I normally do not report on technology stories outside of Apple, but the recent story of Vizio being fined by the Federal Trace Commission (FTC) is one that I determined warranted some coverage.

Backstory

The FTC has fined Vizio $2.2 Million for their behaviors. The backstory is that in 2014 Vizio began tracking what viewers were watching. This was done by capturing a set of pixels on the screen, sending this information, along with other information, to their servers. Through the use of machine learning, Vizio was able to match those pixels to a vast catalog of shows. This gathering occurred on a second-by-second basis. The information gathered was then aggregated and sold to third-party advertisers. This information that was obtained included demographics, location, and viewing habits. If it was merely a mechanism for gathering what was watched, it may not be considered too bad, but it was more. Despite how bad this was, it was not just TVs that were made after 2014, but that Vizio went back and proactively enabled this on TVs as far back as 2011. The primary complaint was that Vizio did not get a viewer's consent before performing this action.

Problems with this

The biggest issue that I have with this, besides the fact that this was being done without the knowledge of users, is that Vizio has been the only one who has been caught doing this. Does this mean that they are the only company that is performing in this behavior? I highly doubt it. It is very likely that many other manufacturers are also performing this action.

Bandwidth Usage

One aspect that is not always readily recognized in today's technology-laden world is the amount of bandwidth being used. While the information may have been sent in batches, it still uses some bandwidth of every user. Depending on how much the TV was used, this could easily add up. Take this with consideration that many users now fall into data caps and this uses up that bandwidth.

Mitigations that can be done now

There are a few ways to not have this occur. The first is disconnect the TV from your network. If the TV is connected via a physical ethernet cable (which is unlikely for most users), you can simply unplug it. However, if it is connected via Wireless, you will need to disconnect it from the Wireless, and if possible, set the TV to completely "forget" the network, so it cannot reconnect on its own.

The downside to do this though, is that since it is a "Smart TV", if you use any of the built-in services, like Netflix, you may not be able to use them. This could likely include not being able to watch Netflix in 4K.

Streaming Boxes

Another possible solution is to use an external 3rd party box, like Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, or even an Roku, in conjunction with disconnecting the TV from the network. While some of these devices may also be tracking what you watch, it is more likely that it is for their own purposes and not to sell to third-parties. However, you will want to read the agreements before saying anything definitive.

Long-term Fixes

There is no simple fix that can be made for this. The fix has to come either through governmental regulation or through industry regulations. The other option, which is not likely, is for people to tell the industry with their dollar. This is likely due to the limited availability for "dumb" TVs on the market. There is a small contingent of people who would be willing to pay a bit more for a TV that did not have any "smart" capabilities. I know I would be one of those people.

Final Thoughts

The solution for this problem is not an easy one to determine. It may take some pushback from consumers to demand that privacy regulations be created so that the consumer is in charge of how their information is used. This must come with regulation. The fine of Vizio is designed to let all manufacturers know that they must now get explicit, not implicit, permission from users before gathering the information. The damage, from the existing gathering and selling of information, is already done. Being required to get permissions from users will undoubtedly ultimately hurt the bottom line of the television manufacturers, since fewer users will agree to the collection, thus, they will not be able to sell as much information to advertisers.

It would behove the government to begin lobbying even larger fines for any company that performs in the same manner as Vizio. If the government is truly intent on curbing this type of abuse, as well as others, making it hurt financially may be an effective way of doing just that.

I have been trying to determine how to sum up 2016. I think the most accurate term would be “shit show”. Regardless of how you feel as though 2016 turned out, it was undeniably a surprising year. There were many unexpected aspects to 2016. The most surprising, to many, was the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States; followed closely by the exiting of Britain from the European Union, often called “Brexit” for short.

Whether it be from being able to sail across and ocean, to flying across the same ocean, or even taking a train across a vast country, there is one thing that the march of progress has done, it has made the world a smaller place. This is even more abundantly true with the rise of the internet, and most particularly social media sites. Social media is a double-edged sword. This has occurred by allowing us to communicate with those anywhere on the planet. This allows us to be exposed to ideas and people would never have another instance to engage in. One of the ways that people learn about news that they may not normally hear, is through Social Media.

There have been many people who will say “Good Riddance to 2016”. Even though they are consciously aware of the fact that a year cannot cause problems, they do look towards something as a scape goat. Sometimes this is due to the death of celebrities and those known by a significant number of people around the world.

