Here’s the sixth hack’n’play post for you to enjoy! Read the first hack’n’play post to learn what this is about.

The links in these posts do not in any way reflect the opinion or endorsement of Jolla, indicate any kind of future or directions of Jolla products, except to summarise more or less interesting happenings in the industry, tools or websites.

Morality and the Idea of Progress in Silicon Valley “Silicon Valley’s amorality problem arises from the blind faith many place in progress. The narrative of progress provides moral cover to the tech industry and lulls people into thinking they no longer need to exercise moral judgment.” “That does not leave everyone else off the hook. Everyone can, at a minimum, ask whether they are doing more harm than good. The trouble in Silicon Valley is that many talented, highly educated young people seem relatively unconcerned with the potential for harm. To be more aware of not harming people, much less helping them, we need to cultivate moral intuitions by discussing the consequences of our work for specific people. The search for solidarity with specific people, not some objectively better moment in human history, keeps us exercising our moral intuitions.”

Chinese Government to Put 3D Printers in All 400,000 Elementary Schools by Next Year “According to Shen, the Chinese government has a new policy to install a 3D printer in each of its approximately 400,000 elementary schools over the next two years. This number caught me totally off guard for two reason. First of all, that’s a lot of elementary schools. For instance, in the United States we have approximately 70,000 elementary schools, and approximately 100,000 total public schools. As a nation we could easily match China’s ambitions. If the average desktop 3D printer costs $1,000, that would equate to about $100M in added expense to the education budget of our nation. Sounds like a lot cash, and certainly it is, but such a figure would only equate an additional tax burden of around $0.30 for each man, woman, and child in this country”

Tapping Into The Growth Of India’s Emerging Mobile Markets “It took only seconds for Xiaomi phones to sell out on the e-commerce platform Flipkart in India. This feat is staggering considering the Indian e-commerce industry is a relatively new concept for many consumers. In fact, Indian smart phone sales doubled from 156 million sold in 2013 to 364 million units sold thus far in 2014. With a product in such high demand, mobile manufacturers that want to succeed in India must put three things first: customizable products, regional-market sensitivity and trend incorporation.”

Google Considers New App Trial Technology For Android “Now Google is considering ways to let consumers try out new apps without downloading them in full, something that could save people time and data-usage on their mobile phone plans as well as lead to more downloads, according to a person involved in the discussions about the technology. The approach could be especially useful in developing countries where people have less money to spend on app downloads using their mobile connection.”

3 ways touch is going to change design forever “Imagine a world filled with touchscreens, and where passwords are unheard of. It’s not as far off as you might think, says Peter Smart. The internet as we know it is less than 8,500 days old. Yet, in that time it has revolutionised the way the world lives, works and plays. In a generation, we’ve seen the world mapped in amazing detail; real time, face-to-face communication made possible with people on the other side of the planet; and the vastness of human knowledge retrievable in a fraction of a second. But this is nothing compared to what is about to come.”

Apple Watch Review: A day in the life “The Apple Watch is an extraordinarily small and personal device. It is designed to participate in nearly every moment of your day, but almost never directly interact with anyone else. It knows when you’re wearing it. You can talk to it. You can poke it — and it can poke back.”

Insanely high 2098PPI OLED display from Sony makes your 1080p smartphone weep at night “Sony has just announced that they are finally putting to use what many industry experts are considering the highest PPI display ever created. This 0.7-inch (18.0mm diagonal) OLED panel (1280 x 720), is the product of “Sony’s unique OLED and semiconductor silicon drive technologies.” It provides extremely high contrast, and offers excellent color reproduction and a very fast refresh rate, which OLED displays are known for. Why is this a big deal?”

Relaxing with Runcible, the circular ‘anti-smartphone’ “The Runcible is both the strangest and most intriguing device that I’ve seen at Mobile World Congress this year. It offers many of the same capabilities as a smartphone, but it looks like a trinket you would find in a trendy vintage store. That’s by design, though: Its creator, Monohm, wants the circular gizmo to challenge the now ubiquitous smartphone experience, which is increasingly defined by a relentless stream of notifications. Aubrey Anderson, the company’s founder and CEO, describes the Runcible as a “quieter” gadget that can help people relax and live in the moment, while still staying connected online.”

