I've enjoyed all of Dan Brown's thrillers. Great literature they ain't but they always keep me reading past my bedtime. I happened to miss Origin when it first came out, but since it's on sale for $3, how could I pass it up?
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Motherboard reviewed a "device that looks just like an iPhone but is actually an Android that has been reskinned from top-to-bottom to seem as close to an iPhone as is possible... the phone is also loaded with backdoors and malicious apps."
Once I started trying some of Apple’s more recent and advanced features, though, things started going off the rails. Siri’s graphical interface has been recreated, but it doesn’t really work. My favorite thing about the phone is its “Face ID” system. I clicked over to Face ID in the settings menu, clicked “Add a Face ID,” and was hilariously bounced over to the camera, which did manage to draw a green box around my face. It said “Face Added,” and closed. I was then able to unlock the phone with my face. So was literally anyone else who put their face in front of the phone.
Clicking around further betrayed the phone’s actual software: the keyboard is clearly an Android keyboard; when the reskinned App Store crashed, I got a popup notifying me that the “Google Play Store” had malfunctioned. The “Weather” app is just Yahoo! Weather. The Health App is a third party thing that asked me to click cartoon avatars selecting whether I was a “boy or girl.” The “Podcasts” app just opens YouTube. Apple Maps opens Google Maps.
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It's always a pleasure to watch Chris Notap make a new tool. One thing he likes to make is mousetraps. This time, he made an ingeniously simple trap that lures mice into a cylinder made from a soda tube and dumps them unceremoniously into a bucket.
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The 1949 book, Prophets of Deceit, A Study in the Techniques of the American Agitator, by Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, was written to explain how an aspiring dictator "molds already existing prejudices and tendencies into overt doctrines and ultimately into overt action." The authors intended to not "merely to describe prejudice but to explain it in order to help in its eradication." An admirable goal, but the book could also be used as a manual for indoctrinating members into a mass cult of hatred. Take a look at this list of four "grievances" that totalitarian dictators use to highjack the minds of the susceptible:
1. ECONOMIC GRIEVANCES. The agitator roams freely over every area of economic life. He may begin anywhere at all. Too much help is being extended to foreign nations. "If we have any money to offer for nothing, or to loan, or to give away, we had better give it to our own first. Of course, that is old fashioned."
Not only are foreigners taking our money, they also threaten our jobs. "People born in America have to commit suicide because they have nothing to eat while refugees get their jobs."
Behind such injustices stand "The International Bankers, who devised and control our money system, [and] are guilty of giving us unsound money."
Such situations constitute a danger to the American way of life, for "what is more likely to follow many years of Nudeal communistic confiscatory taxation, wool-less, metal-less, auto-less regimentation and planned scarcities than our finally becoming stripped by necessity to Nudism?"
2. POLITICAL GRIEVANCES. International commitments by the United States government jeopardize political liberties. "Like Russia, the United States is suffering from the scourge of internationalism." The American people are warned: "Be not duped by the internationalists who dwell amongst us."
Of course it is only reasonable that "treaties and agreements . . . shall be reached with other nations, but . . . we want no world court and no world congress made up of a few Orientals and a few Russians and a few Europeans and a few British . . . to make laws for us to obey. . .
From within, this country is threatened by radicalism, which prepares strikes that are "dress rehearsals for a forthcoming general strike that is meant to paralyze the Nation. . . ."
We face both the danger of a "Soviet America . . . where . . . an Aus- trian-born Felix Frankfurter presides over an unending 'Moscow trial.' ." and the rule of "tyrannical bureaucrats" who if they "could have their way completely" would institute a "dictatorship in America as merciless as anything on earth."
TRUMP: "[NATO countries] have no respect for our country. They will do it. They'll be happy to do it."
3. CULTURAL GRIEVANCES. The agitator is greatly disturbed because the media of public information are in the hands of enemies of the nation. "...the Hollywood motion picture industry is being exploited by Russian Jewish Communists determined to inject their materialistic propaganda into the fresh young minds of our children. . ." Hollywood is "largely dominated by aliens who have appropriated to their own use the inventions and discoveries of native citizens and who now specialize in speculation, indecency and foreign propaganda."
