by Elon Musks new company, Neuralink. If AI cannot be conscious, then the parts of the brain responsible for consciousness could not be replaced with chips without causing a loss of consciousness. And, in a similar vein, a person couldnt upload their brain to a computer to avoid death, because that upload wouldnt be a conscious being.

In addition, if AI eventually out-thinks us yet lacks consciousness, there would still be an important sense in which we humans are superior to machines; it feels like something to be us. But the smartest beings on the planet wouldnt be conscious or sentient.

A lot hangs on the issue of machine consciousness, then. Yet neuroscientists are far from understanding the basis of consciousness in the brain, and philosophers are at least equally far from a complete explanation of the nature of consciousness.

A test for machine consciousness

So what can be done? We believe that we do not need to define consciousness formally, understand its philosophical nature or know its neural basis to recognize indications of consciousness in AIs. Each of us can grasp something essential about consciousness, just by introspecting; we can all experience what it feels like, from the inside, to exist.

Based on this essential characteristic of consciousness, we propose a test for machine consciousness, the AI Consciousness Test (ACT), which looks at whether the synthetic minds we create have an experience-based understanding of the way it feels, from the inside, to be conscious.

One of the most compelling indications that normally functioning humans experience consciousness, although this is not often noted, is that nearly every adult can quickly and readily grasp concepts based on this quality of felt consciousness. Such ideas include scenarios like minds switching bodies (as in the film Freaky Friday); life after death (including reincarnation); and minds leaving their bodies (for example, astral projection or ghosts). Whether or not such scenarios have any reality, they would be exceedingly difficult to comprehend for an entity that had no conscious experience whatsoever. It would be like expecting someone who is completely deaf from birth to appreciate a Bach concerto.

Thus, the ACT would challenge an AI with a series of increasingly demanding natural language interactions to see how quickly and readily it can grasp and use concepts and scenarios based on the internal experiences we associate with consciousness. At the most elementary level we might simply ask the machine if it conceives of itself as anything other than its physical self.

At a more advanced level, we might see how it deals with ideas and scenarios such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph. At an advanced level, its ability to reason about and discuss philosophical questions such as the hard problem of consciousness would be evaluated. At the most demanding level, we might see if the machine invents and uses such a consciousness-based concept on its own, without relying on human ideas and inputs.

Consider this example, which illustrates the idea: Suppose we find a planet that has a highly sophisticated silicon-based life form (call them Zetas). Scientists observe them and ponder whether they are conscious beings. What would be convincing proof of consciousness in this species? If the Zetas express curiosity about whether there is an afterlife or ponder whether they are more than just their physical bodies, it would be reasonable to judge them conscious. If the Zetas went so far as to pose philosophical questions about consciousness, the case would be stronger still.

There are also nonverbal behaviors that could indicate Zeta consciousness such as mourning the dead, religious activities or even turning colors in situations that correlate with emotional challenges, as chromatophores do on Earth. Such behaviors could indicate that it feels like something to be a Zeta.

The death of the mind of the fictional HAL 9000 AI computer in Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey provides another illustrative example. The machine in this case is not a humanoid robot as in most science fiction depictions of conscious machines; it neither looks nor sounds like a human being (a human did supply HALs voice, but in an eerily flat way). Nevertheless, the content of what it says as it is deactivated by an astronaut specifically, a plea to spare it from impending death conveys a powerful impression that it is a conscious being with a subjective experience of what is happening to it.

Could such indicators serve to identify conscious AIs on Earth? Here, a potential problem arises. Even todays robots can be programmed to make convincing utterances about consciousness, and a truly superintelligent machine could perhaps even use information about neurophysiology to infer the presence of consciousness in humans. If sophisticated but non-conscious AIs aim to mislead us into believing that they are conscious for some reason, their knowledge of human consciousness could help them do so.

We can get around this though. One proposed technique in AI safety involves boxing in an AImaking it unable to get information about the world or act outside of a circumscribed domain, that is, the box. We could deny the AI access to the internet and indeed prohibit it from gaining any knowledge of the world, especially information about conscious experience and neuroscience.

We doubt a superintelligent machine could be boxed in effectively it would find a clever escape. We do not anticipate the development of superintelligence over the next decade, however. Furthermore, for an ACT to be effective, the AI need not stay in the box for long, just long enough administer the test.

ACTs also could be useful for consciousness engineering during the development of different kinds of AIs, helping to avoid using conscious machines in unethical ways or to create synthetic consciousness when appropriate.

Beyond the Turing Test

An ACT resembles Alan Turings celebrated test for intelligence, because it is entirely based on behavior and, like Turings, it could be implemented in a formalized question-and-answer format. (An ACT could also be based on an AIs behavior or on that of a group of AIs.)

But an ACT is also quite unlike the Turing test, which was intended to bypass any need to know what was transpiring inside the machine. By contrast, an ACT is intended to do exactly the opposite; it seeks to reveal a subtle and elusive property of the machines mind. Indeed, a machine might fail the Turing test because it cannot pass for human, but pass an ACT because it exhibits behavioral indicators of consciousness.

This is the underlying basis of our ACT proposal. It should be said, however, that the applicability of an ACT is inherently limited. An AI could lack the linguistic or conceptual ability to pass the test, like a nonhuman animal or an infant, yet still be capable of experience. So passing an ACT is sufficient but not necessary evidence for AI consciousness although it is the best we can do for now. It is a first step toward making machine consciousness accessible to objective investigations.

So, back to the superintelligent AI in the box we watch and wait. Does it begin to philosophize about minds existing in addition to bodies, like Descartes? Does it dream, as in Isaac Asimovs Robot Dreams? Does it express emotion, like Rachel in Blade Runner? Can it readily understand the human concepts that are grounded in our internal conscious experiences, such as those of the soul or atman?

The age of AI will be a time of soul-searching both of ours, and for theirs.

Susan Schneider, PhD, is a professor of philosophy and cognitive science at the University of Connecticut, a researcher at YHouse, Inc., in New York, a member of the Ethics and Technology Group at Yale University and a visiting member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Her books include The Language of Thought, Science Fiction and Philosophy, and The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (with Max Velmans). She is featured in the new film, Supersapiens, the Rise of the Mind.

Edwin L. Turner, PhD, is a professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, an Affiliate Scientist at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo, a visiting member in the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a co-founding Board of Directors member of YHouse, Inc. Recently he has been an active participant in the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. He has taken an active interest in artificial intelligence issues since working in the AI Lab at MIT in the early 1970s.

By Susan Schneider, PhD, and Edwin Turner, PhD Originally published in Scientific American, July 19, 2017

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"Goodbye, Dave" --Scientists Ponder How to Identify Conscious Future AI's on Earth - The Daily Galaxy (blog)