Android apps are now reviewed by Google before you can download them “Developers no longer have free rein to immediately publish apps onto Google Play without any oversight. Google has announced that apps distributed through its store are now manually tested and reviewed to uncover app violations and malware. And much like Apple, sometimes it’s real people handling that job. “This new process involves a team of experts who are responsible for identifying violations of our developer policies earlier in the app lifecycle,” Google wrote in a blog post.”

Carbon3D: A new approach to 3d printing “CLIP — Continuous Liquid Interface Production — is a breakthrough technology that grows parts instead of printing them layer by layer. CLIP allows businesses to produce commercial quality parts at game-changing speeds, creating a clear path to 3D manufacturing.”

Awareables: The technology of super humanism “If you don’t like something about yourself, change it. We all use tech for self-improvement, be it eyeglasses or iThings. Watches have been making us timely since the 1500s. Plus, it’s people’s combination of applied technology and self-awareness that separates us from animals. Humans, welcome to the 21st century!”

Sony’s Lollipop Update Illustrates Android’s Fundamental Flaw “This week, Google announced the availability of Android 5.1, with multiple bug-fixes, security additions, and device protection in software. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Sony today has announced the rollout of the previous buggy Android 5.0 to its latest handsets, more than nine months after 5.0 was announced.”

Back to the Future of Watches “Yesterday (09.03.2015) Apple presented further details about the new Apple Watch. Back to 2000: Fluidtime CEO Michael Kieslinger, back then student in the Master‘s study programme Interaction Design at the famous Royal College of Art in London, worked at a concept for smart watches named Fluidtime Tools. The use cases, interactions between mobile phone and smart watch as well as its features considerably overlap with Tim Cook’s presentation:”

Disney’s $1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband “If you want to imagine how the world will look in just a few years, once our cell phones become the keepers of both our money and identity, skip Silicon Valley and book a ticket to Orlando. Go to Disney World. Then, reserve a meal at a restaurant called Be Our Guest, using the Disney World app to order your food in advance.”

This is the story about how technology is shaping a completely new kind of future. “One that we didn’t really expect at the onset. At the center of it is automation: how technology can do most things humans do in a cheaper and more efficient way. But that’s not new. What’s new is how we are discovering that technology’s end goal of efficiency, and capitalism’s reward for efficiency means that profits will be distributed in two extremes: the owners of the future’s infrastructure, and the few people succesfully making stuff on top of it.”

On the Wrist… “The always on, always connected nature of smartphones made the Internet accessible everywhere and anytime. This dramatically changed our relationship with software. Apps became more personal, social, and relevant to our daily lives. All because of a change in form factor: from desk/lap to palm-sized screens. So what happens when networked screens show up on our wrist?”

Shitphone: A love story “I was an iPhone man once, like you. Then Shitphone changed everything.” A long but very interesting, long read.

YouTube now supports 360-degree videos “It may be a tad later than originally anticipated, but YouTube has just added support for 360-degree videos, making the massive video sharing site more useful to owners of VR headsets. Google said it would have the feature ready in “the coming weeks” back in January, and now it’s here on a small selection of videos. More are expected as a new crop of 360-degree cameras make their way on sale this year.”

Why Our Brains Love High Ceilings “Part of the appeal of high ceilings is no doubt related to a general preference for space, but the behavioral and brain evidence suggests there’s more to it than that. Some research from a few years back ties high ceilings to a psychological sense of freedom. And new neuroimaging work shows that a tall room triggers our tendencies toward spatial exploration.”

Researchers just built a free, open-source version of Siri “Major tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have been able to provide millions of people with personal digital assistants on mobile devices, allowing people to do things like set alarms or get answers to questions simply by speaking. Now, other companies can implement their own versions, using new open-source software called Sirius — an allusion, of course, to Apple’s Siri.”

Valve’s astounding SteamVR solves big problems – and poses bigger questions “At this week’s EGX Rezzed show in London, I had one of those experiences that journalists live for. I got a glimpse of the future – or perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a privileged understanding of the present. I tried Valve’s SteamVR system and for half an hour was held rapt by a suite of demos that allowed me to walk around virtual spaces. I came out with my head spinning – only figuratively – and babbled excitedly at anyone I could grab. The first friend I subjected to my ravings told me I looked stoned. I did feel like my perceptions had been altered in a way that taking the headset off didn’t immediately reverse. It’s that good.”

Antiwork – a radical shift in how we view “jobs” “Over a decade into the 21st century, we seem as work-obsessed as ever. Is it time for a progressive reframing of work and leisure?”

