Month: April 2018
https://www.sciencealert.com/finland-universal-basic-income-experiment-ending-april-2018
Finland Is Killing Its Experiment With Basic Income
Since the beginning of last year, 2,000 Finns have been getting money from the government each month — and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, ages 25 to 58, are all unemployed and were selected at random by Kela, Finland’s social-security institution.
Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive €560 ($690) a month, tax-free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money.
While the project has been praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision-makers are pulling the brakes and taking the project in a whole new direction.
“Right now, the government is making changes that are taking the system further away from a basic income,” Miska Simanainen, a Kela researcher, told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
The initial plan was for the experiment to expand in early 2018 to include workers as well as people who are not working, but that did not happen, to the disappointment of researchers at Kela.
Researchers say that without workers in the project, they’re unable to study whether the so-called basic income would allow people to make new career moves or enter training or education.
“Two years is too short a time frame to be able to draw extensive conclusions from such a vast experiment,” Olli Kangas, a professor who’s one of the experts behind the basic-income trial, told Finland’s public-service broadcaster YLE. “We ought to have been given additional time and more money to achieve reliable results.”
In recent years, an increasing number of tech entrepreneurs have endorsed universal basic income, a system in which people receive a standard amount of money simply for being alive.
Entrepreneurs who have expressed support for universal basic income include Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Chris Hughes, a Facebook cofounder, and Ray Kurzweil, Google’s futurist and engineering director.
These tech moguls say that universal basic income in combination with other methods of combating poverty could also help solve the problem of increased automation in the workforce — a problem critics say they have been very much a part of creating.
At the 2018 TED conference, Kurzweil made a bold prediction about the future of “free” money, saying that universal basic income will have spread worldwide by the 2030s and that we’ll be able to “live very well on that.”
But contrary to universal basic income, which advocates say should apply to all citizens regardless of background, Finland’s trial is targeting people in long-term unemployment.
The Finnish government argued that existing unemployment benefits were so high and the system so rigid that a person who was unemployed might choose not to take a job because they would risk losing money — the higher your earnings, the lower your social benefits. The basic-income trial was designed as an incentive for people to start working.
But last December, the Finnish Parliament passed a bill to take the country’s welfare system in quite the opposite direction. The new “activation model” law requires job seekers to work a minimum of 18 hours or enter a training program within three months and stipulates that if they don’t manage to find a job, they lose some of their benefits.
And Petteri Orpo, Finland’s finance minister, already has plans for a new project once the basic-income pilot concludes this December.
“When the basic-income experiment ends this year, we should launch a universal credit trial,” Orpo told the Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet, referring to a system similar to the one in the UK, which collects several different benefits and tax credits into one account.
Official findings from Finland’s basic-income experiment could be published as early as next year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ipad-apple-pencil-more-useful-than-i-thought-2018-4
The new iPad and Apple Pencil helped me finally understand the utility of a tablet
I got very little use out of my first iPad back in 2011. Even amid all of the excitement of having a brand-new Apple device, I felt no real need for my second-generation iPad, between my iPhone and my MacBook.
I know I’m not alone. I’ve heard a lot of people agree that it’s tough to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a third screen size — and yet, Apple keeps on making tablets. Why?
“Both [The Mac and iPad] are incredible,” Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Wells when he negated rumors that the Mac and iPad might eventually merge. “One of the reasons that both of them are incredible is because we pushed them to do what they do well.”
So, I decided to take the new reasonably sized and priced iPad for a spin, along with the not-so-reasonably priced Apple Pencil, to figure out what it was that I hadn’t considered. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised.
Here were my takeaways after owning an iPad for the first time in seven years:
I never had a real complaint about the MacBook’s portability before, but there was a time when I was traveling frequently and felt the need to switch to the lighter MacBook Air; I eventually had to go back to the MacBook Pro when I needed more storage.
The iPad solved the weight-versus-storage issue for me by letting me treat my MacBook Pro like I used to treat my desktop, but with more flexibility.
The iPad moved around my apartment and went with me to coffee shops when I had to get work done, but it stayed at home any time I had a commute and could get away with accessing files or apps from a self-standing screen that’s larger than my iPhone.
