3Doodler announces a robotics kit, Star Trek and Powerpuff Girls … – TechCrunch

Posted on by

3Doodlers getting out ahead of Toy Fair with the release of a whole bunch of new products, including a handful of kits and a pair of pens that mark some big licensing deals for the New York-based startup.

The new devices dont represent new entirely products, so much as spinoffs of its existing lines, theflagship Create and the Start, a larger and safer version targeted at younger hands.

The Start Robotics Pen Set is the new focus of the latter, featuring an activity guide that takes young users through the process of connecting motors and blocks to create basic robotics. The pen will also be getting an architectural set that features illuminating wires for building iconic, light up buildings. A third Product Design, kit, meanwhile, is targeted at building smaller scale creations like clocks and wrist watches.

Having started out inventing robots at WobbleWorks, its quite a treat to be closing the circle with 3Doodler robot kits, CEOMax Bogue told Techcrunch. The increased importance of STEM in education means this is also an awesome time to be doing this helping kids learn and make.

The companys using its Create pen to launch a pair of high profile partnerships with CBS and Cartoon Network, bringing branded versions of the device with kits focused on designing different pieces of IP. The Star Trek branded device, which will be available, fittingly through Think Geek, comes with plans for drawing some Original Series designs, like the Enterprise, Spock ears and a phaser.

A PowerPuff Girls Create pen, meanwhile, features stencils with characters from the long running animated series. The company has also partnered with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to create designs based on classic architecture like Illinoiss Farnsworth House.

Go here to see the original:

3Doodler announces a robotics kit, Star Trek and Powerpuff Girls ... - TechCrunch

‘Being an Irish author is more of a Grimm fairytale than a Cinderella story’ – Irish Times

Posted on by

Signing with a publisher is the ultimate fairytale for every new writer. We slave away like modern-day Cinderellas on our manuscripts, not entirely sure of what our happy-ever-after will entail, but still we long for the day when we can squeeze our toes into that glass slipper.

However, a recent article by Donal Ryan on the harsh realities of being a published writer in Ireland has put paid to the fairytale notion of big advances and handsome royalties. Ryan revealed that for the first contract he signed he earned a sobering 40c per book, which left a lot of people asking, where does the rest of the cover price go?

Most people outside of the industry assume that once you have a contract and your book is in the shop window, youre on the pigs back, but this couldnt be further from the truth. Traditional publishing is a bit like fight club nobody really knows what goes on because nobody talks about it. So for new writers, it can be a bit of a blow to discover the truth.

In an Irish Times article, Ruth Hegarty, managing editor at the Royal Irish Academy and president of Publishing Ireland, stated that if you made between 1,000-2,000 a year, you were doing well. A survey of author earnings in Ireland also revealed that a quarter of authors earned just 500.

Honestly, if that had been my experience with my first book, I think I would have given up then and there; which makes me wonder how many other authors have walked away from writing? I would have seen it as a failure, but thats only because I had no idea what the average sales figures were.

When I began submitting my debut novel back in 2013, while quietly humming Some day my prince will come, my expectations of the publishing contract were embarrassingly Cinderella-like. I may not have been expecting a gilded carriage, but I assumed that they would take care of everything and more importantly, take care of me. This is why I am so glad that I didnt get that publishing deal, because I would have naively left everything in the hands of the publisher.

Becoming a self-published author has forced me to take sole responsibility of my writing career by learning everything I could about this industry from the ground up. If you want to be an author, you have to focus on the long game and Im not sure that traditional publishing can give authors that kind of luxury anymore.

Its clear that publishing houses are under pressure and are limiting their budgets for editorial and marketing. Authors are now required to do most of their own promotion, just like self-published authors have always done. Publishers save their money for their top 1 per cent of authors and there is little left in the kitty for newcomers.

There is still a lot of snobbery around self-publishing and while there are those who still view it as the poor relation, statistics show that the popularity of indie books is on the rise. A new report from Enders Analysis found that 40 of the 100 top-selling ebooks on Amazon US in March 2016 were self-published.

While self-publishing also has its fairytale stories, dont be fooled into thinking this is an easy route to fame and fortune. Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot more to self-publishing than merely uploading your book and hitting publish. Successful authors invest heavily in their books; hiring freelance editors, cover designers and proofreaders, just like a regular publisher. Along with creative freedom comes the responsibility of setting your sales price, garnering reviews, running promotions and building an author platform. Most successful self-publishers are professional authors who take their careers very seriously. Readers are exceptionally discerning and can separate the amateurs from the professional authors very quickly.

The publishing world is in flux. More and more, we are seeing traditionally published authors moving into self-publishing. Polly Courtney, author of Feral Youth, decided to ditch Harper Collins because of what she felt was their chick-lit marketing approach to her books. Claire Cook, author of Must Love Dogs, left her publisher and her agent once she realised she could earn more through self-publishing: 70 per cent royalties on ebook sales compared to the standard 25 per cent a traditional author receives is hard to ignore.

Conversely, many self-published authors have been picked up by traditional publishers after achieving success themselves. Names like Hugh Howey, author of the Silo series, and Andy Weir, author of The Martian, come to mind. If these names are not familiar to you, its largely due to the fact that indie titles receive little or no coverage in traditional media. This, despite the fact that indie authors sell copies in the millions online and enjoy a robust social media following. Recognition and validation from the traditional literary community is rare and as a self-published author in Ireland, I am at best ignored and at worst, not taken seriously.

There has always been a debate over whether authors are better off self-publishing or going the traditional route. However, publishing doesnt need to be an either/or decision anymore. We have now entered the age of the hybrid author; someone who is published both traditionally and self-published. Its clear that authors can earn far more lucrative royalties through self-publishing, but the exposure and distribution of print books that comes with a mainstream publishing deal drives your brand as an author. One feeds the other and not only that; it places you in a much better position to negotiate with publishers if you already have a good author platform.

Hybrid authors have the best of both worlds and to be honest, Im surprised that more Irish authors arent taking this route. Some books are more suited to self-publishing than others (as are authors) but at the very least, authors have the choice to pursue a more tailored approach to getting their book out there. Self-publishing has opened the door for a new kind of publisher/author relationship. American bestselling indie author Shannon Mayer recently signed a deal with Skyhorse Publishing that has allowed her to retain her ebook rights, while signing the print rights over to them. As she said herself in a recent podcast, its the holy grail of deals for authors.

I know all of this seems light years away from the world of Irish publishing, and while these kinds of deals might be the exception (Hugh Howey brokered a similar deal with Simon & Schuster) publishers need to start thinking outside of the box. This new kind of partnership is the way forward in my view, allowing publisher to collaborate with authors, rather than feeling as though you are handing over complete control of your work.

Traditional publishing is positively glacial in its approach to change. Digital publishing is a fast-paced environment and Amazon has responded to that. They have even created their own imprints for agented authors, showing that they can evolve and respond to the market. I believe its time for traditional publishers to do the same and put the author at the centre of the industry. Authors need a fair return for their work and it just doesnt seem right to me that they are at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to earnings. And yet, that is how the publishing industry is structured. As an author, you are advised to submit primarily to literary agents, as most of the bigger publishers will not accept unsolicited material. However, landing an agent also means parting with another 15 per cent of your earnings, so even though you are the one who has written the book, everyone else seems to be benefiting. But thats how it works; the odds are skewed in their favour and as an author you just have to be glad you got published at all.

Being an author in Ireland seems to be more of a Grimm fairytale than a Cinderella story, but self-publishing has offered writers an alternative ending. While there are success stories, like newcomer Adam Croft who managed to pay off his mortgage in 20 weeks when sales of his crime series went a bit mad as he put it in a recent interview, most self-published authors have more modest sales. But at least they are no longer dependent on the gatekeepers or wondering how much longer their manuscript will wallow in the slush pile. Self-publishing has swung the pendulum back in favour of the author and for me that is a fairytale ending.

Evie Gaughan is a Galway author and her debut novel, The Heirloom, is set in her hometown. Her second novel, The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris is not, but both are available on Amazon and Kennys Bookshop eviegaughan.wordpress.com

Excerpt from:

'Being an Irish author is more of a Grimm fairytale than a Cinderella story' - Irish Times

Virtual reality startup Relax VR wants to relieve stress in corporate environments – ZDNet

Posted on by

Image: Relax VR

The early promise of virtual reality (VR) was vast: We would be transported to new worlds and live in alternate realities. While scientists and programmers have been investigating the possibilities of VR since the 1960s, it's only in the last few years that the technology started to gain mainstream traction, with VR applications spanning from education to real estate.

Australian startup Relax VR is looking to bring VR into high-pressure corporate environments to relieve occupational stress -- a significant contributor to mental and physical illness, as well as lack of workplace productivity.