Rockchip RK3036 Android 4.4 TV Boxes with H.265 Codec Support To Sell for $10 “Rockchip announced RK3368 64-bit processor yesterday for mid-range tablets and 4K media player, but the company also have some new ultra low cost TV box and HDMI TV stick solution with Rockchip RK3036 dual core Cortex A7 processor that will go into $9.9 TV boxes running Android 4.4. The price is most probably factory price, but that means $20 H.265/HEC capable Android media players are probably around the corner. You can already get an RK3066 TV dongle (MK808 and similar) for less than $30 in Aliexpress, so the new solution will likely decrease the price by $5 to $10.”

Forking hell! Baidu gives up on its Android-based OS “Despite a high-profile and promising start as Dell made use of Baidu’s Android-based Yi OS for a new China-only phone, the Chinese search giant’s OS thereafter didn’t show any signs of finding favor with the nation’s smartphone shoppers. Yesterday, Baidu confirmed in its Yi OS forums that the Android skin will not get any more updates. The project is now suspended.” (I presume they mean Yi OS in this one and not Yun OS, which is an offering by Alibaba)

Motion Tennis For Chromecast Turns Phones Into Wii Remotes, Smartwatch Support Coming Soon “The potential for turning mobile gaming into something that works well on the TV still exists, and a new app from India’s Rolocule games might help turn that potential into something people actually want to play. The Motion Tennis Cast title from Rolocule is available now, letting you use the game on a big screen via Chromecast, while also employing your Android smartphone as a motion controller”

Huawei wants more freedom to customize Android Wear “The smartwatch market is filling up with unique hardware designs to suit your tastes, but many of them share identical software features, as they are running Google’s Android Wear OS. Huawei recently joined the smartwatch market with its announcement at MWC 2015, but the company is apparently unhappy with the lack of freedom offered by the Android Wear platform.”

Reuters: Tag Heuer teams up with Intel to challenge the Apple Watch “Tag Heuer’s all set to take on the Apple Watch, and it’s slated to reveal the new device sometime today. If you recall, the Swiss company has said that it’s also making a smartwatch shortly after Cupertino announced its own last year. According to Reuters, Tag Heuer’s parent corporation LVMH has teamed up with Intel to create a digital version of one of its most iconic models: the original black Carrera pictured above. It will reportedly still look like the non-digital version, except it will be able to track geolocation, the distance you’ve walked and your current altitude.”

The end of apps as we know them “The experience of our primary mobile screen being a bank of app icons that lead to independent destinations is dying. And that changes what we need to design and build.”

Jaw-dropping Magic Leap demo shows off our augmented future “Google’s multi-million dollar investment in augmented reality startup Magic Leap appears to be paying off if this demo reel is any indication. In it, the fledgling AR firm shows off what a year and half a billion dollars can accomplish. That includes productivity functions like being able to access both websites and desktop apps from airborne virtual icons. There’s also the promise of an immersive shooter game using physical weapons as its controllers and the world around you as the environment. Do want.”

Hunting with the hounds “Rahul Sharma has built audacity into Micromax. He wants to take on the might of Xiaomi, Samsung and even Google, in the smartphone market”

Brain-to-brain interfaces: the science of telepathy “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk a mile (or 1.6 kilometres) in somebody else’s shoes? Or have you ever tried to send a telepathic message to a partner in transit to “pick up milk on your way home”? Recent advances in brain-computer interfaces are turning the science fantasy of transmitting thoughts directly from one brain to another into reality.”

Amazon Home Services “Amazon Home Services is a new and simple way to buy and schedule professional services such as furniture assembly, house cleaning, and lawn care directly on Amazon. We’ve handpicked the best service providers in your neighborhood and require all service pros to be background checked, insured, and licensed if applicable. Service pros compete for your business based on price, quality, and availability. If customers find a lower price for the same service and pro, we will match it”

Backchannel: computers can talk to each other with heat “A paper by Ben Gurion University researchers to be presented at a Tel Aviv security conference demonstrates “Bitwhisper,” a covert communications channel that allows computers to exchange data by varying their temperature, which can be detected by target machines within 40cm.  The backchannel is a threat to airgapped systems that are used to handle sensitive information, and which are often used alongside of networked machines, so that users can switch easily to an Internet-connected system. Both systems have to be compromised for this to work, of course, so the threat model is something like having an airgapped machine that is backdoored in transit (as with the NSA’s practice of diverting computer shipments and fitting them with malware). The researchers anticipate using embedded computers — such as those in printers — as a vector, since these have notoriously poor security.”