Since I have a separate work computer at the BI office, I could opt for the much more portable iPad over my MacBook Pro on a day-to-day basis. In contrast, Tim Cook said a few years ago that he used his iPad around the house and took his laptop to work — the point is, you have options.
If you swipe up, you see the dock, which can support 13 apps plus an additional three that automatically populate as your most recently used. Swipe up even further and you get the Control Center and can see all of the apps you have open.
On an iPhone, shuffling through your open apps when five or six of them are running at a time is frustrating, but with iOS 11, Apple makes use of the iPad’s real estate and lays out all of the app cards without overlap, making for a much more pleasant experience when you’re multitasking.
AppleMultitasking got slightly unpleasant when I started testing out the different ways in which you can use two apps at once.
With Split Screen, you can divide the screen into two sections, with the apps taking the screen 50-50, 75-25, or 25-75. It was great for planning a trip, and I used it to look up sights and book tickets while I jotted things down in the Notes app. I was upset that it didn’t work with Google Maps or the Gmail app, though (this is not a Google thing because it worked with Google Photos just fine).
For those apps, I resorted to Slide Over, which creates a window that’s about one-third the size of the screen and sits on top. You can choose where you want to position it, and slide it in and out of view as it’s needed. I decided this would be perfect for a music player, but Spotify didn’t allow it.
Still, I was really happy with picture-in-picture support since I could watch videos or FaceTime while I did other things.
Business Insider/Prachi BhardwajI used my old iPad 2 to watch TV and to scroll through Pinterest, which are both very visual activities, and I realized that’s something I prioritize a lot more today.
At work, I used the new iPad as an additional monitor that took up less desk space. It was big enough to be a TV screen (I used it to watch the Facebook testimonies while I typed) and just the right size to take notes on and then be propped up and used as a display for the Notes app.
At home, I used it to show me recipes while I cooked, to relax with digital coloring books — and to make my Instagram stories particularly intricate.
Business Insider/Prachi BhardwajWriting and drawing with the Pencil was effortless and weirdly satisfying, but the stylus’ functionality isn’t perfect enough to make me want to pay $100 for it yet.
There were a few times when I had to switch to using my finger to select something because the Pencil wasn’t being responsive, and the tapping of the Pencil against the screen honestly got a pretty annoying at times, especially when I was in quiet settings.
Also, in certain apps like Snapchat, you can’t change the line thickness of whatever you’re drawing anyway, which makes the Pencil’s detail-friendly tip not as impressive to use there.
Business Insider/Prachi BhardwajFirst of all, the Pencil’s sides are perfectly rounded — unlike a classic hexagonal No. 2 pencil or a mechanical pencil — so it occasionally rolled around the table.
And charging it, all-around, is a hassle. There’s a tiny cap covering the port that needs to be removed and is super easy to lose, and the Pencil requires a separate charger from my other devices, making for yet another thing I needed to carry around.
The alternative was plugging it into the iPad to charge, which I resorted to, but this made it both a weapon and a hazard to itself. It juts out of the iPad like a dagger, and one wrong swipe felt like it could break the charger right off.
It kind of seems like Apple knows the design of the Pencil isn’t ideal, since it showcased Logitech’s new kid-friendly Crayon stylus, which is iPad-compatible and addresses every single one of these concerns (and then some).
If the iPad’s appeal is that it’s good for an on-the-go multitasker, the iPad needs to be better at being portable: There are too many pieces to account for, and it’s way too fragile — the same things that make it a strange choice for a grade-school student.
While I enjoyed the screen size for multitasking and for the more visual tasks, the appeal isn’t worth the price if I’m going to lose parts of it or break it along the way.
https://www.eteknix.com/scientists-cannabis-stress-used-correctly/
Scientists Claim Cannabis Can Stop Stress If Used Correctly
Unique Cannabis research proposes specific types for specific problems
I think there are very few amongst us who would disagree that Cannabis has a lot of potentials when it comes to the medical field. Admittedly, there are others who also just see the potential in temporarily leaving the planet to go on an adventure. Throughout the world though, the increasing usage of Cannabis for medical usage has brought about more and more advocates for its legalization.
It seems, however, in a report via Metro that when it comes to using it, scientists believe that there is actually a right way and a wrong way to do it.
You’re doing it wrong!