As with any year, a plethora of household names have passed away during 2016. Some of these include Alan Rickman, Alan Thicke, Anton Scalia, Anton Yelchin, Arnold Palmer, Carrie Fisher, David Bowie, Debbie Reynolds, Elie Wiesel, Fidel Castro, Florence Henderson, Gary Shandling, Gene Wilder, George Michael, Harper Lee, Janet Reno, John Glenn, Kenny Baker, Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard, Muhammed Ali, Nancy Reagan, Pat Conroy, Prince, Umberto Eco, William Christopher and many many more; in fact too many to list. This includes those that are not as well known, but none-the-less have impacted people across the world.

Technology’s ability to expose people to more than they could have in the past, does mean that more people have the capability of becoming more well known. This social ability of Social Media also means that collectively we can grieve for those that have died. Even with the coming together that Social Media allows, it can also cause some to be very derisive. Compounding this downside to is that some individuals do not always recognize that there are actual human beings on the other side of the wire. This means that when people interact with others, they say and do things that they would not say or do if they were in physical proximity of others.

This cognitive dissidence has lead to some of the most contentious stories of the year. Besides the aforementioned election of Donald Trump as the 46th President of the United States and the British exit of the European Union, there have been many other stories that have caused some rancor. The biggest has been the issues with race between minorities and various Police Departments. These stories do not just minorities being shot by Police, although a majority of them are just this type of story. Some of the cities that have had these stories are Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

One of the biggest stories has been the leaking of emails between some Democratic National Committee members. While the emails themselves were mostly innocuous, the leak itself was, and still is, the more worrisome part. It has been determined that Russia is behind the hack. Whilst the hack itself is definitely problematic, the influence of the hack on the United States election is the bigger of the issues.

As I write this, we are entering the waning hours of 2016. With 2017, we are entering a contentious time with nuclear powers threatening each other. A defector from North Korea, now in South Korea, has indicated that North Korea may have full nuclear capabilities by the end of 2017. With the Russian hacking of the United States Election, and the unknown ties between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and President Elect Donald Trump, we are entering a very unstable time. The progress that has been made within the United States is possibly in peril due to the incoming Congress of the United States and the aims of President Elect Trump.

Despite how bad 2016 has been, it is my hope that 2017 will be better; not just for race relations, but for everything that is happening throughout the world. We, as humans, are the only ones who are capable of being kinder to one another, and we are the only ones who are able to come together and come to some consensus and compromise and learn to live with each other. Here is to hoping that 2017 is better than we all expect and some of the regression that has been experienced in 2016 is reversed and we all get back into making progress.

I typically despise reddit, it exemplifies the scum that is pervasive on the Internet. Even so, the following was written by a Reddit user "Zurlap". It is not my original thoughts, but it does have some truth to it. This is via @joelhousman.

We're "Star Wars Generation". Born between 1977 and 1983, neither the cynical GenX nor the narcissist Millennials, we're a unique generation that grew up learning all the old-world skills like writing letters and mailing cheques, but never had a chance to actually use those skills in the real world as the internet exploded while we were in high school and college. Out of the generations, we're the most comfortable with technology because we grew up along side the archaic forms and learned how they actually worked. We used DOS and played with DIP switches on our motherboards and found IRQ ports for our soundcards. GenX doesn't know what the hell a sound card is, and Millennials grew up with plug&play. We remember life before cell phones, movies before CGI, music before autotune. We went to school before it became a paranoid prison after Columbine, and the change shocked us as we experienced in happening before our very eyes. We got jobs during that quiet period of prosperity between the dot com bust and the housing crash, and consider ourselves lucky that we're not stuck like Millennials are. Millennials hate us because we sucked up the good jobs right before the economy crashed for good. We remember Han being the only one who shot. We're the ones who look back at the 90's fondly and wish things could go back to being so simple. 9/11 was the barrier between our adolescence and adulthood. We don't understand why the world turned so ridiculous just as we crossed that threshold, and are lost in uncertainty, because we remember something better, but never got to experience it. We're the last generation that are proud to own our cars, and will take a while to accept self-driving cars. We're the last ones living the suburban home ownership dream, and the last generation that moved out of our parents houses when we were still in school and could afford it. We use our smartphones all the time and love them to death, but it still creeps us out when we see little kids using them; we think "Kids shouldn't have cellphones in school!". We will never understand the point of watching a video on youtube of someone playing a video game; we'd rather play it ourselves. We're the last ones who will join social clubs organized outside of Facebook. We're the last generation that can get away with saying "Oh I don't have Facebook, I don't need it". Jurassic Park gave us nightmares but we still went to see it in the theatres 10 times because it was literally the most awesome thing to ever happen to us as kids. We pretend we were into grunge music before it exploded, but we weren't. It was already dying when we discovered it. We wish we could have seen Nirvana in concert, and will probably tell our grandkids that we did. Good music stopped being made when The Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden broke up and Nickelback exploded on the scene. We played our parents LP collections. We recorded our favorite songs off the radio. We owned the first discmen. MP3 players represent the pinnacle of evolution in music technology, and we don't like streaming. We like being able to pick what songs we listen to next instead of having a computer do it for us. The transition from VHS to DVD literally changed our lives, but couldn't care less about Bluray. To us, the transition from DVD to BR just isn't anywhere near as groundbreaking as it was from VHS to DVD. Michael Bay ruined action movies forever. We don't know what the hell a pokeyman is, and don't care. Princess Leia Organa will forever define the epitome of sexy to us, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo the greatest of heroes. The Ewoks aren't that bad. Wickett? We love the little guy. Darth Vader and Boba Fett are BAD. ASS. We are the Star Wars generation.