Founded by Eddie Cranswick and Sourabh Jain in January 2016, Relax VR is a mobile meditation application compatible with Google's Cardboard and Daydream, as well as Samsung's Gear VR headsets.

The application, which was launched in the iOS and Android app stores in Q2 2016, virtually transports users to tranquil locales of their choosing -- from beaches in Portugal to the Great Ocean Road in Australia -- and immerses them in 360-degree videos. A soothing voice is overlaid onto music to guide the user.

The goal of the application is to allow users to divert their attention inward and teach them to self-manage their stress.

Cranswick, who is based out of Fishburners' coworking space in Ultimo, Sydney, told ZDNet that immersion and presence play an important role when combining meditation techniques with virtual reality for stress management. As such, delivering the right user experience from the moment the user opens the application is paramount to Relax VR's efficacy, Cranswick said.

The startup recently appointed Madrid-based clinical psychologist and VR researcher Ivan Alsina Jurnet as its chief scientist to conduct research and measure the real-world impact of Relax VR.

Jain, who is a yoga and meditation teacher, said the evidence collected by Jurnet will be core to capturing the corporate market, which is a focus for the startup this year.

"There's some research that indicates VR is actually more effective at relaxation than traditional cognitive behavioural therapy. It's a great tool for relaxation and we have science to back that up now," Jain said.

Cranswick noted that selling to corporates is very different to selling to consumers. After the initial discussion, it can take months to progress through the approvals process, which can be challenging for startups taking the B2B approach, he admitted.

But the B2B approach is particularly lucrative for the Relax VR, the founders said. In 2016, the startup was focused predominantly on consumer adoption, but is now in talks with corporations about integrating Relax VR into their employee wellness programs. Pilot programs are currently being organised, though the founders could not disclose further details at the time of speaking to ZDNet.

"We're looking to deliver a structured relaxation program that employees in high-stress environments can sign up to. Corporate wellness is something that we think is a very valid use case for Relax VR," Cranswick said. "But we need to approach it the best way possible. In B2B, it's very important to provide something that's evidence-based, to make sure we've got data to back our [proposition]."

In addition to seeing consumer adoption across a range of global markets outside of Australia including the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, Jain said Relax VR has captured the attention of massage chair manufacturers that are looking to integrate VR headsets to their chairs, as well as companies servicing hospitals.

"We're keeping an eye on how VR is used in hospitals for patient care, especially in the US because hospitals there are generally more advanced when it comes to technology adoption. Once virtual reality headsets are rolled out in hospitals, there will be a massive opportunity for us," said Cranswick.

"It's a great use case, because we'd be able to transport people confined to their beds -- and in many cases, in a lot of pain and experiencing anxiety as well -- to somewhere peaceful. Hospitals don't usually provide a good experience so I think VR has a lot of power to keep people uplifted and keep their minds active."

Relax VR is not the only company to recognise the potential of virtual reality in health settings. In December 2016, Australian health insurer Medibank launched an immersive VR experience for Australian hospitals on Google Daydream, in collaboration with a group of neuropsychologists at Melbourne-based VR developers Liminal.

The "Joy" experience, which was designed entirely in 3D using Google's Tilt Brush, provides hospital patients with a virtual experience to attempt to relieve loneliness and isolation, particularly for long-stay patients with restricted mobility.

Victorian-startup Build VR also recently launched its Solis VR unit, a Gear VR handset that features video scenarios to trigger positive emotions for dementia patients, even for those in the later stages who are barely responsive.

Solis VR users start in a computer generated atrium in front of a wall with five paintings, with each one reflecting a VR experience. When the user looks at a painting, a 360-degree video begins, which could be of anything ranging from scuba diving, canoeing, or a trip to Bali. The experiences offer a distraction when dementia patients are experiencing boredom or displaying repetitive behaviour.

In the future, Relax VR will look to integrate biofeedback systems that measure the physiological aspects that are related to stress, such as body temperature and heart rate variability. By collecting biofeedback changes in real-time, users will have a greater understanding of not only their stress patterns, but also the impact Relax VR is having on their stress patterns over time.

"I'm quite excited about seeing where wearables can be integrated into the experiences. Being able to measure stress indicators and providing that data to users would give them a holistic picture of how the relaxation is affecting them over a period of time," Cranswick said.

While Relax VR is not the only meditation application in the VR world, Jain and Cranswick believe their competitive advantage is their domain expertise.

"I'm a meditation teacher. We now have a clinical psychologist. We have a strong understanding of the content behind relaxation, what helps people relax. Whereas what we see with our competitors is that they tend to have more expertise in virtual reality, and they're kind of jumping on the meditation bandwagon as part of exploring what they can do with VR," Jain said.

"[Their products are] generally not as effective in relaxing users, even though they might be more entertaining."

Relax VR has been applying to accelerator programs and was accepted into one in San Francisco. However, the terms that were put forth by the accelerator were a little too far from ideal, the founders said.

"The whole application process was a good learning experience and it was also good validation for us -- they thought we had potential. But at the stage that we applied, it was better off for us to not take that opportunity at that time," Jain said.

Trevor Townsend, managing director at Startupbootcamp Melbourne, believes the excitement towards technologies such as virtual reality will fizzle out this year.

"Technologies such as Internet of Things, virtual reality, and augmented reality will start to enter the trough of disillusionment in 2017," Townsend told ZDNet earlier this year. "They have been much hyped, and although our industry will be working long and hard to make the technology vision come true, the overshoot of expectations and the reality of what is actually possible and the difficulties of delivering the vision will dampen the enthusiasm for these topics."

Townsend also believes VR and AR will be solutions looking for problems.

"Like the ill-fated 3D TV; people will be slow to adopt such technology [and] that means they need to drastically alter the way they consume entertainment. Immersive experiences will arrive, but probably still not in the way we have envisioned," Townsend said.

Meanwhile, Cranswick believes the VR space is moving faster than it meets the eye.

"I attend a lot of VR events in Australia and I've seen this space move quite quickly over the last year in terms of the general public interest. Enterprise applications of VR are driving a lot of the early adoption, but I think consumer-wise, there have been some big pushes from the likes of Samsung and Google," Cranswick said.

"There's still an element of education that's required for the general market to understand virtual reality. It's a very experiential medium, so you need to try it, it needs to be in more retail stores. A lot of companies need to get the demonstrations happening in greater numbers. Getting people to try it is going to drive adoption. Usually, when someone has tried VR they understand it straight away."

Relax VR is currently a paid app on iOS, Android, and a freemium app on Samsung Gear VR. The monetisation model for corporate customers will be different, though nothing has been finalised yet.

The startup is also planning to raise capital later this year.

The rest is here:

Virtual reality startup Relax VR wants to relieve stress in corporate environments - ZDNet

3D printing, virtual reality used to bring dinosaur to ‘life’ – The Hindu

Posted on by

A team of Australian scientists are using a world-first approach combining three-dimensional (3D) printing and virtual reality (VR) to bring a dinosaur back to life.

Palaeontologists at a site in New South Wales state near the Great Ocean Road have uncovered more than 200 bits of bones of the wallaby-like leaellynasaura, an ornithopod native to Australia, in just 12 days, Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, mechatronics students from Deakin University are using the bones uncovered to create a 3D model of the dinosaur on a computer which will eventually be printed.

When completed, the project will be displayed at Geelongs National Wool Museum.

Experts from Deakins Virtual Reality Lab will then create a VR experience to make the tactile 3D-printed model of the dinosaur appear real.

Ben Hornan, a co-founder of the project, said he hoped the experience would further the general populations knowledge of dinosaurs that once roamed Australia.

Were looking at how we can use virtual reality and 3D printing to help with providing educational experiences in a museum context, Mr. Horan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

So we are doing experiments on how we can best print dinosaur-like skin so people will not just feel the geometry, the size and the scale but also the contour of the skin as well.

Researchers believe they will be able to replicate the skin of a leaellynasaura by scanning a blue tongue lizard, which has scaly skin similar to that of the dinosaur, and 3D-printing its scales.

The leaellynasaura was a small herbivore and was thus understood to be a shy dinosaur, so participants who put the VR glasses on will be warned to approach it with care.

Patricia Vickers-Rich, the scientists who discovered the leaellynasaura in the 1980s, said the project was an exciting new way to communicate her work.

Originally posted here:

3D printing, virtual reality used to bring dinosaur to 'life' - The Hindu

Boise-area entrepreneurs see opportunity in virtual reality amid real-world perils – Idaho Statesman

Posted on by

Idaho Statesman
Boise-area entrepreneurs see opportunity in virtual reality amid real-world perils
Idaho Statesman
The graphics are less sophisticated than the lush, real-world experiences provided by high-end virtual reality games and simulations. That's OK. The goal of VRigami's Creator software is to enable a potential client in this case, the U.S ...