In unprecedented research, scientists evaluation 12,000 people who were taking cannabis for medicinal purposes. In the research, they found that overall mental health was improved in the vast majority of cases with the unique aspect of the research is that it was not conducted in a laboratory. Instead, the subjects were given an app they could use to monitor their use and behavior.
Many will see this as an advocacy for the outright legalization of it. Others will continue to see the drug as immoral or not beneficial. I think most of us sit somewhere in the middle. We could at least agree that its use for medical purposes clearly does have validity. It is clearly a divisive issue. One which we won’t solve or make any conclusions here. We’re not that brave!
What do you think about this? – Let us know in the comments!
https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/21/iphone-se-2-sleep-tracking-more/
In this week’s top stories: iPhone SE 2 rumors, Apple releases iOS 11.4 beta 2, mapping Apple’s various shades of space gray, and more. Read on for all of this week’s biggest stories…
Apple this week released iOS 11.4 beta 2 to developers and public beta users. The update includes a new (PRODUCT)RED wallpaper for iPhone users, removes evidence of stereo pairing for HomePod users, and more.
A pair of clues emerged this week hinting at an impending release of the iPhone SE 2. First off, a handful of regulatory filings were released showing a surprising eleven model identifiers for unreleased iPhones. Furthermore, a report indicated that the iPhone SE 2 could be released next month, but without a headphone jack.
Furthermore, WebKit testing logs spotted this week that made reference to iOS 12 running on an iPhone 5s simulator. This makes a strong case that the iPhone 5s will receive iOS 12, giving it one more year of updates than the iPhone 5 received.
Additional digging into the WebKit source code also revealed a possible dark mode coming to macOS 10.14. While dark mode has technically been available for macOS since El Capitan, this appears to be a more expansive system-wide mode.
These and the rest of this week’s top stories below…
iOS | macOS | tvOS | watchOS
- WebKit testing logs reference iOS 12 running on an iPhone 5s simulator
- iOS 11.4 beta 2 now available, includes (PRODUCT)RED wallpaper on certain iPhones [Video]
- Apple ramps up iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 testing as we get closer to WWDC unveiling
- iFixit speculates iOS 11.3 touchscreen issues aren’t purposeful, just software bugs
Mac |
- eGPU tests show AMD Radeon RX 580 more than twice as fast as top-end MacBook Pro GPU
- Apple offering battery replacement program for some 13-inch MacBook Pros
iPhone |
- Regulatory filings indicate a flurry of new iPhone (SE?) models launching soon
- KGI: 6.1-inch LCD iPhone priced as low as $550, could be available in dual SIM configuration
- iPhone SE 2 could arrive next month, but without a headphone jack
Apple Watch + iPad |
- Sleep Cycle debuts Apple Watch app with snore prevention, silent alarm
- Apple begins 3-year repair program for Apple Watch Series 2 devices w/ expanded batteries
Accessories |
AAPL Company |
- Apple notifying WWDC 2018 scholarship applicants of award status
- Mapping Apple’s vast universe of space gray shades
- Apple Park drone pilot thinks company tracking all flights, planning counter-measures [Video]
- Tim Cook says merging the Mac and iPad would require ‘trade offs and compromises’
Subscribe to 9to5Mac’s YouTube channel for more videos.
This week’s top video |
- Video: iPhone app icon management tips – do you know them all?
- Hands-on: DaVinci Resolve’s eGPU-accelerated timeline performance and exports totally crush integrated GPU results [Video]
- Back to the Mac 008: Sonnet’s eGFX Breakaway Box 650W – the best Apple-endorsed eGPU chassis for macOS [Video]
Happy Hour Podcast #169 |
This week Benjamin and Zac talk about recent Amazon Alexa features and HomePod sales, Apple’s leaked memo on stopping leaks, the FCC’s gold iPhone X leak, and the potential for third-party Apple Watch faces.
Hour is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play Music, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
Audio Player
Making The Grade |
Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.
- Making The Grade: What’s lacking in Apple’s Deployment Model for iPads?
- Making The Grade: Making sense of Apple’s current MacBook line for education
- Making The Grade: Apple needs an Identity Management Solution to take over schools
- Making The Grade: Why Apple’s education strategy is not based on reality
- Making The Grade: Where the iPad still excels over Chromebooks regardless of price
- Making The Grade: Does repairability of Mac laptops matter?
