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And Love is Love is Love is Love.

Have fun with the family tracking Santa with these great solutions! Googles Santa Tracker has some great games and videos. Or you could always go with the solid NORAD Santa Tracker .

This creepy iPhone accessory lets you kiss someone over the internet With all the ridiculous crap that's transpired in 2016, you had to know the day would come when people would start making out with their iPhones. That day has apparently arrived, because the Kissenger, an iPhone accessory that adds a totally-not-creepy-but-actually-horrifying robotic kissing pad, i...

Zappos is struggling with Holacracy because humans aren't designed to operate like software Las Vegas, Nevada "We want to believe that we are thinking, rational people and on occasion tangle with emotion, flick it out of the way, and go back to thinking," renown vulnerability expert Brene Brown told a packed house at the Smith Center in downtown Las Vegas just before Labor Day Weekend.

Talking toys can become your kid's digital friend The Amazon Echo is a device people love to play with, but it's not much of a toy for the kids. These holiday items however are toys first, but are also voice-activated to make playtime interactive.

Education Technology's Inequalities The richest 1% now possess as much wealth as the rest of the world combined. That was the conclusion of an Oxfam report issued in January. It was a slogan of the Occupy Movement too, of course, one reprised this year in the Presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, who would frequently repeat that "Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1%."

The White House predicts nearly all truck, taxi, and delivery driver jobs will be automated Like everyone else, the White House isn't entirely sure how automation driven by advancements in artificial intelligence will affect the US economy. But the president's office does feel confident about one thing: the outlook isn't good for people who make their living as drivers.

A fascinating talk on a critical topic by my recent CAL-1 teacher Michael Sahota.

HP Celebrates the Holidays with Pre-CES Techno-fare A few weeks ago, our field nerd crew covered the a holiday event sponsored by HP called "Joy" event at the Terra Gallery in San Francisco. Check out the field report from Eddie Ballar, Ramon Angel and producer Stephen Jang on the cool tech from HP. Enjoy and Happy Holidays! 

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Westworld Privacy Badger Adware/Spyware removers KoalaSafe Rode Podcaster iPhone 6s Plus MealPal Tinycards Google Play vs Amazon Unlimited Amazon Prime Video content Speed Reading Acceleread and Zap Announcement of PO show

Airbus Transpose Envisions The Future of Air Travel - Gear Patrol In-Flight Entertainment In an era when airlines are stripping more and more away - with many, most recently, charging for the use of overhead bins - Airbus is presenting an alternative. Developed by A3, Airbus' California-based innovation arm, Transpose is a concept for a new type of aircraft with plug-and-play interiors, custom tailored to the duration and destination of a particular flight.

Cute Anime Holograph Digital Assistants are Mildly Terrifying I get what they're trying to do here--and I don't like it one bit. Take a look at this "Gatebox Virtual Home Robot" out of Japan: The character's name is Azuma Hikari (her "personality profile" is here) and even after accounting for cultural differences, I find her downright disturbing. While

Experience Design in the Machine Learning Era Traditionally the experience of a digital service follows pre-defined user journeys with clear states and actions. Until recently, it has been the designer's job to create these linear workflows and transform them into understandable and unobtrusive experiences. This is the story of how that practice is about to change.

Education Technology and the 'New Economy' Seymour, as my friend Gary Stager has described him, was the "inventor of everything (good) in education."

Watch Yule Log 2016 Now in its 4th year, Yule Log 2.0 is a collection of short films created by various animation artists that are bringing the Yule Log tradition into the digital age. Now in its 4th year, Yule Log 2.0 is a collection of short films created by various animation artists that are bringing the Yule Log tradition into the digital age.

This big white box will grow marijuana for you At present, over half the states in the country have legalized marijuana either for medical use or recreationally. That clears the way for plenty of small shops to sell the stuff, but growing your own plants at home is still a challenging endeavor for anyone not well-versed in soil, lighting schedul...