Here is the original post:

Boise-area entrepreneurs see opportunity in virtual reality amid real-world perils - Idaho Statesman

New Yorker seeks pinball immortality – Fox5NY

Posted on by

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Sean "The Storm" Grant, 43, introduces himself as The Best Pinball Player of All Time Who's Never Owned a Machine in His Life.

"There are four truly great players in the world," Grant said. "Two of them are American, one of them is from Italy and one of them is from Sweden."

Grant hopes to count himself among those greats some day, perhaps as soon as next month when he represents New York in the National Pinball Championship in Dallas, Texas, after beating out the other 15 best players in this state over the weekend.

"Coming in first is a really big deal to me," Grant said.

Frederic Asher, 15, was the youngest player in Saturday's tournament.

"I have pretty good reflexes," he said.

Beth Centuria was the only woman.

"I think [my reflexes] were kind of bred into me from years of playing with my father," she said.

All three of these pinheads met us at Modern Pinball on 3rd Avenue Thursday, and thanked their fathers for teaching them to play the silver ball, Grant's at a Dairy Queen 40 years ago.

"Sky Jump," Grant said, "it was an old electromechanical game

Every pinball machine is calibrated a little differently, and every game -- with its lights a-flashin' and varying buzzers and bells -- demands different skills and strategies, leaving players with games they like and games they don't.

"Right now I'm adoring Fun House," Senturia said.

"I'm terrible at that game," Asher said.

"Nobody wants to play me in the Twilight Zone," Grant said. "That's my game."

Every tournament works a little differently but generally players are seeded and play head-to-head matches to determine who advances. In New York's state championship, every pairing played a best-of-seven series with the loser of each game choosing the machine for the next one.

"At this point, the tournaments are competitive enough that people know which games I like and which ones I don't," Grant said.

Grant's competed at nationals once before, losing 4-2 in the round of 16 to the best player in the world. On March 16, he'll try for a different result, he hopes flipping his way through machines with soft bumpers and a bracket that allows him as many matches in The Twilight Zone as possible.

"It's all about patience," he said. "Once you get to a certain level it's an entirely mental thing."

Go here to see the original:

New Yorker seeks pinball immortality - Fox5NY

Lafayette business accused of selling misbranded dietary … – The Daily Advertiser

Posted on by

The Daily Advertiser Published 11:46 a.m. CT Feb. 16, 2017 | Updated 12 hours ago

A lawsuit about Caddo Parish commissioners' participation in a retirement system will head to court in 2017.(Photo: Getty Images)

A Lafayette business has agreed to stop distributing several supplements when the U.S. Department of Justice filed an injunction alleging that the drugs were never approved by the U.S.Food and Drug Administration.

Theproposed consent decree, filed Thursday,permanently enjoins Pick and Pay Inc./Cili Minerals LLC and its owner and CEO, Anton S. Botha, to stop the distribution of what it calls "misbranded and unapproved new drugs, and misbranded and adulterated dietary supplements," according to a press release from the DOJ.

The complaint alleges that the companies violated the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by manufacturing, promoting and distributing numerous dietary supplementsthat had been marketed as intended to "treat, cure or prevent a variety of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis and other serious conditions."

The marketing effortswere a violation of the FDCA because the products had never been submitted to the FDA for approval, and had never been found to be safe and effective for medicinal uses, as the marketing claimed, the press release says. The complaint also alleges that the defendants violated the FDCA by failing to manufacture its products in accordance with FDA regulations for dietary supplements.

The products in question included ADD-East, Bone Structure, CilZinCo, Calcium, Boron, Potassium, Cilver, Sulfure and Geranium.

In conjunction with the filing of the complaint, the companies agreed to settle the litigation, and to cease all production and distribution of the supplements in question. The companies would be able to resume manufacturing the supplements with written approval from the FDA.

The complaint is currently awaiting judicial approval.

Read or Share this story: http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/2017/02/16/lafayette-business-accused-selling-misbranded-dietary-supplements/97997352/

Here is the original post:

Lafayette business accused of selling misbranded dietary ... - The Daily Advertiser

In the age of surveillance, what do any of us have left to hide? – Irish Times

Posted on by

Emily Watson in Apple Tree Yard: One of the most fascinating things . . . is her preoccupation with being witnessed. You made me feel important, she tells her lover, and her unimportance seems a persistent fear.

Sting has a tale. The man who wrote Every Breath You Take, the stalker anthem with an appropriately arresting melody, was alarmed to discover that it had become a staple of wedding celebrations.

Written during the acrimonious break-up of his first marriage and recorded by a bitterly fractious band, its lyrics had been directly influenced by Big Brother, the figure who is always watching you in George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four. An eager couple once told The Police man that the song had provided them with their first dance. Well, good luck, Sting muttered.

Maybe they didnt need it. To judge from popular culture, they may have been ahead of the curve. It has taken the best part of two decades, but as the concept of privacy has steadily eroded, from Patriot Acts to social media, the idea of surveillance has shifted from a deep intrusion towards something more like a personal validation. Someones watching you.

It was possible to look at Apple Tree Yard, the BBCs recent adaptation of Louise Doughtys novel, in a number of ways: adulterous thriller, revenge tragedy, finger-wagging morality tale. Still, its most consistent theme is that of a pathologically secretive couple who, underneath it all, were begging to be noticed.

Affairs are cliched devices in television drama, and Apple Tree Yard was aware of heavily trodden paths, as a middle-aged couple a scientist and a security spook found thrills in broom-cupboard trysts, untraceable phones and fumblings in sheltered alleyway. Even as the plot darkened considerably, it remained a parable about privacy and publicity.

The affair begins impulsively (and pointedly) in an underground chapel in the bowels of Westminster, where the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison once hid herself away in a defiant gesture for womens liberation. Davison famously met her demise under the galloping hooves of King George Vs horse, and writer Doughty invites a mocking comparison with her modern inheritor: We can sleep with whomever we like, the books protagonist reflects on Davisons legacy. We are safe, surely. Do they want to be caught?

One of the most fascinating things about Emily Watsons scientist is her preoccupation with being witnessed. You made me feel important, she tells her lover, and her unimportance seems a persistent fear.

Even her decision not to report her brutal rape at the hands of a colleague is partly bound up with it: She was the first scientist to qualify the Wedekind experiment. (Another sly joke: Frank Wedekind, a German playwright, was a scold of the bourgeoisie.) She now worries that she will be known only as a victim, as though her ultimate humiliation will be at the end of a Google search.

The laneway from which the drama takes its title is more significant: another apple tree marking a point of discovery, like the first couple whose eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. Londons so-called ring of steel is a kind of coiling serpent, and so another couple, wary of being watched but finally worried they will never be witnessed, are caught with their pants down.

There is also some security in being monitored in Enda Walshs play Arlington, which has just transferred to the Abbey Theatre in Landmark and Galway International Arts Festivals production. It is, like most of Walshs work, a depiction of an eternally confined space. This one, a bland, cavernous waiting room overlooked by CCTV cameras, is an oddly sustaining prison.

Isla (Charlie Murphy), the young woman who has been kept here alone since childhood, has grown accustomed to her captor, a good listener. I thought we had got close, she tells the new guy (Hugh OConor), a nervy sudden replacement. The world outside seems apocalyptic, but Isla has a kind of power under surveillance: shes worth watching. She imparts stories down a microphone, or relates her dreams, which are recorded in a cluttered office and sometimes accompanied with music and visuals.

These dreams, Isla has been told, are being made for her beyond the towers. This may be a ruse, but it gives Isla and her audience a more recognisable fantasy: even in this disintegrating, disordered world, she matters.

Last year, the musician Anohni played with a similar idea, making a rapturous fetish out of surveillance culture in the song Watch Me, addressing the NSA, or whomever, with a mock coquettish chant of Daddy!: I know you love me because youre always watching me. True, it is unlikely to feature in many weddings, but it nailed the zeitgeist. If you cant resist surveillance culture, the next best response is an ironic submission.

Just ask someone under 30. To be young today is to be constantly hounded for personal data in exchange for trinkets and services. Its not that they dont know about privacy issues, a lecturer friend told me recently. Its just that they dont care.

To see Nineteen Eighty-Four return to the best-sellers list in these early days of the Trump era might beckon a readjustment of those individual privacy settings. But in the age of Gogglebox, Orwells dark ideas about telescreens, receiving as they transmit, may strike new readers as positively quaint.

There was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment, goes the dystopian classic, so you just assumed every sound you made was overheard . . . every movement scrutinized.

You dont need to be Edward Snowden to find that prescient. But Orwell didnt anticipate the complicity of such a narcissistic age. Why wouldnt someone want to watch us? What do we have left to hide?