"The American press will never be free" until control "is removed from racial, religious and economic pressure groups."
4. MORAL GRIEVANCES. The enemies of the agitator are notoriously lax in morals: they engage in luxury consumption, they are a "crowd of Marxists, refugees, left-wing internationalists who enjoy the cream of the country and want the rest of us to go on milkless, butterless, cheeseless days while they guzzle champagne." And what is most galling of all is that "we gentiles are suckers." For "while we were praying they had their hands in our pockets."
Image: Michael Vadon/Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
(Thanks, Marina!)
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It spit out believable names like Spankles, Astro Sparkin, and Space Rock Screamin Camp, as well as weirder names like Corn Viral Hammers, Wiq Renames Spaghette, and Hellball Lounge. Then it went with some truly bizarre ones like Cohnie Stacefur Ass Chaos, Sir Liberains the Wreck Middle, and Awes Orpoop.
The woman behind the experiment, research scientist Janelle Shane, writes:
Thanks to an anonymous burner, I had a list of 1593 past Burning Man camps to feed to a neural network. A neural network is a kind of machine learning algorithm that learns to imitate the data it sees. My starting point was a textgen-rnn neural net that had been previously trained on metal bands and roller derby names, so it had a few ideas of its own to bring to the table. It did not disappoint.
There's a bunch more of these machine-learned camp names over at Shane's site.
Let's hope life imitates art and some Burners out there actually create one (or more) of these camps this year on the playa!
Image via simon of the playa
Thanks, Dan S.!
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Part Four of SomeNews's series on Facism clearly shows how Trumpism is Facism.
Via Universe Today:
In astronomy, adaptive optics refers to a technique where instruments are able to compensate for the blurring effect caused by Earth’s atmosphere, which is a serious issue when it comes to ground-based telescopes. Basically, as light passes through our atmosphere, it becomes distorted and causes distant objects to become blurred (which is why stars appear to twinkle when seen with the naked eye).
Head over to the article to see a remarkable before and after shot.
• This is a photo of Neptune, from the ground! ESO's new adaptive optics makes ground telescopes ignore the earth's atmosphere (Universe Today) .
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Jeff Whitman, driving a van emblazoned with a company logo and contact number, made it his business to follow another man home to let him "know how much of a N— you are."
The victim, who was black, filmed the encounter. Whitman, who is white, is laying low. Theodore Decker with The Columbus Dispatch spoke to him on the phone:
Whitman called again. He said he chose the wrong word and insists he is not a bigot. He provided a woman’s number and urged me to call her. He wouldn’t say why exactly, but I get the sense that he sees her as a character witness.
He rambled a bit and said a few other things, including one sentiment that would have many of his newfound enemies guffawing:
“I just don’t understand the intensity of the hate,” he said.
He just don't understand the intensity of the hate.
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As part of Quiet Skies, air marshals are being asked to step off of the flights that they’ve been assigned to protect to undertake a new detail: gathering intelligence on civilians who aren’t on a terrorist watchlist – regular folks like you and me. Unlike ICE, which giddily has accepted a larger number of troubling new powers and responsibilities from the federal government, the air marshals are voicing their concern with the new marching orders being given to them. From The Boston Globe:
Since this initiative launched in March, dozens of air marshals have raised concerns about the Quiet Skies program with senior officials and colleagues, sought legal counsel, and expressed misgivings about the surveillance program, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Globe. “What we are doing [in Quiet Skies] is troubling and raising some serious questions as to the validity and legality of what we are doing and how we are doing it,” one air marshal wrote in a text message to colleagues.It’s not just texts and mumbled complaints cherry picked by a whack of investigative journalists, either. Recently, John Casaretti, president of the Air Marshal Association, stated “The Air Marshal Association believes that missions based on recognized intelligence, or in support of ongoing federal investigations, is the proper criteria for flight scheduling. Currently, the Quiet Skies program does not meet the criteria we find acceptable.” According to the Boston Globe, TSA documents show there are about 40-50 Quiet Skies passengers pinged on domestic flights each day. On average, air marshals follow and surveil about 35 of them. Think about that: every day, 35 people, who have engaged in no criminal activity, are being researched and followed by undercover agents just because someone doesn’t like the look of them. We’re not talking about citizens of foreign nations here, either – Quiet Skies targets American citizens. For the time being, the TSA is mum on how they choose who the program targets or what makes those individuals worth the attention that they’re being given. Could it be skin color? Religious or political affiliations? Information gleamed from their private email or text conversations? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.