Writing my thoughts/a review for any product can have its challenges. What makes it even harder is when you do not have a specific aspect to the product that you want to review. This is what I have been struggling with for the last couple of months in regards to the Apple Watch. Most of my other reviews are broken down in sections, but I opted to go with a slightly different route with this review.

The Apple Watch is the newest product line released by Apple. While some could argue that the iPad Pro is a new product line, it was built off of an existing product line, the iPad. While the iPad Pro has some very distinct features, yet it is not an entirely new product. However, the Apple Watch is a new product line. The Apple Watch includes a very custom processor that is encased in resin, in order to protect as much of the product against water as possible.

Initially when the Apple Watch was announced, I was skeptical as to whether I would actually end up using one. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that I had not worn a watch for over a decade. The second issue is that if I did order one, I was not sure if I would continue to use it. However, neither of these have ended up being an issue.

With the Apple Watch being a new product, its function and utility was initially unknown. When the Apple Watch was released in April, it came with Watch OS 1.0, which limited the type of applications available on the Watch to using WatchKit. WatchKit allowed only glances, and application that required the use of a companion iPhone application in order to function.

When you first get a new device, you poke and prod at each little corner of the item. This is exactly what happened when I got the Apple Watch, since its entire interface is a mere 38mm or 42mm, depending on which model you have, on each side, there is not a whole lot to poke and prod.

When I first got the Apple Watch in May, I added a few glances. Those included WWDC and Overcast being the only glances added that are not built-in. Along with the glances I also installed a couple of WatchKit applications, including the Apple TV Remote app, WWDC, and deliveries. These were chosen since those were the only apps that I thought I would end up using on the Watch.

After seven months of usage, I have definitely come into a pattern of usage for the Apple Watch. The primary usage that I have for the watch is filling in the activity rings. In the last 220 days, there have only been two days where I missed reaching the goals, both of these were in May. Every day since June, I have hit all three of the ring goals. Those three goals are active calories, minutes of exercise, and the standing goal.

One of the bugs with the Apple Watch is the standing goal. There have been many times that I have been standing, for longer than an hour as well as moving around, and it is not registered as part of the standing goal. Normally, this is not a problem since I reach the goals, but it is rather bothersome when you do not get credit towards the standing goal.

Reaching the activity and exercise goals during the summer was not an issue. However, now that it has gotten colder here in the northern hemisphere, meeting the calorie goals has become more difficult, so I have adjusted it to be a lower amount than before. Some might consider this to be "cheating", but it is more exercise than I was getting before getting the watch. Even with reducing the amount, even on days like today, I am able to hit 400% of my move goal. I would have hit 300% if I had not adjusted it down to its current setting.

Along with the activity and standing goals, As one might expect with a smart watch, notifications are a huge aspect to the functionality. I do use my Apple Watch for notifications, mostly for SMS, Nuzzel, and NYT Now. It is quite nice to be notified of something, but not have to immediately interact with the notifications is one of the nicest features.

With having notifications enabled, and particularly with both Nuzzel and NYT Now, I am able to stay up to date on the latest news that is occurring. The notifications are especially nice when I am not able to get to my phone, or if I end up leaving my phone in another room.

One of the capabilities of the Apple Watch is the ability to take phone calls. I have done this just once. It is novel, but it is not really something that I do often. To be fair, I do not get that many phone calls, but I prefer to take phone calls on my phone, with my EarPods in.

