Daily Archives: April 2, 2017

By Brian X. ChenThe New York Times

Smartphones have become the go-to tool for hailing a car and ordering delivery food. But summoning a dog walker? That could take some getting used to.

A growing number of startups offer apps and gadgets that help you take care of your pets. So-called pet tech yes, its a thing includes automatic treat dispensers, surveillance cameras embedded with laser pointers to remotely play with your pets and apps that connect you with a dog walker or sitter with the tap of a button.

Be warned: A majority of pet tech products are ineffective gimmicks that probably arent worth your money. I tested many and found only several to be occasionally useful: an app for hiring dog walkers, an app for boarding your pet at someones house, and a pet location tracker.

Unsurprisingly, pet tech is still a nascent market. In 2016, Americans spent $66.75 billion on pet products, according to the American Pet Products Association. While the biggest chunk was devoted to pet food, pet owners spent $14.75 billion on supplies including beds, collars, leashes, bowls and, among all that, pet tech accessories.

In the end, pet owners will probably agree that technology isnt an adequate substitute for human companionship. But some products are nice to have just in case you are pressed for time.

What follows are the products that did and did not make the cut after I tested them on my pet corgi, Max Fischer, and my cat, Cuddy.

The best pet tech

Of the many pet products I tested, a few stood out: Wag, an app for hiring a dog walker but only in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and New York DogVacay, which is billed as an Airbnb for dog boarding and which has many listings in Sarasota and Manatee counties; and Whistle, a tracker for monitoring your pets location.

DogVacay is an app that lets you board your dog at a persons home rather than a traditional boarding service. Hosts name their price and you can search for them based on their location and dates of availability. It took one try to find a host who could board Max for a day, and the overall experience was smooth. After booking and paying $60 for the boarding, I dropped Max off for his slumber party.

While testing Wag and DogVacay, I found the pet GPS tracker Whistle to be a useful tool for making sure dog walkers and sitters were actually doing their jobs. (Call me detail-oriented.)

The $80 GPS tracker fits snugly around a pets collar and communicates with a smartphone app that displays the pets location on a map. The gadget also logs the amount of time a pet is physically active, similar to a Fitbit. Using Whistle, I was delighted to see that my DogVacay hosts spent over two hours playing with Max in Buena Vista Park.

The Whistle website shows that the product works nationally and requires a cellular contract of $7 to $10 a month, depending on length of contract.

Subpar pet tech

Pet owners can immediately cross these items off the list: pet cams, automatic food dispensers and the app Rover.

The webcam I tested, Petcube, includes a Wi-Fi connection and a built-in laser pointer. When you view the live video feed of your pet through the app, just tap wherever you want the laser to land. Presumably your pet will chase the laser, so when you are procrastinating at work, you can remotely play with your furry companion.

Thats the theory, at least. Max and Cuddy are apparently daytime narcoleptics who couldnt care less about a laser. And, in the end, paying for the $200 Petcube will probably make you regret that you didnt buy a superior all-around webcam, like the $200 NestCam, which can be used as a full-time home security camera and a part-time pet camera.

A Petcube spokeswoman said the product was a high-quality camera and its laser pointer was a central feature that people use to play with their pets.

I also used a generic automatic pet food dispenser for about a year with Cuddy. Not only did the products motor eventually die, but the bowl was often full of food because my cat refused to eat her kibble unless I fed her myself. Even cats are social creatures, and they grow attached to the hand that feeds them.

Finally, Rover is similar to the dog-walker-summoning app Wag except rough to use. Rather than automatically matching you with a walker, Rover makes you browse through a directory of walkers, ask them whether they are available on a certain date and wait for a response. The experience is reminiscent of booking a first appointment with a primary care physician.

Rover has announced it would acquire DogVacay, combining the services and resources of the two apps. Lets hope that the merger results in a better overall product.

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Sniffing out the best pet-care technology - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Crain's Detroit Business

Technology in Motion event planned at Cobo Center Crain's Detroit Business "No matter where the technology is invented, it is refined, tested and deployed within 100 miles of Detroit," said David Graff, a co-founder of Technology in Motion and a vice president at MSX International Inc. "It all happens right here, and no one ...

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Technology in Motion event planned at Cobo Center - Crain's Detroit Business

Jordan Times

'Jordan has what it takes to become technology hub' Microsoft executive Jordan Times I am delighted to see that the youth in Jordan is quite familiar with current technological trends, as well as very eager for continual learning. We hope this event further sparks their passion for careers in technology and in so many other fields ...