- Making The Grade: AppleCare+ is a terrible investment for iPad deployments
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/21/google-rolls-fix-setting-alarms-reminders-google-home-speakers/
Google rolls out fix for setting alarms and reminders on Google Home speakers
Asking a Google Home to set an alarm or reminder is a rudimentary use for one of those smart speakers. But it seems some users recently found that their Google Home failed to sound alarms and reminders that were set. Now Google is saying that a fix has been rolled out and those functions are working again.
A few users in the Google Home Help Forum brought up the issue, saying they used their voice to set alarms or reminders on their Google Home and received an audible confirmation. However, no sound played when the alarms or reminders were supposed to go off.
When some users asked their Google Home what alarms had been set, they were told that no alarms were set; another user said his Google Home told him he had an alarm set and that it was currently going off, though it was not. One user said retraining her Google Home’s voice recognition seemed to resolve the issue with alarms, but that wasn’t an official fix.
A user in the thread confirmed the fix had come through for him. If you had this issue, follow Paula’s instructions above and see if things are back to normal again. And remember that you can now set alarms that play music or radio stations instead of the typical tone.
https://www.healththoroughfare.com/medicine/how-to-avoid-fainting-on-the-toilet/7638
How to Avoid Fainting on the Toilet
To some people this may all seem like a joke, or a scene taken out of a sitcom, meant to illicit laughter from the audience. However, this is a real problem and a number of people are affected by it on a daily basis. While some of you may try to hide a small smile while reading, we will warn you of the causes of this problem and how it can be solved, just in case, if you are ever put in a similar situation.
How does this manifest
Patients have stated that they are usually hit by the feeling that they need to poop. However, when they reach the toilet and try to flush their intestines, nothing comes out, leading them to push and strain in order to get everything out, feeling lightheaded and like they will faint at any minute. Some may even feel that they are constipated. However, a regular check up at the doctor’s office should reveal that everything is normal.
So how can this be explained? Well, doctors are linking this with the vasovagal response, typically encountered when one strains a lot after a long period of effort or after they are constipated. This somewhat embarrassing situation has been named by doctors as the Defecation syncope. In Canada alone, this condition accounts for one percent of all the emergency room visits in the country on a yearly basis.
On the bright side, this condition is not life threatening at all, it is just the bodies’ way of dealing with increased pressure, where pressure receptors send signals to the heart in order to lower the blood pressure, which in some cases may lead to fainting. A study done last year has shown that out of the 300 people that were recorded having such episodes, after a two year period they did not die from it. This study was published in the Journal Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology.
Up next AUTOPLAY 59:51 CARTA:Human Altruism-Brain and BehaviorTrade and Cooperation University of California Television (UCTV) 2.4K views 14:57 This is The World’s 1st Solar-powered Highway in China To Recharge Electric Cars Richard Aguilar Recommended for you 15:35 Those 7 Times Steven Pinker Blew Our Minds ScienceNET Recommended for you 1:38:49 Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion? – Prof. Dennis Whyte MIT Club of Northern California Recommended for you Living Danishly: inspiring ideas from the world’s happiest country Action for Happiness Recommended for you The Gravitational Wave Astronomical Revolution – Prof. David Reitze The Artificial Intelligence Channel Recommended for you Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe – with David Tong The Royal Institution Recommended for you Dinosaur Movement: From Humble Beginnings to Earth-Shaking Giants | Dino Lecture, March 2, 2018 Burke Museum 974 views Looking Beyond 2050 — On Earth and in Space with Lord Martin Rees University of California Television (UCTV) 19K views Special From Spezi 2017-The Laidback Bike Report Gary Solomon Recommended for you Advances in Prosthetic Technology University of California Television (UCTV) 335 views New Wings, Legs, and Fins: How Do New Organs Arise in Evolution? with Neil Shubin University of California Television (UCTV) 16K views Meghan Trainor – Like