One of the biggest concerns that many people had regarding the Apple Watch, before its general availability, was the capacity of the battery. During all of my usage, the battery has never been below 20% at the end of the day. The average amount of battery left has been about 45%. Sine I have the 42MM Space Gray Sport watch, the battery is a bit larger, so that could account for some of the ability for the Apple Watch to only get to around 50%.

One of the things that I would very much like to see in an updated version of the Apple Watch is not a hardware difference, but a software one. The Apple Watch only has two buttons, the Digital Crown, and the "Friends"/Power button. I do not have any friends that own an Apple Watch, so this button is one useful for screenshots, Apple Pay, and powering off the Apple Watch. I would really love to be able to customize what function single-clicking the button will do. If I could I would prefer to have the singe-clicking bring up glances. This would make the Apple Watch that much easier to use. I will admit, this is not my idea, and while I cannot remember who came up with this idea, but I truly have to agree with them.

One of the main interaction methods with Apple Watch is Siri. While Siri does not have any auditory response, the responsiveness and accuracy of Siri is remarkable. The accuracy is better than one might expect. I do not use Siri on my Apple Watch that often, but the most common thing I do is actually to play a particular song while driving. It's easy enough to press down the digital crown for a couple seconds and then tell Siri what I want to hear.

Despite the great improvement with Siri, one of the issues that I do have is the glass. I have the Apple Watch Sport model, so the glass is not the sapphire glass, but the Ion glass. Within approximately three weeks of getting my Apple Watch, I managed to put a decent scratch into the face of my Apple Watch. This was done while moving some items around at work. It is not noticeable when when the screen is on, but it noticeable when the screen is off and when you look at just the right angle. I always get AppleCare on my Apple products, so I will likely get it fixed before giving it to somebody else, but it slightly annoying.

Overall, I am happy with the Apple Watch. AS with many of Apple's other iOS-based devices, it is quite likely that I will end up getting a new Apple Watch, when the next one is related. Even though I end up using only a fraction of the capabilities, I still think the Apple Watch is a solid product. In terms of hardware, it is rock-solid. I have never had an issue with the hardware acting up. Even though Watch OS 1.0 was not ideal, Watch OS 2.0 allows independent applications, which make the Apple Watch even more functional than it was previously. If you have an iPhone 5, 5s, 5c, 6, 6s, 6 Plus or 6s Plus and you are in the market for a smart watch, the Apple Watch may be one that you want to look at getting.

When Apple unveiled the original iPad in 2010, many people were immediately dismissive of the iPad as a device claiming "it is just a larger iPhone". Were they wrong, no, they were not. It was a larger iPhone. But that is the whole point, it was a larger iPhone. Until that point, iPhones were only 3.5-inches diagonally. It was quite a leap to jump to a 9.7-inch screen.

As time has gone on, the function of the iPad began a slow refinement. Being based on many of the same aspects as its smaller brethren, it did not mimick it entirely. Instead it began to create its own distinct place in the iOS lineup.

The ability to use a larger screen made some tasks, like watching a movie, playing a game, or even doing some administrative tasks. Even with the excitement of a new product, it had become primarily for most individuals, a consumption device. Apple decided to make a change.

At their Fall event in September, Apple unveiled their latest product, the iPad Pro. For this article, I will not go into my full thoughts on the iPad Pro, because I have only had it for three days. Along with this, I do not yet have one of the crucial aspects to the iPad Pro, the Apple Pencil. In leiu of being able to provide a full review, I thought I would provide my initial thoughts on the product. So here they are.

Size

When you first look at the 12.9-inch iPad Pro one word comes to mind BIG. It really is a large device. The screen resolution of 2732 pixels tall by 2048 wide makes it the largest iPad Apple has created. There are almost 5.6 million pixels on the screen. That is a huge number of pixels. The resolution of the screen means that if you use two applications in split-screen mode you will be able to use two iPad applications as if they were full size.

Productivity

One of my own aspirations of owning an iPad has always been the ability to have it be a portable workstation. Despite every intention to have it be so, the iPad Air 2 just was not the right device for me to be able to do this. However, the iPad Pro appears to be capable of this. As far as I can surmise, the differential between the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Pro is the split screen capability. While it is available on the iPad Air 2, the ability to effecitvely have two iPad Air 2's side-by-side makes all of the difference.

Sound

There is one aspect to the iPad that I do not normally utilize, the speakers. I normally have headphones in my ears all the time, and typically the headphones are connected to my iPhone since that is entirely portable and can go with me everywhere. I have used the iPad Pro speakers a bit, and they are definitely louder than both my iPhone 6s Plus as well as the iPad Air 2. In order to get the same level of audio I have to turn the iPhone 6s Plus and iPad Air 2 volumes up much higher than the iPad Pro.