What the Robots Are Doing to the Middle Class The simplistic response to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on employment is that we've experienced this before, during the Industrial Revolution and beyond, and that the "market" will eventually provide plenty of jobs.

Amazon's Alexa now lives in a new lamp from GE It wasn't long after Amazon introduced Echo, its smart Bluetooth speaker powered by the Alexa voice assistant, that it became clear the company was interested in more than just selling Echo. Since then Alexa has found its way into other devices, including a robot vacuum, a smiling robot, and now the first lighting product has been embedded with that helpful, if somewhat monotone voice.

Why Every High School Should Teach A Social Media Class - An Idea For You "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing." - Warren Buffet It's time to teach social media to high school students. While some adults who don't understand social media - ironically because they were never taught it -still dismiss it as a novelty or distraction, the reality is social media has become a force of incredible power, change, and business.

The Conundrum of Humdrum Innovation If you're making a digital product or service today, our maturing technology infrastructure makes many ideas more immediately feasible.... Now, in contrast, each component of IDEO's Venn diagram of innovation seems to be enlarging, as Figure 2 shows-especially in the technology sector.

Offboarding: How and How Not to End Relationships with Users | UX Booth Most of us have experienced bad offboarding: the process of leaving a site, when we end up wondering "why on earth is it so hard to just cancel or opt out?" Sarah Khan is here to help businesses understand the value of making offboarding a positive experience.

Complete guide for making animated perspective design or story that nobody wanted to tell me Shot on Dribbble Last year many designers noticed a huge trend to animate mobile design and to present it in a nice perspective look. I thought: How do they do that? I knew exactly, that it would be possible if I moved all UI assets to the After Effects and then animated it there.

People really, really suck at using computers The OECD's 2011-2015, 33 country, 215,942-person study of computer skills paints a deceptively grim picture of the average level of computer proficiency around the world -- deceptive because it excludes over-65s, who research shows to be, on average, less proficient than the 16-65 cohort sampled.

Famban What is Famban? That is my own abbreviation of Family + Kanban! In other words, our attempt to visualise and keep track of all activities within our family. Can't an ordinary kanban board solve that need? Of course, but we have made some additions that we find useful.

​Uber drivers demand higher pay in nationwide protest Uber drivers will join forces with fast food, home care and airport workers in a nationwide protest on Tuesday. Their demand: higher pay. Dubbed the "Day of Disruption," drivers for the ride-hailing company in two dozen cities, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, will march at airports and in shopping areas carrying signs that read, "Your Uber Driver is Arriving Striking."

Toddler robot's learning technique provides insights into early childhood learning ​Kids can pick up new words pretty quickly - just ask any parent who's accidentally sworn in front of them. To better understand early learning, a new study tested the language skills of both children and robots, and found that kids use a robotic technique that may not be based on conscious thought.

Making Large Organizations Agile on All Levels Are you one of those thinking "Large organizations and easy-to-use project management tools just don't mix"? Is this because you are struggling with getting your projects to run smoothly in a large organization? In this article you find out how to do just that on the three levels that all (well, at least 99.9%) need to handle to successfully become agile.

How We've Built a Remote Company Culture to Be Grateful For wrote this on This Thanksgiving, I'm thinking aboutour team and how far we've come.Here's what we've learned. I don't get choked up often. But a few weeks ago, sitting at the dinner table with my wife, I couldn't help myself. That morning, I had missed our team's daily video check-in because of a doctor's appointment.

William Mougayar delivers this talk in which he sketches out a vision of an economy powered by blockchain technology. It’s a fairly concise but expansive vision of what is possible to build with open public blockchains.

Moving walkway networks would be an efficient transport option for car-free cities Researchers at EPFL looked at the idea of car-free cities and concluded that Jetson-style moving walkways could not only replace the car, but could each carry 7,000 passengers an hour more energy efficiently than buses.