Follow this link:

In the age of surveillance, what do any of us have left to hide? - Irish Times

TigerText Unveils Role-based Scheduling Automation, Amazon Alexa integration – HIT Consultant

Posted on by

Thought you might find this interesting

TigerText, a provider of clinical communication solutions for the healthcare industry has unveiled role-based scheduling automation that dynamically populates role assignments and user profiles within the TigerText messaging app in an elegant, highly intuitive way.Role-based Scheduling Automationwas developed in tight coordination with TigerText client feedback and refined through rounds of interviews, marketplace research, and user testing.Because the app leverages data from popular scheduling systems such as Amion, role owners are always accurately reflected in TigerText, even during shift changes.

Expediting Communication Workflows

By automating shift assignments and merging the functionality with TigerText, care team members can now find and reach the right care provider on shift with minimal information or effort, as well as view all scheduling data in real-time through the TigerText app, enabling improved care coordination and faster shift transitions and patient handoffs.

Rolesdisplays shift information in a user-friendly, functional interface that provides instant visibility into current and future role owners, making these calendars accessible to any TigerText user within an organization. Role owners also receive an automated push notification whenever a shift change occurs and have the option to manually opt in or out of a role, as needs dictate.

Users can also be assigned multiple roles with each role indicated in the calendar view.Rolesincludes full administrative control, giving IT the power to set permissions and policies that limit or block a user from swapping shifts or changing the schedule. Messages sent to a particular role are routed seamlessly, and conversations that took place under the current role owner will be inherited by the next shift owner, providing full context of what took place prior and helping ensure continuity of care.

Amazon Alexa integration

Too often, nurse calls ricochet from a unit secretary to a floor nurse and finally to the correct department or team member, wasting cycles and delaying patient care. To illustrate the power and extensibility of Role-based Scheduling Automation, TigerText demoed howRolescan leverage the Amazon Echo to create an out of the box voice-activated nurse call solution.Voice-activation is a powerful example for patients who may not be physically able to press a nurse call button on their own but need help.

Through this integration, patients can verbally call for a nurse, request bathroom assistance, express meal preferences, and more all from the bedside by simply asking Alexa. The system even provides verbal confirmation for patient requests along with a time estimate for completion. Behind the scenes, the request is instantly and intelligently routed as a TigerText message to the appropriate care team Role owner in a single step, expediting fulfillment and minimizing staff interruptions.And the benefits are not just for patients clinical staff can request vital signs, language translations, MRIs, and more knowing the information will be instantly available on their smartphone through TigerText.

Rolesrepresents a pivotal development in our product roadmap, said Brad Brooks, co-founder and CEO of TigerText in a statement. Healthcare workflow is incredibly complex due to the shift-based nature of the workforce. By automating shift assignments and merging the functionality with TigerText, we help solve a fundamental challenge among healthcare staff of being able to reach the right person at the right time without actually knowing the persons name. And as weve shown with our integration to the (Amazon) Echo via our TigerConnect API,Rolesopens up a world of possibilities for applying the functionality and aligns with our mission to dramatically improve workflow efficiency in healthcare.

Here is the original post:

TigerText Unveils Role-based Scheduling Automation, Amazon Alexa integration - HIT Consultant

Editorial: Improving automation – The Motorship

Posted on by

16 Feb 2017

Ship owners have traditionally paid scant regard for the automation basics that will enable technology-driven gains

Ship operators must strengthen their focus on automation basics if they are to reap the rewards of technological advances, writes The Motorship editor Gavin Lipsith.

How much care do shipowners generally give to automation? It speaks volumes that one company, giving a checklist to owners before they consult with ship designers on a new vessel, offers such basic advice as keep spare batteries onboard. It seems obvious, but if the battery of a programmable logic controller in your propeller control unit dies, a blackout could leave a ship immobilised until software is reinstalled and parameters are reset.

Owners can specify equipment down to component level, choosing cargo pumps by brand, for example. But rarely will they specify that pump controls should play nicely with their power management systems. So its no surprise that shipyards too can view automation, and how onboard systems will be integrated, as an afterthought.

Its a view that must change as automation encompasses ever greater spheres of ship operations. The engine cannot today be viewed in isolation from its electronic controls or power management. Those connections will become more important as ship owners consider multi-fuel operation. Managing loads between fuel cells, solar panels, batteries and diesel gensets, for example, will make properly integrated automation critical.

A more considered approach will also be vital to reaping the benefits of big data analytics. More and more companies are offering industrial internet platforms enabling operators to mine sensor data for insights to improve vessel efficiency and fleet profitability. Large liners and cruise operators, including Maersk and Carnival Corp, are already doing so. Predictive maintenance is a worthy goal. But the long-term view is much deeper.

Data analytics will redefine the way ships are built. Layering real-time and historic sensor information over digital ship models will allow unprecedented insight into how vessels behave. According to Knut rbeck-Nilssen, CEO of DNV GL Maritime, speaking at the launch of the class societys own industrial internet platform Veracity, the established development cycle of class rules status quo, incident, refinement will be dramatically accelerated.

Ultimately the way rules are made will need to adapt, allowing greater flexibility in ship design as data draw a more complete virtual model of vessels. Recent moves towards goal-based rather than prescriptive rules are a first step in this direction.

Its a view of the future that promises to be both challenging and rewarding. But without a more disciplined approach to automation ship owners and operators will not maximise their returns from these advances.

See the article here:

Editorial: Improving automation - The Motorship

Uncomfortable truths: The role of slavery and the slave trade in building northern wealth – Daily Kos

Posted on by

It never ceases to amazethat even students who use our school library on an everyday basis, when asked for their thoughts about slavery, immediately mention the South and the Civil War. Those who are not bIack see no connection between their present and our past. If they mention the North at all, it is as the destination point for escape from the South via the Underground Railroad. They cite Harriet Tubmanor the place from which former slaves waged mighty abolitionist battles, like those spearheaded byFrederick Douglass (dont get me started on current White House occupants ignorance on Douglass). A few mention ancestors who fought in the Civil Warfor the Union. This lopsided view of American history colors current day discussions of race and racism with too much finger-pointing only at the South and white southerners. It is rare to hear discourse on northern culpability. This oversight encourages a disassociation with white privilege benefits reaped by northerners who can say, but but my family came here after slavery was over, or my ancestors didnt own slaves.

Racism is not regional and the enslavement legacy inherited from the time of the founding of our country affectsall of us in the U.S., no matter our color, location,or date of immigration.

Last summer my husband and I paid a visit to Shelter Island, New York, and the dear friend we were visiting, who knows our deep interest in all things relating to black history, took us for a short drive to visit Sylvester Manor. The site is the subject of The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island,by Mac Griswold. It was a very emotional experience for me, especially seeing the large rock in the slave burial groundtopped with pebbles, placed there by people who have come to that spot to honor the spirits of the dead.

When you hear Long Island mentioned, its doubtful you associate it with slavery and the triangle trade.Yetthis is a major part of our history.

Mac Griswold's The Manor is the biography of a uniquely American place that has endured through wars great and small, through fortunes won and lost, through histories bright and sinisterand of the family that has lived there since its founding as a Colonial New England slave plantation three and a half centuries ago. In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that largetwelve feet tall, fifteen feet widehad to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for eleven generations. Formerly encompassing all of Shelter Island, New York, a pearl of 8,000 acres caught between the North and South Forks of Long Island, the manor had dwindled to 243 acres. Still, its hidden vault proved to be full of revelations and treasures, including the 1666 charter for the land, and correspondence from Thomas Jefferson. Most notable was the short and steep flight of steps the family had called the "slave staircase," which would provide clues to the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery. Alongside a team of archaeologists, Griswold began a dig that would uncover a landscape bursting with stories. Based on years of archival and field research, as well as voyages to Africa, the West Indies, and Europe, The Manor is at once an investigation into forgotten lives and a sweeping drama that captures our history in all its richness and suffering. It is a monumental achievement.

New York University is now the home of an extensive Sylvester Manor archive, and the grounds and graves are a site of archaeological research.

There are thought to be up to 200 graves on the grounds, the final resting place of Manhansett Indians, enslaved Africans, and European indentured servants, who helped to supply food, timber, and materials to the West Indies including supplies for the Sylvester family sugar plantations in Barbados as part of the colonial triangle trade, in which slaves were bought on the African Gold Coast with New England rum and then traded in the West Indies for sugar or molasses, which was brought back to New England to be manufactured into rum.

An article entitledThe House that Slavery Builtexplains how anestate near the Hamptons used to be one of the largest slave-owning plantations in the North.