Issues

Despite all that is good that I have experienced thus far with the iPad Pro, there have been a couple of issues that I have encountered as well.

Screen

One of the changes that must have been made in order to accomodate the Apple Pencil means that something on the coating has been changed. Unlike other iOS devices, including the 6th Generation iPod Touch, all have an oloeophobic coating. This means that it should be resistant to fingerprints. With the iPad Pro, however, the screen seems to attract fingerprints more than the other iOS devices. It is not necessarily a huge problem, but something that I noticed.

Icon Layout

Earlier I mentioned that some thought the original iPad was just a larger iPhone. The same can be applied with the iPad Pro and it would be more accurate. The iPad Pro has the same layout as other iPads, meaning that the grid layout is five icons wide with four rows. With the larger resolution, one would think that Apple could increaes the number of icons in the grid, but they have not. It is entirely possible that this will change with a future release of iOS, but as of right now it has not.

Keyboard

One of the things I have done since I initially got the original iPad was to have a bluetooth keyboard connected, again in the vain of getting some productive work accomplished. With the iPad Pro I have connected my Magic Keyboard and have actually been able to accomplish some work; including typing this entire post using the iPad Pro. The issue I seem to be having though has been with some key presses not being recognized. If it were happening in only one area, I would say it was that application, but it happens quite a bit in Safari. It does not seem to be a consistent issue either. I am sure it will get fixed in a future version of iOS, but for now it is an issue.

Overall

Overall I am enjoying the iPad Pro. The split view that allows two iPad Air 2 applications appear side-by-side has been a productivity boost. The only real downside now is that if I've been using my iPad Pro for a while and go back to my iPhone 6s Plus, the iPhone 6s Plus looks really small. I am going to continue to use the iPad Pro and provide a full review at some point in the future.

It is the season to watch halloween-based or scary movies. Now I have my list of halloween/scary movie that I watch every year. The list is at the end of this article. Weirdly, I had watched all of the movies that I normally see so I went looking for more.

I subscribe to Netflix and have an Amazon Prime account. While looking for movies it occurred to me that neither of these two services has a list of halloween/scary movies. Sure, they both have the capability to search based on genre, as well as suggestions for similar titles, but they do not have a list of available halloween-based movies. The closest that either service comes, is when Netflix suggests "Titles related to". This at least shows similar movies.

I find it quite strange that neither of these services provides this functionality. I know it would take some on-going man power to accomplish, but in the end it would provide some good will with their customers.

It may be too late to do a list for Halloween movies, but they could easily do ones for Thanksgiving and definitely Christmas.

Thoughts on Apple's Magic Products

One aspect to our daily technology lives that we may not consider is the input devices that we use. We use them constantly and, most of the time, without any thought, except for when the batteries run out on the devices and they stop working. These input devices include mice, keyboards, and TrackPads. There are many who complain that Apple has no idea how to properly design a mouse. These same individuals also state that the only good mice that Apple has made is the infamous "puck" mouse.

Apple has released a new set of input devices. These include the new Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad 2, and Magic Mouse 2. Let us look at each of these devices, and we will start with the Magic Mouse 2.

Magic Mouse 2

The Magic Mouse 2 looks a lot like its predecessor, the Magic Mouse. The Magic Mouse 2 features a new internal design which eliminates the need for replaceable batteries. While the Magic Mouse 2 may look the same there are some distinct changes to the mouse.

The first of these changes is the way that it clicks. As indicated in the Medium piece'> "What I Saw Inside Apple's Top-Secret Input Lab" by Steven Levy, Apple redesigned the feet of the Magic Mouse 2, in order to provide the proper click. Having had each of the previous versions of the I have access to each of the previous versions of Apple's input devices. When you compare the Magic Mouse to the Magic Mouse 2, you can tell that the click on the Magic Mouse 2 is a bit higher than the older Magic Mouse. Beyond the click, and the new The overall shape and function of the Magic Mouse 2 has remained unchanged.

Magic Keyboard

Similar to the Magic Mouse 2 is the all new-Magic Keyboard. The Magic Keyboard, like the Magic Mouse 2, does not have any replaceable batteries. The removal of the replaceable batteries allows for a couple of different changes to be made to the new Keyboard.

The first is the size of the keyboard. The physical dimensions of the keyboard remained unchanged. But what has changed is the vertical dimension. Instead of being at a steep angle as the previous Apple Wireless Keyboard. The new angle of the Magic Keyboard is much lower than the previous keyboards.