After a ton of digging, The Boston Globe uncovered that the purpose of Quiet Skies is to “unknown or partially known terrorists; and to identify and provide enhanced screening to higher risk travelers before they board aircraft based on analysis of terrorist travel trends, tradecraft and associations.” Dig that unknown. Maybe the person air marshals are being asked to follow is a terrorist – someone better be there watching, just in case they make any sudden movements. As part of the program, travel patterns are studied and acted upon. Some of the victims of this grossly sketchy surveillance program have included a federal agent, a flight attendant and some poor schlep traveling for work. In the case of the latter, it could very well have been you or me. From a civil liberties standpoint, Quiet Skies is a serious issue. If you want to learn more about it, you’d do well with checking in with The Boston Globe’s excellent coverage of it, here.
Image: by Sstrobeck23 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
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After a month off, John Oliver is back and, where Facebook's bullshit apology for all of the greasy stuff they've been doing with their user's data is concerned, he's taking no prisoners.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Y1WRUZLfQ
I'm headed to DC to sit down in studio with BookTV's "In Depth" on August 5; it'll air live on Aug 5 at 12PM Eastern/9AM Pacific and be repeated on August 6 at 12AM Eastern/(9PM Pacific on Aug 5) and on Aug 11 at 9AM Eastern/6AM Pacific. It's a phone-in!
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Federal Air Marshals are furious that they have been tasked to follow thousands of Americans who are not on any watch-list and not suspected of any crime; they shadow these people (who are selected for surveillance on the basis of flimsy criteria like once having visited Turkey) and send minute-by-minute updates to the TSA, noting whether their targets are sleeping, using more than one phone, waiting until the last minute to board their planes, observing boarding areas from a distance, and other innocuous behaviors. (more…)
I needed more blue tape for my build plate.
(more…)
Servicemembers willing to undergo dangerous test pilot duties are remarkably brave. The military is now conducting tests on different body sizes to ensure women serving as pilots get the same safety benefits. (more…)
Joi Ito (previously) is the Director of MIT's Media Lab, an appointment that raised a few eyebrows because Joi never got an undergrad degree, much less a doctorate. (more…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaJaDx51iw
Archprankster Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G, Borat, etc) has a new show called Who Is America? where he disguises himself sits down with US politicians and tries to get them to do something absurd, with some pretty remarkable (and even career-ending) results (though not everybody falls for it). (more…)
Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's credibility lacking PR stooge who is nominally an attorney, continues to spout any story he can to stir up the pot. Contradicting himself to the point of frustrating even Fox News, no one can possibly believe what this man says.
Today's bullshit circles around 'collusion is not a crime' -- treason, however, is.
I can not understand why lying blowhards like Giuliani and Conway, who are clearly just propaganda tools of the Orange Menance, are given air time.
In 2008, Universal Music fraudulently claimed that a short Youtube clip of a toddler dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was a copyright infringement, leading to eight years of litigation and, eventually, a landmark ruling secured by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in which the court found that Universal had a duty to consider fair use before using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to censor other peoples' media. (more…)
Sharp-eyed ornithologists noticed that some specimens of Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise that they observed looked different enough that they may be a separate species. They captured video of the other kind for comparison. (more…)
Brett writes, "As a critique of the IoT buzz, I hacked a portable karaoke machine, stuffed a Raspberry Pi in it, connected it to the internet, and installed Docker on it." (tl;dr: he needed a portable CRT for an installation, found one embedded in a thrift-store karaoke machine, and got it wired up to the Raspi on the first try and discovered it made a perfect and delightful casemod).