Northern plantations differed from those in the South in treatment of the African-born slave population. Slaves didn't live in quarters, as in the South, but in the houses of their captors, meaning that normal privacy and family life didn't exist, Griswold said. Also, as they weren't part of an immense agricultural system growing staple crops such as cotton, rice, and indigo, many were highly skilled and were hired out to other whites at slack times on their own plantations, which we can really think of as large family farms. They worked alongside their owners and with indentured servants and wage laborers, but of course the pay-out for those other workers in eventual freedom or in wages didn't exist for slaves, or for their children, for many generations.

The Manhassets, who were native to the region, were also enslaved, but more informally, Griswold said. Their wages were paid in alcohol (rum from Barbados) and goods such as kettles and blankets. Although a law was passed in 1676 in New York forbidding the enslavement of Indians, Indian slaves were often handed down as property in family wills. Others were indentured servants, like Isaac Pharaoh, a Montaukett Indian whose indenture papers Griswold found in the vault at the manor house. Esther Pharoah, Isaac's mother, signs her son away, Griswold tells me, of his own free will at the age of 5 years.

A boulder carved in 1884 marks the cemetery where Isaac Pharaoh, Julia Johnson, and some 200 others lie. The people laid to rest there were part of a society that rejected them as full human beings, Griswold writes. But as they lie here, unmarked, they are also vividly present. The Manor is a step toward restoring these once-forgotten souls to a place in our shared history.

Sylvester Manor was not the only enslavement site on Long Island, as detailed in Confronting Slavery at Long Islands Oldest Estates.

New York Citys slave market was second in size only to Charlestons. Even after the Revolution, New York was the most significant slaveholding state north of the Mason-Dixon line. In 1790, nearly 40 percent of households in the area immediately around New York City owned slaves a greater percentage than in any Southern state as a whole, according to one study.

In contrast to the image of large gangs working in cotton fields before retiring to a row of cabins, slaveholdings in New York State were small, with the enslaved often living singly or in small groups, working alongside and sleeping in the same houses as their owners. Privacy was scant, and in contrast to any notion of a less severe Northern slavery, the historical record is full of accounts of harsh punishments for misbehavior. Slavery in the North was different, but I dont think it was any easier, Mr. McGill said. The enslaved were a lot more scrutinized in those places, a lot more restricted. That would have been very tough to endure.

Slavery in Southampton, the oldest English settlement in New York, dates almost to its founding in the 1640s. A slave and Indian uprising burned many buildings in the 1650s. Census records show that by 1686, roughly 10 percent of the villages nearly 800 inhabitants were slaves, many of whom helped work the rich agricultural land. But this is not a part of its history that the town, better known for its spectacular beach and staggeringly expensive real estate, has been eager to embrace. I think for a while a lot of people didnt know or didnt want to acknowledge there were slaves out here, said Brenda Simmons, executive director of the Southampton African-American Museum, which plans to open in an old barbershop the villages first designated African-American landmark on North Sea Road. Mr. McGills visit, she said, will help confirm the truth of the matter.

In the past Ive written about the enslaved Africans who built Wall Street in New York City, and about the African Burial Ground. Heading further upstate New York to Albany, we find enslavement history from the time it was settled.

Albany's long, neglected history of slavery

Here is a statistic that might shock you. In 1790, there were 217 households in Albany County that owned five or more slaves of African descent, a portion of the county's 3,722 slaves, the most of any county among New York state's 21,193 slaves counted in that year's census.

History textbooks and conventional wisdom tend to relegate slavery as an issue of the Southern states, a shameful narrative bracketed by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the grim toll of the Civil War.

But new research at the State Museum and an exhibit at Fort Crailo, a state historic site in Rensselaer, titled "A Dishonorable Trade: Human Trafficking in the Dutch Atlantic World," is bringing slavery out of the shadows and directly onto the front stoops of Albany across three centuries.

I have both enslaved people and slave owners in my family tree. Though Ive had success tracing my enslaved ancestors in the South,it was only in more recent years I uncovered both a slave owner,Jacobus Bradt, from Schenectady, New York, who owned sevenslaves in the 1790 census in my tree, and an extended family legacy of enslavement in Chester County, Pennsylvania. It was during the time of my genealogical research that I discovered a website that I have returned to frequently and often link to in response to those who still only look southward. Douglas Harper has compiled an extensive body of data on his website Slavery in the North. There is so much on his site I hardly know where to begin to quote from it. Heres a segment of Profits from Slavery.

On the eve of the Revolution, the slave trade formed the very basis of the economic life of New England. It wove itself into the entire regional economy of New England. The Massachusetts slave trade gave work to coopers, tanners, sailmakers, and ropemakers. Countless agents, insurers, lawyers, clerks, and scriveners handled the paperwork for slave merchants. Upper New England loggers, Grand Banks fishermen, and livestock farmers provided the raw materials shipped to the West Indies on that leg of the slave trade. Colonial newspapers drew much of their income from advertisements of slaves for sale or hire. New England-made rum, trinkets, and bar iron were exchanged for slaves. When the British in 1763 proposed a tax on sugar and molasses, Massachusetts merchants pointed out that these were staples of the slave trade, and the loss of that would throw 5,000 seamen out of work in the colony and idle almost 700 ships. The connection between molasses and the slave trade was rum. Millions of gallons of cheap rum, manufactured in New England, went to Africa and bought black people. Tiny Rhode Island had more than 30 distilleries, 22 of them in Newport. In Massachusetts, 63 distilleries produced 2.7 million gallons of rum in 1774. Some was for local use: rum was ubiquitous in lumber camps and on fishing ships. But primarily rum was linked with the Negro trade, and immense quantities of the raw liquor were sent to Africa and exchanged for slaves. So important was rum on the Guinea Coast that by 1723 it had surpassed French and Holland brandy, English gin, trinkets and dry goods as a medium of barter. Slaves costing the equivalent of 4 or 5 in rum or bar iron in West Africa were sold in the West Indies in 1746 for 30 to 80. New England thrift made the rum cheaply -- production cost was as low as 5 pence a gallon -- and the same spirit of Yankee thrift discovered that the slave ships were most economical with only 3 feet 3 inches of vertical space to a deck and 13 inches of surface area per slave, the human cargo laid in carefully like spoons in a silverware case.

A list of the leading slave merchants is almost identical with a list of the region's prominent families: the Fanueils, Royalls, and Cabots of Massachusetts; the Wantons, Browns, and Champlins of Rhode Island; the Whipples of New Hampshire; the Eastons of Connecticut; Willing & Morris of Philadelphia. To this day, it's difficult to find an old North institution of any antiquity that isn't tainted by slavery. Ezra Stiles imported slaves while president of Yale. Six slave merchants served as mayor of Philadelphia. Even a liberal bastion like Brown University has the shameful blot on its escutcheon. It is named for the Brown brothers, Nicholas, John, Joseph, and Moses, manufacturers and traders who shipped salt, lumber, meat -- and slaves. And like many business families of the time, the Browns had indirect connections to slavery via rum distilling. John Brown, who paid half the cost of the college's first library, became the first Rhode Islander prosecuted under the federal Slave Trade Act of 1794 and had to forfeit his slave ship. Historical evidence also indicates that slaves were used at the family's candle factory in Providence, its ironworks in Scituate, and to build Brown's University Hall.

One of those leading families andtheir wealth from slaving is documented in Traces of the Trade. I recommend it as a must see for anyone who has an interest in this history.

In Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, one family's painful but persistent confrontation with the continuing legacy of the slave trade becomes America's. Katrina Browne uncovers her New England family's deep involvement in the Triangle Trade and, in so doing, reveals the pivotal role slavery played in the growth of the whole American economy. This courageous documentary asks every American what we can and should do to repair the unacknowledged damage of our troubled past.

Katrina Browne was shocked to discover that her Rhode Island forebears had been the largest slave-trading dynasty in American history. For two hundred years, the DeWolfs were distinguished public servants, respected merchants and prominent Episcopal clerics, yet their privilege was founded on a sordid secret. Once she started digging, Browne found the evidence everywhere, in ledgers, ships logs, letters, even a family nursery rhyme. Between 1769 and 1820, DeWolf ships carried rum from Bristol, Rhode Island to West Africa where it was traded for over 10,000 enslaved Africans. They transported this human cargo across the Middle Passage to slave markets from Havana to Charleston and beyond, as well as to the family's sugar plantations in Cuba. The ships returned from the Caribbean with sugar and molasses to be turned into rum at the family distilleries, starting the cycle again.

This film explains how the New England slave trade supported not just its merchants but banks, insurers, shipbuilders, outfitters and provisioners, rich and poor. Ordinary citizens bought shares in slave ships. Northern textile mills spun cotton picked by slaves, fueling the Industrial Revolution, and creating the economy that attracted generations of immigrants. It was no secret; John Quincy Adams, sixth president, noted dryly that independence had been built on the sugar and molasses produced with slave labor. Traces of the Trade decisively refutes the widely-accepted myth that only the South profited from America's "peculiar institution."