The second aspect to the new design is the new keys. The Magic Keyboard takes some cues from the new MacBook keyboard. The keyboard layout is very similar to the MacBook. The biggest changes are that in place of the power key, you get an eject key. The second change is that the new Magic Keyboard does not have any backlight, so the F5 and F6 keys for adjusting the brightness of the keyboard, have been removed.

The last change, which is the most noticeable, is the weight of the keyboard. Since there is no longer any need for batteries, the weight of the keyboard has been significantly reduced. The Magic Keyboard is 33% of the weight of the previous keyboard. The Magic Keyboard is a mere 0.51 pounds, where the Wireless Apple Keyboard came in at 1.5 pounds. The weight of the keyboard is definitely noticeable, particularly if you use it on your lap.

The last feature of the Magic Keyboard is the key travel. Key Travel is the amount of distance that the keys move before the key is fully pressed. With the Apple Wireless Keyboard, the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air this distance was 2 millimeters. This is not a great distance. The new MacBook's key travel distance is 0.5 millimeters, one fourth the distance of the existing Apple keyboards. The Magic Keyboard's key travel distance is twice that of the Apple MacBook, at 1 millimeter.

If you are used to using a keyboard with two millimeters of travel, is an adjustment, however after using the Magic Keyboard for a while, it is quite comfortable using the keyboard. One of the hesitations that I had when first using the Magic Keyboard was whether there would be issues going back and forth between the Magic Keyboard and an older keyboard. For the most part, there have not been many issues at all. While the distance differential between the two keyboards remains noticeable, but it is definitely something that one can overcome.

Overall the Magic Keyboard is quality upgrade from the Apple Wireless keyboard.

Magic Trackpad 2

The last new input device is the Magic Trackpad 2. Apple's original Magic Trackpad was released in July of 2010. At that time, the new product was an external, standalone version of the trackpad found in the Apple laptops. The Magic Trackpad was able to use the same gestures that the laptops were capable of doing.

The Magic Trackpad 2 is a completely redesigned trackpad that still supports all of the same gestures, but has been completely redesigned, and even sports some new capabilities, namely Force Touch. Apple introduced Force Touch in March of 2015 with the release of the MacBook as well as the Early-2015 MacBook Pros with Retina. Until now, this was the only way to get Force Touch on OS X.

The Magic Trackpad 2 is completely redesigned. It now features the same height as the Magic Keyboard, of 0.43 inches. It can be placed directly adjacent to the Magic Keyboard, and it would almost appears though it was one item.

The Force Touch aspect to the Magic Trackpad 2 does add a new option for interaction within applications. Currently, most developers have not integrated Force Touch gestures into their applications, but now that the Magic Trackpad 2 is available, developers may be

Commonalities

All three of Apple's new Magic devices connect via bluetooth, as well as having lightning connectors for charging. The Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad 2 have enough space on the back to be able to plug in the lightning cable and continue to use the device. The Magic Mouse 2 has its lightning port on the bottom, but cannot be used while it is charging. To accommodate for this, Apple has provided the capabilities for quick charging, where the Magic Mouse 2 can be charged for two minutes and provide nine hours of usage.

One of the pain points for any Bluetooth device is pairing. Pairing with the new Magic devices is done very quickly. Using a computer that is running OS X 10.11 El Capitan, simply plug in the device and it will automatically be paired with that device.

The best part of this is that it will work on any computer that is running OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Hence, if you want to move your Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad 2, or Magic Mouse 2 between devices, it is as simple as plugging in the device for two seconds and then unplugging it. There is no more need to go through the pairing rigamarole that has been present in previous versions.

The new Magic devices all have approximately one month of charge before needing to be recharged. This is definitely a good thing, because it means that you will easily be able to go use the devices without needing to worry about changing batteries, which are not only bad for the environment, but also bad for the pocketbook because you have to keep buying replaceable batteries, or using rechargeable ones.

The specifications on the Magic Trackpad 2 indicate that you need to have a Bluetooth 4.0 enabled Mac. This was not my experience. I have a Mid-2011 iMac that only has Bluetooth 2.1, and it worked with the Magic Trackpad 2 without any issue. Conversely, the specifications for the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2 both indicate that you only need a Bluetooth-enabled Mac. However, when I was using the Magic Mouse 2, I found that this kept getting disconnected for no apparent reason. It may just be something with my iMac, but I do not have any issues with my original Magic Mouse.