Augmented Reality - The Past, The Present and The Future Augmented reality has come a long way from a science-fiction concept to a science-based reality. Until recently the costs of augmented reality were so substantial that designers could only dream of working on design projects that involved it - today things have changed and augmented reality is even available on the mobile handset.

Singularity Watch: This AI Taught Itself to Read Lips Better Than Humans - Core77 A team of researchers at Oxford University have coaxed an artificial intelligence program into an impressive leap forward and towards our own obsolescence. The program, known as LipNet, is showing particularly promising ability to read lips in video clips, thanks to machine learning and a novel way of approaching the

Chevy does electric on the cheap: $300 a month for 238 miles of range Teslas are fantastic in most every way, other than you have to sacrifice at least one organ to actually own one. Chevy's all-electric Bolt hatchback solves that problem by packing over 200 miles of range into a $37,000 car. But according to new pricing details revealed today, there's actually a much cheaper way to own one.

Neato Botvac Connected gets Alexa voice control Last year, the Neato Botvac joined the Internet of Things with the Wi-Fi-enabled Botvac Connected, allowing users to boss it around with a smartphone app. Now the little robo-maid is earning its Connected title all over again, with Neato adding voice control functionality through Amazon's Alexa.

Scrum Community - Scrum Alliance An organization's Agile adoption requires an environment that favors it. Just as parents and other elders in a family influence the culture and environment of that family, managers (or leaders) influence the environment of a team.

Adolfo’s Gift Picks: Segway Mini Pro Skybell HD Roku Streaming Stick i PazzPort Mini Keyboards Amazon Echo Dot Pizza Co. by Osmo Udemy Robin Booth Quick Draw Social Greg’s Gift Picks: Toshiba Connect II Logitech X100 Bluetooth speaker Book: Leader’s Mindset _ A way to win in the age of disruption Maker gift: AGIC Marker Nintendo Switch The LEGO Animation Book: Make Your Own LEGO Movies!

The Scene's Wired Channel Gets a Robot Nerd to Breakdown Movie Cybernoids The RoMeLa Expert Dr. Dennis Hong (photo courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment ) Do you know the movie robots like Wall-E, Terminator, Eva? Which beloved moves robots are realistic to create and which are a far stretch? Thanks to the WIRED channel on Conde Nast Entertainment's  The Scene ,  Wired's robot expert, Dr. Dennis Hong of  RoMeLa  at UCLA breaks it down.   Check out the video below. 

#FF Summaries from Our Retweeters and Followers The Follow Friday Zonies (photo courtesy of Pablo by Buffer) On November 18, 1883, Train companies created the time zones to unify train schedules here in the US.  Our special retweeters and followers were in their special social "zone" this week. Enjoy their tweets. Have a great weekend! - The Nerd Stalker Team

Retrospective with timeline I hope you do your retrospectives regularly? That is a good way to learn about what you do, and to keep your continuous improvements (kaizen) going. In this blog post I will describe a variant of a retrospective we performed, with a timeline to visualize what have happened during the time period we discussed.

A Useful Guide to Content Types, Part 1 | UX Booth Content types are the essential building blocks for a brand, a content management system, and a digital ecosystem. In this series, content strategist Carrie Hane helps us understand what they are, and how to use them for better content and a better experience.

Apple And PayPal Enable Payments Through Siri Voice Commands The integration of Siri and the PayPal iOS app indicates Apple's desire to broaden the scope of its virtual assistant. By Roland Moore-Colyer PayPal has joined forces with Apple to enable payments to be made through voice commands to the Siri virtual assistant.

San Francisco limits Airbnb rentals to 60 days a year The city's Board of Supervisors comes down hard on the home-rental site, curbing the amount of days people can rent out their home.

Bullshit Detector plugin tells you when you're reading fake news With all the current talk about whether Facebook and Google should be policing fake news on their platforms, it pays to take a few precautions of your own. A new Chrome plugin aptly called Bullshit Detector can alert you if you're about to be fooled by a fake news story, and it's super easy to use.