NO DICKHEADS!: A Guide To Building Happy, Healthy, and Creative Teams. “There is a perpetuated myth within the design community, that a single visionary is required to build great products. Rubbish. Great teams build great products; moreover, in my experience, the greatest teams prioritize and nurture a healthy and positive internal culture because they understand it is critical to the design process itself.”

Augmented Reality Without The Glasses “The term Augmented Reality is typically defined as an enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device. This device is almost always thought to be Google Glass or some variant. So now that Google Glass is coming off the market does that mean that the experiment in Augmented Reality has failed? Just the opposite.”

I tried to live with a high-end feature phone. I can’t. “The feature phone. Still big in Japan. Still being sold in the millions. Still relevant, though? And does it even matter what a 30-something tech writer at a Western tech site thinks? Japan’s large elderly population — people who haven’t even heard of Angry Birds, Gmail or Uber — they’re the ones sticking to their flip phones. Hardy, easy to use and cheaper than an iPhone.”

A5-V11 Mini Router Runs OpenWRT (Linux) For Just $8 “In case you you still think OpenWRT capable NEXX WT1520 router is still too expensive at $15, what about an $8 OpenWRT router? That’s what LY mini wireless router costs including shipping, and it’s better known as A5-V11, the name of its PCB.”

“Platform” risk “Last night, Twitter curtailed Meerkat’s access to its graph. I saw lots of discussion on Twitter (I’d say this was ironic but it’s just expected) about why and whether Twitter should just compete on its own merits with its recent acquisition Periscope. Some have termed what happened to Meerkat “platform risk,” and it is, but one must be willfully naive to consider ad-monetized social graphs like Facebook and Twitter to be capital P Platforms. I prefer to call them little p “platforms” (I’m drawing air quotes with my fingers in case you aren’t watching me live on Meerkat as I write this).”

The Future of the Tablet is on Display in Ohio “I explained how I see the role of the tablet evolving as quality tablets enter the market at extremely low prices. Inevitably, when hardware drops, margins get so low the business model shifts toward monetizing services, not the hardware. That is exactly what is taking place in Ohio.”

Benedict Evans: Messaging and mobile platforms “One of the fundamental things that smartphones changed about the internet is that the smartphone itself is a social platform: Every app can access your address book, getting an instant social graph. The phone number in particular acts as a unique social identifier.  They can access the photo library and camera directly (and location), making sharing easy. Push notifications mean you don’t need people to keep checking your site (or open emails). Every app is just two taps away on the home screen, which makes switching services easier, and also drives a trend for focused, single-purpose apps over apps that do everything – it’s easier to find a feature as an icon on your home screen than as an option in a sub-menu of the Facebook app”

Ōuraring squeezed a wellness device into a design jewel “A finger can give a lot of information about what’s going on inside us. To capture that information, Ōuraring created a mini-computer inside a ring which partners with a mobile app to offer advice for the wellbeing of both body and mind.”

Google’s ARC Beta runs Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux “In September, Google launched ARC—the “App Runtime for Chrome,”—a project that allowed Android apps to run on Chrome OS. A few days later, a hack revealed the project’s full potential: it enabled ARC on every “desktop” version of Chrome, meaning you could unofficially run Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. ARC made Android apps run on nearly every computing platform (save iOS).”

A New Wave of Chinese Smartphones Set to Emerge in 2015 “In 2014 we saw a half dozen new Chinese Android phone brands, including OnePlus, Smartisan, and IUNI. Unlike previous Chinese mobile phone makers, they emphasised the appearance, design and branding, adopted a low-pricing strategy, sold phones online, and did fancy launch events. Their overall strategy is followed that of Xiaomi, the Chinese Android phone maker that has surpassed Samsung to become China’s top smartphone brand in terms of shipments in 2014, according to IDC.” “So China’s smartphone market is already crowded. But we’re expecting to see another half a dozen Chinese Android phone brands emerge in 2015. Many of them are already big tech companies in their home sectors.”

Don’t be a jerk: Avoid the smart watch “Twenty years ago, I bumped into a friend on the L in Chicago. At some point, he pulled out a pocket watch, fob and all, checked the time, replaced the watch, and went back to our conversation. I thought I was the eccentric of the two of us, but his pocket watch made me feel positively suburban. He said he used to hate his relationship with his wristwatch. One part stressed out by its constant reminder of the time, one part addicted to checking to see if he was late.”