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Jan Logie, a lawmaker for the left-leaning Green Party who proposed the bill in 2016, said gender-based violence had become “entrenched” in New Zealand and “reaches into workplaces,” with victims often turning up late or missing work altogether. Ms. Logie said that existing leave allowances were not enough for victims to “deal with the courts, find a new house, go to counseling or support their children dealing with trauma.” “It doesn’t make sense to tell victims we want them to leave and then force them into poverty when they do,” she said.Image via Flickr, courtesy of Edward Hyde
Blackstone is the largest private equity fund in the world; when the 2008 crash hit and banks used the trillions in taxpayer bailouts to fund mass evictions of working people who'd been tricked into taking out predatory mortgages, Blackstone started bulk-buying them, creating rent-backed bonds (called Single-Family Rental Securities or SERS) that are the even-shittier successors to the mortgage-backed securities that detonated the world economy in 2008. (more…)
Earlier this year, the U.S. cut around $300 million in funding to UNRWA, resulting in a $217 million budget shortfall. U.N. officials say the cuts are “the largest ever reduction in funding UNRWA has faced.” Of the five areas in which the agency operates, Gaza is the most vulnerable given its dire living conditions and devastated economy after more than a decade under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2 million are refugees or their descendants. Chris Gunness, an UNRWA spokesman, said the organization “is prioritizing food security support to the most vulnerable refugees by continuing its emergency food program to nearly 1 million refugees” in Gaza.The 300 million dollars that the United States has decided to withhold from United Nations programming amounts to roughly 30% of UNRWA’s annual budget. While food aid is still flowing to the Palestinians, for the time being, there’s no telling how long the crisis will continue or what could happen as the ire of the UNRWA’s employee union continues to grow. Image via Flickr, courtesy of sanjitbakshi
Samsung's new QLED TV comes with configuration option: take a picture of the wall behind it before you hang it up and it will use it as a background wallpaper, drawing UI widgets (like weather display, etc) overtop of it, creating the hi-rez illusion that your TV has disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the bezel. Hard to get it aligned properly, and probably a config option on most TVs (but buried 11 menus deep and just advertised as "set wallpaper" rather than "make TV vanish"). (via Red Ferret)
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Many of the world's most iconic movies have problematic themes or plots, but the romanticization of kidnapping and false imprisonment ranks among the worst. (more…)
image via ICEFalkirk, used with permission
(230)Civil, the blockchain-based journalism organization, is casting its eye to Asia after it set up a $1 million fund that’s aimed at seeding 100 new media projects across the continent over the next three years. The organization has teamed up with Splice, a Singapore-based media startup which will manage the fund, according to an announcement.
There’s been a lot of attention lavished on Civil for its promise to make media work more efficiently using blockchain technology and its upcoming crypto token, CVL. The organization has raised $5 million in financing from ConsenSys, the blockchain corporation led by Ethereum co-creator Joe Lubin, and its ICO takes place next month with the goal of raising around $32 million to launch its network and actively onboard new media companies worldwide.
But the company is waiting around. Civil has already actively jumped into the media space — providing financial backing to the newly-formed The Colorado Sun — but the scope of the project in Asia is different in trying to kickstart a wave of new media organizations by giving them money to get off the ground.
Alan Soon, co-founder and CEO of Splice, told TechCrunch that it hasn’t been decided whether the financing will be in the form of grants or equity-based investments. Despite that, he said deals will be “pre-seed, micro-investments to help entrepreneurs take their ideas to prototype stage.”
Soon said that all kinds of media are in play, ranging from the more obvious suspects such as publishers, reporting websites and podcasts to behind-the-scenes tech like automation, bots and adtech.
Notably, though, he clarified that the beneficiaries of the fund will be under no obligation to adopt Civil’s protocol, the technology that will be funded by the upcoming ICO. Splice itself, however, has committed to doing so which will mean it gains access to the network’s content, licensing opportunities and more.
“I’m with Civil because I really believe in their values,” Soon added. “They want to do the right thing for this space.”