Pricing

Apple does not generally have many products that are inexpensive, and the new input devices are no different. The new Magic Keyboard has gone up from $69 to $99, while the new Magic Mouse 2 has gone from $69 to $79. These two prices jumps, while not a significant amount, are still an increase. The Magic Trackpad 2 however, has jumped from $69 to $129. These are available from Apple today, as well as other retailers, like Amazon.

Links

Apple:
Magic Keyboard
Magic Trackpad 2
Magic Mouse 2

Amazon:
Magic Keyboard
Magic Trackpad 2
Magic Mouse 2

Final Thoughts

If you are in the market for some new input devices for your Macs, and you have no issues using Apple designed devices, you may want to take a look at Apple's new Magic devices. The Magic Keyboard brings a slight redesign and shorter key travel. The Magic Mouse remains mostly unchanged excluding the change in batteries and a slight redesign. The Magic Trackpad 2 is the biggest change and for the first time provides Force Touch on a desktop Mac.

One of the improvements that many people have been thinking about is autonomous cars. We know that Google is working on autonomous cars. it has been speculated that Apple is also working on autonomous cars.

Earlier this week I was listening to episode 171 of the 99 Percent Invisible podcast titled "Johnnycab (Automation Paradox, pt. 2)".In that episode they discuss how within 10 to 20 years. As the episode title suggests, they indicate that eventually we will not be manually driving cars and everything will be automated.

One of the ways that this will occur is through small incremental changes. While it is entirely possible that this will occur, I do not think as though this will occur. There are many reasons as to why. This includes people who will prefer to be in full control of their cars. Along with this, I think that one aspect that people overlook. That aspect is how often people buy new cars.

People are very willing to replace their personal technology, like cell phones, computers, and tablets, every two to three years. When they do replace these items, typically these items are not significantly different from the item they are replacing. With phones, computers and tablets, these are generally the same shape and size. The only different aspects may be the speed of the device, storage, as well as some of the capabilities. Users generally understand how these newer devices operate, without much apprehension.

Conversely, one of the things that people do not replace often is their cars. Usually people hold onto cars for many year longer than their personal electronics. According to Kelly Blue Book[footnote]Average length of U.S. vehicle ownership hit an all-time high[/footnote], the average length of ownership of a car is about 57 months, or four year and nine months. Similarly, the average length of ownership of a truck is 129.6 months, or 10.8 years.

When people do buy new vehicles, these are often significant jumps in terms functionality. For instance, in my car, from 2006, there is no bluetooth connectivity, no auxiliary jack, no navigation system, or even remote assistance. Once I buy a new a car, it is very likely that any future car I purchase will have these items. Honestly, all my next car needs is an auxiliary jack and a small spot for a clock.

Now imagine going from a Model-T to a fully loaded 2015 car. One that includes all of the latest technology. For some, this is exactly what the transition from a car that you drive yourself to a fully autonomous car.

It is my opinion that people will eventually warm up to the idea of fully autonomous cars. However, I do think as though it will take longer than 10 to 20 years that was postulated. I think it will likely be closer to 50 years before this occurs. It will likely take the replacement of an entire generation in order to have fully autonomous

While we never truly know what the future holds, it is not likely that everybody will be willing to have fully autonomous cars. There are many reasons. As mentioned above, one of them is that some people will always prefer driving, but even this, as life has always shown, the old way of doing things will always eventually go away. The second is that some will think that autonomous cars should never exist and eschew them entirely.

There are many other aspects that need to be determined before autonomous cars become a reality. One of these aspects is who is liable if an autonomous car gets into an accident and severely injures someone. If autonomous cars are to be a thing, all of these aspects will be figured out, most likely by lawyers.

I do have one last thought, will they the industry call autonomous cars, Autos Squared or Square Autos, or maybe even abbreviate it as Autos²?

Since the announcement of content blockers in iOS 9, many have speculated what impact it would have on ads on the web as well as the tracking of users that has been present on the web for the last decade and a half.

Most content blocker on iOS will block a significant portion of third-party content. This could be a javascript library like jQuery, web fonts, social sharing plugins, or even images. Third-party content is any content that is not natively hosted by the site that a user is visiting.

One of the primary functions for loading third-party content are analytic, and tracking, sites. These analytics engines, while performing analytics for the site, also gather information about the users. The information gathered by these analytics firms include things that users would expect, like the HTTP request, the user's IP Address, and web browser. However, what analytic firms also collect include screen resolution and many other items. This is done via a tracking cookie.

The issue with this setup is that if many sites use the same centrally-hosted analytics engine, that analytics site can correlate, through the tracking cookie, all of the information about that individual and create a full picture of the user. This could be more than just which sites are visited, but what links are clicked on, which ads have been seen and any number of other measurements. Many of these analytics site are ones that provide free services. When this occurs, the visitors of the sites that have opted to use the analytics engine become the product.