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'Jordan has what it takes to become technology hub' Microsoft executive - Jordan Times

It took a mere seven days before Silicon Valley called off its truce with Donald Trump.

The first shot came in the form of a highly anticipated executive order, Trumps Jan. 27 directive prohibiting travelers and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries from coming to the United States. Trumps initial ban would eventually be overturned, but his political salvo drew a swift and sharp rebuke from a tech industry that relies on foreign workers and had been seething for months over his election.

Googles chief executive, Sundar Pichai, fretted in a note to staff about the painful cost of this executive order on our colleagues. Facebooks founder Mark Zuckerberg opined publicly that he was concerned. Apple CEO Tim Cook even said the iPhone maker wouldnt exist without immigration: Steve Jobs, he reminded, was an immigrant, too. Each of the companies sought to arm employees they believed to be at grave risk.

The groundswell of opposition quickly reached the aides at one of the White Houses little-known nerve centers, the Office of Science and Technology Policy. An advisory arm to the president, the office began compiling the statements steadily flowing out of Silicon Valley, hoping to show Trump and his tightly knit circle that the nations tech heavyweights had vehemently opposed the presidents most consequential decision to date.

The OSTP normally serves as a liaison between the science and tech communities and their government regulators in Washington. Under Trump, however, aides who tried to provide the new president with insight on immigration say they couldnt get their message through to the Oval Office.

One White House source, who described OSTP this week as disempowered, said they had no idea if anyone in the new presidents inner circle ever saw their work and, as a result, perhaps did not appreciate the tech backlash to come.

Ten weeks into his nascent administration, Trumps Office of Science and Technology Policy isnt much of an office at all. As Trump forges ahead with his controversial economic agenda, hes done so without the support of the White Houses army of engineers and researchers, who are best equipped to assess what his cuts mean for the future of the United States.

Theres still no leader at OSTP, a job that can double as the chief science adviser to the president. That means Trump currently has no immediate expert on hand whose entire remit is the future of the environment, the effects of climate change and the direction of research in key areas, like HIV and cancer cures. The other leadership jobs within OSTP overseeing issues like energy policy, innovation and more similarly remain unfilled. And the few who remained at OSTP werent consulted as Trump took his first steps in those fields, including the creation of the budget for 2018 that cut significant chunks from federal research agencies, according to eight current and former White House sources.

The office is a critical feature of any administration. Under President Barack Obama, OSTP boasted a chief technology officer who personally had about 20 aides focused on issues like net neutrality, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars. (That includes Megan Smith, who was married to and is now separated from Recode co-founder Kara Swisher. Smith was not interviewed for this story.) As of Friday, however, only one aide there remained: Michael Kratsios, an acolyte of Peter Thiel, who entered government with no tech experience. His closest complement in the West Wing? Reed Cordish, who similarly lacks a technical pedigree but does know Trumps daughter, Ivanka.

In Obamas White House, the OSTP spearheaded his administrations most far-fetched or future-focused initiatives, from studying the effects of artificial intelligence to facilitating the private sectors efforts to map brains and improve drinking water. It helped chart the governments course on research and development. And when crises arose including the resurgence of Ebola, which threatened in 2015 to encroach deep into the United States it was the hidden hand of the OSTP that sought to shape how the lumbering, sprawling U.S. bureaucracy focused its dollars in response.

Asked about those darkened offices and positions, a spokeswoman for Trump stressed Thursday he had candidates for OSTP in mind but didnt name anyone, or allow anyone at the White House to be interviewed for this story.

The office is staffed by scientists and engineers with years of experience, close working relationships throughout the Federal departments and agencies, and deep connections to the broader science and technology community, she said.

Its Trumps Washington, of course. He has flexibility to name candidates for the positions he chooses. And he campaigned on the notion that he would reduce the footprint of government, not expand it. But his tepid embrace of science and technology is all the more striking, given OSTPs roots as one of the only elements of the White House that Congress actually wrote into law. Lawmakers established the OSTP in the 1970s, after another Republican president, Richard Nixon, vehemently swore against tapping a science adviser. Turns out, Nixon didnt much like academics.

There are many policy issues that come up across the spectrum ... where technical expertise and connections to the tech community are important, said Ed Felten, a top academic at Princeton University who served under Obama as a deputy chief technology officer.