Struggling against competition from Chinese smartphones, Samsung Electronics posted a lackluster second-quarter earnings report with its slowest profit growth in more than a year. On the bright side, the Korean tech giant said its semiconductor business is doing well.
Operating profit rose 5.7% year-over-year to 14.9 trillion won (about $13.3 billion), representing Samsung Electronic’s slowest quarterly profit growth since the first quarter of 2017. Net income was 11 trillion won (about $9.8 billion), almost the same result Samsung posted in the same period a year ago. Sales revenue dropped 4% to 58.5 trillion won (about $52.3 billion).
Samsung blamed lower-than-expected sales of the Galaxy S9, its flagship smartphone, seasonality and competition from lower-priced handsets. Two Chinese companies in particular, Xiaomi and Huawei, have emerged as formidable rivals, putting pressure on Samsung in China and India.
As in previous quarters, Samsung’s semiconductor business posted strong performance even as its smartphones suffered. Samsung reported that second-quarter operating profit for its chips rose 45% year-over-year to 11.6 trillion won. The company said it anticipated strong demand for chips during the second half of the year thanks to demand from high density data centers. It expects smartphone and tablet demand to continue lagging, however, thanks to competition from lower-priced devices with strong specifications.
Logitech today announced its intention to acquire Blue Microphones, the hardware company behind popular podcasting microphones like the Yeti and Snowball. It’s a pretty logical acquisition, as far as these things goog –Logitech already operates in the audio space, with speakers and gaming headsets.
The acquisition of Blue would add an important dimension to that category and help the company take on a rapidly expanding space. Blue’s best known products aren’t high-end, exactly, but they’ve become the go-to choice for upstart podcasters looking to get in on the ground floor in the medium.
Heck, we’ve been known to use them from time to time for our own podcasts. The company offers higher end products for music producers, as well, and in recent years, Blue has begun dabbling in the gaming space, offering up microphone and gaming bundles.
“Logitech’s acquisition of Blue Microphones will accelerate our entry into a growing market, and offers another way for us to help bring people’s passions to life,” Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell said in a release tied to the news. “Joining with Blue is an adjacent opportunity for us – a new way to grow – with additional synergies related to our existing gaming, PC webcam and audio categories.”
Blue is being acquired for $117 million in cash. We’ve reached out to the companies to determine what the deal will mean for the Blue brand and its existing staff.
Update: In an emailed statement a company spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the Blue brand is sticking around and the company’s team will be joining up with Logitech. “Logitech is delighted to welcome all Blue employees plus contractors to Logitech. The brand is also welcomed into Logitech’s broader portfolio.”
When you think of “Firefox,” you probably think of something that looks like this:
Or, perhaps, something like this:
That logo (or some iteration between the two) has been the browser’s logo since it launched back in 2002. Its time for change, Mozilla says.
In a blog post about “evolving the Firefox brand,” Mozilla Creative Director Tim Murray outlines the company’s thinking: Firefox isn’t just one browser now. With side projects like Firefox Rocket (the company’s browser for connections with less bandwidth) and Firefox Reality (Firefox, but for virtual reality), the company is finding it needs a bit more wiggle room with its design language.
While they shared a few work-in-progress potential logos, they were quick to note that none of them are final. They might tweak things over time (and they’re asking for feedback), or just go back to the drawing board all together.
The whole thing might sound a bit up-in-the-air right now, and that’s mostly intentional — it’s still pretty early days in the process. But eventually, Firefox will be getting a new logo; or, more accurately, new logos.
The work was presented in two potential “systems,” each composed of one “Masterbrand” logo and 11 auxiliary logos. The masterbrand would be the primary one used for representing the brand as a whole, while those beneath it could each represent an individual product.
The two new “Systems” of icons:
If it’s a choice between the two systems, I like System 2 — but I’ve always liked the existing Firefox logo, and that’s the set that feels like more of an update and less of a complete replacement. It’s more “Firefox”, less just “fox.”
Firefox says the branding shift should come together “over the next few months” — so if you’re a fan of the classic logo, it’ll still be hanging around for a while.