One of the problems on the web is that if people have resigned themselves that ads are inevitable, they do so in hopes of being served relevant ads. Yet, in order to get the relevant ads users must be tracked. The problem, for many, is not that users are being tracked but the fact that information that is tracked is being sold to advertisers. An additional problem is that it only takes a small amount of information to truly be able to uniquely identify someone. If it were only the websites doing the tracking, many individuals would not have a problem with this arrangement.

The reason that most would not have a problem with this arrangement is that when you visit a website, and do not pay for the content on that website, it is understandable that a website would want to know who is visiting the site, as well as keeping some basic information about the individuals who visit the site.

One of the things that I have been pondering, particularly since the iOS 9 content blocker fiasco is what alternatives to Google Analytics there are. I did some searching, tried a couple of different free and open source packages, and ultimately I have decided on trying out Open Web Analytics.

Open Web Analytics will work as a standalone product or as a plugin for Wordpress. With Open Analytics, none of the information leaves the site where the product is installed. It is not sent off to third-party aggregation sites where it will be analyzed. Since Sunday morning I have been running both Open Web Analytics and Google Analytics. I am running both in tandem to be able to to see how close the two are in relation to number of visitors, and individual page counts. It will likely not be long before I decide to turn off Google Analytics entirely.

There area a myriad of reasons behind this change. The first is that I cannot, in good conscience, allow readers of my site to be unwillingly forced to use Google Analytics and be subjected to unnecessary third-party tracking and aggregation. While yes, the content is free, it still does not feel right to have visitors be tracked in this manner.

The second is the speed of the site. With any third-party loading of content, inevitably the site is slowed, even if it is just milliseconds, it is slowness. I would like to have a responsive website, in both styling as well as load times. The best way to do this is to eliminate as much of the third-party items that load on a site.

It may be that I am an idealist, but I would like to think that more independent websites would choose to run their own analytics. I know it is not possible for all sites to do so, but it would be nice to see this change occur on those that can.

I would think that if enough sites opted out of using Google and other analytics aggregators, that maybe these companies would start realizing that users are not satisfied with the current state of tracking and change their practices. Particularly in Google's case, if ad revenue starts to take a major hit due to content blockers, it may open their eyes a bit. Sadly, I am not optimistic that this will help in any meaningful way.

Back in December of 2013, I wrote on The Tech Scoop about a debacle I had with Google Adsense. To summarize the issue, a couple family members clicked on a few ads, and Google thought this was fraud and thus violated Google's terms of service. So, they blocked my account.

After filling out their appeal form indicating what happened, and being completely truthful, Google decided that I did not do enough to "mitigate the issue" and permanently banned my account from the Google Adsense program. Being banned from Google Adsense has some other ramifications. One of those is that since that account was disabled, I cannot monetize any of my YouTube Videos. I only found out this latter fact yesterday when I was uploading a video and looked into possibly adding ads to them.

Similarly, with all of the talk about iOS content blockers and the state of advertising on the web, I have been thinking about the issues with web advertising. Besides the increase in the number of ads, ads that take over an entire page, and even interstitial ads, and the horrible tracking. There is another issue that I have been thinking about, and one that has not been mentioned in what I have read. That issue is the lack of alternatives to the big players Google Adsense.

There are a number of other companies that may be available, but these are usually invite only. For sites like mine that do not get a lot of traffic, there really are no other viable alternatives. I looked into Microsoft's Advertising and applied, but they rejected my applications. There are some companies, like The Deck that do not use advertising to track users across the web.

Instead, they pay up-front for the number of impressions. One this is exhausted, that is it. They only thing they track is the number of impressions. They do not have any personally identifiable information about the users who view the sites on which the ads are shown.

There is a certain segment of the population that is completely against ads. The current wisdom is that approximately 15 percent of web users employ an ad or tracking blocker. However, I do think as though a vast majority of internet users are not opposed to ads, but are opposed to the insidious tracking that has occurred and continues to occur. I, like many, understand that advertising is a necessary fact of the Internet, and society in general.

One of the things that I have not seen is a real alternative to the existing advertising model. What I would like to see is a service that caters to smaller sites. One that does not track its users, and models itself on sites like The Deck, although maybe not necessarily technology focused.

If advertisers are willing to make meaningful changes, something will have to be done in order to allow users to trust advertising companies again. It will be a tough and long road to get advertising aggregators back in the good graces of web users.