Apple releases $300 book containing 450 photos of Apple products Running out of Christmas ideas for that diehard Apple fan in your life? Well, how about a $299 coffee table book filled with 450 photographs of Apple products present and past. The iPhone-maker...

These Solar Panels Can Pull Drinking Water Straight From the Air By absorbing and treating water vapor from the air, each Source solar panel can produce 5 liters of water per day with the ability to store up to 30 liters for emergencies. With an estimated 663 million people lacking access to safe drinking water, technology like Source could go a long way to improving lives across the globe.

Fighting Ebola with JavaScript Patricia Garcia explains how shrewd use of technology helped tackle an emergency situation in a developing country In September 2014 I joined the software team of an NGO working at the intersection of tech and public health. By then the Ebola outbreak in West Africa had reached epidemic proportions, with thousands of cases reported.

Score releases stats on Veteran owned businesses Infographic by Score Happy Veteran's Day and congratulations to the vets who own businesses. The crew at Nerd Stalker thanks and salutes you! Based on stats released by Score, US Veterans make <Fill in the blank>. Check the stats on Vets and their business acumen below:

#FF Summaries from Our Retweeters and Followers The Follow Friday Veterans Veterans Day is a time to reflect on people who served the country. We salute you! We also salute the Nerd Stalker community of retweeters and followers. Grateful. Have a great weekend! - The Nerd Stalker Team

Watch the trailer for 'Valerian,' the next sci-fi epic from the director of 'The Fifth Element' Forget Star Trek Beyond. Forget Rogue One. Forget Passengers. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets could be the most exciting sci-fi adventure film in years. Directed by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Lucy), Valerian is based on a French graphic novel that started in 1967.

GE's Predix Design System - GE Design Our first design system at GE, created in 2012, was similar to many design systems you find on the Internet today. It was designed to appeal to and support a broad audience within GE and contained a large selection of common design patterns (a term I'll be using to encompass both user interface components and interaction patterns) grouped by function.

UN report says robots threaten two thirds of jobs in developing countries The UN has considered the threat of weaponized AI, but now the body is looking at a more mundane robot invasion. A new report has outlined how the increasing use of industrial automation is impacting jobs in developing countries, and what strategies may help in overcoming the problem.

CMRA Gives Apple Watches The Power of Photography - Core77 Taking photos with a device on your wrist sounds like something straight out of Star Trek. Now, with Glide's CMRA Apple Watch strap, it's not such an outrageous concept. The dual camera equipped strap gives the Apple Watch full photo and video capabilities, making up for what the smart watch

Tribe of Noise Head Noise Maker Updates us on their Latest Venture -  Bizmusiq Hessel Van Oorschot - Chief Noise Maker at Tribe of Noise Startup Business models evolve. Some out of necessity. Some out of pure timing and chance meeting.  In an  interview  early this year with Hessel Van Oorschot , we learned that there is another higher decibel noise coming from the Tribe of Noise  which Hessel talked about a new streaming service for restaurants. Turns out this announcement was just the infrastructure tech for an even bigger deal.   Hessel talks about a new joint venture with a record label in the Netherlands. Here in the states(as every one outside of US likes to call it), you may or may not have heard about them - Strengholt Music Group .  Strengholt owns new dutch music licenses as well as classic licenses. As Hessel discusses in the interview, the old labels need to get into the digital era and why not stream modern to classic music, served with some indies to create di

MIT rolls out driverless scooter ​Make way autonomous cars, because now there are autonomous scooters. A team from MIT has developed a self-driving mobility scooter using algorithms that not only allow users to sit back and enjoy the ride, but could be applied across a spectrum of different vehicles.

Hyperloop One unveils pods and portals design Although Hyperloop One has been quick to raise funds, grow its staff and demo its basic tech, we've still been offered little idea of what its Hyperloop might look like. Danish architect BIG has given us a glimpse of a system conceived to integrate with society and infrastructure.