Google has hired Richard Marks, Sony’s Magic Lab head who was behind much of the company’s VR efforts, to a position in its Advanced Technology and Projects group, VentureBeat reports.
Google confirmed the hire to TechCrunch, sending along a statement from ATAP head Dan Kaufman. “ATAP is at the intersection of science and application where our goal is to solve significant problems and close the gap between what if and what is. We’re super excited about Richard joining the senior team and look forward to his contributions.”
According to LinkedIn, Marks spent the last 19 years at Sony, including time as a research fellow while getting his doctorate at Stanford. Marks has been the public face of Sony’s virtual reality efforts throughout the development of the company’s virtual reality tech, but has also worked on some of the computer vision tech behind other PlayStation products.
The Magic Lab, which Marks ran, was devoted to researching gaming technologies for future generation hardware and software. One of the big projects to emerge from the group was called “Project Morpheus,” a precursor for what would later be called PlayStation VR.
While Sony was quick to express an interest in virtual reality technologies and publicly debut its experiments with PS VR years before its 2016 launch, the technology platform has been facing an uncertain future as headset sales have failed to meet expectations.
The PlayStation VR headset debuted as a cheaper alternative to headsets from Oculus and HTC that debuted at prices that were hundreds of dollars more expensive, but after aggressive price slashing from Oculus moved hardware margins downwards across the board, the console maker seems to have had a tougher time distinguishing its efforts. Also, while it had appeared that Sony’s efforts were arriving ahead of a current-generation Xbox VR play, the company announced that it would not be pursuing a virtual reality headset for the Xbox One X, though that was initially a selling point of the more powerful system.
It’s unclear where exactly Marks will be directing his attention at Google within ATAP, though the company certainly has plenty of efforts in the AR/VR and gaming spaces that would benefit from his experience.
Hot on the heels of the effective legalization of 3D models used to print firearm components, 21 states have filed a joint lawsuit against the federal government, alleging not only that decision is dangerous but also that it’s illegal for a number of reasons. But the lawsuit may backfire via the so-called Streisand Effect, further entrenching the controversial technology.
Earlier this month brought the news that the U.S. government dropped its case against Cody Wilson and his companies dedicated to the proliferation of 3D models of firearm parts. There are still restrictions on how guns can be made and sold, but the files containing 3D data and allowing people to print components seem to have been determined not to fall under those rules.
This was unwelcome news for those in favor of stricter gun control laws, a group apparently including the attorneys general of 21 states. Bob Ferguson, AG for Washington, announced that his team would be leading a lawsuit intended to block the federal actions that legalized this particular form of data.
“These downloadable guns are unregistered and very difficult to detect, even with metal detectors, and will be available to anyone regardless of age, mental health or criminal history. If the Trump Administration won’t keep us safe, we will,” he said in a press release issued today.
They allege that the administration needs the Defense Department to sign off on the decision, and that Congress needed to be notified 30 days in advance. The decision is also held (owing to a lack of on-record citations or consultations) to be “arbitrary and capricious,” and thus illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Tenth Amendment also gives states the right to regulate firearms, and the filers say that the federal action deprives them of this right and is therefore unconstitutional.
That’s all well in order, but the danger posed by these files is overestimated, as is the ability of the government, state or federal, to curtail their distribution. If this lawsuit is successful, it will have little or no effect on 3D printed guns at all.
“The status quo – which currently ensures public safety and national security by prohibiting publication of firearm design files on the Internet – should be maintained,” reads a letter sent from a number of AGs to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and AG Jeff Sessions.
At the risk of dipping into an extremely charged debate and sensitive political topic (I’ve added the “Opinion” tag just in case), the status quo does no such thing. It must be said that if effective gun control is the goal, there are far more important steps to pursue. Loopholes abound in existing regulations, for instance gun show purchases of unregistered firearms and “80 percent lowers,” which are a quite legal method for creating them.
Furthermore, any attempt to remove something from the internet is doomed to failure, as we have seen again and again, often enough that the phenomenon has its own nickname, the Streisand Effect. Workarounds for illegal content are numerous and effective, and presumably the type of person interested in printing their own gun will not be shy about using a VPN or torrent site. If anything, a concerted effort to remove something from the internet usually causes that thing to be permanently maintained online as a sort of middle finger to the authorities. It’s not in the internet’s DNA to forget.