I’m Gonna Lose You (Artistic Piano Interpretation by Sunny Choi) Sunny Choi Recommended for you Emerging Trends in Paleoanthropology with Richard Potts AAAS MemberCentral 3.2K views CARTA: The Evolution of Human Biodiversity: Pascal Gagneux – Great Ape Biodiversity University of California Television (UCTV) 4.3K views CARTA: Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future University of California Television (UCTV) 6.1K views Culture-Gene Interactions in Human Origins University of California Television (UCTV) 12K views CARTA: The Evolution of Human Nutrition University of California Television (UCTV) 32K views Creating POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett University of California Television (UCTV) 205 views New Cal Day Lecture: Can a Machine be Conscious? Towards a Conscious AI Simons Institute Recommended for you New CARTA: The Role of Hunting in Anthropogeny – Margaret Schoeninger Alyssa Crittenden Richard Wrangham
Up next AUTOPLAY 7:33 Apple Watch Series 3 (2018) | Must Have Free Apps Jackie Dunne 222 views New 19:25 Best Free Apps for the Apple Watch – Complete App List AppFind 879K views 9:54 Best Apps for Apple Watch – Tools Apple Fox 25K views 15:13 Electrical Discharges Carved the American Southwest | Space News ThunderboltsProject Recommended for you New Apple Watch Series 4 – Rumors and Expectations Apple Fox 553 views New Apple Watch Series 3. Long Term Review GIZMOFEST 318 views An Integrated Cognitive Architecture Simons Institute Recommended for you New Apple Watch Basics: Getting Started – Basic Operations, Phone Calls, Messages and More! Chaks Corner 31K views Best Apps for Apple Watch – Communication Apple Fox 4.6K views Top 5 Problems with Apple’s 2018 iPad AppleInsider Recommended for you New SLEEP TRACKING IS FINALLY HERE FOR APPLE WATCH Apple Watch World 101K views Unbelievably Useful Apple Watch Apps DailyTekk 253K views Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch 3 Review 2018 (Best Smartwatch Comparison) RIZKNOWS 21K views New Is the Apple Watch Right For Me Apple Fox 573 views ᴴᴰ The Universe – Beyond the Big Bang (S1x14) 1080p Nat Geo DOCS Recommended for you WatchOS 4.3 – Best New Features Apple Fox 3.4K views Apple Watch – Complete How-To Guide SyncSisters Recommended for you NEW 2018 Apple Watch Bands! Krystal Lora No views New Jay Z ft Alicia Keys Empire State of Mind Artistic Piano Interpretation Sunny Choi Obsessed Recommended for you Sleep Cycle | Pillow | AutoSleep – Which is the best? MediateApps 29K views Can You Track Sleep on Apple Watch? – Thursday Questions 003
http://www.iclarified.com/65477/getting-featured-on-the-ios-11-app-store-can-boost-downloads-by-up-to-800-chart
Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]
iPhone apps receive download boosts of up to 800 percent by being featured on the iOS 11 App Store, according to a report from Sensor Tower.
We looked at iOS 11 App Store featuring data from September 2017 to present. During this period, median U.S. iPhone downloads for apps featured as Game of the Day increased by more than 800 percent for the week following the feature, compared to the week prior. Apps in other Today Tab features also saw significant growth. Median downloads for Apps of the Day increased by over 685 percent, while apps in Stories and Lists experienced median download growth of about 200 percent.
![Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]](http://www.iclarified.com/entry/lightview.php?location=/images/news/65477/316739/316739-1280.jpg "Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]")
Being featured on the Games and Apps tabs also increased downloads but by a lesser amount. Getting on the main Hero banners increased installs by 236% and 111% week-over-week, respectively.
Publishers who primarily make games are the most featured taking the top four spots, and 10 of the top 15. Most of the top featured publishers are large with 13 of the top 15 having at least one million U.S. iPhone downloads during the six month period following the revised App Store’s launch. However, the App Store also features small publishers with 29% of featured publishers having fewer than 10,000 downloads during the six month study window.
![Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]](http://www.iclarified.com/entry/lightview.php?location=/images/news/65477/316733/316733-1280.jpg "Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]")
Check out the chart below for more details or hit the link for the full report.
![Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]](http://www.iclarified.com/entry/lightview.php?location=/images/news/65477/316736/316736-1280.jpg "Getting Featured on the iOS 11 App Store Can Boost Downloads by Up to 800% [Chart]")
Bruce's Blog 