Learning is the work of the future As the pace of economic and social change accelerates, educational systems must continuously adapt and evolve. In this guest post leading up to the Global Education Symposium, OECD Director and Special Advisor Andreas Schleicher looks forward to the future of learning.

The Name of the Practice Is Information Architecture In relation to information architecture, the word systems does not imply technology systems. Rather, the use of the word system refers to the underlying ecological nature of an information environment, or space. It's actually the second word in each of those component names that embodies the complexity and essence of information-architecture practice.

Johan Gunnars, CEO & Co-Founder of  Simpliday , Talks In-Depth About Get You Over Your Scheduling Worries Scheduling your life (photo courtesy of  Pablo  by Buffer) Johan Gunnars, the ever-present entrepreneur, talks in-depth about his latest article "Scheduling Tips for People Who Hate Scheduling ". Johan is one of those mindful people who looks at scheduling as a way to connect with people and also show people that their time is valuable as well. We go in-depth with his thoughts on his article  and Johan explains some of the fears and concerns people have about scheduling.

Cubetto is a programmable robot for pre-schoolers I had a chance to play with a Cubetto recently. It's a little, wooden, happy face robot on two wheels. You can control which way it goes by inserting colorful plastic chips on programming board (which also has a wood top). There are four kinds of chips: turn clockwise, turn counterclockwise, move forward, and call subroutine.

8 Productivity Experts Reveal The Secret Benefits Of Their Morning Routines Morning sets the tone for the day, especially when it's one of those times you wish you hadn't gotten out of bed. So we asked eight productivity experts to give us a glimpse into their morning routines to help smooth the way and inspire better starts.

The Best Metrics and Tools for Measuring User Engagement If you are reading this blog, there is a pretty good chance you know, at least to some degree, what and how important user engagement is. The real struggle at this point is no longer whether to measure it or not - now it's about properly keeping tabs on it, and optimizing it accordingly.

Greg and Adolfo play catch up on all things Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google Home, IOT, Music services and more! Speed Round : Instapaper is free Introducing “LinkedIn Salary”: Unlock Your Earning Potential Spinach Works as a Hidden Bomb Detector Tips of the Week: These maps and signs will help EV and alt-fuel drivers with range anxiety Simon Sinek: Understanding The Game We're Playing

#FF Summaries from Our Retweeters and Followers Famous CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite (photo courtesy of Wikipedia) What's an anchor? If you google this, this man's name comes up. 100 years ago today, famous CBS anchor Walter Cronkite was born on this day in 1916. For this famous anchor to our social media anchors, these people reported shareable news this week.was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). From this famous anchor to our social media anchors, these people anchored the social media world.     Check them out. Have a great weekend! - The Nerd Stalker Team

Gabriel Shaoolian , Founder & CEO  of  Blue Fountain Media , Gives Some Suggestions to Build Effective Email Campaigns Only the most effective email marketing campaigns are the ones that are able to capture the interest of users and engage them. To make sure that your brand is spending their time and resources towards initiatives that will garner results, it’s important to keep several key elements in mind as you build your campaigns. Below are 7 email marketing tactics that will help to improve both the open-rate and click-through-rate of your efforts:

The first ship designed to take autonomous operations offshore The UK's Automated Ships Ltd and Norway's Kongsberg Maritime have announced plans to construct Hrönn, a vessel they claim will be the world's first autonomous ship for offshore operations.

3 cool new ways to track (and improve) your sleep Well, yes, mainly because the blue light that devices like your iPhone emit while you scroll through Instagram in bed is not great for setting you up for a night of solid shut-eye.

Sen. Al Franken asks Uber and Lyft about alleged racial discrimination against passengers Senator Al Franken has some questions for Uber and Lyft about racial discrimination following the recently-released study that says some of those companies' respective drivers racially discriminate against passengers. The study, conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that black people have to wait longer for rides in Seattle.