The website for the film includes a wealth of instructional materials. One I use frequently is Myths About Slavery. Heres thePDF:

Contrary to popular belief:

A companion to the film is the book by one of the descendants who went on the journey titledInheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, by Thomas Norman DeWolf.

In 2001, at forty-seven, Thomas DeWolf was astounded to discover that he was related to the most successful slave-trading family in American history, responsible for transporting at least 10,000 Africans to the Americas. His infamous ancestor, U.S. senator James DeWolf of Bristol, Rhode Island, curried favor with President Thomas Jefferson to continue in the trade after it was outlawed. When James DeWolf died in 1837, he was the second-richest man in America. When Katrina Browne, Thomas DeWolfs cousin, learned about their familys history, she resolved to confront it head-on, producing and directing a documentary feature film, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. The film is an official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Inheriting the Trade is Tom DeWolfs powerful and disarmingly honest memoir of the journey in which ten family members retraced the steps of their ancestors and uncovered the hidden history of New England and the other northern states.Their journey through the notorious Triangle Trade-from New England to West Africa to Cuba-proved life-altering, forcing DeWolf to face the horrors of slavery directly for the first time. It also inspired him to contend with the complicated legacy that continues to affect black and white Americans, Africans, and Cubans today.

Inheriting the Trade reveals that the Norths involvement in slavery was as common as the Souths. Not only were black people enslaved in the North for over two hundred years, but the vast majority of all slave trading in America was done by northerners. Remarkably, half of all North American voyages involved in the slave trade originated in Rhode Island, and all the northern states benefited. With searing candor, DeWolf tackles both the internal and external challenges of his journey-writing frankly about feelings of shame, white male privilege, the complicity of churches, Americas historic amnesia regarding slavery-and our nations desperate need for healing. An urgent call for meaningful and honest dialogue, Inheriting the Trade illuminates a path toward a more hopeful future and provides a persuasive argument that the legacy of slavery isnt merely a southern issue but an enduring American one.

Sojourner Truth is quoted as having said Truth is powerful and it prevails.

Some of those truths may make us uncomfortable. From my perspective, it is better to march forward with the truth, comfortable or not, than to be drowned and silenced in a swamp of lies and alternative facts.

Follow this link:

Uncomfortable truths: The role of slavery and the slave trade in building northern wealth - Daily Kos

The truth about Ivanka’s Trumped-up, me-first feminism – Macleans.ca

Posted on by

From left, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump, and TransAlta CEO Dawn Farrell listen during a meeting with women business leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. (Evan Vucci/AP/CP)

This post originally appeared on Chatelaine

As many predicted, the first in-person meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump was heavy with expectation and light on substance. They shook hands for the cameras (Trudeau deftly avoiding Trumps trademark grip-and-tug), sidestepped tricky questions at their press conference and called the day a success.

One of the most hyped set-pieces was a roundtable to launch the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The group of CEOs and entrepreneurs intends to promote women-owned businesses and focus on ensuring women enter and stay in the workforce to address barriers facing female entrepreneurs. Its members include: GE Canada CEOElyse Allan, T&T Supermarkets Tina Lee and Canadian foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland. Leading the charge for the brain trust was Trumps daughter Ivanka, one of his closest confidantes in business and in politics.

The idea for the council reportedly came from Trudeaus chief of staff Katie Telford, perhaps as a diplomatic sop and a tactful distraction from awkward subjects (the Muslim ban, the pussy grabbing, the U.S. refugees seeking sanctuary in Canada). It was savvy on Telfords part to reach out to Ivanka, whose pet cause is working mothers. And next to Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women, our avowedly feminist PM looked all the more suave and progressive by comparison a sleek, bilingual, woke James Bond to Trumps belligerent, malevolent Auric Goldfinger.

MORE:The most chilling image from the Trudeau-Trump visit

No disrespect to the female business leaders involved, but its unlikely anything will be achieved by their efforts other than a general you-go-girl-boosterism for those who fly First Class. The barriers to womens professional advancement are hardly a secret. White-collar women are held back by deeply held gender biases; by inadequate childcare and family support; and by terrible maternity leave policies. Blue-collar women are affected by all these things to an even greater degree, as well as by job insecurity and stagnant minimum wages.

But even if this council wants to enact changes, the biggest barrier they have is the man who hosted them: Donald Trump. The U.S. president has hurled personal, mean-spirited attacks on professional women like Hillary Clinton, Carly Fiorina and Megyn Kelly. He divorced his first wife because she was too busy working. (Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. If youre in business for yourself, I really think its a bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana, he said back in a 1994 interview). And of his current marriage to Melania, hes said, Ill supply funds and shell take care of the kids.His cabinet and senior staff are overwhelmingly white and male.

In fact, the only female CEO who stands to gain at all from this council is Ivanka Trump, and not just because she couldnt stop swooning in her seat beside Trudeau. The councils launch conveniently teases the publication of her upcoming book Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success. Taking a cue from Taylor Swift, Ivanka seems to be assembling a cross-border squad of lady powerhouses to bolster her own reputation.

Like everyone else named Trump, Ivanka has used her fathers presidential campaign and election as a brand-boosting exercise. After she appeared on 60 Minutes in November following her fathers election, her team sent out a press release shilling the bracelet that she wore from her own jewelry line during the interview. Her lifestyle site Women Who Work offers bland platitudes about multitasking while promoting Ivanka Trump clothing, accessories and housewares. Theres plenty of me-first personal empowerment chatter but zero consideration of issues like sexual harassment in the workplace or the wage gap. The nannies and caregivers who ease the burdens of wealthy women like Ivanka are invisible and no mention is made of the fact that the contractor who designs and distributes her clothing line doesnt offer its employees a single day of paid maternity leave.

And all the while her father has denigrated women and threatened reproductive rights, shes acted as his chief apologist, using her Career Girl meets Everymom appeal to soften his misogynist edges. Shes often taken on the responsibilities usually given to a First Lady or candidates wife, including introducing him at the Republican convention, where she called her father a feminist. It was a statement as rich and ridiculous as her calling herself an entrepreneur, a title that suggests someone who has had to work hard and take bold, risky chances. Born into extraordinary privilege, hired into the family business and married to a man who inherited a fortune, Ivanka Trump has never had to take a real financial risk in her life. Which is why her exploitation of feminism is so grotesque as writer Jill Filipovic says, shes a kind of post-feminist huckster, selling us traditional femininity and support of male power wrapped up in a feminist bow.

Increasingly, though, women arent buying Ivanka Trumps fake feminism or her shoes and purses, for that matter. Over the past few weeks, several retailers, including high-end Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as budget-friendly Sears and Kmart have dropped Ivanka Trumps clothing, jewelry and housewares lines. The stores have merely said the products havent been performing well, but credit is certainly due in large part to #GrabYourWallet, a mass boycott of Trump family businesses launched by two women protesting Donald Trumps sexism.

And some female entrepreneurs, with whom shes eager to align herself, arent having any of her, either. Anne M. Mahlum is the CEO of the hugely successful Washington, D.C. chain of Solidcoregyms. When she found out that Ivanka Trump had worked out at one of her locations, Mahlum called her out on Facebook and demanded a meeting. She wants her gym to be inclusive and safe and wondered if Ivankas presence might upset people, given her fathers anti-women and anti-Muslim policies. Her father is threatening the rights of many of my beloved clients and coaches, Mahlum wrote, and as a business owner, I take my responsibility to protect and fight for my people very seriously.

Ivanka might be hoping to skirt further criticism of her and her fathers shady practices by championing women in business. Shes not wrong in thinking that feminism is powerful. Shes just underestimated what can happen when that power is turned against her.

View post:

The truth about Ivanka's Trumped-up, me-first feminism - Macleans.ca

The Vagina Monologues Grabs Back Female Empowerment – The Stanford Daily

Posted on by

Call it pooki, dee dee, coochi snorter, Mimi in Miami, or simply just a vagina. No matter how you say it, you are unearthing a very controversial, often unspoken subject. The alternative, euphemistic names used to describe female genitalia range from funny, to pejorative, to downright uncomfortable; the same can be said about the individual feminist stories which make up Eve Enslers The Vagina Monologues, presented by the Stanford Womens Coalition, and playing tonight at 8 p.m. in Paul Brest Hall.

Despite its peculiar name, The Vagina Monologues is very raw, very real and it speaks more about female empowerment than about the vaginas themselves. First performed in 1996, the show is still performed every year, at Stanford and at many universities across the country, largely because of its unique depiction of the plight of women. This episodic feminist theater piece not only creates more diverse roles for female actors on the theatrical stage, but it also initiates social and political dialogue on the global stage. Its political content is so highly regarded that in 2006, The New York Times called the play probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade.