While it’s true that outlawing the 3D models would give prosecutors and investigators more to work with, the nefarious actors of the world haven’t been waiting with bated breath on the outcome of the previous lawsuit. Criminals, terrorists, foreign adversaries and so on in the first place don’t even need these files to obtain or create unregistered guns in the first place, nor would their being illegal deter them in the least.
The lawsuit may, it is true, tie up and possibly bankrupt Wilson and his supporters, but that’s not much of a victory and certainly doesn’t make anyone safer. Unfortunately this particular demon isn’t going back in the box.
Everyone knows that if you want to be a savvy modern marketer, you need data. Agencies tout their expertise in data-driven marketing, big brands herald a new age driven by big data trends, and it’s standard practice to have Google Analytics set up on your website. But let’s get real. You might have Google Analytics
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The post The Practical Steps that Help More Marketers Use Data appeared first on Copyblogger.
Do you want to add one-click login with Google to your WordPress site? Allowing users to login with their Gmail account saves them time because they wouldn’t have to remember their WordPress username and password. In this article, we will share how to easily add one-click Google login in WordPress.
Most internet users remain logged in to their Google accounts. This allows them to quickly access all Google apps like Gmail, Drive, Docs, Photos, and more without signing in separately for each app.
Having one-click Google login activated on your WordPress login page allows your users to quickly sign-in to your website using their Gmail account. It saves them time, and they wouldn’t have to enter their login credentials each time.
If your organization uses GSuite for professional business email addresses, then your team members can use your organization’s Google apps accounts for login.
If you run a simple WordPress blog, then you might not find this feature useful. However single sign-on feature like one-click Google login is very helpful for any websites that require users to login such as multi-author websites, membership websites, and websites selling online courses.
That being said, let’s take a look on how to easily add one-click login with Google to your WordPress website.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Google Apps Login plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » Google Apps Login page in your WordPress admin area. Under the Main Setup tab, you’ll need to add Client ID and Client Secret code.
To get these details, you need to visit Google Developers Console. If you are not already logged in, then you will be asked to login with your Google account.
Next, you need to click on Start a project from the top menu. It will open a popup where you would click on New Project button to continue.
Now, you need to add a project name and select the location. Project name can be anything, and Location will be your organization’s domain name (example.com). If you are logged in with your company’s Google account or your GSuite account, then it will add the location and organization automatically.
However, if you are creating a project from your personal Google account, then you can leave the location with No Organization selected.
Next, click on the Create button to continue.
You’ll now be redirected to APIs & Services dashboard. On this page, you need to click on Credentials from the left menu and go to OAuth consent screen page.
In the Email Address field, you need to add your email address that you have used to create this project. Also you need to add your website URL in the Homepage URL field and click on the Save button.
After that, it will take you to the Credentials page again. Go ahead and click on the Create Credentials button to select OAuth client ID option.
Next, you need to select Web application as an Application type. In the Authorised JavaScript origins field, you need to enter your website URL (http://www.example.com), and add WordPress login page URL (https://ift.tt/12fdRXe) in the Authorised redirect URLs field.
After that click on the Create button, and you’ll see your Client ID and Client Secret information in a popup.
You need to copy and paste these keys on the plugin’s settings page in your WordPress admin area.
After that, you can simply logout from your WordPress admin account, and you’ll see a Login with Google button on your login screen.
Clicking on the button allows you to login with one-click into your WordPress account. However, keep in mind that users can only login with the Google account address that they have used on your website.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add one-click login with Google in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a login popup modal in WordPress, and how to create a custom user registration form in WordPress.
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It’s a real challenge to portray the true essence of a destination and to show it to the world the way you see it. This genre, travel photography, calls for immense creativity, technical expertise, and unflinching dedication to the art. Every little detail that can weigh off your shoulders count.