Regular meditation more beneficial than vacation - Harvard Health Blog As mindfulness meditation and yoga have become mainstream and more extensively studied, growing evidence suggests multiple psychological and physical benefits of these mindfulness exercises, as well as for similar practices like tai chi and qi gong.

Wired, with other Conde Nast tech publications, starts a $4,000-a-year-membership program - Digiday Wired, with other Conde Nast tech publications, starts a $4,000-a-year-membership program In the quest for new sources of revenue, publishers have been launching subscription programs and events series. Condé Nast's Wired Media Group, consisting of Wired, Ars Technica and Backchannel, is going a step further.

Design Jargon, Simplified | Cooper We designers tend to like our fancy (and sometimes heady) terminology. The UX industry has gone through many different rounds of trying to define what we do, e.g. UX, service blueprints, journey maps. Describing our work can be exhausting for those who aren't immersed in our world.

Prototype usability testing? Avoid these common mistakes. Testing with wireframes is a fast and easy way of discovering usability issues during the early stages of the design process. Wireframes are a low fidelity version of the real thing, meaning they have lots of limitations that can affect the results of your usability study - or even completely ruin it - if you don't take some precautions.

Raising good humans We're beyond excited to release Me - our newest app, the fifth in the series - next week and not a moment too soon. Like other Digital Toys apps, Me encourages creative thinking. But it's also our first app specifically designed to support kids' socio-emotional development.

When analyzing and understanding the systems we work with we have many possible tools to help us find what is affecting the system and therefore the team. Adolfo lists 3 tools he uses and how he uses them to find out what are the system conditions in play.

It happens. Some of our best people are also quite strong minded and want to do things their way, because hey, it worked in the past! This is a problem for the team to develop in a cohesive and collaborative mode of work. However this does not be an impossible problems for us Scrum Masters. Adolfo walks us through how he solved such a situation. In this episode we refer to the book Crucial Conversations by Patterson et al., a guide to handling difficult, but necessary conversations in our teams.

Vine Star Jason Nash Releases 'FML' - a Parody About Social Media Sam and Henry (Photo courtesy of Digital Riot Media and FML) Over the weekend, 60 Minutes ran a story on Social Media Influencers . These people who are changing the landscape of advertising are offering product endorsements to their followers via their "schtick" not some ad agency planned marketing campaign. They are as big on social media as some sports stars but they are just normal like you and I. Over the weekend, we were grateful to have screened the the movie " FML-The Movie " (Thank you Shark Party Media and Digital Riot Media ) which is a comedy which parodies the whole social influencer world. Jason Nash, a vine star himself,  producing and directing his second cross-over feature, has released the  first-ever Vine star feature film (written, directed and starring Vine stars) on October 11th.  FML   stars  Jason Nash  and  Brandon Calvillo , two of Vine’s most followed socia

It was my tremendous honor to be invited on the fantastic Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast with host Vasco Duarte. It is tempting, and sometimes even possible to change many things starting from a small group. But if you are working in a large multi-national organization don’t forget the old adage: “the tail can’t wag the dog”. Small wins are necessary, but not sufficient to help change take hold in larger organization.

Be Somebody New: LinkedIn Learning Opens Up their Courses for 1 week Photo courtesy of LinkedIn Learning On LinkedIn's blog there is a quote " Learning means growing." Here's your chance to grow. LinkedIn announced last Friday that they are opening their coffers for one week to show you the breadth of LinkedIn Learning. On September 22,  LinkedIn announced they finally pulled the Lynda.com library of online training courses into its main service. Lynda.com, now LinkedIn Studios, is still based in Carpenteria and still going strong. 

IMD Professor Stefan Michel on LinkedIn and the Future of Learning in the Workplace New Age of Education Delivery (photo courtesy of Pablo by Buffer) LinkedIn recently announced that it was entering the professional development market. Surprisingly, this news barely caused a ripple. Will 22 September 2016 go down in history as a key milestone in the digital transformation of the professional development market? Only the future will tell.