Thats why I asked Felten during an interview this month whether his former office and its quiet struggles should matter to Americans. If OSTP is not well staffed, he told me, it will be difficult to make policy well in the areas where science matters.

Trump does not use a computer. He thinks they have complicated lives very greatly, he said last December. (He might not be wrong.) Im not an email person, Trump remarked earlier in July, an admission that came amid his attacks on his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, for using private communications while leading the State Department.

When asked in 2015 about the threat of online extremism and its antagonists, like the Islamic State, then-candidate Trump said hed recruit Bill Gates to close that internet up. Trump, however, is a devout creature of the web, an unrivaled master of Twitter, whose colorful 140-character exclamations helped him win the highest office in the United States.

Some in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley consequently derided Trump in 2016 as a Luddite unfit for public office in an age when questions about self-driving cars and cancer cures no longer seem the distant stuff of science fiction. To the policy wonks of Washington, Trumps greatest sin wasnt just his abrogation of technology many of his voters shared his digital reluctance anyway. Rather, it was Trumps absent science or technology agenda and his missing complement of aides advising him on the issues.

Trumps apostasies may partly explain why he hasnt been able to fill the ranks of the OSTP unlike Obama, who in the early days of his 2008 campaign labored to pay homage to the Valley, complete with a visit to Google headquarters. Thats how Obama, mere days after his election, could pluck from a deep bench of experts for ideas and confidantes.

His first chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, had helped during the 2008 campaign. His first chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, had been a law school classmate as well as an innovation adviser and prolific fundraiser. And Obamas first director of the White Houses venerated nerd hub, Dr. John Holdren, helped Obama prep to enter the White House after Election Day.

But Trump entered the White House with no command of science and tech policy issues. He had only a loose web of ideas, a series of scattershot meetings and public statements from which Washington types struggled to derive meaning. A private huddle last summer with leaders in the anti-vaccine movement, for example, generated early fears that Trump might have shared their beliefs. (It remains unclear.) His comments on the campaign trail that climate change was a hoax appeared at the time to presage big cuts to science, energy and environment programs. (It happened.)

It wasnt until the summer that he began to count on the support of Thiel, the controversial, contrarian Valley venture capitalist who helped birth PayPal and still serves on Facebooks board of directors. But even Thiel, who visited the nations capital in October to discuss his rationale for supporting Trumps ascent, could only point to the GOP candidates propensity for political disruption as his greatest asset to the tech industry and the country at large not any actual positions on science and technology that Trump may have publicly or privately held.

He points even beyond the remaking of one party to a new American politics that overcomes denial, rejects bubble thinking and reckons with reality, Thiel instead told reporters gathered at the National Press Club.

In a blitz to recover lost ground, Trumps aides invited lobbying groups for companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google to private meetings in Washington beginning in 2016, steps from Capitol Hill, to solicit their thoughts on what he should tackle first, sources told me at the time. Privately, they had no idea who Trump would tap on science and technology or what he would do on the issues that mattered the most to their companies. After all, they had spent months preparing for a Clinton presidency anyway.

For his part, Thiel soon assumed a formal role with the team that helped Trump transition into government, becoming the only prominent member of the newly elected presidents organizing effort who had any knowledge of Silicon Valley, its issues and the myriad industries it touches. Thiel, of course, helped organize the so-called tech summit at Trump Tower last December, a bid to mend fences between Trump and the very companies he derided at times on the campaign trail. He and his aides also set about finding, recruiting and vetting candidates for some of the governments top tech gigs.

For all their work, though, the Trump administrations most resonant contribution might have come in the form of a gaffe from Trumps new secretary of the Treasury Department, Steve Mnuchin, who stunned Valley types and labor experts alike when he said in March that AI was more than 50 years on the horizon an issue, he continued, that was not even on our radar screen.

But what has Trump accomplished so far in tech policy? By the end of the month, Congress passed a measure that wiped online privacy rules from federal law. Unnamed White House aides in a formal, public statement issued Tuesday articulating the administrations views recommended Trump sign the bill.