The Vagina Monologues features a series of monologues pieced together from interviews of real life women. While the interview questions were the same, i.e.If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear? and If your vagina could talk, what would it say?, the responses were decidedly different, producing highly personal narratives about sexual embarrassment and discovering what it means to be a woman.

The Stanford Womens Coalitions production of The Vagina Monologues captures these personal narratives with a powerful sense of intimacy and unity. Their decision to perform this piece in the round allows a certain closeness with the audience, inviting them to view the characters and the stories from all sides. The all-black costume color scheme, in addition, creates a sense of uniformity and unity. Yet, because each actress wears a different clothing style, from a short black skirt to pants and a crop top, there is still a keen sense of individuality for each character. The costumes are in themselves exemplary of the female experience: while not every woman encounters the world in the same way, there is something which brings them together to form their collective identity.

However, this feminine identity is not restricted to just those who have a vagina, as the monologue, They Beat the Girl out of My BoyOr So They Tried, definitively demonstrates. This speech was a new addition to the play, incorporated into the play in 2005 and written from the perspective of trans women. It is considered to be an optional addendum to the show, but The Stanford Womens Coalition chooses to perform the piece because of its inclusive definition regarding what it means to be a woman. In the past, The Vagina Monologues has been criticized for its narrow definition of womanhood, but the new piece makes use of a more all-encompassing definition of female identity.

The show has also been criticized for its negative portrayal of heterosexual relationships. The men described in this show are often painted as aggressors, rapists, perpetrators, or simply enemies of women. However, this may merely be an attempt to give words to the often unspeakable, violent struggles which women face in Western patriarchal society. Additionally, it is not as if every story paints men in a negative light. Because He Liked to Look at It, another piece within the production, describes a positive male-female sexual encounter. In Stanfords production, Cindy Niu gives life to this story, smiling and gazing afar as she recounts how her partners praise and admiration allows her to see the beauty and power that she has within herself.

While the content of these narratives has the potential to soar into the overdramatic, the cast adeptly balances the seriousness of the show with lighthearted comedic timing. In a piece called The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy, Grace Wallis sits in a plain chair and outrageously reenacts different types of female orgasms. She extends beyond a When-Harry-Met-Sally type of performative scene, exhibiting high-pitched screams and guttural moans as she contorts her face into what looks to be a combination of both pain and pleasure.

Its no secret that this show may provoke some unease within its audiences. Speaking the unspeakable often produces that effect. But this element of viewer discomfort proves the shows efficacy in reaching its audiences in tangible ways. I myself have seen the show before, and yet, I am still surprised by the honest details of each narrative the shame of a car hookup gone wrong, the excitement of a first orgasm. It is as if I, too, am experiencing the horror, the pride, the self-discovery of each character. Yes, the stories presented are real, but more than that, they feel real, and this can be attributed to the personalized delivery of each monologue, whether it be through the small steps of an older woman or the clenched fists of an indignant young girl who longs to find happiness within her body. Perhaps this personalization, this theatrical honesty, is what makes the show so powerful, so beloved by both men and women alike.

Put simply, The Vagina Monologues challenges our conventional viewpoints about femininity and call upon us to address and take action against the negative stereotypes and violent wrongdoings which pervade womens lives. The unity displayed by the actresses of this show is one that can be admired and replicated in our society at large. Stanfords performance is extremely timely given our current political climate. Women across the country proved their unity at the Womens Marches earlier this year, and they will continue to prove their solidarity in the future. Now, more than ever, in the era of Trump, we are called upon to protect and demonstrate this unity for generations to come. Contact Alli Cruz at allicruz at stanford.edu.

View original post here:

The Vagina Monologues Grabs Back Female Empowerment - The Stanford Daily

Rheinmetall, Raytheon to cooperate in defence technology – Reuters

Posted on by

FRANKFURT German and U.S. defence groups Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE) and Raytheon (RTN.N) have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate globally on defence technology, they said in a joint statement on Friday.

The partnership should bring together Raytheon's market-leading position in air-defence systems and guided missiles with Rheinmetall's expertise in combat and defence systems, army weapons and munitions, they said.

Raytheon is looking to expand in Europe, with missile bids in Poland and Germany, and wants to take part in an anticipated buildup of spending by NATO.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned NATO allies they must honour military spending pledges to ensure the United States does not "moderate" support for the alliance.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Munich; Editing by Maria Sheahan)

TOKYO S&P Global Inc said in a report on Friday it could cut its rating of Toshiba Corp credit by several notches should the Japanese firm receive financial support that includes debt restructuring, sending Toshiba stock down 9 percent.

SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision on Thursday of his company serving as a bulwark against rising isolationism, writing in a letter to users that the company's platform could be the "social infrastructure" for the globe.

MUMBAI Apple Inc will in the coming months start assembling its lower-priced iPhone SE models at a contract manufacturer's plant in the southern Indian technology hub of Bengaluru, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

See the original post here:

Rheinmetall, Raytheon to cooperate in defence technology - Reuters

Look to Jalisco for technology partners – San Francisco Chronicle

Posted on by

Photo: Reed Saxon, Associated Press

Signs in Spanish and English, and the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, are seen at the Jalisco Market on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in East Los Angeles.(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Signs in Spanish and English, and the Virgin of Guadalupe, the...

Great gains in the tech sector are a direct result of the ability to employ a bright, vibrant, diverse and skilled workforce. But today, our colleagues at U.S. technology companies in San Francisco and elsewhere are adjusting to federal policy changes that could affect nearly 85,000 foreign workers. These restrictions on U.S. entry hinder access to the best and brightest talent and threaten technological achievement in the United States and across the Americas.

The Mexican state of Jalisco understands your concerns and stands ready to work with you.

Those on the front lines of tech innovation must protect all that has enabled leaps and advancement in the industry. Jalisco, one of Mexicos technology hubs, welcomes talent from around the world, and is eager to work directly with U.S. tech companies to ensure that the pathway to innovation gains remains open an achievement of which the Americas can be proud.

We offer our U.S. counterparts an opportunity to collaborate and forge partnerships with tech companies in Jalisco. Through the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has a well-defined framework of legal and intellectual property protections. We extend this offer to you and your partners with no discrimination of origin, religion or legal status.

Jalisco was once known only as the birthplace of hot sauce and Tequila. Today, the state is undergoing an economic revolution. It has become a digital creative center with a thriving technology industry worth $21 billion.

With a population of nearly 8 million people, Jalisco boasts a range of cultures, religions, ethnicities and languages. The state offers an enviable quality of life in a community that is enriched thanks to the diversity of our people. Guadalajara, Jaliscos capital, is a business and tourism travel destination with direct flights just hours from major U.S. tech hubs including San Francisco, San Jose, and Austin, Texas.

We also are proud of our homegrown talent. Each year, 10,000 engineering graduates, from Jaliscos 25 universities and 62 technical institutes, enter the states high-tech workforce.

Jalisco is also a breeding ground for 400 tech startups, with expertise in virtual reality, augmented reality, 3-D printing, data analysis, robotics, drone labs, cognitive computing, cloud computing, cybersecurity and open-source developers. Jalisco exports consumer and industrial products and services to 25 countries around the globe.

The worlds technology giants know that to stay competitive, they must not only attract and retain the best talent, but also foster productive, innovative partnerships. We believe that a healthy economic and sustainable technological future requires expanded thinking and open doors. It also requires a diverse workforce with the skills to bring cutting-edge ideas to life.

Jalisco looks forward to supporting U.S. tech companies and forging prosperous and exciting business ventures together. Los esperamos!

Aristteles Sandoval Daz is a Mexican politician. He has been governor of the state of Jalisco since 2013.

View original post here:

Look to Jalisco for technology partners - San Francisco Chronicle

Trucks will talk to each other using Peloton Technology – TechCrunch

Posted on by

TechCrunch
Trucks will talk to each other using Peloton Technology
TechCrunch
Many studies have been done on the potential effects of semi trucks being able to travel in platoons. It could be more fuel-efficient, it could be safer, it could be easier on the drivers. And now, it could be coming to a highway near you. Peloton ...
Peloton, Omnitracs partner on truck 'platooning' technologyReuters

all 11 news articles »

Read more from the original source:

Trucks will talk to each other using Peloton Technology - TechCrunch

Coal Intelligent Technology recruitment firm ceases trading – The Register

Posted on by

Contractors and employees at recruitment firm Coal Intelligent Technology may be left out of pocket after the company ceased trading yesterday.

A letter from the administrator to contractors seen by the The Register, said the company went into administration on 10 February.

It said: "The Administrator is unable to say for sure that you will be paid for the work done for the company prior to the appointment."