I have been traveling across the most remote corners of the country and beyond for years now, and the best results are a boon of some of the non-photography decisions I’ve made. When you are on the road for long, you realize the real beauty of a travel shot goes deeper than its aesthetic value. All the technical training in the world, the best gear money can buy, and time-tested templates of composition can only take you so far. But then comes the real work. The stuff that makes a photograph, speak.
Here are six non-photography tips that will help you improve and super-charge your travel photography.
This insanely frightening, uncomfortable, non-economic travel decision is also the most rewarding of all. This might mean, you will have to make all the plans, work out all the logistics, and deal with any issues by yourself. But, in a very unexpected way, this is what you need.
Travel photography does not allow for the luxury of blending and adjusting to plans of your co-travelers. The darkest hours, the first light of the sun, the busiest markets – what catches the artist’s eyes are endless. To be at the right time and the right place, you will need the freedom you only get when you have no strings attached.
You must be ready to ditch your plans and make new ones at a snap, and be prepared for longer stays to get that one single extraordinary shot. Besides, you can always find backpacker hostels, local transport, and the denizen cuisine to fit into the budget; even without a companion to share the charges.
This tip is not just for the special ones with an eidetic memory though. Practically, all you need are a few dozen commonly used phrases and words to get the ball rolling. You will be amazed at how useful a little conversation with the locals can turn out to be, albeit with broken wording and all.
Learning the tongue goes beyond speaking a few words. It’s also about how you approach the culture and the people within. You have to understand them, think like them and start feeling their home like they do. That doesn’t just open up new doors and undiscovered locations but puts truth in the photographs.
The more you blend in with their culture, the more un-alienated the subject can be perceived.
The tourist trails are often unrevealing and pompous. The rustic secrets, the basic ingredients to amazing travel photographs need to be chased by getting off track. This might mean, taking the bumpy bus rides, eating spicy street food, cramped roadside shows, and everything over and under.
It adds an amazing perspective, nothing else can provide. Look for couch surfing and home-stays. Try the local cuisine and home-made meals. Take the local roads and transport, and even take part in the native leisure and social events. All of these things will add rocket fuel to your images.
Taking time off from your camera sounds crazy, right? Being a part of the local’s life, besides gives an understanding of the destination, can be translated into unique perspectives, flavors, and themes in your work. The financial freedom, longer stays and new acquaintances are also invaluable.
This can be extended to work exchanges, internships, or any other short-term work you can find. Sites like Workaway, Volunteerhq, Helpx offer tons of opportunities all over the world. Deviating a little, one can consider online work, that can enable extended stays in a single place.
The goal is to try and get an inclusive feeling into the community and culture, standing in their shoes before photographing their homes.
Being picky when traveling is the one biggest art killers. Compatibility of body and mind in extreme of conditions is the greatest tool you can ever have. A travel photographer needs to endure heat, rain, snow, and hail alike and still be ready to go.
Training so you are able to walk for miles or travel for hours is worth the effort exponentially. Being able to sleep wherever, eat whatever, and tune your body to be able to function in diverse habitats, let’s you break the physical barriers needed to visit THE photo spot. A tired body can no longer push itself for perfection.
Adventure and nature photography are close cousins of the travel genre, and mastering them too makes you a Jedi. Most of your favorite shots are from off-beat places only the deadliest daredevils venture out. Economic travel facilities and easy gear have saturated the internet with spectacular shots.
To make the difference, you have to see like no one has ever seen and go where no one has ever been. This might mean kayaking down the stream, cycling up a valley, hiking up a hill, or flying on a glider. Sometimes this might even mean, getting your own ride, staying in tents, and living off candy bars.
And more essentially, have a heart filled with enthusiasm and craving for adventure. Every step forward past other photographers is a step forward to more unique travel shots.
None of these skills require special training or innate power to accomplish. All of them can and will be acquired over time. But to be ready with these in mind, you can get one step ahead of every other photographer in town.
More than anything, a good travel photograph tells a good story and has a strong spirit to it. The best camera is what you have with you, or so they say. So, it’s time to hack into how you are going to make the best of it!
The post Six Non-Photography Tips to Super-Charge Your Travel Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School.