Meanwhile, theres still no director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Under federal law, Trump has some flexibility in how he structures his own White House. He can decide, for example, to shed key positions in science, medicine and energy under OSTPs umbrella, as his priorities evolve. Many of the White House sources who spoke with me on the condition of background for this story said they believed he would do just that quietly kill many science jobs within his own administration. That has left its veterans unsettled. Cristin Dorgelo, the former chief of staff there under Obama, stressed in an interview this month she wishes the current administration keeps the same science focus as her former boss.

By the time Trump took the oath of office, roughly 50 staffers less than half of what it was under Obama remained at the White Houses technical nerve center. In the early days of the administration, some aides to the outgoing Obama White Houses chief technology officer, Smith, even offered to stick around until March. But the few who stayed quickly opted to leave, feeling flustered and distrusted by Trumps inner circle, which had spent months casting public doubt on the integrity of any government employees who served during the Obama administration.

The only remaining employee is one of Thiels deputies Kratsios, a former chief of staff at Thiel Capital.

A finance type by background, Kratsios had been toiling silently to aid Trump, who hadnt yet taken office, from the new presidents unofficial New York City hub at Trump Tower. He first surfaced at the White House in January without a formal title in hand, sources said, before becoming deputy chief technology officer.

Except, Kratsios has little or no direct knowledge of key issues like net neutrality, cyber security and artificial intelligence, multiple current and former aides said in interviews.

A politics graduate from Princeton, Kratsios appears to have at least some access to the decision makers in Trumps inner circle. (He knew and supported, for example, the effort to show Trump evidence that his immigration order had riled the tech set, sources say.) Sources described Kratsios positively as affable and helpful and motivated, and many believe his ambition and connections through Thiel in Silicon Valley will eventually serve Trump greatly.

But many former White House aides and observers insisted they remain leaderless, with almost no connection to Trump a distance they felt most acutely as the president prepared his first budget.

After taking office, the president and his team raced to produce their plan for funding the government in 2018, a document that hoped to give life to the presidents campaign promises, including Trumps proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In planning it, White House officials borrowed heavily from the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. For months, experts at the organization had quietly served on the teams advising Trump on how to staff his future government, and the presidents budget ultimately included many of the spending cuts that Heritage historically has championed. Among them: Almost $6 billion in cuts at the National Institutes of Health.

Previously, the Heritage Foundations political arm, Heritage Action, had railed against a bipartisan bill in Congress to grow NIH. (It became law anyway.) The 2018 budget also sought to eliminate research dollars at the Energy Department, a longtime target of conservative critics, on top of programs at NASA and the countrys weather hub, NOAA.

In doing so, however, Trump did not consult even a slimmed-down OSTP at all, multiple sources said. In other words, the cuts to NIH and the Energy Departments version of DARPA that Pentagon money hub that has spawned so many startups, like the Thiel-backed data giant, Palantir came about largely without the input of anyone familiar with those fields. Some policy aides only got to see the budget after it had been published online, multiple sources said.

Few science experts like it. Im very disappointed in the presidents first budget so far, said Kei Koizumi, who served as the Obama administrations research-and-development budget guru. He departed OSTP on Jan. 31.

Although I understand where its coming from, an overall desire to shrink domestic spending, its going to have devastating effects on the U.S science and engineering enterprise, which is such a source of economic competitiveness, and our ability to make progress on solving health care, security and natural resource challenges, he said.

Some have tried to find solace in the presidents other recent moves like the newly announced Office of American Innovation, led by Jared Kushner, and the appointment of Matt Lira, an innovation policy expert whos helped senior Republicans in the U.S. Congress on digital issues.

Lira has his knocks, but Democrats laud his expertise. The appointment of Matt Lira on the innovation side is an extremely positive sign that the president will build on the progress the Obama administration began on harnessing the power of the potential of the internet for the American economy, said Chopra, the first CTO under Obama, during an interview.

While the White House said it plans to consult with the Valleys best minds, however, their involvement might not be as regular as administration officials first suggested.

After the initial story about their participation appeared in the Washington Post, a spokeswoman for Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, named as one of Trumps tech confidantes, told Recode he doesn't have a formal role in the Trump Administration but offers his thoughts and ideas when they are sought on topics on which he can be helpful. Apple declined to comment.

Other senior leaders in the Trump administration also lack technical or policy expertise. That includes Reed Cordish, named the assistant to the president for intragovernmental and technology initiatives.

Cordishs portfolio includes a mandate to rethink the way government spends money buying tech services and systems. But Cordish has never worked in that world. In fact, he arrived from the fields of real estate and hospitality, and met Trump through his father, who had hosted a fundraiser for the soon-to-be president. His father once asked Trumps daughter, Ivanka, to help set his son up on a date.