One contractor got in touch to say they could lose two months of invoices as a result. "This is the first time it has happened to me in 16 years of contracting."

The Register understands Coal had around 60 contractors on its books before going into administration. A number of full-time employees are also thought to be significantly affected by the administration.

A further letter sent on 15 February, said that despite efforts to do so, the administrator "has not been able to complete a sale of the companys business and assets as a going concern and the Company has now ceased to trade."

In its last Companies House filing for the full year 2015, Coal reported a turnover of 15.6m and a pre-tax profit of 256,000.

The Register spoke to Coal Intelligent Technology, which confirmed the administrators had been appointed.

See original here:

Coal Intelligent Technology recruitment firm ceases trading - The Register

PGA Tour taps Intel technology to drive golf into virtual reality – Fox News

Posted on by

The PGA Tour is teeing up virtual reality experiences to drive fans and tech savvy, potential fans, greenside at PGA Tournaments.

The Tour wants to keep pace with sports leagues such as the NBA, which offers weekly VR broadcasts. But PGA officials say VR experiences need to be special, not just an immersive version of the same old broadcast.

The trick is creating an experience that people want to have the headset on for more than five minutes, Scott Gutterman, PGA Tour VP, digital operations, told Fox News. Wed like for people to interact with the stream, if there are stats they want, to choose themselves, slide the leaderboard in and out (of their view).

The PGA Tour and Intel Sports Groups Voke virtual reality unit tested the technology on the famous 10th hole at storied Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles ahead of the Genesis Open that teed off Thursday.

The Intel unit has produced VR for the NFL and last years NCAA Final 4 basketball games. It makes custom experiences for clients across VR platforms.

SIX FLAGS, SAMSUNG ANNOUNCE 'MIXED REALITY' ROLLER COASTER

We think golf is one of the hidden treasures to produce and create experiences in virtual reality, said David Aufhauser, managing director, strategy and product, Intel Sports Group. You can create experiences fans just cant get, even if theyre there. You can bring in stats and data and other visual components that can complement the video part of it.

While a few pro golf tournaments have been produced in VR, the game has presented technological hurdles that make it more difficult to produce in virtual reality than sports such as basketball. Golf balls are smaller and tracking their flight can be trickier than the larger brown basketballs or footballs, plus there is a lot more space to be covered on a golf course than a fixed playing area. Resolution can be an issue when subjects are farther away from cameras, especially on the more popular but less powerful mobile-powered headsets.

Going Green

Gutterman pointed to Vokes three large pods of cameras triangulating the putting surface, capturing a 180 degree panorama, and says their size and lack of mobility will keep VR a largely tee or green experience in the early going, although the technology will eventually have its own produced broadcast.

The elevated camera pods feature six pairs of cameras that stream video, which is stitched together by producers. And the lenses can be changed depending on the sport or to capture different shots.

HOW DRONES LIT UP THE SKY IN LADY GAGA'S SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW

Gutterman notes: We really like Vokes stereoscopic cameras; they provide a different level of enhancement we want to capture.

Vokes founder Sankar Jayaram told Fox News: The way we designed our system, we can actually zoom in. One challenge is in VR the cameras are far from the action. We can use different lenses and take you closer to the actionits one of the unique features we have, so you can get depth.

View to a Thrill

A demo provided for Fox News delivered depth of field and a crisp view arguably better than some spectators had standing a few yards away from the action. The VR stream showed undulations on the putting surface and brought into view the severe slope the pros fear when their balls roll off this greens backside. Even in HD broadcasts the greens tend to flatten out.

The Voke experience lets the user switch views for different camera angles. It was powered on a Samsung Gear headset and Galaxy G7 phone and was just as sharp as commercial broadcast VR streams.

SUPER BOWL LI WILL TAP TECH TO GIVE VIEWERS A PLAYERS POV

Newly installed PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan liked what he saw. After walking off the 10th green in the Pro-Am round alongside Jordan Spieth, Monahan looked into the headset at his own demo and said simply, Wow! Thats amazing.

Despite that apparent endorsement from the boss, Gutterman says its unclear whether the PLAYERS Championship will be live streamed in VR in May. He said the VR test was positive and encouraging and no further testing would be required.

Intel Sports Groups Aufhauser says theres growing demand, Fans want to experience new ways to connect with sports and players that they love in wholly immersive experience. We see a lot of growth.

Adam Scott, who won the PGAs L.A. event in 2005, admits he has limited VR experience, but recognizes its potential. I think thats huge for the fans. Another way to interact with us, or the game in any way, is a good thing. Certainly weve got to move with the times. I havent really used it for my benefit, but maybe in the future.

See the rest here:

PGA Tour taps Intel technology to drive golf into virtual reality - Fox News

Donald Trump touts promise progress at press conference – PolitiFact

Posted on by

President Donald Trump addressed a variety of topics during a Feb. 16, 2017, news conference in the East Room of the White House.

Were tracking more than 100 of President Donald Trumps campaign pledges on our Trump-O-Meter. In a lengthy press conference Feb. 16, Trump listed several actions hes taken since his Jan. 20 inauguration to meet these promises.

Heres a quick rundown of the promises he listed. (We fact-checked the press conference in a separate article.)

"We've withdrawn from the job-killing disaster known as Trans Pacific Partnership."

We rated this a Promise Kept after Trump signed a presidential memoranda officially directing the United States to withdraw from the free trade deal. The TPP, negotiated by former President Barack Obama, had yet to be ratified by Congress and was unlikely to be. Trump's withdrawal is a largely symbolic move but underscores the new administration's very different outlook on global trade.

"We've imposed a hiring freeze on nonessential federal workers."

We rated this promise In the Works, after Trump signed a presidential memorandum imposing a hiring freeze on federal employees, with exceptions for employees in national security, public safety and the military sectors. But the real measure of success for this pledge will come down to how much he is able to reduce the scope of the government through attrition.

"We've issued a game-changing new rule that says for each one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated."

We rated this a Promise Kept, when he signed a Jan. 30 executive order directing that for every new regulation, two be repealed. Several regulation categories are exempt from Trump's order, including the military, foreign affairs and personnel management.

"We've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare."

We rated this claim In the Works after Trump signed a broad executive order to minimize the laws economic burden on his first day in office. However, the executive order did not repeal the former presidents signature health care law or offer executive branch agencies any new authority with regard to the policy.

"We have also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipelines."

We rated Trumps promise to build the Keystone XL pipeline In the Works after he signed a presidential memorandum advancing the construction of the pipeline on Jan 25. He also signed another memorandum ordering the Army to "review and approve" the Dakota Access Pipeline. Both represent direct reversals of actions taken by the Obama administration, which took steps to halt construction of both pipelines.

We are "now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border."

We rated this promise as In the Works after Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 25 calling for the walls "immediate construction of a physical wall." Trump didnt mention in the press conference a key component of his promise that Mexico would pay for for the wall. Mexican government officials say the country wont pay.

"We've ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens."

Trump promised to "end" sanctuary cities during his campaign. We rated this promise In the Works after he signed an executive order on Jan. 25 directing the attorney general's office and the secretary of homeland security to withhold grant money from cities that protect undocumented immigrants.

"We have taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country."

Trump promised to suspend immigration from terror-prone places. We rated this promise In the Works when he signed an executive order Jan. 27 temporarily halting entry into the United States of people from seven countries impacted by terrorism. The order is currently facing significant legal challenges.

"I've started by imposing a five-year lobbying ban on White House officials...

We rated this promise a Compromise. Trump signed an executive order Jan. 28 that will restrict some of the lobbying White House officials can do after they leave his team. But like most presidential crackdowns on ethics, it has caveats. For example, the order only bans White House officials from lobbying their former agency, not from becoming lobbyists.

and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government."

We rated this a Promise Kept. Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 28 banning administration officials from ever lobbying the United States on behalf of a foreign government.

"I have kept my promise to the American people by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who is from my list of 20."

We rated this a Promise Kept. Not even two weeks into his presidency, Trump nominated Gorsuch to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia's seat on the Supreme Court. Gorsuch, a conservative, is currently a judge for the Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit based in Colorado.

Follow this link:

Donald Trump touts promise progress at press conference - PolitiFact

Trump Boasts Of ‘Incredible Progress’ In 4 Weeks Of Presidency – NPR

Posted on by

NPR
Trump Boasts Of 'Incredible Progress' In 4 Weeks Of Presidency
NPR
It's now four weeks since President Trump was sworn in. Despite setbacks, like the sacking of his national security adviser, Trump is talking about "incredible progress" he's made since taking office. Facebook; Twitter. Google+. Email ...

Read this article:

Trump Boasts Of 'Incredible Progress' In 4 Weeks Of Presidency - NPR