Already, the Trump administration is pivoting to its next major economic priority infrastructure reform and thats where the stakes could get higher for technology and science spending.

Publicly, Trump has promised to spend big on a package to upgrade the guts of the United States, like its roads and airports and bridges. Yet such a measure could also include major upgrades to U.S. cities, for example, to create smart roads for self-driving cars. It could feature critical investments in high-speed broadband internet to ensure better connectivity in the countrys hardest-to-reach rural areas. It could seek to put aside new dollars for advanced manufacturing, or help fund research in artificial intelligence. It could provide a big boost for the most audacious ideas, like moonshots to cure cancer, or inject new life into the fodder of contemporary tech-news fiction, like underground tunnels and magnet-powered hyperloops, as Elon Musk hypes so often. (At least he stays in touch with the Trump White House.)

An infrastructure bill could be big, in other words, not only in its cost but also in its ambition. But without experts in these far-reaching, future-focused fields, the Trump administration currently lacks the staff to advocate such ideas and figure out how to transform them into reality, many sources said. And the few who remain at OSTP already have struggled to break into Trumps inner circle, multiple White House sources said.

"I am worried any time science and technology expertise are not at the table when decisions are made," said Koizumi, the Obama budget veteran. "But I don't know what to do about that. I can't tell the administration to stop until you have people on board, because I also know decisions get made anyway because they have to get made even in the absence of scientific information [and] economic information."

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How Donald Trump crippled U.S. technology and science policy - Recode

STEAM Fest, presented by Imagine Upstate was held in the West End of downtown and at Fluor Field on Saturday. The event featured science and technology exhibits including robots and drones(Photo: LELAND A. OUTZ)

For the third consecutive year, interactive exhibits, robots, 3D printers and gadgets of all kinds packedthe West Endfor the iMagine Upstate STEAMFestival.

More than 70 booths lined SouthMain Street from Augusta Road to Markley Street.,and into the Fluor Field concourse, as attendees both young and oldreceivedhands on experience with different technologiesfrom a number of area companies and groups.

The goal of the festivalis to giveUpstate children and their parents abetter understandingofscience, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. The free festival lasted from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

"Our mission is really to expose kids from preschool all the way up to high school, to different opportunities for different STEAM careers. ... We want togive them a fun and interactive way to get a glimpse into what a career in steam might look like and to just spark theirinterest in STEAM education," said Melissa Huff, director of iMAGINEUpstate. "We've just been very fortunatethere's a huge demand for STEAM education and activities in our area."

Huff thanked the sponsors for their continued support.

Among events, attendees witnessed included a robotics show on the Fluor Field Stage, where robots built by area high school studentsand teams across the state, competed.

The drone races also pulled a large crowd as pilots strapped on goggles and whizzed theirmachines at high speeds through tight turns and checkpointsthroughoutFluor Field.

GarrickRobinsion who brought his wifeWanda, and daughters, Madison, Jordyn and Kaitlyn, was among many familieslooking to broaden their knowledge at the event.

"It's the future. The Upstate is growing and we need these skill-sets. It's good to see that they are trying togetthese kids involved at a young age,"Robinson said.

ScanSource, atechnology distributorbased in the Upstate, was the presenting sponsor for a third year. The companyfeatureda variety of boothswhich includedhigh tech 3D printers, web camera technologyand an interactive drawing experience for children.

Jason Weidman ofScanSource, said the festival has grown in the past few years thanks to the interest in STEAM fromparents and sponsors.Weidman said the festival went from 14,000 attendees in its first year to 20,000 last.

"This festival is important because there are so many innovative companies that need tobe thinking now about the future workforce. This town is an engineeringand manufacturing town. There are so many jobs in those fields.It's important that we develop the future workforce for the Upstate now."

STEAM Fest, presented by Imagine Upstate was held in the West End of downtown and at Fluor Field on Saturday. The event featured science and technology exhibits including robots and drones(Photo: LELAND A. OUTZ)

STEAM Fest, presented by Imagine Upstate was held in the West End of downtown and at Fluor Field on Saturday The event featured science and technology exhibits including robots and drones(Photo: LELAND A. OUTZ)

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iMAGINE Upstate technology festival brings many to West End - Greenville News